Stop the ride. I want to get off.

-

You know what I love at theme parks?  Roller-coasters!  They are the best!  I could ride them all day long and never feel sick or get tired of the twists and turns.


Image result for roller coasterYou know what I hate in real life?  The emotional roller-coaster I'm on.  One day everything is great, we are riding high and the next day (or maybe even the next hour) it feels like we are plummeting to our death.  But wait there's a twist and a turn and we survive.  We're headed back up again.  Yea!!  But what goes up must come down.  Ugh.  Seriously, stop the ride.  I want to get off.

A common theme among spouses of SSA husbands is the emotional roller-coaster.  (I messaged a friend about this post and she replied, "Ha ha.  #accurate".)  Feelings of love, shame, fear, hope, anger, joy, anxiety, sadness...  all played out in rapid succession over days, hours, even minutes.  And it's both of us.  When one person starts down the path of crazy, the other is almost certain to follow.  It's like we're strapped into the roller-coaster seat together and we can't get off, or stop it, or even slow it down.  It really sucks.

Many times it's the stories we are telling ourselves that start the roller-coaster ride.  Stories that usually are not even true.  We are trying to work on this and be more aware of how we start down this path so we can stop it in the future.  It is exhausting work sometimes.  One way we are working on this is actually telling each other, "The story I'm telling myself right now is ...." and then the other person can respond with truth.  For example, my husband came home the other day (we had been arguing for a while) and immediately went in another room to take a nap.  So, I went to him and said, "The story I'm telling myself right now is that you are avoiding me."  He replied, "I'm not avoiding you, I'm just tired and didn't want to bother you."  It's a small step in the right direction, but I think it's helping.

Also, music really helps!  Here are a few songs that keep me sane.
Do It Again
Even Then
Fear Is A Liar




Comments

Post a Comment

All comments will be moderated. Thank you for your patience.

Popular posts from this blog

It's been 186 weeks

-
 It's been 186 weeks since my husband disclosed his SSA.  Y'all I don't know what I was thinking when I started this whole counting weeks thing! 😂 Here we are about three and half years in. Did I think it would last this long? Maybe not, but I'm glad it did. To recap the last few years of my life: 2017-2018 my husband was losing his mind but I had no idea why Sept 2018 we came to a breaking point and he confessed his SSA and some indiscretions, we call this D-day late 2018 - mid 2019 we did a lot of therapy, I started this blog, there was some progress Aug 2019 D-day part 2 where the whole story comes out, I'm devastated late 2019 - early 2020 more therapy and whole lot of depression April 2020 I moved away to start a new job, not sure if he would follow me or not (he was invited) June 2020 he quit his job and moved in with me mid - late 2020 still on a roller-coaster , not sure if we would make it 2021 - things were finally looking up !! 2022 - dare I say our li...
Read more

Happy Anniversary

-
Image
This is the bag we packed to go away for our 25th anniversary. This is pretty amazing to me because a year or two ago I wasn't sure if our marriage would last. Less than a year ago I wasn't sure I wanted it to. This journey has been longer and harder than I ever imagined. I have learned more about my husband and myself than I thought possible (and maybe more than I wanted to!). The book you see here has been super helpful over the past few months. And fittingly we are finishing the last exercise this weekend. I don't want to spoil it for you - because you should 100% do this - but the last exercise was super healing and beautiful. You will want to get the actual book (not pictured) and two workbooks (pictured) to get the most out of this. We went away for the weekend and had a wonderful time together. It felt like old times, before D-day. Just a normal married couple celebrating an anniversary. I hope we get to celebrate many more.
Read more

Healthy SSA Friends

-
The topic of how men with SSA can have healthy friendships with other men with SSA comes up a lot. I mean, I get it - it seems counterintuitive, almost crazy to let two SSA men form a close friendship. But it can and should be done. I've already talked about my fears when he first went to meet a bunch of other SSA men . And I've talked about the friends we have made through Brothers Road - some of those friendships have lasted and others have not. So now I want to talk about my husband's best friend. My husband has always had a hard time having close relationships with men (I knew this long before I understood why). He once had a really close friendship that was so good for him and super healthy... until this friend betrayed him, which was one of the events that led to his deep depression, acting out, and ultimately confessing to me about his SSA. But I digress. Through Brothers Road, my husband met a great guy.  I'm going to call him Leo here. They have built a beauti...
Read more