My spouse went into a one year long program knowing he had more horrific and extreme things to disclose to me and he chose to leave me in the dark about all of it and take his secrets in with him where he keeps them protected from me knowing.
Days after his entry into treatment, some of the information about one of his infidelities surfaced. The delivery of the information alone was shocking in itself much less the content of it. I have been an absolute basket case since to say the least and I am alone with no support to help me process any of this.
My spouse has said after his first week there, that he wants to "confess" to me face to face and that he is ready, however the facility that he is in will not allow for any counseling or marital counseling outside of their own outlined program specific to ONLY the resident. The only contact longer than one -15 minute call he can make to me once a week, we will receive our 1st visit in December for 4 hours on sight. I was directed by the facility's staff to utilize letter by mail, once a week - 15 minute calls and the December visit for anything such as disclosure in our marriage. How are any of those safe for the level of disclosure I am faced to receive? And the fellow Christian woman who has been a minister of over 20 years in suggested this to me after I had informed her of what horrific information had come to light concerning the matters of my husband's infidelity.
Our Church Counselor has even offered to drive with me to the facility and provide their service at no charge, to mediate disclosure on a day and time open for the facility to determine worked best for them. Again, the facility responded in silence to calls, texts, voicemails and emails. They refuse anything outside of their own curriculum solely focused on the addict individual from any family or marriage. They now screen my calls, do not return my calls and there has been minimal communication from them.
My spouse continues to remind me that he wants to recover our marriage and he has words, words, words of course in 1 - 2 page letters. It is all very surface and minimal efforts in my opinion. My perspective at this point (given now I can look back and see response patterns) is he is using the Treatment Ministry's "rules" as an advantage to create a barrier between himself and ownership or accountability in all he has violated and left me cleaning up. It is truly one of "those" stories. He is also utilizing Christianity to cloak sexual identity. I have communicated this very real possibility to them too.
I feel like I am in the twilight zone. The violations I have endured and openly shared with a female leader at this facility and refused even 30 minutes on a day they choose even a month or two out, that would provide Biblical confession and aid in helping a wife to heal, being denied!? Its super spiritual, controlling and I feel as though I am being violated all over again, while my spouse is enjoying the safety and security of home cooked meals and his secrets protected. Every Christian leader I have spoken with concerning this matter, they all cannot understand this Ministry's practice in preventing confession for one of their own resident's in his marriage. There is no restrictions or refusal of contact or any other outside matters that would influence such a decision as this. It wasn't until after I encountered it for myself that my spouse and I learned this is apparently common practice and how they choose to handle any interactions with family or spouses of their residence. Their sole investment is in their resident, separating him from the world of drugs and that is how they justify what they are doing. And while I am blindly fumbling my way through accepting THAT on top of trying to even conceive of HOW to cope with knowing that my husband is being empowered not to disclose anything to me for up to a year until he completes the program and even then who knows what he may use to hide behind to keep from facing what he has done.
It is difficult first to even know how to begin to process pieces of such a massive puzzle, then to have so many missing pieces you can't make out what the picture is on the puzzle but it looks like it might be *THIS*.....I mean what decision do I make in my marriage to stay or go? I don't have all the facts and my spouse who knows, is hiding and can't/won't provide the pieces I need to heal and decide. The indifference is so maddening in my situation. I would absolutely work through this if he met me step for step and was willing to do whatever it took to help bring healing to this trauma. I cannot justify in myself reversing the roles, if I were the one going into a treatment facility (with only the authority I gave them) allowing total strangers to ever prevent my spouse from attaining closure from me. Unless there was truly some danger due to abuse or a court order, of which in our situation there is none.
To be left standing alone holding partial information that my Christian husband has an extensive infidelity path of unknown faces and names of people ranging from prostitutes to possible men, women and couples and be denied that knowledge by my a ministry I trusted to help us? I can't even cry anymore. The denial alone is probably the greatest violation I have endured thus far. I may never know how my body was invaded and violated. It's been a month since this information was revealed to me. I have sat here in my apartment alone in the constant war within myself of trying to only meditate on what is true. Php. 4:8-9 It ends the same, the truth is I don't know the truth. And may never know. I just keep telling myself that. The waves of anger that flood and crash are so overwhelming. What I do know is that the place within me where faith and hope meet over God's promises in my life, has been violated. Every part of my being and my life has been touched and violated for God only knows how long by his infidelities. This doesn't even touch on the financial pit and family division that resulted from these addictions. I was forced to have to sell one of our vehicles the week before he went in after he rented our financed vehicle for drugs. I spent the good majority of the week searching for it, to finally retrieve it shot up and vandalized with paint inside and outside.
How does someone recover from something of this size alone? He is surrounded, protected, comforted and being ministered to, while I type through this in disbelief that this is my life I am writing about.