Disclosure is Done and I'm Okay

I was prepared. My wonderful and understanding friend picked me up at the therapists office and spent the afternoon with me. I rented a condo for the weekend. My sister-in-law came down to stay with me. I had a bag packed with lots of different options for what I felt up to doing. I had snacks and sandwich makings in case I wanted to hole up in the condo. I took work off after our appointment on Friday. I covered my Sunday School class for tomorrow. I was ready.

I won't kid you and tell you it was pleasant. It was painful. It was hard. It hurt. The one thing it wasn't, for the most part anyway, was surprising. There were a couple big episodes of acting out that I wasn't aware of and one was particularly painful, but the rest of the disclosure wasn't really all that surprising. For the most part I had heard a lot of it over the years. It didn't make it any less painful…especially the lying and deceit. By far, that is still the hardest and most hurtful part of all this, the deceit. That the man I love and have trusted with my heart could be that duplicious is just painful.

The one thing that HAS surprised me from all this is that I'M OKAY. I am still trying to figure out if it is because I'm not acknowledging my emotions or if it's because I am in a good place and am really trying to heal. I really haven't cried much, only at the appointment and when I reread B's accountability statement again today, and even then the tears were short-lived. I have even spent time with B twice since then (once at the school play last night and once at our Ward Christmas Party tonight), and I have held his hand, leaned on him and given him a hug. I did have a very short panic/anxiety attack during the closing prayer at the party tonight and that tells me that it is probably just starting to settle in, but it was very short and I was able to breathe my way out of it. I don't know what that means for the upcoming days, but for the most part tonight I'm feeling okay. I'm exhausted and drained but I expected to be a lot more upset than I am.

All of that being said, forgiveness and trust are going to be a long time coming. We still have a long road ahead of us to healing. B hasn't even reached a point of sobriety yet. There are still a lot of hurdles to leap and a long distance to run yet, but we're off the block and headed into the first turn at least. This journey is a marathon and not a sprint, it might even be an triathlon or a hike to the summit of Mt. Everest, but we have started and that's the beginning of the journey.

Feeling okay,

T.