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Friday, October 30, 2015

A year with the spouses of addicts

Hello, All!


Guess What? Guess What! Guess What! Guess What!

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of my blog! Celebrate!!!!!!  A year ago today I wrote a 1 or two sentance post welcoming you to my blog and telling you to stay tuned for posts.

It's been a crazy year!

It's very interesting to look back at my blog's stats. Almost all, with I think 2 acceptions, of my top viewed blog posts are about dealing with a family member's sexual addiction or fighting the pornography or related industries.

What are the 2 acceptions? My "finding the Real Deal" posts where I did my ice cream sandwich experiments. Find it here:  Finding the Real Deal Part 2

But I suppose that is to be expected. How do you beat ice cream?

I wanted to say thank you. I have had some great experiences through this blog, and I appreciate you all. There is definitely a club of sorts, a group of people out there who are all dealing with similar issues.

If there is one thing that I have learned, and that I hope you have learned too, it's that no one is alone in this endeaver.

There are many out there who are hurting, many out there that are healing. Many out there who feel that their marriage is hanging on a thread and many out there who are looking for help.

I talk about no one being alone all the time because things like pornography addiction in a spouse tends to make you feel isolated. To put it bluntly, sexual addictions are designed to do 3 things to the spouse: 1) destroy self confidence 2) knock you down 3) make you feel isolated . That is why I will say it until I am blue in the face and mistaken for a broken record.

You are not alone.  All you have to do is walk down the street and you'll probably pass multiple people who are hurt, heartbroken, and dispairing over their spouse's addiction. Many of them are hurting financially, having spent most of their money on expensive therapy or maybe their spouse spent the money on his or her addiction. They feel as isolated as you do, probably not talking in any detail to anyone about what they are going through. Because they feel it reflects on them.

And yet, if time could pause itself and all of the family members of addicts were the only one's not frozen, I would guess that everyone would find themselves un-paused. If only spouses were un-paused even, you would find how many men and women were there with you.

Because everyone is affected in some way. Everyone has a connection to some heartache caused by addiction, whether they know it or not. There are just too many people who are suffering under the weight of sexual addiction. Too many addicts who are going through their own version of hell, too many spouses and families who are unfortunately taken along for the hellish ride.

But, if there is one thing to take from this all, is that you are not alone.

I wish with all of my heart that I could tell you that you are by yourself in this. That no one else is dealing with what you are dealing with. Because I wish this wasn't such a widespread problem. But that isn't the case. And you are not alone, not even close.

There are a lot of people in the same place as you, glad to know that they are not alone.

This has been a great year. But this next year is going to be even better. I have some fun things planned, and I can't wait to see how they go!

Thanks again!

Jenelle

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