Update

I think we've established I'm not super great at maintaining this space.  But, I did want to check in.  I'm excited to be attending Jacy's "Togetherness Project" this weekend, and I was just sitting here thinking about how much this whole WoPA persona of mine is making its way to the forefront.  I don't think I'm very good at maintaining this space, because I'm not that great at keeping up this 'dual' life and personality -- I just want to be me and talk about my life, not pieces and parts of it.  I am not quite ready to 'shout from the rooftops' or anything, but my husband and I are prayerfully figuring out what role recovery will play in our day to day lives, out in front of others.  One big move was when I was asked to share my testimony of trials and the atonement in Sunday School a couple months ago.  I spent the last five minutes of class talking about J's porn addiction, and recovery, and what we've learned from it all.  J took the last 15 minutes of Elders Quorum talking about it as well.  So, we came 'out' at Church.  Big, right?  Except that I feel like I threw this big thing out into the universe, and are waiting to hear something back, but have gotten very little feedback.  I have to rely heavily on the idea that we both KNEW it was the right thing to do.  I had a WoPA friend ask me the other day how many people have come up and talked to me and J about their own addictions (or their spouses') since we talked in Church.  Um, zero.  She seemed as surprised as I was.  I mean, I didn't open up so that people would come to me, but I guess I assumed it would happen.  I'd open up to others and they'd open up to me.  I have such an intense craving for 'realness' now -- and especially at Church, where I feel like I get the least 'real' from others in my life.  Instead, it's just been like nothing happened, like we didn't say anything.  Which is fine, and I did get some nice emails and a couple kind comments about how brave we were, and how much people respect us, but mostly it's just left this weird void where I expected something to come from it, but I have to come to understand and be OK with the fact that things don't happen the way I think they will.  And that it's OK.  It was, without a doubt, the right thing for us to do.  And that is reason enough to do it.  As a good friend pointed out, my validation from this comes from God, and knowing I did what He wanted me to do, and I needed to let go of wanting validation from others.  Working on that.  :-)

Anyway, J is still doing LifeStar and SA, and loving them both.  I honestly don't think he could imagine life without those meetings each week, and I think part of him is bummed about LifeStar going down to 2x a month instead of weekly soon.  He's got around 18 months of recovery and sobriety under his belt.  He's still working on new realizations and new understandings on nearly weekly basis, and neither of us can imagine this journey without his two groups to walk him through all these emotions, resentments, new insights and all that.  We are both getting healthier all the time, and I honestly can't imagine my life without recovery in it now.  It's been so good for both of us, even if it came after years of pain and heartache and lies and betrayal. 

Anyway, it was a bit of a disjointed post -- I had a few minutes after putting the baby down for a nap, and before I have to take the Kindergartener to tumbling.  Just wanted to check in and say I'm still alive.  We're doing good.  And we're figuring out what the next step is for us. 

Hope to meet some of you WoPAs at the Togetherness Project this weekend!