I wonder what it is exactly that I want. I ponder that a lot.

If you don't know me

Don't tell me how uncomfortable I look. I'm not. I'm fine.
Don't tell me that I'm really fucking pregnant. Unless you're my OB.
Don't tell me that I've dropped. Because I haven't.
Don't tell me that it looks like I have twins in there.
Don't tell me that it's obvious that this is my last kid and I won't let my husband near me ever again. This is my first kid and we tried for him for years and I can't wait to screw my husband again. In fact, I think about fucking him constantly.
Don't tell me that I don't look pregnant from behind. Wait, you can tell me that, it's okay.
Don't tell me that I'm having a boy, you can tell. lucky guess.
Don't tell me that I'm walking too slow. Fuck you. I'm 9 months pregnant.
Don't tell me that I look like I'm ready to pop. You look like you're ready to pop.
Don't tell me that I look exhausted. I haven't worked for almost 3 weeks. I'm a gay lady of leisure.
Don't tell me that you bet I can't wait for that baby to be out. I have too much shit to do around my house, he can stay put.

You don't know me! You're just walking down the street next to me, or my waiter, or online behind me at Whole Foods. Screw you. Leave me alone!

Lady of Leisure.

I'm very into being a lady of leisure these days. In fact, I think I like stressing about money and not working than not stressing about money and worrying about work. I was really ready for a break when I stopped working. I was tired, and my sense of compassion was waning. When I first finished grad school and started seeing clients, I LOVED what I did. Now... not so much. I think it's just a job that you need to do not that much of. It's really easy to burn out and I tend to be a workaholic. I was seeing too many clients. And I was seeing a lot of low fee or no fee people because I believe in accessible mental health for all... But working for free puts a lot of pressure on one. Especially when you still have to pay for your office and such. And the irony is that low and no fee clients are always more intense and more difficult cases than those who can pay. So, I was burning out big time. If we can afford it, I won't work that much after baby boy comes. Husband is trying to work on the nursery, trying to work hard at work and trying to take care of me. My due date is in 11 days. But who knows how soon he'll be here. I'm pretty uncomfortable. Husband has been lovely about rubbing my feet and legs and being an overall great guy. I am lucky and I do love him. The sex addict part, well that totally fucking sucks. But we're surviving as we do.

Things That I Love About My Husband and Things that I Hate About My Husband

Barring the sex addiction, I married one of the greatest men in the world. And I'm absolutely fruity about him. Really. It's true. Finding out about his sex addiction has been one of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with. Mostly because I was so fucking in love with him and thought that he was the kind of guy who could never, ever, ever do something like this.  So it's painful. And it has turned me into a very jealous and very suspicious person. It's also turned me into a woman who feels very unattractive and fears getting older.  I never feared getting older until I found out that Husband was trying to have sex with 18-22 year olds. Gross!  Now I understand that it's just fantasy, and something about pornography has told men that 30 year-old-women are actually 18 year old women so they have an unrealistic idea of what teenage girls look like. But still, ick!

I watched my very beautiful mother die young (she was 54) and for that reason, I've always believed that getting older was a blessing. Now that my Mommy is dead, and my husband is a sex addict, I have these awful fears about growing into an undesirable older woman as my husband continues to become more and more handsome. He really is. Whereas I used to get a lot of attention from men, he is now getting a lot of attention from women. I don't get as much attention from men these days. It could be the 9 months pregnant belly. I've had a lot of anxiety about my looks during this pregnancy. The worst part about it is that I'm a Psychologist who has written a book on body image. I know. It's paradoxical. It's an internal conflict that I've been dealing with for a long time. I've probably been dealing with it my whole life, but it was triggered heavily a year and a half ago. 
Believe me, I know everything I need to know intellectually about looks. Jesus Christ I counsel women on this issue every day. Yet I am riddled with self-disdain. It's so, so very painful. I try not to get angry at myself for it. I understand this psychologically, but it's like a doctor who gets angry at himself for getting sick. We're just not immune. To fucking anything.

But I digress. This isn't even where I meant to go with this post. I meant to discuss our money situation.  I love my husband because he's kind, compassionate, insightful, nurturing, loving, sexy, sweet, a genius, and he is doing so much self work. He still goes to two 12 step meetings each week, plus he goes to therapy twice a month, plus he goes to a feedback group which he shows up for each and every week no matter what. His recovery, our relationship, me and our growing family are very important to him. So that's fantastic. But... Husband does not make very much money. And we are struggling. I didn't think that at 37 years old (he 39) and with two graduate degrees between us, that we'd be having to eat pasta at night and figure out how to afford groceries, and now diapers, and all sorts of other things. It depresses me. It makes me mad. And it spills over into other parts of our lives.
This non-aggressive quiet, gentle man, who hid behind the safety of a computer, being all sorts of violent and abusive to people via cyber sex.
I don't want to complain. But we're struggling. And that's just hard.

Sex with a sex addict

Husband doesn't want to have sex with me. I mean, I know I'm 37 weeks pregnant. But I want to have sex constantly and Husband, he's uncomfortable doing it with me. He says it's not because he's not attracted to me but because he's uncomfortable with the whole thing and it's awkward. Granted, it's awkward. But still, it makes me sad. I wish he was all over me the way other pregnant ladies feel their husbands are. I feel not good enough.

We Bought iPhones

Like I said in the title, we bought iphones. This might not be such a big deal for the average couple, but for a couple that is 1/2 sex addict, well then iphones are a huge deal. Especially considering  Husband's acting out all happened on his computer.  He never had sex with a real live woman, but he had loads of cyber-sex and was on loads of dating sites and would meet people and talk back and forth with them and try to get women to meet him out. It never happened, but I wonder if it would have had I never caught him. He was also hugely into online porn. In fact, if I'd go away for a weekend to my parents or whatever, he'd stay home citing that he needed to study and instead he'd be in front of his computer for 20 hours straight (he later told me). He wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep, would just put a curtain up and stand at his computer looking for "women" or whoever was on the other end to talk to. He would every once in a while swap photos with them. He'd get naked pictures, or close ups of their privates and store them somewhere.  Husband has never been super smooth with the ladies, but he was a goddamned Lothario on the computer.   Which is why the idea of iphones freaked me out so much.

But we have a baby coming. And he should be here in 1-3 weeks. And we have these crappy old phones that don't work so well.  And my parents, who live 3000 miles from us, would like to see the baby as much as possible. They pleaded with us to get iphones. And to be fair, husband wanted one too. It was kind of awful because we plunked down so much money to buy them. I was up till 4am almost having a panic attack because of not just the initial investment but the crazy monthly fee. And now that I'm a lady of leisure, we only have one income until baby is 4 months old and I go back to work part time. And his income is crap. I'm kind of the breadwinner.  But like Kenny Loggins says:
Even though we ain't got money, I'm so in love with ya honey, and everything will bring a chain of love. And in the morning when I rise, you bring a tear of joy to my eyes, And tell me everything is gonna be alright. Which I heard on the radio this morning on my way to my OBGYN and it made me cry hysterically for like 2 hours.

So, because of Husband's problems with the Internet, we have an open phone policy. We're allowed to stalk each others' phones.  I miss the days when I didn't doubt him and trusted him 100%.

I wonder if we'll ever be back there.

Don't get mad at me...

I put ads on this blog. I'm sorry.  Me and the husband had a little pow wow this evening about how we were going to make ends meet with me on maternity leave (I'm the main breadwinner) and his parsimonious salary. So, I put ads on my blog. Not that I think that it will make up for my lack of work, but I thought I'd give it a try and see what happens.  I hope it doesn't offend anyone.

I dream that my husband is cheating on me

All the time lately as I sit in the final weeks of my pregnancy. In all the dreams, I end by beating my husband (with a lightbulb in the groin) and I wake up crying at 4am.  He wakes up with me and assures me over and over that he would never ever cheat on me. That he loves me. I tell him that he said that the whole time he was acting out and I'd have these dreams (I used to dream he was cheating on me before I knew about his SA). He says that it's different now, because he has a program, he has a sponsor, he has support. I tell him I don't believe him. That he lied to me before and he can lie to me again. He tells me he knows and holds me and tells me that he loves me and that he's sorry, and he doesn't know how to make this better for me. I don't either.

The Problem with Sex Addiction

The big fucking problem with sex addiction is that you don't trust it.  Husband has been "clean" for 13 months now. But I'm still nervous. We talk about how I still don't trust him. He says he doesn't expect me to. It's hard, being almost 6 months pregnant. I am feeling fat and unattractive and my husband has not been initiating sex. It makes me lonely and it makes me sad. I want to feel attractive despite my expanding ass and swollen belly.  But husband has never been voraciously attacking of me. I wish he were. I feel very unwanted. He is not the type to initiate sex. And right now I feel neglected. It's interesting. He's so pathologically self-sufficient that when he gets horny I'm not the first thing he goes to. He turns to masturbation. It didn't used to be like that, long ago when we were first together. But it became like that and became compulsive.  He is going to meetings and talking to his sponsor daily. But I still feel afraid that he's going to turn to his computer or someone else for fulfillment. Being pregnant is amazing, and I love it. But I hate feeling so fucking unattractive.

Some Hard Stuff

So, pregnancy is not as smooth as I had imagined it would be. The husband is saying his serenity prayer over and over and I'm doing it once in a while. I've been bleeding and spotting since week five and I've had a few big bleeds that have landed me in the hospital. Turns out I have a subchorionic hematoma.


God I'm fucking pissed. I mean, I would really, really, really like to have some gratitude here. And I mostly do, but this is my fucking secret ass blog where I fucking vent all of my secret ass feelings. So fucking sue me if I fucking whine for a few minutes.

It's unfucking fair that I  suffered through years of infertility because of my husband's lack of sperm.
It's unfucking fair that he spent all of his time on the internet prowling for 18 year old slutty girls to fuck for years and I didn't know it. I'm a mother fucking psychologist for crying the fuck out loud. You would think I had some goddamned insight into my isolator/codependent husband. Now, it's fucking unfair that when some good shit starts to happen, it's tinged with this scary shit. What the fuck God? What the fuck?

Okay I'm done now. And though part of me is fucking pissed, I'm mostly grateful. And my heart is breaking for those who are suffering in Japan, and they are in my prayers.

The husband is busy working on his first step. It's unnerving because he's spending a lot of time up late working on it and I try to get to bed early because of said pregnancy and the fact that I'm on first trimester bed rest.  I'm also on pelvic rest, so no sex for my sex addict husband. Nor for me. I can't go running, I can't have sex. I have very little to calm me down. I'm overeating junk and I'm putting on weight. Not pregnant weight. Fat weight. Oh well. Again, it's okay.
I chatted with the husband the other night about how much I hate him being awake and in the other room while I am in bed. I reminds me of when he was acting out and I was told that he was up late "studying."
Oh well. That's me for now. I'll keep updating.

xo,

L

Update

Hello Everyone. I apologize for being inactive in this blog. It (and you all who supported me) was so helpful in my healing process in the first few months after discovery.

Things are going well with me and my husband. He is very active in his SA group and working on his first step and doing well career wise, finally. I just found out two days ago that I am pregnant! Which is super exciting. We've been trying for so very long. But it's like the universe had a different idea for us. I needed to discover what he was doing and heal from it and he needed to stop doing that stuff and get active in a program.

I still get angry, I still get suspicious at times. But we talk about it all the time and he is working with his sponsor closely, especially now with a high risk pregnancy. Thanks for checking in and thanks for your support. I will continue to update.

Love to you all, Laney