Boundaries Stink

Ok, well boundaries themselves don't stink…but having to enforce them does. I'm not trying to out B. here, but this post has been swimming around in my head for a couple of days now. I needed some distance and perspective before I wrote it though. I'm still cycling through my emotions…anger, hurt, forgiveness (ok not so much an emotion), apathy and peace. This is the first time I have really honestly and effectively enforced a boundary since I clarified them for myself and B. It was a painful thing to do actually, I didn't realize it was going to hurt so much to have to enforce them. 

If you want to know what my (pretty detailed) boundaries are you can find them on the second tab across the top under the header of the blog, or by clicking here. I share them here and welcome questions or comments with the caution that these are for my own feeling of safety and to help to begin to foster trust between B and I. These are not meant as a judgement of B or as a means of controlling him. They are my way of letting him know what he needs to do in order to earn my trust back. The burden of trustworthiness is on him. 

I haven't been checking history on B's phone for a while now. I haven't wanted to feel like the police. I felt like he was working hard on recovery most of the time, although it seems that the later  in the week it gets the harder time he has with working recovery and not disconnecting. We have been doing checkins using vowels for the last couple of weeks and I thought it was going well. Lately, though, when he starts to disconnect I felt like he was slipping back into old behaviors. He looked me right in the eye and told me that he was doing well. He has also been working on full disclosure for me, so that I can move on in healing in our relationship (which is separate from my own personal recovery). I still felt that tiny nagging that something was off. I couldn't pinpoint it specifically and am new to trusting my gut where this is concerned (after so many years of being lied to, I am having to relearn how to trust my own feelings and promptings). He has been showing so many signs improvement that it was crazy making that I was feeling this nagging discomfort.

Friday night I went out with a couple of girlfriends to have some "me" time. It was a lot of fun and just what I needed for some clarity. When I got home at almost 11:00 p.m. B was asleep and didn't know if our daughter was home yet from seeing a play with her friends. That in and of itself triggered me, he is the parent at home, shouldn't he know where his teenager is at almost 11:00 p.m. (she was home). I also found out that instead of interacting with our preteen son and spending some time with him, he had let him play Minecraft for hours while I was gone. Our son is showing addictive behaviors as far as playing Minecraft goes and we have been working with him to find other ways to combat boredom and frustration than zoning out with a computer game. So that triggered me. 

I was already on edge emotionally and he just basically turned over and went back to sleep. I was trying to wind down for the night when a very strong prompting came to check his phone. There it was, pornographic pictures of women on Facebook. It's as if that makes it ok because he was just looking at profile pictures on Facebook and not actual porn sites. From what I found in his history he had been doing this for a two to three days but from his own disclosure it had actually been two weeks. I was furious, hurt and feeling betrayed. HE LIED TO ME!  AGAIN! I was so hurt and upset, that even though it was almost 2:00 a.m. I woke him up and made him go sleep on the couch. I enforced a boundary! I did it! It was actually really painful to do, I don't want to disconnect emotionally and physically from B, but for my own feelings of trust and safety I had to. The next day our schedules were so opposite that we didn't see each other until about 8:00 p.m. I took time in the morning to write him a four page letter. I wrote him a letter because I knew we wouldn't have a chance to talk early in the day and I can often more clearly articulate what I want to say when I write it down. It was thoughtful and informative without being shaming or malicious. I just told him how I felt he had broken my boundaries and what consequences I was going to enforce (there were more than just that middle of the night trip to the couch). It was very painful and hard to do, like I said, but it helped me feel safe and helped him see that I expect him to earn back my trust, it's not just going to be handed to him. 

He explained to me that he felt that I was doing so well in my recovery and he didn't want to hinder that. Really? And LYING TO ME wasn't going to hinder my healing? Actually, I discovered, and explained to B that it WON'T affect my personal recovery, but it greatly affects our recovery as a couple. I also told him that it was completely and totally unacceptable to hide, minimize or lie about any slips. Honestly, there is to be no lying about anything. I also told him that I fully expect him to have slips, especially this early in recovery. I am a skeptic after all these years, that he will ever be able to be in full recovery, but I was starting to have hope. I was robbed of that hope this weekend. It doesn't mean that I am giving him permission to have a slip or that I am ok with it. I'm not. I WILL enforce my boundary around pornography in my home if he does slip, but his actions this weekend crossed every.single.one of my boundaries. It was so painful that I wanted to yell and scream and hit things (most likely not things but him). I am pleased with how I handled the situation though, for the most part, but it was still incredibly hard and painful to enforce my boundaries. I think he finally gets that I mean business and that my individual recovery is separate from our recovery as a couple. 

We have made progress, we could talk about it. That's big progress for us and that has not been undone. But even if we can openly talk about it, it still hurts that it happened. I EXPECT there will be more slips in our future, but I HOPE that there aren't. More than anything he owes me honesty, no matter how painful the truth is.

Made a little safer through my boundaries,

T.