"Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

~Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I just found this quote.
It's very appropro for this "Steps to Climb" blog.
The first step truly is the hardest.
I had said, at the time, I made a leap of faith.
I wish I could have leaped up the steps that are behind me, but it took all the courage and strength I could muster to climb even one step.

I know you can do it, too.
Because I did it.

Keep Calm and Carry On

I found this wooden decoration at my favorite gift store. It was the theme at work last year, so it sits on top of my file cabinet in my cubicle behind my desk. Sorry it's a blurry picture. I took it with my dumb phone (I don't have a smart phone).

It's a good platitude for my life right now, too. I gaze on the words off and on all day long.

Still no end in sight of ex-husband's stall tactics during this, so far, two-month back-and-forth with the lawyers. Even knowing in advance--convincing myself--he wouldn't be true to his signature and promises, I still had something inside of me that thought he would.

Silly me.

I also have this wooden decoration sitting in front of my desk. It keeps me grounded.

ED vs. DE: Part II

Caution: not for the faint-hearted . . .

I have been putting off publishing that last post and this one for months. This subject is hard to write about and is hard to read, not to mention, live through. But you SHOULD read the information.

Why? If you’re like me, you have no idea what you’re dealing with. I was so naive when it came to dalliances with evil. Pornography is evil.

Following are a lot of questions to think about, especially if you suspect your spouse is addicted to porn.

Does your spouse put-off having sex with you?* Withholding of anything in marriage is considered abuse. Withholding information is abuse. Withholding intimacy is abuse. Blaming you for his withholding is abuse. Watching porn is abuse. Watching porn is adultery. Adultery is abuse.

So, what are his symptoms?

·       Does he feign fatigue so he won’t have to have sex with you?

·       Does he seem distant, lose his temper easily, verbally or physically abuse you?

·       Does he tell you you’re too fat, too thin, too ugly, too old, too this or too that?

·       Does he tell you you’re just not enough?

·       Does he ignore you?

·       Has he insinuated that you are boring—or told you outright?

·       Does he want you to wear sexier clothes? Sexier lingerie? Spiky heels? More makeup?

·       Does he want you to have surgery to change/enhance your body?

·       Does he want you to change your hair color?

·       Does he wake up too early or go to bed too late?

·       Does he want you to do anything you don’t feel comfortable doing in the bedroom?

·       Does he spend too much time in his man cave on his computer—where you are not invited?

·       Has his computer had an inordinate amount of viruses? (pre-streaming)

How long has it been since you’ve had sexual relations with your spouse? Six months? A year? Two years? Five years? Have you wondered why, but were too afraid to ask? Or, when you ask, does your spouse accuse you of something non-related, change the subject, or start in on criticizing you?

What happens when you have sexual relations?

·       Does it last so long that you start to hurt?

·       Is he even able to have an erection?

·       Does he call you lewd names or use crude language during sex?

·       Is he too forceful or mean during sex?

·       Do you feel inadequate in pleasing him? Does he make you feel so?

·       Do you feel guilty or ashamed after having sexual relations with your husband?

·       Does he want you to perform acts you think are inappropriate, disrespectful, immoral, insulting? If you think they are, then they are!

Red flags, all. Those illusive red flags.

Continuous, compulsive use of pornography (read: addicted) not only affects your spouse’s ability to have or sustain an erection, it damages the emotional, marital relationship.

Does any of this sound familiar?

I’ve given you lots of questions to think about. What are your answers?

* Drawing from my own experience, I am writing as if the spouse is a husband. I know there are women addicted to pornography, usually via erotica. Substitute “she” for “he” if that is your experience. It is not mine.

ED vs. DE: Part I

Caution: not for the faint-hearted

ED vs. DE. Sounds like the name of a law suit. But, no, we’re talking sexual dysfunction, or, more specifically, sexual dysfunction due to pornography addiction.* We’re talking relationship problems, lack of intimacy, advanced masturbation,** and escalation of porn use.***

A friend of mine asked me, “What’s masturbation got to do with pornography?” I was speechless, but who am I to question what any good, loving, caring, trusting wife thinks? I was clueless, too, to the many intricacies that occur in the lives of men who are addicted to pornography.  Ultimately, spouses, too, are victims of the dysfunction caused by porn.

The clinical definition of ED (erectile dysfunction), dumbed down, is a failure to obtain or maintain an erection in three month's time. Think about the overuse of the drugs Viagra, Cialis and others in recent years, not to mention testosterone drugs—Androgel, Androderm, Testim and others. Men would rather have the horrible headache and other severe side effects associated with this kind of drug use, than not have the drugs.**** Spouses of these men are clueless that the reason they need them is because they are addicted to pornography.

My former spouse didn’t suffer from ED, but I discovered another common side effect of excessive pornography viewing—DE (delayed ejaculation or retarded ejaculation). I had never heard of it until after I was divorced. All of sudden, my life made perfect sense. I also felt validated. Our lack of intimacy wasn’t my fault, like he said it was. I wasn’t boring, I just wasn’t a teenager who wanted to do all that disgusting stuff that happens on porn sites. I wasn’t too much this or not enough that. He compared me to the erotic, fantasy women created by porn conglomerates, and I came up short.

How liberating to know I was not to blame for his lack of interest, not only in sex, but in me as a whole person. How revolting to know this was going on at all and had affected my whole life. Not just my life, but also the lives of my children, and the lives of our friends and family who were devastated when they heard we were getting a divorce. I don’t think anyone has yet recovered.

Following is more fodder to ponder, if questioning your marital relations.

If your spouse spends most of his free time tied to the computer viewing pornography, fantasizing and masturbating (read: lots of different partners), his feelings for you will decline to nothing. How can a wife compete with what is going on in his head? Pornography satisfies all five pleasure points in the brain. Inordinate amounts of the chemical dopamine are released causing what is known as a type of chemical brain damage. This is more damage than is done by heroin, alcoholism or smoking addictions.

Why am I telling you this? Because I was a victim of pornography addiction and its decline to sexual dysfunction. I want you to know all you can so your world will make sense to you and you can do something about it.

Check out:

·        http://yourbrainonporn.com/erectile-dysfunction-and-porn

·        http://blogs.psychcentral.com/sex/2012/05/abusing-porn/

·        http://www.issm.info/education-for-all/sexual-health-qa/what-are-some-effects-of-sustained-pornography-use

*A real pornography addiction doesn’t just mean viewing porn often. It means one is caught up in the fantasy and can’t live without it. One gets mean when not viewing it. Advanced masturbation has ruined any chance for an emotional and intimate relationship. One has unrealistic expectations with a real human, and prefers porn sex/masturbation to real sex.

**Advanced masturbation is when one prefers the friction caused by using a hand, or by having oral sex, and now can’t be stimulated by vaginal sex.

***Escalation means the viewer of porn needs more and more visual stimulation, rougher and more aggressive scenes and acts in order to be satisfied sexually. Unfortunately, escalation can lead to viewing child pornography, child molestation, and rape.

****I’m not saying all men don’t need an ED drug. Some men do have physical ailments that require its usage. ED is happening more and more to young men, and even teenagers, who are addicted to pornography and cannot maintain or have an erection while being intimate with their spouses/partners.

I Found "Courage"

I love this Willow Tree angel. Its name is "Courage." It's new and I found it at exactly the time I needed it. I whined about my lawyer/deadbeat husband woes in a previous post. I saw a counselor, talked to my friends, blah, blah, blah, then went to my favorite gift store and this little angel signaled to me to hang in there. Serendipity! She is now displayed on my mantle. I also got a figurine called "Happiness." I'll display that one when I hear from my lawyer that my ex finally agreed to do everything he agreed to do three years ago.

If anyone else out there is going through deadbeat husband woes, I feel ya'. I have found prayer works wonders. Shedding the burden and giving it to the Lord makes me feel light again.

I heard an awesome quote today by Jeffrey R. Holland: "Hope is never lost." When you think about it, it makes so much sense. I will never ever think again that I've lost all hope. That's just silly.

Excerpt From My Memoir--Finding the Porn

Spoiler alert--adult content

March 4, 2010

I can’t believe this is happening to me! As if my life couldn’t get any worse . . .

 

With Jerry* out of town on his "mini-vacation," I couldn’t sleep. Thinking he may have taken the money out of our checking account, I got up and searched around in his desk for the check book and couldn’t find it. He moves things around all the time and doesn’t tell me, like it’s none of my business. I was afraid maybe he took it with him. I already felt abandoned.

I looked in all his drawers and couldn’t find it anywhere, so I started looking in the same places all over again. My head was reeling. My thoughts traveled a mile a minute through the past and into the future and back to the present.

His top desk drawer is deep, so I pulled it all the way out and saw some CDs, which distracted me. I wondered if one was the CD I gave him of his family history. I thought I should make copies for the kids.

A DVD in the pile jumped out at me like a poisonous snake. I recoiled as I saw the cover. Pornography.

I let out a short, startled scream, then remembered Leah down the hall in bed. I started breathing so fast I thought I was going to pass out. My heartbeat was deafening.

I looked at the cover for a second and had to look away. It was disgusting. Lewd. I didn’t want to touch it. I can barely write about it.

I took it downstairs to my computer and put it in the DVD drive. The images that popped out at me on the screen made me want to throw-up right there on the spot. I mean, projectile vomit! I couldn’t watch more than two seconds of each segment. I kept hitting the forward button.

Ew. Forward. Ew. Forward. Ew. Forward. There must have been at least a dozen segments. I have no idea how long they are. I kept hitting “forward.” How does one wash out one’s mind with soap?

I am officially humiliated, disgraced,  mortified. Those young women on that DVD didn’t even look as old as his daughters. My lip went up in a snarl and I really hated that man at that minute. If Leah wasn’t asleep in her room, directly above my computer, I would have screamed at the top of my lungs!

And to think I’ve been blaming myself all these years for him not wanting to have sex with me. He would rather sit and watch those girls while – . I mean, I was there, every night, lying next to him in bed, but he would rather – Ew!

* Names are changed