At Healing Anniversaries… Does this happen to anyone?

I don't know if you have already tried this already but counselling maybe the way for you to heal. Couples counselling would be beneficial for both of you if you feel it hasn't progressed the way you feel it should. I don't know your situation but it sounds as if you haven't healed. I am only starting this journey myself but we are starting counselling this week and hoping that it helps us resolve all issues rather than just his addiction. I am looking forward to individual sessions at first so I can gather strength before counselling together; he has already started this process. SO's are usually described as experiencing PTSD symptoms and I know that I am experiencing some of that even on good days. This addiction seems to affect all aspects of our relationships. It would help to get it off your chest at the very least.

 

This absolutely has happened to me. On June 10th my hubby and I (he's Garnadaan here on NoFap) celebrated our 1-year "PMOversary" (as I call it). As proud as I am of my husband for reaching this significant milestone we still have a long way to go in certain aspects of recovery (namely, continuing to maintain open and honest communication and re-establishing trust). We've been doing better and better but at time it feels, to an extent, like "one step forward, two steps back."....whether that's actually the case or it's just my brain perceiving things as such who knows. I'm going through cancer treatment right now so the frenzy to address everything isn't there (I save any frenzy/anxiety/etc. for treatment or else I'd go insane) but when negative feelings rise I focus on how far we've come and on the fact that we're heading in the right direction - forward. That's not the easiest for me to do but I try my damnedest.

{{{HUGS}}} to you, @lfromcr

 

I wouldn't say it was around an anniversary but I definitely had a lot of 'wobbles' as our marriage counsellor called them! The most important thing for me was being able to sit down with my husband and actually say 'I'm having a wobble'. We'd talk about what was going on for me and often I'd realise that I was 'wobbling' because we might have stopped spending as much time together or because he'd been staying up late to do work when I went to bed. It really helped knowing that I could just be totally honest with him without worrying about how crazy I might sound and that he'd get it and support me.

I work with a lot of women like us (I'm a relationship coach who specializes in this area) and I know that they all have their 'wobbles' too. It's a long and gruelling healing process and there will always be bumps in the road.

It might be seasonal but is there anything else going on at these times that might be a common link? The damage porn does leaves definite wounds on the partners so it sometimes doesn't take much to reopen them up and leave us feeling a little 'off'!

Good luck with it though - you seem to already be quite good at thinking through what might be going on underneath your own wobbles so I'm sure you will be able to get to the root of things.

K