Readers' Letters: He Wants To Watch the Cheerleaders on the NFL and I'm Furious!

Here's an e-mail that just came in which I'll share because I know it's a big day for POSAs to get triggered.

Dear Lili:

My husband and I have been fighting all day already and now he's stormed out of the house on his way to the local sports bar to watch the Super Bowl.
Reason for fight: I asked him if he will be fast-forwarding over the cheerleading part of the big event and he became furious, claiming it's not at all something he considers a trigger for his acting out. He's saying that since his "thing" was porn, seeing NFL cheerleaders is so far removed from porn that it's ridiculous, and clear to him I need to get a hold of myself!
On top of that, he's saying I ruined all the potential for his fun evening of sports and that I'm in need of a good therapist to help me with what he calls my anxiety.

Please advise me!
Cindy

Dear Cindy--

That does sound like a misery-provoking situation you find yourself in. I understand....I know how you feel. I was working out at the gym this week when all the news stopped on the overhead super-sized monitors there to broadcast that a cheerleader was suing the NFL for underpaying her. Accompanying the story was video footage of her during practices, wearing what appeared to be a bikini. Do I even need to mention that I noticed quite a few guys standing near me stopped lifting weights to move in closer to the TV screens?

Alas, it does seem to be yet one more quaint theme of a bygone era when cheerleaders wore tops that actually covered them in winter, (February qualifies as winter) that their cheering routines could be described as energetically athletic more than stripper-meets-cheerleader moves, and that cameramen didn't shoot them with closeups of their private parts that could just as easily reveal their secret wish to be pornographers instead of sports photographers. I'm talking about camera lenses continually zooming in on barely covered posteriors shaking and breasts bouncing up and down under their tiny outfits. I wonder if I'm the only one who finds it offensive? Last year one of my private clients called me right after the SuperBowl, triggered as hell from the halftime show featuring Beyonce and her dancers, to say, "I fully realize that Beyonce had a baby this year. But did we all need to see where it came from?"

Seems that nowadays we POSAs can't even watch regular TV without being triggered every few minutes, whether by lasciviously-photographed ads and shows, or sexually suggestive dialogue the FCC would have banned only a few short years ago.

So, my dear Cindy-- you're sitting there in a state of infuriated abandonment. I get it. Cheerleaders in tiny outfits + continually hurt partners of porn/sex addicts do not = home happiness!

You don't say whether he is in active recovery, but it sure seems questionable if he's allowing himself eye-candy "hits" while hiding behind the fact that it's on mainstream TV. Solid recovery would call for him to be diverting his eyes, leaving the room for a drink refill, whatever..anything but being glued to the close-up shot! I can't help but wonder how watching beautiful young women dancing in barely-there outfits helps his recovery. I mean, really?

The fact that he's still not considering your feelings is indeed troubling and I get why you're furious. The mainstreaming of sexualized media has become so commonplace now that sex addicts still often enlist the loud (read: booming) voice of The Industry to allow themselves dips into the eye-candy pool.

They'll qualify it by minimization or rationalization: "It's no biggie-- it's on Channel 5! That's what millions of Americans are watching! You think they're all gonna look the other way when the girls come out?"

This reminds me of the onslaught of e-mails I received from POSAs angry their partners were watching the explicit Miley Cyrus music videos in which she was naked, qualifying the ok-ness of it just because "it was in the news!"

That doesn't mean that you as a partner have to go along with it. My Dad used to ask me, "If millions of people decided to jump off the Brooklyn bridge, would you just follow along or would you stop and think about whether that was a smart thing to do first?"

God, I wish there were more people who could think for themselves instead of following herd-mentality. But follow they do, and none more than sex addicts who want to get away with "Candy-Lite", who want to exploit the fact that they and only they get to decide what's allowed in their so-called sobriety!

Your husband threw in a dollop of guilt, just to top things off. Lovely. As in, "You even ruin my chances for some light, innocent fun!"

Don't take the bait, Cindy. That's him being manipulative, using guilt to try and put you in your place.
My mantra for times like those was, "In one and out the other...." I even made up a song to sing those words along to quietly whenever my SAC (sex addict/compulsive) would try to layer on guilt trips.

While you can't control what your husband does, you do have influence over what goes on in your home and what feels right for you or not. You get a say in what kind of environment you live in and if he doesn't like it, he can leave. Which he did. Fine. Can you find some small satisfaction in knowing you now have your environment back to yourself minus the display of triggers in your own living room?

I realize that you are still stressed that he's going to get an eye-full watching the half-time show. That's understandable but the biggest pitfall we often step into as POSAs is thinking that we need to control the addict. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. Fails every time. I realize we do this in an effort to get the pain to stop, the pain they keep visiting on us when they insist on Candy-Lite (and not-so-Lite).

But here's what we can do: We get to control our own safety zones and if those are constantly ruptured, then we need to take action to get away from the source of the danger: the addict.

I don't allow sexually-explicit media in my home and any visitor who cares to challenge me on it can go eat dinner elsewhere and miss my world-class cooking. My safety now comes first.

In the past, I'd actually question my boundary needs all the time, so desperate was I to hold onto the relationship with the addict that I'd rather be mad at myself than him! That's craziness at work and it finally got to where I realized that one of us was going down with the ship, and it was not going to be me.

I've had enough de-sanctification of my environment to last ten long lifetimes, so I'm at minus-zero-tolerance now. My home is where I should be able to feel safest and most relaxed. And so should you!

Do you have a good counselor well-versed in helping you hold onto your boundaries in the face of your husband's minimizing? Have you created a clear list for yourself of everything you need to stay safe, to protect yourself both internally and externally? We've all tolerated far too many violations on that front, so it's time to hold fast to what you need to feel centered and serene in your own home.

Keep firm on what you need in order for your home environment to feel right for you. Keep firm on what the conditions are for your re-engagement in a marriage that sounds like it's been severely compromised due to his sexual addiction. What do you need to feel he's safe enough to re-invest in?

I encourage you to keep focused on your own well-being which is a challenge in and itself when you're partnered with an addict, with someone who still isn't doing all he can to repair the marriage he broke.

My guess is that if hubby doesn't start paying attention to how his activities are pushing you further and further away from the rebuilding of trust that's on him to demonstrate, then you're not going to hang around. I would hope not, anyway. Self-respect can't be maintained when our partners continue to disrespect us after we've informed them what hurts us.