Not so perfect streak

(her story)

Well friends...I have had a string of positive, happy emails surrounding my husband's recent re-baptism.  For the most part, the afterglow of that experience has stayed with me.  I am going to try and hang on to that happy feeling as I write this post.

 I wish I could say that my husband's 13 months streak was still intact, but alas, it was broken this morning with a slip.  Sigh.  I felt it coming.  He has been struggling since his rebaptism with urges and aches that seem more powerful now then before.  It was just a movie that he stumbled across but it led to a full blown slip up.  I want to be angry and hurt but I'm just not feeling it.  Disappointed? Yes.  Uneasy?  Yes.  Empathetic?  Double yes!

Here is something that I haven't divulged to you good readers yet but I too struggle with this addiction.  It is not all the time and not as aggressive as my husband's addiction, but it is there nonetheless.  The truth is, last week, I had a slip and I did not tell  him about it.  It has haunted me for the last week and when he called me this morning to tell me of his issue, I came clean about mine.  I hate to say this but when you understand the addiction because you have it yourself, it makes empathy and compassion so much more attainable.  I wish I didn't struggle with this.  Truthfully, it has become a little worse since my husband's affairs of 2013 and revelations of 2014.  I have talked a little about it here:  playing in the dirt

So, why now?  Why after 13 months are we both struggling?  When he received his post baptism confirmation blessing, the Stake President warned him in that blessing that the adversary wasn't done yet and that this would be a challenging year as the temptations were going to be harder.  So far, that has been true.

So, what do I do?  I guess we double down on the safeguards and barriers that we built so forcefully last year.  We have been relaxing a little bit in our habits and we just can't do that.  Last year we turned the TV off by 10:00 and we both went to bed together.  We have not been doing that lately and my husband has been up later then me, watching TV.  He has been home sick for the last 2 days while I have gone to work.  I knew that that too was playing with fire but what choice did we have?

I have to say that I am proud of him for telling me minutes later.  (He called me at work).  Just that act of telling me has filled up my trust bucket.  Since he hasn't slipped up since his disclosures of last year, I have often wondered and worried if he would actually tell me if he had a mess up.  I worried that maybe he was having slips and not disclosing them to me.  But now, I  know what he will do when he slips.  He will tell me...and quickly. Thank heavens for that!

So, slight bump in our winning streak but that's okay.  I will try and love him all the more and be grateful that he forgives me of my errors.  We are both two broken souls traversing this difficult path together.  Tough day today but onward we move.