Disclosure....it sounds innocent enough, but in the world of sexual addiction, disclosure is often complex and quite draining. Such was the case for us. Let me start here by reminding any and all that the addict brain is not rational or healthy. For the rest of us, if we decided one day that we needed to put everything out on the table in order to work through a problem (marital, work, whatever), that is exactly what we would do. Disclosure from the rational mind is most generally a one time event. "I need to tell you something. Here it is." The addict mindset is not this way. Most often, disclosure with an addict takes weeks, or in our case, months. It took two months of desiring recovery and working toward it for my husband to reach the point of being able to confess exactly what he had done. This was extremely hard for me as things would come out in little bits...a trickle here, another there, until finally I would put two and two together and a moment of disclosure would happen. At first I expected this and dealt well with it, but soon it became quite traumatic and I shut down. I decided we would just have to separate because I was hurting, withdrawing, and quite honestly terrified. I did not feel that I could feel the Spirit prompting me in either direction as long as I had my husband in the same house. He would look at me and I could not look at his face. He would say, "I love you," and I would feel like I'd been hit in the gut. I would look down, shoulders slumped. The words felt like an insult, like salt in the wounds.
By the time the disclosure was complete, I felt less than human. I felt like I had just had a bucket of manure dumped on my head and was expected to feel beautiful, loved and worthwhile. It was a dark place for me. I felt the desire to separate....or maybe just to run away. I longed to not have this feeling. I longed for peace and didn't think I could feel it with him here. But, it was Christmas. How on earth could I send away the kids' father at Christmas? I will just hold on. I can make it until after the holidays. Then we'll figure something out financially and he can leave.
I'd like to point out here that many people subscribe to a belief that full disclosure is not necessary. This is patently false. Disclosure is painful because addiction and betrayal are painful, not because disclosure is unnecessary. Disclosure often brings about separations, but it is not the cause. The actions and lies about them are the cause. Addiction thrives in secrecy. If things are held back, make no mistake, it is so the addict will not feel the pain and sorrow of his choices. If he is holding back, claiming he is sparing his wife, he is not truly ready to leave the addiction behind. That is truth. D&C 58:42-43 states: "42 Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.
43 By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins—behold, he will confess them and forsake them."
I can hear it now, "How dare you judge your husband! He doesn't need to confess to you!" And from one perspective, this is correct. I am not a judge in Israel. I do not hold the keys necessary to help facilitate my husband's repentance. Thank goodness for that! I have enough on my plate. I am, however, his wife. I am his companion, and an extension of himself. Lying to me is, in fact, lying to himself.(Genesis 2:24, Mark 10:7-8) Encouraging a man to be anything less than fully honest with his wife is to encourage a seed of deceit and inadvertently sanctions any lie that could be construed into "too much pain for her to bear." Repenting from breaking the law of chastity should not be done by way of lying to one's wife. Confessing a sin to Priesthood authority is necessary, but it is also required to confess to the injured party. If my husband stole something, he would have to confess to the owner of the item as well as his bishop. Infidelity is stealing from the marriage. Therefore, repentance cannot happen without confession and restitution (to the best of one's ability, if both are willing) to the injured spouse.
As to details, that is up to the wife. Some women want to hear everything. They want to know who, when where, how often, etc. Some women only want vague accounts. I am the former. The reason for this is so that I could process for myself if there was anything left upon which to rebuild our marriage. I wanted to know if I had a likelihood of running into any of these women. I wanted to know how he felt about what he did at the time and presently. And, most of all, I wanted to be able to sort it out in my heart for consistency and to gauge whether he was really putting it out there and seeking recovery, or if he was holding back. Holding things back is a dangerous thing. It becomes that little dark corner of the mind where one can jump back and relive the experiences. And the more one does that, the bigger that corner of the mind gets until it has consumed the man once more. This is not to say it was easy for me to hear the things my husband had done. My heart races and pounds, my thoughts race, I feel nauseous, I begin to shake and shiver from deep in my core, my teeth chatter and I feel deeply cold, yet I sweat uncontrollably. It is an awful state. But I would take it any day over lies and minimizing. When you live with lies for so long, you need truth, no matter how hard it is to hear.
One thing about disclosure that is terribly hard for the wife to process is the "Trickle Disclosure." This can happen in many ways such as being caught with pornography, admitting to only that incident, then later admitting to more. In our case, my husband confessed infidelity, but he minimized it. He clung to this throughout his disciplinary council. He was excommunicated, so he then thought, "Well, I don't need to confess it all. What else can they do to me?" As he worked his recovery (and it is real WORK) in the Men of Moroni Program, he began to say more, until finally, he put everything out on the table. I was angry. Oh boy was I upset. Why on earth would he continue to LIE to me when I gracefully went through that whole process by his side?! How little must he think of me! Do I still not deserve the whole truth?!
The answer is rather difficult to understand if you aren't ready to do so. The answer is that addiction is lies. They live and breathe lies. They convince themselves they are not lying (minimizing) and they are really only sparing their wives some serious pain. Sounds noble, right? It isn't. By this point, the wife has seen changes and she starts to think, "Maybe, just maybe, things have a chance of working out." She sees the difference in him and begins to think it is safe to begin healing and not just covering her wounds. And then....BANG! It's like a gunshot to her already fragile self. How could he do this? Does he even want to recover? When he said it was all out, he clearly knew it wasn't, so he must not really want to get better....AND I FELL FOR IT!"
She's hurt and angry at her husband, but she's also upset with herself for not somehow knowing and seeing all because now she is back in a world of pain. This is where I struggled the most. I had already endured a lot and thought I did so quite gracefully (ok...gracefully for me). And yet here I was being ripped open again. Why? Well, the answer is not as simple as I would like and it varies a little bit from person to person, but the general answer is that addicts have to recover to a certain point before they actually CAN give a full disclosure. It doesn't mean they aren't responsible for the pain they caused when they said, "That's really everything." It means they have been hit in the face with who they have become. It means they realize that lying is actually one of the root problems. They realize this, and even though it will cause pain and emotions they don't really want to deal with, their recovery means more to them...and so they disclose. Often, a man struggles to put it into words because he is not saying in his mind, "I cheated on my wife and had sex with that woman."
He has told HIMSELF a load of lies such as, "It's no big deal. She's boring. This other woman really 'gets' me. She'll never know. If she doesn't know, she won't be hurt. IT'S NO BIG DEAL."
The final thing I would like to talk about here is coping with disclosure. This is such an individual thing as well. After the final disclosure, I shut down. I had prepared myself, calmed myself, and prayed with my husband before he started. I still shut down. I still felt sick. I still wanted him to just leave. I could barely look at him. This continued for a few days. Then it got worse. The anger swept over me like fire. But anger is a cover for deeper emotions, as I learned in WORTH. Anger is a cover for shame, pain, and/or fear. At that moment, I was feeling all three emotions and masking them with a thick coat of anger. I had to allow myself to feel the pain and fear. I had to acknowledge that while I want to be brave and strong, I was feeling anything but at that point. I had to dismiss the shame. This is a hard one. I began by praying for comfort and mercy. I asked for my Heavenly Father to bind my broken heart as only He can. And then I told myself that this is not my shame. I wrote it in my journal and I said it to my support groups. This is NOT my shame. Shame is of the devil. Shame is one of his dirty little tricks and like all of his other lies, it cannot stand the light. I placed my pain and burdens at the feet of the Savior and listened. And he showed me in remarkable ways that are too sacred to write here that HE saw my pain and HE is mighty to save. Never in my life have I felt such strong spiritual bolstering.
Does this make it all better? Am I done now? No. Not by far. Every day, multiple times each day, I am faced with whether to leave the burden at HIS feet, or pick it back up again. Just as my husband (and all addicts) must choose each day to work their recovery, I must choose each day to work mine. Has forgiveness come? In some ways, yes. In others, no. It is a process and as I am not a perfect, sinless being like my Savior. I struggle to forgive completely. But I am striving to, and that is all HE expects in my fallen state...my best effort. Some days, I do great. Other days, I do a bang up job of regressing and feeling miserable. That's ok though because the bad days get easier, and then they spread out, and soon they become bad hours and finally, just moments.
Is this the way YOU or someone in your life will or should deal with disclosure? I have no idea! It is a very hard part of a very hard process brought on by a very hard and unhealthy situation. But, I hope that out of all of this, anyone reading this will see that no matter how someone discloses, how long it takes, and how it is received, there is hope and healing. It does come if you seek it. You will not always feel the way you do that first day. Whether you are the addict or the spouse, you will learn to cope. I cannot promise your marriage will survive. I cannot in this moment promise that my own marriage will survive this, but I can say for certain that surrendering it all to my Heavenly Father and drawing close to HIM has helped ME survive and even thrive in ways I never expected. I can say for certain that the man I now see as Ammon diligently works his recovery is a completely different man. I can say that I am witnessing first hand the messy, painful, and beautiful work of redemption. Christ's atonement IS ENOUGH....and so are YOU.
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