I believed anyway,
because it was him.
~The Junky's Wife
Addicts lie. They lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. Oh, wait, and did I mention that they lie? And they do it very convincingly. If you learn nothing else from living with an addict, you learn what truly spectacular, bold, reality bending lies can be told and believed. (Those of you who live in the US have experienced living those lies: our last two presidents have been addicts. And see how many people believed them! They're good!)
I have experienced so many different lies that a lie is no longer just a lie to me. I've become a connoisseur of lies: I observe the technique and form, recognize the variations in texture and color, note the subtle ways in which lies differ from the truth. The expert liar uses truth, weaves it into his art, to make the lie believable. The expert liar lies to himself, so that truth and lie become one to him. The expert liar creates a new reality, encompassing himself and those around him. Like (I say, again showing my geekhood) the character of Candice on the TV series Heroes, who transforms herself and the places around her into realistic replicas of other people and places, the liar distorts reality, creates something new and false.
Years ago, Mark came home from one of his business trips distraught. He sat me down and said some things had happened on the trip that he needed to confess to me. He seemed racked with guilt and fear, and my heart was racing; something was deeply wrong. His boss had taken him, and his coworkers, out to a strip club, he said. I was tingling with tension, ready to vomit: what happened at the strip club? They watched the show and left, he said. He had been pressured to drink, but didn't.
I started to relax. That was it? A show at a strip club? Why was he so worried and upset? I have met other wives who would have felt that was bad enough, but that didn't seem bad to me at all, and I thought he should have known that. I was, at the time, proudly un-prudish. I owned sex toys and lingerie; I viewed, read, watched porn with and without my husband. A strip club was no big deal, I told him. Nothing else happened, right? Right. Then there was no need to be scared; I wasn't angry. So, he relaxed and told me about the experience, mainly how uncomfortable he'd felt.
But, he said, there was a little something more. I tensed again with a racing heart. This was it; this was the bad part. No, he assured me; this was not as bad as the strip club. This was just something he felt he had to tell me because he knew how "jealous" I could be. While he was on the trip, he had also met and had a business dinner with a woman who, he implied, was a colleague. While there was nothing romantic or sexual about the dinner or the relationship, he felt he had to tell me because it was a solo dinner, without his boss or coworkers. Whew! Why had I thought anything was wrong? It was nothing after all.
I thanked him for being so open and honest and thoughtful, for telling me about these things he felt might bother me. I reassured him that I loved him, that I wasn't angry, and that I loved hearing about and sharing his experiences.
After his sex addiction came to light, I asked him why he had been so open and honest about this experience, when he had hidden so many other things. And the answer was, well, he hadn't actually been honest or open. While it had been true that his boss had taken them all to a strip club (nice boss, huh?), it hadn't been true that he watched and left. He had paid a stripper for a lap dance and had gotten her phone number. And while it was true that he had gone to dinner with a woman, that woman was not a colleague, it was the stripper. He had called her, bought her flowers, taken her to dinner and out dancing to clubs every night for the remainder of his trip, sometimes staying up all night with her and leaving at dawn to get ready for work. He returned to me sleep deprived, not just from jet lag, but from a series of nights out with a stripper. And he was truly guilt-ridden, but had only confessed enough to be able to feel honest and absolved.
When Mark began recovery for sex addiction, I feared these reality bending lies more than anything: the lies that seemed like sharing, but were actually covering up, the lies that told me that I worried about things, not because I had a reason to, but because there was something wrong with me: I was "jealous" and "paranoid."
The lies were traumatizing. I used to have, still do have, nightmares about these lies: nightmares where Mark tells me up is down and black is white, and I feel paralyzed and helpless in the face of it all. I once told Mark that it was not even the sex that was so hurtful, it was the lies. If he could just stop the lying, I could handle everything else. But of course, lying is what addicts do. They lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. Oh, wait, and did I mention that they lie? And they do it very convincingly.
I think your "Heroes" analogy is really apt because for the addict the lie actually does transform reality. There's a point at which they start believing it's the truth. That's why they're so *good* at it. This was especially true with Clinton; I find Bush a much less accomplished liar, but that may be just me.
I wonder how much of this connects with the total lack of real self-esteem in addicts. If you think you are nothing, which every addict I know truly believes, then your experiences and beliefs don't matter. Other people's are far more reliable. So if the addict tells a lie and the good, honest wife believes it, then hey - it must actually be more true that the addict's experience.
I'm glad I left the Heroes analogy in -- I thought about cutting it because the post was getting long.
You know I don't believe Bush either, but I can see why people do. He sincerely believes himself and that is what so many other people find convincing about him. I feel much more empathy with Clinton, because he reminds me of Mark, and I think it is so very sad that a man who was loved enough to be elected president could still feel such a gaping hole, such an insatiable need for love, that he would run to interns to try to fill it.
You know I could go on and on... But this post is just the first of two. The next one gives the secret you taught me, Jay, about dealing with lies. Tune in tomorrow!
The lies do hurt more than anything, and they make me MADDER than anything...it's a way of raking us into their insanity. If it was just the drugs...and no lying, it would be so much easier for me to let it all just be his problem, as it properly is.
And the manipulation...there was a time when my husband had me convinced that I was "controlling" because when he asked to borrow money, I only offered him $20. It was controlling of me to put a limit on the amount of MY money that I gave to him...and I would believe it. He'd be so convincing that I was nuts that I'd start to think I must be nuts...
And then it's so hard to believe anything, ever again. And they lie, sometimes, for no reason...or at least my own addict does. He still will lie to me, even when I'll know he's lying, about everything, which turns me into a liar...I'll exaggerate our financial strife to keep him for asking me for money. I'll tell him I'm tired when I'm just feeling too emotionally overwrought to deal with him. I'll pretend to be "busy" at work so that I can stay late instead of coming home and being with him...
It makes you look back over your life and wonder what you've been doing for all these years, whether anything is real...
But I still know that the emotional resonance is real, that core of truth at the center of our relationship...that heat can't be faked...
(And I'm outraged that he bought the stripper flowers. I mean really...that was unneccessary.)
It completely makes you question reality. (Hm, I'll have to blog about that more specifically too...) It makes you crazy.
As a followup on the flowers for strippers thing, flowers used to be one of the sweet things Mark did; he'd send them to me for no special occasion, just to say he loved me. But I felt like if he could use flowers to court a stripper while I was home alone for a week with our special needs son, well, then that gesture really didn't mean much to me anymore.
I instituted a moratorium on flowers four years ago that is still in effect: no birthday flowers, no Mother's Day flowers, no anniversary flowers, no Valentine's Day flowers, no flowers, none, ever.
I've gotten over my anger, and I understand, as much as I can without being an addict, what place of pain and confusion he was in when he did that, but I still don't want flowers.
Wow, I really like your blog. It's very well-written and also deeply touching. Thank you for commenting on my blog too.
I also know what you mean about the lies that addicts tell. The worst relationship of my life (ended four years ago) was when I discovered the guy had been looking at bestiality porn (yes, uuuughhhh!) on his laptop. When I confronted him about it, he lied, lied, lied. I guess he just didn't want to admit that he had been doing something so disgusting, but, still, it was so obvious that it was him, so this made me connstantl wonder what else he was lying about.
I hate lies because they make the person on the receiving end of them feel that they're crazy. Lies are psychological torture for me.
I should also add that you are a much more compassionate person than I could ever be. I don't think that I would be able to stay with Mark after all the lies he has told and the damage he has done. I guess you have a kid, so that changes things, I know, but still, I would just feel destroyed.
It's amazing that you can look beyond his addiction and his lies to see the person underneath. I can't help but wonder if it's worth it, though. Surely you must be in so much pain all the time? If you left him, you would at least have peace of mind, no?
I'm reading your blog for the first time with a lot of recognition. I am struggling to come to terms with my fiance's sex addiction. I totally recognise those moments your describe of breathless, panting shock and thinking I was going to vomit at the next thing I heard. I also realised recently (today?) that I am chalking up two "sins" against him. One sleeping with other women and two lying about it because I can never trust anything he says ever again. But they are the same thing really, to cheat, you have to lie, they can't really be separated.
I'm glad you linked to this post in your more current one. It was a hard thing for me to admit what a liar I was ... and honestly still am.
Thank you for reminding me of how hurtful the half-truths are. I too have used such things to relieve myself of guilt.
I'm not feeling sorry for or defending myself, or Mark, or Bill Clinton ... or any of us who lie in order to continue to live in our addiction, we are hurtful people, but I will say honestly that it is a horrible hell to live in. If it shakes your sense of reality to believe our believable lies, imagine what it feels like to have lost all sense of what truth even is.