LifeStar Update

I've had a couple people ask about LifeStar.

I thought I'd fill you in on how it's gone so far.

First off, remember that it's only J going (I'm home with the kids and a nursing baby and it just didn't seem feasible for me to go at this time.)  We've been in the thick of porn addiction for awhile now, and at this point in our lives are fairly well read up on it.

Anyway, so a lot of Phase 1 of LifeStar is geared towards being educational.  I was worried this would equate to a lot of 'review' for J, but there has been a lot of new information.  Plus, I think sometimes the addicted brain has to hear things three or four times (and from someone other than the spouse) before it really starts to sink in, so I'm almost amused when J comes home and shares with me something he's learned.  That I've told him before.  :-)

He's really enjoying the opportunity.  He feels like he's getting something out of each meeting.

I already wrote about how we kinda went the rounds on him doing homework or not.  He did wrap up his week 2 homework on his own, without any further prompting on my trying-hard-to-not-be-co-dependent behalf.  I did kinda inwardly groan though when I saw his rushed through and not super in depth look at his family of origin work.  He mentioned more than once over a couple days how there just wasn't anything 'there' with his family stuff.  I disagreed ('cause we are all products of our environment -- it shapes us, whether we have the best parents, the worst parents, or like most of us --in between, we are all shaped by our family.)  But, I kept it to myself. 

Here's the thing -- my husband was the peacemaker growing up.  The easy going one.  The laid back one.  The one who never upset his Mom.  Part of this is just who he is.  Part of it was the role he was expected to play in his family.  He chalks it up to just being what his personality is -- his siblings could cause problems and voice their disagreements -- but not J, he was the peacemaker. 

There was two full pages of journaling space in one are of his homework workbook to discuss some of these issues.  J briefly wrote that he didn't feel like he could come to anyone with his problems, but that was his own fault because it was his personality.  That his Mom was loving and kind, that his Dad was nice and a good provider.  The end.  OK, so it didn't say 'the end' . . . actually, it trailed off mid-sentence.  But it was about three sentences in a two page space.  Basically stating that everyone else was fine, it was just his personality at the root of all these problems.

I thought about this for about 24 hours.  I didn't want to tell him to get back in to the book, delve a little deeper, and for the love, some introspection and honesty would be nice.  I just sat and thought about it.  Then about two hours before he left for his meeting, I asked him if it would be alright for me to share with him something I was thinking about his meeting that night.  He agreed.  I told him that I was glad he'd gotten the homework done, and that I truly hoped he'd gotten something out of it.  And that before he left for his meeting I wanted to share something I'd been thinking about.  I told him how things my parents said and did affected me, for both good and bad.  J knows how ridiculously close I am to my family (I see multiple members of my family on a nearly daily basis) . . . and how I wouldn't have traded parents for anyone in the world.  But how there were things they said or did that hurt me, that affected how I saw myself, and how I felt about myself, and how I handled things in life.  I told him that I wanted to pay special attention to the things that had both good and bad impacts on my life, so I could figure out how to use them, or discard them, in my own child rearing adventures.  I reminded him that I adore his parents -- that I feel lucky to have the in-laws that I have -- but that it hurts me to see him go through all these pages of family history work and to only point out what was 'wrong with him'.  That his parents, and siblings, were flawed people too.  We all are.  And we're not being disloyal, or shifting blame, if we figure out how these relationships actually affected us and how we fit in our family.  I just didn't want him to lose out on any of the great insights he could gain from his meeting that night, because he was stuck on the idea that 'this is just my personality, it wasn't anything my family did or said."  Then I gave him a kiss and sent him off to his meeting.

When he got home that night, he said he'd thought about it the whole drive there (about 45 minutes or so).  He was there a bit early, so he went back through and wrote in some more comments, and came up with a couple new examples of 'closed' or 'rigid' family rules.  (His examples before had been lame, and focused entirely on his relationship with siblings, never mentioning anything with his parents.)  With his mind more open to this idea that maybe, just maybe, his interactions with his parents, combined with his personality, is what created some of his fear of sharing his true feelings.  At his core, J is afraid to hurt people, afraid to disappoint them.  And, as he's starting to see, that does go all the way back to childhood and it is part personality and partly the expectations that were placed on his as the 'good' kid.  He was able to uncover some really key experiences where he felt deep shame and embarrassment, that surrounded the beginning of porn use in his young life.  He came home excitedly with a drawing that completely mapped out his and his Mom's dependent/co-dependent relationship.  For the first time, he was seeing how things affected him from his childhood and from how he feels like he fits in to the family.  It wasn't about 'blaming' anyone, but about increasing self-awareness and understanding.

Anyway, that was a long meandering journey off topic, but basically, I just wanted to share some of his experience with his Week 3 meeting, and our own interactions surrounding it.

Back to LifeStar more specifically -- J is really uncovering some universal truths about the negative power of shame, about the positive power of vulnerability, and about the awesome power of openness -- and he's really diving in to it.  He rewatches the videos at home on YouTube, he is getting a couple books by the discussed authors that he wants to read.  It's reshaping how he sees his pornography addiction, and the power it holds, and it's giving him some very real ways to go about replacing it with something better and more enriching. 

J has enjoyed the three classes he's been to so far, and looks forward to the next week.  He has walked away from every meeting feeling like he learned at least one big thing that sticks with him and that he wants to implement in his own life. 

So far, so good.