Recovery Nation

1) Actively committing yourself to change
There has been No internet porn, masturbation, fantasizing, or affairs for 7 months, though I did mentally “act out” using my wife in the first 5 months following her discovery. I was Celibate for more than a month. Did have sex twice with my wife in the last 10 days. I have been working with a therapist (3 months) to resolve early childhood rejection, abandonment and abuse issues

2) not allowing guilt/shame to sabotage your commitment to change
This has been difficult for me due to my Catholic upbringing, early childhood issues and because when I am pressed to express feelings about why I would do the things I have done for 12 years; I use to shut down and have to fight the urge to feel guilt and shame. I now have a heightened sense of awareness and consciousness to those triggers and can recognize and prevent myself from falling.

3) allowing yourself time to change.
I am a very impatient person and an engineer. I want to define a problem, seek out root causes, develop and action and implement a solution as quickly as possible to prevent further damage. So for me, a timeline and schedule are always key to attaining a goal as fast as possible. I constantly now remind myself, that the human body is not a machine that gets fixed by making or implementing a few changes. I am especially mindful now that my mind needs time to not only discover theses issues, but time to process and understand what happened. In doing so, more things are discovered. Therefore, I have learned to accept the complexity of the problems and issues I have, developed over 40 plus years and there many layers of deceit, damage and secrets that have to be resolved before the path to recovery can be sustained.

I want to feel “normal”.
I want to be able to love myself.
I want to be open and truthful – no more secrets, manipulations or lies.
I want real intimacy in my relationship.
I want to be able to listen without denial, projection, or deflection.
I want to be an equal partner in my relationship - Not higher or lower.
I want to heal from my early childhood abuse.
I want to support my partner in her life’s goals, dreams and needs.
I want to create and identity based on honor, trust, truth, humbleness and respect.
I want my partner to be able to trust me again.
I want to save my relationship.
I want to “really” understand my partner’s pain.
I want to be a devoted and loving husband, father, lover and friend.
I want to adore, honor and respect my partner for who she really is – a person, not a projection or fantasy.
I want to reconnect with spirituality and understand the strength in giving to others with empathy and compassion.
I want to be able to fill my soul from within, intrinsically.
I NEVER want to return to my old habits of destruction.

So here's where I really have to go back to my early childhood and earliest memories to understand my insecurity. So as I look back, and that two-year-old in the crib, I started to think today, that in the end, my dad didn't come in. I don't think I was picked up at all, I was thinking that I was probably spanked, to make myself cry myself to sleep. I remember being covered with a blanket but just crying. I don't ever remember a toy or anything that I could have attached to in my crib. All I feel is the pain of being alone, crying, in the dark, and jealous scared. The memories, the feelings, just tear me up. I guess I'm starting to realize, why I hate being alone. I cannot imagine the idea or the concept of any of that. And that could be the traumatic experiences I live and relive many times. I'm not sure what I'm feeling now, but my heart and my body are telling me that I learned to cope and disassociate very early. My anxiety probably stems from the fear of hearing the door open at night and anyone coming through the door. Either my mom or dad had any patience. They were probably overwhelmed with a sick, constantly crying child that needed more attention than they could ever give. So, I was an absolute annoyance. I was supposed to be normal and therefore should just shut up and go to sleep.

Right now, I am feeling unbelievably and overwhelmingly vulnerable and sad. Right now, I wish I could hold that child in my arms, close to my heart, and just rock it slowly, kindly, tightly so that it feels like someone really cares and wants to make sure that the little guy is okay. I just want to hold him tight, and tell him, over, and over, and over that he will be okay. That really, he is loved and wanted and special in that he is a beautiful boy that will do great things one day because of the love and kindness and attention he got from me.