The directions for writing my disclosure and preparing for our intensive can be summarized as the following:
- Construct a time line for every year up to now and fill in your entire sexual history (yes, from even before I married or dated my wife)
- Your disclosure should be 12 to 20 double spaced typed pages and should take about 20 hours to write
- Don’t include expressions of love or remorse or beg for forgiveness
- Leave out extraneous details, just make it clinical
- Don’t disclose ANYTHING ELSE until the clinical disclosure
Ok, that last part has been a major point of contention with my wife. She doesn’t understand it. Ok, well maybe she does she just doesn’t agree with it or want to follow it. She has been very angry that I get to know everything and she doesn’t. We have three more weeks until the intensive and disclosure. I don’t know if I am going to live through this part. No, seriously, I don’t know if she is going to allow me to live through this part.
Every day is a roller coaster ride of emotions. I am not sure how to respond. I yearn to retreat, go upstairs, turn on the tv, shut out her and the world. I cringe and withdraw when she yells and screams and rages. I make it even worse when I point out (probably sanctimoniously) how I am merely following directions and just can’t share any more details. See, I made that mistake already. I screwed up and let something slip I shouldn’t have let slip. Ok, I need to practice being honest. I told her something hoping to diffuse some of the anger and actually ignited a firestorm.
I had to this point only disclosed one affair partner. I had not admitted to any other instances of acting out in the past. She kept questioning me about why couldn’t I just verify and validate some things to give her some peace. Sounds reasonable, right? I took the easy way out. I didn’t stand up and follow directions. I tried to make things easier on me by not lying but by only telling a little bit in hopes that would appease her and I could get some peace and she would be satisfied for a while. So I told her that I had seen someone I met over the internet before we had kids, it didn’t mean anything, and it wasn’t anyone she knew. I reasoned that I would be preparing her for what was to come in disclosure, that my sexual sin was greater than one instance and that this would get her used to the idea.
That didn’t work the way I intended. I obviously don’t know what the hell I am doing. She melted down, threw me out of the house, and has been inconsolable for three days. I don’t know if she will continue with me. I have that my judgment sucks. I know I am stating the obvious but I think I am just now realizing that my decision making is terrible and obviously damaging. Oh yeah, I am a sex addict. I am destructive. Thank you God for allowing me to have paid therapists in my life who know what they are doing. I obviously don’t.
