Love in the Time of Addiction

Another Good Read

2010-06-09T12:44:00.000-07:00

I'm still pretty busy getting everything in order for my move at the end of the month, so I haven't had much time for blogging. But I wanted to check in and share an article that a reader who is going through her own porn addiction-related divorce recently sent me. It's a 2008 opinion piece from The Atlantic titled "Is Pornography Adultery?" by Russ Douthat and it's, hands down, the best article I've read about why watching porn--especially Internet porn--not only feels like infidelity, but is infidelity. It also addresses the "all guys do it" argument in a particularly brilliant way. I recommend reading the article in its entirety, but here are some highlights:

Over the past three decades, the VCR, on-demand cable service, and the Internet have completely overhauled the ways in which people interact with porn. Innovation has piled on innovation, making modern pornography a more immediate, visceral, and personalized experience. Nothing in the long history of erotica compares with the way millions of Americans experience porn today, and our moral intuitions are struggling to catch up.

Start with the near-universal assumption that what [Elliot] Spitzer did in his hotel room constituted adultery, and then ponder whether Silda Spitzer would have had cause to feel betrayed if the FBI probe had revealed that her husband had paid merely to watch a prostitute perform sexual acts while he folded himself into a hotel armchair to masturbate. My suspicion is that an awful lot of people would say yes—not because there isn’t some distinction between the two acts, but because the distinction isn’t morally significant enough to prevent both from belonging to the zone, broadly defined, of cheating on your wife. You can see where I’m going with this. If it’s cheating on your wife to watch while another woman performs sexually in front of you, then why isn’t it cheating to watch while the same sort of spectacle unfolds on your laptop or TV.

The whole point of a centerfold is her unattainability, but with hard-core porn, it’s precisely the reverse: the star isn’t just attainable, she’s already being attained, and the user gets to be in on the action. ...So yes, there’s an obvious line between leafing through a Playboy and pulling a Spitzer on your wife. But the line between Spitzer and the suburban husband who pays $29.95 a month to stream hard-core sex onto his laptop is considerably blurrier. The suburbanite with the hard-core porn hookup is masturbating to real sex, albeit at a DSL-enabled remove. He’s experiencing it in an intimate setting, rather than in a grind house alongside other huddled masturbators in raincoats, and in a form that’s customized to his tastes in a way that mass-market porn like Deep Throat and Debbie Does Dallas never was. There’s no emotional connection, true—but there presumably wasn’t one on Spitzer’s part, either.

When apologists for pornography aren’t making...appeals to cultural transgression and sexual imagination, they tend to fall back on the defense that it’s pointless to moralize about porn, because men are going to use it anyway. ...In the name of providing a low-risk alternative for males who would otherwise be tempted by “real” prostitutes and “real” affairs, we’re ultimately universalizing, in a milder but not all that much milder form, the sort of degradation and betrayal that only a minority of men have traditionally been involved in.

The Beginning of the End

2010-05-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

This is probably the longest I’ve gone without blogging. Two factors have kept me away this past month: A broken laptop, which I finally replaced yesterday, and being extremely busy with divorce and next-chapter-of-my-life stuff. I flew to New York to file the preliminary divorce paperwork (there will be one more trip to tie it all up), and I also traveled to the city to which I’ll be moving in a couple months to scope out living arrangements. But I’ll just talk about the divorce stuff, since I plan to keep the next-chapter stuff pretty vague to protect my anonymity. I will say, though, that I’m really excited (and, at the same time, a little anxious) about my move.

Filing the divorce paperwork wasn’t as difficult as I expected it would be, at least not while I was in New York. My mom tagged along for moral support, and that helped a lot. We took breaks from all the bureaucracy by peppering in some fun activities, like eating at some of my favorite restaurants and shopping at some of my favorite stores. The first day was a little rough--everything about New York seemed to remind me of Mark, but by the next day, it felt simply like home and I was able to remember the city as a place I also joyfully lived as a single person for a few years.

It’s been a little more difficult since I returned to the South. It’s like my grief emotions gave me a break long enough to get 'er done, and now they’re popping up from behind the sofa and shouting, “Surprise! We’re baaaack!” But it’s felt very healing to cry--after each sob session, it feels like I’ve purged some toxic shit and my spirit feels increasingly cleansed and a little bit lighter.

In the midst of this grieving, I also received a lesson in the “be careful what you wish for” department. Mark emailed me an apology letter, which is something I had really, really wanted. At first, I was stoked about it. Mark isn’t one of those addicts who says “I’m sorry” a million times, only to do the same stuff again--at least not when I lived with him. He would act slightly sheepish without apologizing, and then promise not to do it again (and, of course, do it again), or justify/rationalize the action and then claim he didn’t see any reason for not doing it again. So “I’m sorry” was sort of a first, and that blinded me temporarily. I wrote him back and thanked him for the apology, while wishing him well on this next part of his journey.

But then a few days passed, and his letter (and my response) kept nagging at me; something just didn’t feel right. I reread his email and saw that he didn’t take responsibility for his part. Instead, he took “our” inventory, and vaguely described the relationship’s unhealthy patterns without referencing his contribution and, specifically, his addiction. He also didn’t say anything about what he was doing to keep from repeating these patterns and hurting others (and himself) in the future. That’s when I realized that that sort of “apology” isn’t enough for me.

So I wrote him back and told him politely that though I still wish him well and have cultivated forgiveness on my own, I had thought it over a little more and I can’t accept an apology that doesn’t include any of the things I’ve been telling him I need for years. Just because the relationship is ending doesn’t mean that I still don’t need transparency and, most importantly, behavior that reflects recovery from him. Not surprisingly, he hasn’t responded. But I’ve been feeling much better after speaking my truth instead of doing the same old-same old and accepting crumbs in an effort to keep the peace and live wrapped in a warm, nubby blanket of denial. It feels better to end the relationship being true to myself than saying what he wants to hear in order to create the illusion of ending on a “good” note.

It Will Be For Me

2010-04-27T13:14:00.000-07:00

I think I’ve already confessed that Gossip Girl is one of my guilty pleasures. Or, actually, it’s a strangely non-guilty pleasure. It’s one of those TV shows I wouldn’t have been able to watch with Mark without having a codiexplosion. There’s all sorts of sex, lies, scandal, betrayal and scantily clad girls. But for some reason, I can tune in every week and totally enjoy it without feeling triggered. Maybe it’s because after all the scuzzy stuff, there’s often a healthy resolution to each episode, a little nugget of wisdom to chew on and digest.

Anyway, there was this great scene in last night’s episode concerning two of the main characters, Chuck and Blair. For the uninitiated, the story behind Chuck and Blair goes a little something like this: They’re two totally dysfunctional, codependent people. Each of them is constantly scheming and up in everyone else’s business. During the first season or so, it was obvious that they were into each other, but they kept playing these really stupid control games and neither would admit their feelings. But then finally, Chuck lets go and tells Blair he loves her. They date seriously for a while and seem to be pretty loving to each other, though part of their relationship is still based on playing with other people’s minds.

But then recently, a few episodes ago, Chuck betrays Blair by objectifying her in a really shitty way, and she breaks up with him. Since then, he’s been sleeping around with other women and making sure Blair finds out (Chuck displayed some serious sex-addict tendencies before dating Blair). Blair then decides to retaliate and finds some random guy at a party to kiss in front of Chuck. But, right before she’s about to do it, she stops. Chuck approaches her and basically calls her a loser for not being able to move on, even though, according to him, he’s clearly moved on. Which is when Blair delivers this speech:

I could have kissed [that guy]. But I suddenly realized that the way to get over you is not by hooking up with some random guy or pretending that we didn't happen. You and I loved each other. And then you broke my heart. I've been doing everything possible not to face that fact. I'm going to kiss somebody someday. And when I do, it will be for me.

Blair then goes home and makes the decision to properly grieve, which her maid/confidant had been encouraging her do every time Blair would come up with another revenge-fueled scheme in response to Chuck’s sleeping around. She takes the box of Chuck-related memorabilia she had initially told the maid to pack up and throw out, and allows herself to hold each item, feel the messy mixture of emotions, and surrender to the memories.

And that's why I love Gossip Girl. On the surface, it’s all about the usual TV conventions—rich, good-looking college kids and their high-society melodramas. But then it digs a little deeper, and goes where most TV shows—and many people—don’t dare to go. It’s so much easier to throw away that box and declare oneself moved on. But then you’ll never really know if what you’re doing—whether it’s a kiss or a major life decision—is for you or if your life is just one big reaction, one drawn-out act of revenge. The trouble is, as I've been learning through my own process of going through the contents of my box of grief, finding out if something's for me often takes a lot longer than just one episode to resolve.

It's Too Late To Fight

2010-04-22T17:51:00.000-07:00

I haven’t written about the details of ending contact with Mark because I’ve needed some time to process it. But, basically, here’s what went down: Everything went smoothly for a while. He cooperated as long as it took to give me the information I needed to fill out the divorce paperwork. However, he then offered more of his help—more than, in retrospect, was really needed for this to get done. I accepted this “help.” That’s when he began breaking boundaries. I called him on it, he corrected that behavior, but then he began undermining the process in more subtle ways: He asked numerous questions I had already answered and brought up issues we’d already gone over, all the while dragging out the paperwork process. I actually started re-answering and re-explaining, all the while feeling resentful that he was taking up my time with stuff we’d already covered and angry with myself for letting it happen. I started feeling crazy in that old, familiar way--feeling so unheard despite so much talk, and delusionally thinking that I'd be heard if I just talked some more. However, what was different from that old, familiar way was that I quickly recognized my feelings and the pattern, and I ended contact.

My emotions have gone through the usual rollercoaster twists and turns. I’m angry, I’m frustrated, I’m sad, and I’m incredibly relieved. I’m angry because it sucks that no matter how much time and space has been between us, we’re still in the same place. I’m frustrated because no matter how much work I’ve done on myself, it doesn’t mean shit when it comes to our interactions—it just means I’m much more calm and diplomatic, but much less willing to tolerate the craziness. The work I’ve done works, but not in the way I had initially thought (and hoped) it would when I started my own program. I’m sad because I love him, but there is absolutely no way I can be with him, even in small doses—it’s just too hard to keep my serenity, whereas I experience that serenity quite often when I’m on my own. And I’m relieved, because on so many levels I’m so glad to be ending the relationship, even though it hurts like lots of little paper cuts on my heart.

The visuals and the lyrics in the above video, “It Ends Tonight” by The All American Rejects, seem to capture that jumble of feelings--and the strange catharsis--that comes with the realization that this is indeed, and finally, The End. And then there’s the added bonus of an appearance by my boyfriend Tyson Ritter, who, in the past, has reminded me that I still have a pulse, even when my sexuality felt like it had been hit by a truck and run through a meat grinder. Enjoy!

Your subtleties
They strangle me
I can't explain myself at all.
And all the wants
And all the needs
All I don't want to need at all.

The walls start breathing
My mind's unweaving
Maybe it's best you leave me alone.
A weight is lifted
On this evening
I give the final blow.

When darkness turns to light,
It ends tonight
It ends tonight.

A falling star
Least I fall alone.
I can't explain what you can't explain.
You're finding things that you didn't know
I look at you with such disdain

The walls start breathing
My mind's unweaving
Maybe it's best you leave me alone.
A weight is lifted
On this evening
I give the final blow.

When darkness turns to light
It ends tonight,
It ends tonight.
Just a little insight won't make this right
It's too late to fight
It ends tonight,
It ends tonight.

Now I'm on my own side
It's better than being on your side
It's my fault when you're blind
It's better that I see it through your eyes

All these thoughts locked inside
Now you're the first to know

When darkness turns to light
It ends tonight,
It ends tonight.
Just a little insight won't make this right
It's too late to fight
It ends tonight,
It ends

When darkness turns to light
It ends tonight,
It ends tonight.
Just a little insight won't make this right
It's too late to fight
It ends tonight,
It ends tonight.

Tonight
Insight
When darkness turns to light,
It ends tonight.

You Believe and You Doubt

2010-04-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

I heard this song, “One Step at a Time” by the lovely Jordin Sparks, in a store the other day and it caught my attention as perfect blog mix fodder. It’s the kind of song my old self would have loathed and deemed totally cheesy, but lately whenever I hear an inspirational song, I’m like, Oh, yeah, that’s my groove. Anyway, lyrics are below, and enjoy the video. I do, vow, however, to never subject any of you—or myself—to R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly.” There will be limits to my Inspirational Tunes library.

Hurry up and wait
So close, but so far away
Everything that you've always dreamed of
Close enough for you to taste
But you just can't touch

You wanna show the world, but no one knows your name yet
Wonder when and where and how you're gonna make it
You know you can if you get the chance
In your face as the door keeps slamming
Now you're feeling more and more frustrated
And you're getting all kind of impatient waiting

We live and we learn to take
One step at a time
There's no need to rush
It's like learning to fly
Or falling in love

It's gonna happen and it's
Supposed to happen and we
Find the reasons why
One step at a time

You believe and you doubt
You're confused, you got it all figured out
Everything that you always wished for
Could be yours, should be yours, would be yours
If they only knew

You wanna show the world, but no one knows your name yet
Wonder when and where and how you're gonna make it
You know you can if you get the chance
In your face as the door keeps slamming

Now you're feeling more and more frustrated
and you're getting all kind of impatient waiting

When you can't wait any longer
But there's no end in sight
when you need to find the strength
It's your faith that makes you stronger
The only way you get there
Is one step at a time

Push-Pull

2010-04-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

The past couple weeks have been rough. On the bright side, almost all the major pieces of the “job plan” have come together, and it looks like I’ll be (finally!) leaving my parents’ house in the next couple months for a new life in another city. On the murkier side, the part of the divorce process that involves communication with Mark is now over, and all that’s left to do is get to New York and file the papers. Meanwhile, our wedding anniversary popped up right in the middle of this ending-communication process, and my anniversary grief was even greater than last year’s. I had a few days where I cried on and off, and then the night before the dreaded day, I broke down and sobbed from the pit of my soul for what seemed like hours. With the sobbing came a deep, resigned recognition that I’m done with this relationship, even though a part of me wishes so badly that I didn’t have to be. What I’ve known for a while now just sort of sunk in on another level. The anniversary day itself, however, wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be—I felt hollowed out from the previous night’s crying in a strangely peaceful way.

But it’s not necessarily the grieving itself that’s made this period so difficult. It’s the push-pull of “move forward” and “stop to feel the feelings.” In this past year of relative quiet and moderate activity, I’ve been able to give my grief the time and attention it deserves. However, with so many exciting pieces of my new life becoming a reality and having a lot more to keep me busy than I’ve been used to for a while, there are times when it still feels almost unnatural to not be grieving as much, even though I’m aware that my increased desire to move forward signals that I’m ready to let go of some of the grief. Or, I get used to the joyful, energetic, even-keeled feelings for a long time (much longer than these feelings have lasted in more than a year), only to be confused and thrown off balance when I’m rocked by another grief quake. I’m having to experiment a lot more to find new combinations of self care in order to be authentic in both this more potent, forward-propelling energy and in the stop-and-get-quiet grief that’s still there. But right now, it still feels really awkward.

Busting Out the Map

2010-03-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but I seriously love Melody Beattie’s The Language of Letting Go, a book of daily meditations for recovering codependents. It’s kind of like a roadmap I bust out whenever I’m a little lost and not quite sure where I am in my process. I flip through the index, search for a topic that seems to resonate, and, sure enough, the first or second reading on that topic will usually provide the words, the language, to describe my feelings and what I’m going through. It’s sort of like how when I go to a meeting, the topic and the shares always seem to provide me with the answer to some pestering question.

A lot of good stuff has been happening in my life lately. I’m consistently getting more and more pieces of the “job plan” filled in (I just got more good news today). My divorce is going smoothly—Mark and I have been in semi-regular contact for the past few months without any boundary or communication breakdowns. I’ve also been feeling myself emerging from my grief. I’ve been feeling much more lighthearted and spontaneous, and I’ve been partaking in more activities and just generally engaging with life in a way I haven’t felt safe doing in a long time. But, at the same time, I’ve been experiencing these pangs of fear once in a while—a type of fear I didn’t feel even at rock bottom. At first, I could only identify this fear as pain, and, not being able to see it clearly, I felt the need to step away from it until I had a little more information. But then I read what good ol’ Melody had to say, and she helped fill in the details :

Letting the Good Stuff Happen

…The good stuff can scare us. Change, even good change, can be frightening. In some ways, good changes can be more frightening than the hard times.

The past, particularly before recovery, may have become comfortably familiar. We knew what to expect in our relationships. They were predictable. They were repeats of the same pattern—the same behaviors, the same pain, over and over again. They may not have been what we wanted, but we knew what was going to happen.

This is not so when we change patterns and begin recovering. We may have been fairly good at predicting events in most areas of our life. Relationships would be painful. We’d be deprived. Each year would be almost a repeat of the last. Sometimes it got a little worse, sometimes a little better, but the change wasn’t drastic. Not until the moment we began recovery.

…Things get good. They do get better all the time. We begin to become successful in love, in work, in life. One day at a time, the good stuff begins to happen and the misery dissipates. We no longer want to be a victim of life. We’ve learned to avoid unnecessary crisis and trauma.

Life gets good.

“How do I handle the good stuff?” asked one woman. “It’s harder and more foreign than the pain and tragedy.”

“The same way we handled the difficult and the painful experiences,” I replied. “One day at a time.”

Buddying Up: An Adventure in Partner Yoga

2010-03-26T11:48:00.000-07:00

My mom and I missed our regular yoga class on our regular day this week, so we decided to go to a different class last night. We both have been feeling like our practices have been a little stagnant lately, so we were looking forward to a new experience. Last night’s class started off in the typical way—meditation, some sun salutations—and then the teacher seemed to realize that all of us were there with a buddy. There were two couples, a few pairs of friends, and my mom and me, so she asked us if we’d like to use the class to practice partner yoga. I’ve been in classes where we’ve dabbled in partner yoga during a handful of poses, but I had never been in a class that was wholly dedicated to it, so I put in my vote for partner yoga. Fortunately, everyone else did, too.

It turned out to be an amazing class. Solo yoga has been such a great companion to my recovery, in the sense that it teaches me to focus on myself and feel my feelings without judgment and then take what I work through within myself to my relationships. But this partner yoga session helped me see my relationship with myself and how it extends to other people, and in many ways specifically to my relationship with my mom, in a somewhat more obvious way.

We did a ton of poses, but a few really stand out to me in hindsight. During double tree pose (above) and a few other balance postures, I noticed that whenever one of us started to wobble, my first instinct was to grasp my mom tighter. But if I just focused on my breathing and set my eyes on a point in the distance, I’d then feel my grip loosen to the point that my hand was simply resting on my mom’s shoulder. Her grip would also slowly loosen and we’d begin breathing in unison, until we stood completely still without wobbling. Another thing I observed was that whenever our teacher made a correction to one person’s alignment, we’d begin to teeter until we almost fell, and then the other person who she hadn’t touched would automatically find the correct alignment to complement the other person’s. The balance poses showed such tangible evidence of what happens when we let go, focus on ourselves, and how the other person either follows suit or the relationship topples.

Another interesting pose was a heart opener (above) in which one person assumes child’s pose while the other person lies across their back in a partial backbend. My mom did the child’s pose first, and when it came time to switch, she gave me some advice: “Don’t resist. At first you feel like you’re going to suffocate, but if you let go, it creates a lot of space.” And it was true—being that enveloped by someone else felt claustrophobic in the first few seconds, but once I surrendered to it, I felt my spine lengthen and grow, and my breathing noticeably deepened. It gave me a wonderful stretch, and I felt rejuvenated and realigned when I came out of it.

The final pose that stuck out to me was a variation of the child’s pose/heart opener (unfortunately, I couldn’t find a photo that illustrates this one). The only difference was that the person on the bottom was in tabletop (on hands and knees). This time, I was the first to assume the supportive position (tabletop). My mom began to stretch out on top of me, but it didn’t feel like we were totally aligned, so I explained how she could adjust to make it more comfortable for me (“Talk to each other,” our teacher kept saying. “Tell the other person what you need).

Well, my mom started experiencing a lot of fear, and quickly got off my back. “I’m too heavy for her,” she told the teacher. “I’m going to hurt her.” (My mom is taller and has a larger frame than I do.) “No you’re not,” the teacher and I both said at once. And then the teacher went on to explain, “The spine is incredibly strong—your daughter can support you.” This was an interesting scenario, because one of the things that drives my siblings and me crazy about our mother is that she very rarely asks for help or allows us to support her. Anyway, she eventually agreed to try again and, once we were comfortably aligned, I felt her relax and I experienced the strength and resilience of my spine—it felt incredible to confidently support my mother, to do the work while she let go.

My mom and I left the class giddy about how much we had learned about ourselves and our relationship, and excited about how, by supporting each other, we had even managed to reach some of our previously unattained physical goals. And, even though my mom’s and my relationship is fairly healthy—not perfect, but not completely dysfunctional—it felt like we had reached a new level of trust and closeness. I also left thinking about how, though partner yoga can be therapeutic for any relationship (I’ve walked away with amazing insights even when I’ve done poses with complete strangers in other classes), it could be especially helpful in addictive relationships in which trust and intimacy are seriously lacking.

Lifting the Veil

2010-03-23T15:07:00.000-07:00

I had a strange dream last night, a dream about Mark. I’ve had many dreams about my husband both while in the relationship and during our separation, but this dream was very different from all the other dreams I’ve had. In my other dreams, I’ve always felt the overwhelming sense of anxiety and unease I constantly felt while in his real-life presence, even before I was aware of his sex addiction. But in the dream I had last night, I felt a deep sense of serenity.

It wasn’t that he was recovering in my dream. In fact, he was still doing and saying things that were hallmarks of his active addiction. But, for some reason, I was able to sort of consciously let them go and just focus on the things I liked about him and about the day and about our surroundings. We were laughing a lot and being affectionate in non-sexual ways--I felt an affinity and a friendship for him that also might be described as forgiveness. And I woke up feeling a very simple sort of joy with nothing nagging underneath.

A few folks compared divorce to death in the comments on my last post, and I’ve been really seeing lately just how similar the two are, in terms of grieving. When dealing with a death, most people will go through periods of anger and blame—blaming the person who died (“If he had just taken better care of himself”), hating the doctors (“If they had just tried that new treatment”), being angry at themselves (“I shouldn’t have let her get in the car”) and shaking their fists at God ("Why didn't you save him?") in much the same way that I’ve blamed my husband for not recovering, hated the therapists who didn’t do enough to fix us, and been angry with myself and God over not having had the power (or in God's case, not using the power) to somehow force an outcome different than the death of our marriage.

But just like many bereaved eventually come to accept that it was simply their loved one’s time to die (no matter how trite that may sound at so many points throughout the process) and there was nothing anyone could have done differently to change that, I feel like I’m coming to accept that it’s simply time for Mark and I to part ways. And just like death doesn’t negate a life, our divorce doesn’t mean there wasn’t a purpose to our being together for the short time that we were, or that we didn’t love each other, or that we weren't both good people with good intentions, despite the unfortunate outcome.

I’m running out of anger and blame and even, slowly, that aching sadness that seemed like it had taken up permanent residence right behind my heart. I’m happy that I’m beginning to really see the good things about our relationship without the thick, scratchy veil of grief (and its inherent resentment). I regret that I wasn’t able to see them this clearly until the relationship ended, or that the relationship ending allowed me to see them much more clearly. But that remaining ember of sadness is worth the peace of gradually moving into acceptance.

*Above painting "Crea" by Jennifer S. Lange.

Emotional Mini Breaks

2010-03-17T19:12:00.000-07:00

I had a really great trip. I’ve been feeling pretty raw and on edge while dealing with my divorce, and this vacation provided the relaxation and distraction that I so desperately needed. I didn’t do anything too exotic—just enjoyed my friends’ company and ate good food and went on fun little excursions. By the second day, I was able to let go of many of my babbling thoughts and nagging emotions in favor of staying in the moment. I slept better than I have in a couple months, and I really felt my friends’ love and support.

I came back to a nice surprise: some seriously awesome news about the “job plan” thing I’ve got going. I was sort of dreading my return to real life and all its frustrations, so I was really grateful for this new sign of forward movement. At this point, though, it’s still just a small piece of the puzzle and doesn’t tell me much about the big picture. But it is an honor and it seems to reinforce that I’m on the right path. Some of my family members, however, aren’t being quite as realistic and have gotten carried away with talking about it as though it’s a done deal. I keep trying to detach, though, and stop myself from being carried away on their wild river of great expectations.

Now that I’m back to my routine, I’m focusing on more job stuff and on getting this divorce wrapped up. This divorce is really, really hard, though—it’s proving to be the most difficult part of this process (shocking, right?), even though I feel prepared for it in a way I wouldn’t have been a year ago. It hurts to interact with Mark again, not because we’re being ugly to each other, but because we’re not. It hurts knowing and seeing that we continue to care about each other, but also knowing that this is the right decision. I keep needing to take breaks from it—not just vacations like the one I was just on, but emotional mini breaks, like vegging out in front of the TV some nights or getting lost in a book. I can only touch the pain directly for so long before it starts to blister. I’ve been going to a lot of meetings lately, however, and using all my other recovery tools, so I think these little emotional breaks are still in the healthy range.

And, weirdly, at the same time that I'm hurting, I'm also feeling really excited about the next chapter of my life as more of the details begin taking shape.

On the Road Again

2010-03-07T14:39:00.000-08:00

I’m taking a little vacation this week—I’m hittin' the road and going to visit some friends for some much needed R&R. I’ve got all sorts of decisions hanging in the balance right now, and I don’t have enough information to make my next big move, so taking a vacation is my favorite self-care ritual for when there’s nothing left to do except to let go. Otherwise I’d just sit around and drive myself crazy with all the “what ifs.” I also have been finding in this process that a well-timed vacation typically recharges my batteries and prepares me to make the next big move--I always come back with tons of clarity and serenity.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week, and I'm looking forward to blogging when I return!

Just A Few Little Pokes

2010-02-22T21:29:00.000-08:00

As I begin wrapping up this part of my life, this story that I believe is still appropriate to call “Love in the Time of Addiction” (though I would maybe now borrow the undiluted names of other works—A Grief Observed or even Should I Stay or Should I Go?—for the subtitle), I find myself looking for gaps left in the narrative, those unanswered questions that still niggle.

Often, the gaping hole in the middle of this story seems to not just be just the lack of an apology from Mark, but also the absence of any formal, full disclosure. Though my gut has told me since discovery that there’s more to this tale of sex addiction, the only evidence I can offer to anyone else is “just porn.” And for a long time, that’s nagged at me. For a long time, that’s part of why I stayed—even after I decided to go. Throughout this period of grief, one question kept reeling though my mind in an endless loop: Should I and could I really end a relationship with a man I deeply love over “just porn”?

I recently found some form of an answer while reading Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna, a novel about the gaping hole in someone else’s story. In it, the narrator, a Mexican boy, (fictitiously) becomes housekeeper and confidant to the famous artist Frida Kahlo. He describes coming across one of Frida’s more disturbing paintings (above), which Americans refer to as A Few Small Nips, but that the boy translates from the Spanish into “A Few Little Pokes”:

The bloody portrait of the stabbed girl is called A Few Little Pokes. She [Frida] painted it after a man in the Zona Rosa stabbed his girlfriend twenty-six times, and, when the police came and found her dead, the boyfriend said, “What’s the problem? I only gave her a few little pokes.” The story was in all the newspapers. Senora [Frida] said, “Insolito, you’d be amazed what people will buy.”

Did she mean the painting, or the man’s story?

It’s important to note a little bit about Frida’s personal life. She was married to renowned muralist Diego Rivera, a notorious philanderer who she caught sleeping with her sister, as well as half of Mexico’s female population. The couple’s fighting was as notorious as Diego’s philandering—they were the Sid and Nancy of the Mexican art scene. After several years of this insanity, Frida and Diego divorced, only to remarry (each other) not long after. Their second marriage was as turbulent and fraught with infidelity as the first. A few days before her death in 1954, Frida, still dysfunctionally married to Diego, wrote in her journal, “I hope the exit is joyful—and I hope never to return.” It’s still uncertain whether her death was caused by a pulmonary embolism or a drug overdose that may or may not have been accidental.

Given Diego’s cheating and Frida’s passionate reaction to the news story about the stabbing (it even inspired a painting), it’s hard to miss the double entendre implied by the Mexican boy’s translation of the painting’s title into “A Few Little Pokes.” How many times had Diego given Frida the same excuse? How many times had she bought it? And did she know that buying it was eventually going to kill her?

Asking those niggling questions about Frida's story (as portrayed by Kingsolver) is how the gaping hole in my story finally started to close. Not because I finally found evidence of anything more than “Just a Few Little Pornos” but because, even if it really was just porn that comprised Mark’s acting out, I no longer buy the “just” part about it—I haven’t for a long time. Whether or not my husband, like the boyfriend in Frida's news article and like so many others in modern-day news articles about public sex scandals, is still asking, “What’s the problem?,” I—and everyone else who knows my story—can see me lying in the bed, hurt and bleeding. “Just porn” is a problem--for me, in this relationship, and for so many others in other relationships.

And maybe that’s what Frida wanted us to see in her painting—“Just A Few Little Pokes” can cause serious damage. The only important difference between my story and hers is not that she expressed herself through a famous work of art while I've got this little blog, not that one of us stayed and one of us left, and not that Diego had "pokes" while Mark had pornos, but that one of us stopped buying "What's the problem?" before it killed her.

"I'm Sorry"

2010-02-18T12:26:00.000-08:00

Well, after a bumpy start, Mark and I have begun cooperating on the divorce. He’s still in the thick of his family situation, but we seem to have agreed on a plan that will allow this to go as quickly and smoothly as possible. I’m seeing a stark difference in how we communicated with each other a year ago and how we’re communicating now. As hard as it is to admit this, through using my program tools now, I’m seeing how incredibly nasty and disrespectful I was to him in the past. I was in a different place at the time, being rocked and knocked about by the thunderstorm of emotions over his betrayal, so I’m trying not to beat myself up over a natural reaction to deep, legitimate hurt. But now that a lot of that sadness and anger has been processed, I feel like I’m at a place where I can interact with him in a much more sane, detached way. And he seems to be following suit by treating me respectfully.

In some ways, even though I’m relieved, it’s kind of sad. It’s sad that it’s only now, when we’re divorcing, that we can finally get along. But I would rather exit the relationship with the two of us making some living amends to each other and offering each other a degree of resolution than ending the relationship fighting and racking up even more resentments to work through. Still, this tiny crumb of resolution is hard for me, especially because it taps into some family of origin issues. I’ve never gotten a formal amends from my father and, though the living amends Mark is offering me through his cooperation is more than my father has ever given me, the lack of a real, substantial, meaty apology and resolution is kind of painful. I sometimes still resent having to be so fully responsible for my own healing, or, when I'm looking at it more rationally, I resent that I can heal but that some of my most important relationships can't, not right now and not to the degree I want them to. I realize, though, that it's all about managing my expectations and being mindful of what people are realistically capable of giving at any point in time. And, if I'm honest, I'm not ready to give anything besides a living amends to Mark or my father either.

However, something really strange but wonderful happened last night that did offer a greater degree of resolution in a roundabout sort of way. A total stranger who’s a sex addict found my blog and left a comment on a post I had written back when I was still living with Mark. In this post he came across, I describe in excruciating detail the depth of the pain I’m feeling. It’s really raw and so close up you can see the pores. It was hard even for me to read it again, so I can’t imagine it being easy for a stranger to read it and not turn away, wincing in a mixture of panic and horror over the seeming bottomlessness of it all. But this man read the entire thing, and then wrote this:

I'm a sex addict myself and my best friend whom I live with is the one who sent me this link... I'm sorry, I'm really sorry to all the people that I've hurt, but also I'm sorry to know that you are this situation. I've been trying to clean up my act, because I can see the things you mentioned...

Yet I'm so detached from any emotions...

I'm sorry...

When I read it, something in me broke loose and I just cried—sloppy, heaving, cleansing sobs. And when I was done, I felt like I could breathe just a little bit easier than I have for the past few years. It’s moments like these that make me believe in a Higher Power and allow me to readily see the connection between all human beings. I needed to hear “I’m sorry,” someone else needed to say it, and we, two complete strangers stumbling across each other in the blogosphere, both got some of what we needed.

Aftertaste

2010-02-13T13:01:00.000-08:00

Over the past year that Mark and I have been separated, I’ve been flooded with memories of our life together. Some of these memories are sweet, like our wedding or holidays we spent together, others are bitter and clearly related to his sex addiction, and still others are of moments that seemed rather bland at the time, like doing laundry together or buying weak coffee in those paper “I (Heart) NY” cups at the bodega on Sunday mornings. Lately, these memories have pricking my consciousness with less frequency, but yesterday, while I was vacuuming my apartment, I had a really bizarre memory that didn’t quite fit any of these categories.

Mark and I had both just come home from work, and we were hanging out on the couch, catching up like we usually did before we cooked dinner. He was telling me about how a conversation with some friends on the subway had somehow led to someone mentioning vagina dentata, literally meaning “teeth in the vagina,” a myth/term often used in psychoanalysis to illustrate men’s castration fears and avoidance of sex.

I had first heard the term in college—probably in Psych 101 or a Women’s Studies class—and it was one of those phrases, like “Oedipus Complex” or “oral fixation,” that I sort of assumed was a pop-culture buzz word everyone knew. But this was the first time Mark had ever heard it, and vagina dentata had obviously made a huge impression on him. “Margaux, how crazy and scary is that? I mean, teeth in someone’s vagina?!” he kept saying over and over, shaking his head in frightened wonder.

“Well, Mark, you know that women don’t really have teeth in their vaginas, right?” I explained gently (okay, maybe a bit condescendingly), as you would to an older child who continues to insist monsters are lurking under the bed. “It’s a myth meant to explain a fear—an irrational fear of female power and sex.” I gulped, feeling unspoken, harsher words form an undigestible knot in the pit of my stomach, while, oddly, simultaneously stifling a laugh.

“Yeah, I get it, but it’s just so scary to think of teeth being in someone’s vagina and having them bite off…arrrgh, I can’t even say it!” Mark said. He reached for his laptop and typed “vagina dentata” into Google, clicking on a link to an article that was accompanied by, of all things, a Photoshopped image of a woman with, well, teeth in her vagina. “Look at that! It’s freaky,” he yelped, quickly hitting the X in the top right corner of the page and snapping the laptop shut as though clamping a cast-iron lid over boiling water.

“This shit is going to give me nightmares,” he said, shaking off a shiver and scurrying into the kitchen to start dinner. I lingered on the couch, thinking about how this shit had been giving me nightmares, only for different reasons.

This exchange took place when I was already well aware of Mark’s sex addiction/sexual anorexia, so seeing the irony in this conversation isn’t a case of 20/20 hindsight. But as I remembered this yesterday while vacuuming my apartment, I chuckled at the recollection of Mark’s innocent, almost comical reaction to a silly Latin-termed concept and smiled at our ritual of after-work banter. I also shook my own head in wonder at the thought of just how literally a psychoanalytical “myth” can manifest in real life and swallow a psyche—and a marriage—whole. And then I sighed at the realization of how soul-sucking it had been psychoanalyzing the man I’ve slowly stopped sinking my teeth into.

It was an event (and, really, an entire relationship) with an aftertaste I can only describe as umami.

All Shall Be Well

2010-02-12T14:56:00.000-08:00

I’ve been a lot busier than usual over the past few weeks, so I haven’t had as much time to update here. But I missed you all out there in the blogosphere, and I’m glad I finally have some time to write. Last week, I went out of town for two job interviews. The first job interview seemed to go really well, and the second one was okay, though I realized not far into the interview that I wasn’t really interested in the job. The good-interview job isn’t my dream job either, but it’s in my field and it would work with the rest of the “job plan” I’ve been plotting the past few months, so I’ll take it if it’s offered. Unfortunately, I’m still waiting to hear whether I got it or not. It’s in an area that was hit hard by this week’s snowstorm and their offices have been closed all week.

The prospect of moving to this city and starting the next phase of my life there is bittersweet. I’m dying to finally get out of my mother’s house and end this frustrating stint of unemployment. But I miss New York something fierce—somehow my home of the last decade burrowed under my skin and flows through my veins, even though I love/hate it with a (slightly dysfunctional) passion similar to the (highly dysfunctional) passion I’ve felt for my husband. This new city, on the other hand, is like the clean-cut, sensible guy your mother wants you to marry. You know he’d be good for you—like eating your vegetables—but he leaves you feeling just a little unsatisfied. I also felt a dull ache of sadness while I was there, because I thought that if I ever ended up doing the sensible-city thing, it would be with Mark when we decided to move closer to our families, have kids and switch to a lower gear.

Speaking of Mark and him not being included in this next phase of my life, after giving him a month to deal with his family stuff, I contacted him about the information he needs to provide for the divorce and this time I’m pretty certain he’s choosing not to cooperate (I’m definitely not going to miss the wishy-washy, passive aggressive behavior). Which means this divorce might not be as quick, cheap and relatively peaceful as I had hoped it would be. After a year of separation limbo, I had assumed (shame on me) that we would both be eager to wrap this up. Given our circumstances, there’s absolutely no benefit to his dragging this out. Unless you count acting out his anger on me. Ugh. Clearly, I'm revisiting some old resentments and having a hard time mustering up compassion, which I'll have to work through. In the meantime, I’ve been asking my Higher Power for patience and clarity during this time of frustration and uncertainty. I’ve also taken the words of Julian of Norwich (pictured above in the funky napkin hat) as my latest mantra:

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

I Can't Coerce You Into This One

2010-01-29T15:53:00.000-08:00

I haven't had much time for blogging this week, but I realized it's been a while since I added to my ongoing (possibly never ending) "Codie/Addiction Mix," so here's a really beautiful, sweet-sounding song called "Unattainable" by Little Joy. Lyrics are below. Enjoy!

Unattainable

Only when the goal is unattainable
do I start to feel like I'm losing myself
and this deep secret
that hasn't come out yet
is buried down deep with the rest

Ican't coerce you into this one
Jealousy lay all your spells to bed
I'll choose unloved instead

If only songs were sung
to guide the doubtful ones
beyond the rough
where not as much is good enough
Oh, if you find yourself
amongst the lonely ones
I'll be waiting here with open arms

I can't coerce you into this one
Jealousy lay all your spells to bed
I'll choose unloved instead

Worth a Read

2010-01-17T20:59:00.000-08:00

Many of us in the sex-addiction recovery community--especially here in the blogosphere--have grown pretty accustomed to rolling our eyes at the way the mainstream media seems to treat sex addiction; the vast majority of journalists just don't seem to get it. Today, however, I came across this article by Natasha Walter in the London Times, which I thought was pretty darn brilliant. Titled "How Teenage Access to Pornography is Killing Intimacy in Sex," the article is an excerpt from Walter's book Living Dolls, out February 4th. In it, she interviews a porn addict named Jim, his ex-partner Ali, and Ellie, a sex worker. Here are some highlights:

Jim says: “I was unable to think of women except as potential pornography. I looked at them in a purely sexual way. I remember one day I was walking to school, I was about 15, and I got talking to a girl who must have been about 18. I immediately said I wanted to grope her breasts. I had no idea how to interact with women as people.”

Even though Jim began to have girlfriends from the age of 19, he never managed to shrug off the power of the fantasy world. “The power of pornography has continued throughout my adult life. Nothing has really measured up to the world of porn, for me. I’ve seen thousands of strangers having sex. So when I have sex, I am watching myself having sex.”

Ali says: “Pornography has made him only able to see sex one way. He has always seen sex as something that has to be performed, not felt.”

She would like to see a public debate about the effects of pornography. “Porn has been so normalised that anyone objecting to it now is just going to be laughed at. I think we need to hear again about how pornography threatens intimacy.”

“Once someone like Jim was unusual, now every boy has seen all of that. I know what it does to young minds, and now it is more and more prevalent. God knows how we can begin to challenge this. Once upon a time, kids could experiment, you know, privately, but now all the innocence is lost.”

Walter writes: For an increasing number of young people, pornography is no longer something that goes alongside sex but something that precedes sex. Before they have touched another person sexually or entered into any kind of sexual relationship, many children have seen hundreds of adult strangers having sex.

When I spoke to one teenager who is studying for his A-levels and quoted statistics to him that said that the majority of young teenagers have looked at pornography, he laughed.
“More like 100%,” he said. “It’s when you’re 13 and 14 that everyone starts looking and talking about it at school — before you’re having sex, you’re watching it.

Anyway, those are only a few of the observations that stuck out at me. The article is quite in-depth, and definitely worth a read.

Eyes Wide Shut

2010-01-14T21:41:00.000-08:00

I think I’ve mentioned my belief that when other people get what they need, I get what I need as well. I’ve been seeing lately what a blessing it is to wait another few weeks for Mark to get his family stuff in order before I consult him about the divorce paperwork. I was already kind of harried about all the stuff I have to do for the “job-related plan” I wrote about last month. The deadline for everything having to do with it is at the end of this month, and I’m really grateful to have the time to focus solely on that. It would have been difficult dividing my attention between it and all the highly emotional divorce stuff.

I have been noticing, though, that as the job plan has been winding down, I’ve been feeling a little bit of panic and restlessness. I think staying so busy has anesthetized me slightly, with my gaze fixed unflinchingly on the future while the present is a blurry halo in my peripheral vision. Not having all that going on in the midst of the divorce means I’m going to have to really feel and fully experience it, when what I (secretly) wanted was to squeeze my eyes shut, feel the prick of the needle, and open them only to discover it’s all over. At this point, though, I know that pain won’t kill me. Still, it’s amazing what we humans do to trick ourselves into avoiding it.

Life is Weird

2010-01-11T12:54:00.000-08:00

Life is weird. The way events unfold sometimes just makes my jaw drop. Mark is not refusing to cooperate with me. Instead, the reason I hadn’t heard from him for several days is because, the day before I contacted him about the divorce, a very serious tragedy befell his family. And only two weeks before that, something else tragic and serious happened with another family member. Needless to say, he’s got a lot going on right now. And without going into details, I’ll say that both of these difficult events have to do with addiction and mental illness and so many of Mark’s core family of origin issues. History is repeating itself in a particularly bizarre and insidious way.

With all this going on, I’ve decided to do what I can with the paperwork right now and delay the portions that require his input for a few weeks until he’s had a chance to get through the initial shock and grief of his family stuff. I wanted this divorce to happen as quickly as possible, but I feel that, given the circumstances, I’m going to have to allow a little extra time for Mark’s emotional needs.

I wouldn’t have been able to do that before. I either would have stuck relentlessly to my plan out of fear that I wouldn’t be able to take care of myself if I considered someone else’s needs, or I would have allowed for an indefinite amount of time because I was only considering someone else’s needs. I think that as I’ve become more comfortable with setting and understanding boundaries, however, I’m becoming increasingly aware that they’re more like a membrane than like a wall. With boundaries, I can maintain a soft heart while being flexible yet firm. With walls, everything— inside and outside—is rock hard out of fear of not being able to know what to let in and what to keep out.

Besides this situation showing me how I seem to becoming more adept at integrating boundaries into my life, I’m also feeling a lot of sadness over the fact that all this tragedy is happening to people who used to be a big part of my life, but, because Mark and I are divorcing, I can’t grieve alongside these folks that I care deeply about. I’m also sad that I can’t grieve with Mark. I know more than practically anyone else in his life why these events would cause him deep, searing pain, but it’s no longer healthy or appropriate for me to reach out to him in an emotionally intimate way. It’s allowing me to feel the reality of the divorce on yet another level.

"No" and "Should," and No to Should

2010-01-07T14:55:00.000-08:00

I made the decision to initiate Mark’s and my divorce. This week, I’ve begun preparing the paperwork, so that I can file when our separation officially “expires” next month. He’s chosen not to cooperate, which only reinforces that this is the right decision.

But even before dealing with his lack of cooperation, I felt certain that it’s the right decision. Sad, but certain. It’s still a little bit baffling to me that it’s taken this long to reach a decision and arrive at acceptance of this reality, and that the process has been so messy and confusing. But I’m glad that I allowed myself the time to work though all the conflicting thoughts, beliefs and emotions. I didn’t want to make the decision from a place of anger or impatience or all-consuming sadness, because I knew I would always wonder if I had done the right thing, or if there’s something else that could have been done. Leading up to and since contacting Mark, I’ve been feeling a sense of inner quiet and the decision feels consistent—I’m no longer waffling, questioning my Higher Power or feeling false hope. I’m sure I’ll continue to grieve—especially in the period leading up to filing, but I feel like I’ve reached a pretty sturdy level of acceptance.

I’m not going to go into an exhaustive description of the latest part of my process that led to this decision (maybe I’ll attempt to later, when I feel like I can better articulate it). But right now, I think it has a lot to do with gaining a new perspective on my parents’ divorce through some pretty intense therapy sessions, as well as, over the holidays, revisiting a lot of the emotions I had last year at this time when my marriage was spiraling out of control. I also think it has something to do with the new level of letting go that I’ve been experiencing in my relationship with my dad—I seem to finally be “getting it” on an emotional level that I can’t keep waiting for him (and, in turn, Mark) to change. And, of course, I’m sure attending more meetings and working my program helped as well.

Since you all know that divorce has posed a particularly difficult spiritual/moral dilemma for me, given the nature of my parents’ divorce and my religious upbringing, and since I'm having trouble finding the right words, I suppose the most succinct—yet not totally comprehensive—way to sum up that aspect of my decision is with this quote by Nelia Gardner White:

Some people just don’t seem to realize, when they’re moaning about not getting prayers answered, that no is the answer. Some spiritual and therapeutic schools of thought teach that if you learn to pray to God (or to ask another person) for what you need, you will necessarily get it. It just doesn’t work that way. Learning to know what we want and then to honestly ask for it is a monumental achievement. But so is learning to gracefully accept all that is given and taken away.

As well as this one by Elizabeth Lesser in The Seeker’s Guide:

Goals that do not arise from within can indeed spur us on and eventually even turn into our own cherished ideals, but usually they lead us astray. In the name of religion many have pursued goals that were not their own—impossible moral standards, self-punishing belief systems, all kinds of “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts.” Following goals that do not come from an inner passion can be a wounding experience.

I’m looking forward to a new year, a new chapter of my life, and an experience of living more fully in my truth.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-01-06T01:07:00.001-08:00

Well, not entirely wordless, since I'm going to supply a bit of an explanation and the image I chose contains, well...words. Cat used to do this thing called "Wordless Wednesday," where all she'd feature in her mid-week post was an image, and I've decided to borrow her idea this week. I came across the above piece, by feminist artist Barbara Kruger, several years ago when I was studying art, and then I recently saw it again in a book I received as a Christmas gift. Both times, it struck me as incredibly powerful in a way that goes beyond words.

What About Your Friends?

2009-12-22T11:54:00.000-08:00

I wasn’t planning to write here during the Holiday busyness, but some stuff has been cropping up in my social circle that I’m having a really hard time detaching from. The first issue concerns one of my close female friends, who for a long time I’ve suspected is a love addict. For years, she’s had an endless series of fucked up relationships, pretty much all of which involve her cheating and then immediately getting into a relationship with someone else. The majority of these relationships involve married men or coworkers (bosses or subordinates, rarely peers) or close friends—basically situations that are defined by secrecy, a dangerous blurring of boundaries and a disastrous, hurtful ending.

After several years of seemingly holding it together, she recently pulled her usual crap on her fiancé, and is now dating a coworker. It’s been triggering for me, but I’ve been able to detach from her. What I’m really having a hard time with is another friend of ours, who has made it her cause celebre to “save” our friend and get her into some serious therapy. Every time I talk to her, she brings it up, and I have to continually tell her there’s nothing we can do about it. I’m realizing now that it’s gotten to the point where I have to tell her that the conversation is off limits—I won’t discuss it anymore. It’s going to be a difficult boundary to set, especially since I can so empathize with the codie craziness she’s in right now. I feel like she’s not going to understand why I don’t want to talk about it, and it’s going to be really hard to not worry about hurting her feelings.

The second situation I’m struggling with is much more triggering and involves a friend of Mark’s, who’s also a part of my friendship circle here in the South. After Mark and I separated, this friend made it clear that he was not going to take sides and that he planned to stay friends with both of us. At first, I would see him every so often when I hung out with my other friends and everything was fine. But this summer, when I was spending a lot more time with my friends, I began feeling increasingly uncomfortable around him. It all came to a head in August when he made a stop at my parents’ house while he was on a road trip.

He started making disparaging comments about Mark, even though he’s supposedly one of Mark’s best friends. Then he asked me to go on a one-on-one vacation with him, and, when I declined, he attempted to invite himself on a trip I was going on with some other friends. At several points, he also made other little borderline-inappropriate comments about how attractive he thought I was. While all this was going on, I was so shocked (I couldn’t quite believe that this guy was acting this way) that I just sort of brushed off the comments and made excuses as to why I couldn’t go on a vacation with him and why he couldn’t join my friends and me on our trip. After he left, however, I realized that I needed to be very firm with my boundaries.

I discussed it with my sponsor and decided to write him an email telling him that I had been uncomfortable with his behavior while he was at my house and that I would no longer listen to any comments about Mark. I also told him that I did not want to go on any vacations with him or hang out with him in any one-on-one capacity and, therefore, he should not ask again. Based on his response, which said in essence that he respected my boundaries, I thought that was the end of it.

But then, two weeks later, he showed up in the same city where my friends and I were vacationing. He had arranged to stay with another friend who lives there, and invited himself along on all our excursions. It was creepy and stalkerish, and Leigh's husband even told him so and cautioned him to just leave me alone. I pretty much ignored him the entire time and, by the end of the trip, he was acting all pissy and brooding. Still, I thought that was the end of it and I thought he had finally understood that I was not interested in being in his company. Thinking that it was all resolved, I completely forgot about it.

Now, several months later, I began hearing that he and Mark recently became estranged, and that the friendship ended in Mark telling him to fuck off and never speak to him again. All my friends made it seem that it was simply a case of Mark acting up and being irrational again, but, even though Mark acting up is nothing new, I still got the sense that there was more to the story that they weren't telling me. Still, I didn’t snoop or dig around for the truth, and I left it alone. Two nights ago, though, my friend Tara finally filled me in on what went down: Even after I set boundaries with this guy and (I thought) made it very clear that I wasn’t interested in him even as a friend, he called Mark and professed his feelings for me.

Obviously, this was an act of aggression against me for not returning his feelings. And probably an act of aggression against Mark for a bunch of complicated reasons that have built up over the many years they’ve been friends. But here’s where I’m having trouble detaching: I seriously want to beat the shit out this guy or at least give him a piece of my mind. First of all, it's bringing up the feeling that I can't trust men--even my male friends--to not objectify and use me. I’m also so angry that, in this guy’s selfishness and skeezy desperation, he’s caused even more pain and unnecessary drama in an already painful situation. What's more, I'm angry that Mark’s and my relationship is so broken that it’s so easy for someone else to walk in and pulverize the pieces with the heel of their boot.

But what I’m really upset about is the realization that the dysfunction I've been trying to dig myself out of doesn’t end with Mark and me. It’s even festering in our social circle, and that shows me the magnitude of what I’m dealing with. It proves just how much work it’s going to require to move further towards health. It’s going to require a distancing from several people in this group of friends and surrounding myself with much more functional people.

Reminder: TSR Chat Tonight

2009-12-20T14:09:00.000-08:00

Just a reminder that I'll be hosting a chat tonight at The Second Road at 8 p.m. EST. The focus this month is getting through the holidays, and my topic is “Being away from a loved one because they are living in active addiction.” Hope to see ya'll there!

Busy But (Relatively) Balanced

2009-12-17T20:16:00.000-08:00

I’ve been really busy implementing the new career idea lately and, with all the pre-Holiday activities and additional 12-step meetings thrown on top of that, I haven’t had as much time to update here. But things are going well. I’m excited about this new plan and, if it ends up panning out, I’ll have several months before it actually begins. Which is also exciting, because I had another idea for what I can do in the interim, and it’s a sort of combination job/spiritual adventure. I wish I could be more specific about all of this here, but I need to be vague to protect my anonymity. What matters is that I'm beginning to imagine a new life beyond the heavy grief process and my confusion over the options I have in a sinking industry in a scary economy.

Despite all the forward movement when it comes to career goals, I’m still feeling stuck over exactly how I want to handle the end of Mark’s and my separation agreement—whether I want to file for divorce, or just leave the decision to him. However, lately I’ve been feeling a lot less tense about not knowing what to do. Last week, I was telling my therapist that I feel really frustrated with myself for not being able to decide, especially since I’ve been so firm in my boundaries leading up to, during and after the separation. I told her that I was baffled that this was happening, that I had expected to be resolute by now. “I’ve never been an indecisive person,” I whined. “I usually know what I want and what I should do.”

She reminded me to be patient with myself and allow it to work itself out in its own time, and that I shouldn’t force myself into a decision I’m not certain about just to make something happen. She even suggested that my decisiveness might have gotten me into trouble in the past, and that maybe I need to change my view that being immediately resolute is always a good thing. Some decisions, she said, require a process. She has a point. Anyway, I’ve been doing pretty well heeding her advice and that’s led to focusing on the decisions I do feel confident making right now.

Weirdly, I’m not feeling too stressed out about the Holidays this year (as opposed to last year, which was a stress fest at this time). My mom and I are planning on doing some volunteering at a local soup kitchen and at the Salvation Army’s gift drive. I also have a group of my best friends coming for New Year’s Eve weekend, which I think will be a blast. And then on January 2nd, I’m going to do 108 sun salutations with my yoga community to celebrate the Winter Solstice. Hopefully I won’t collapse halfway through.

Anyway, that’s a little update on what’s going on lately. I’ll have much more time to write once the Holidays are over. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy New Year and all that other jazz!

Chit Chat

2009-12-12T15:23:00.000-08:00

The folks at The Second Road have asked me to host another chat on Sunday, December 20th at 8 p.m. EST (a week from tomorrow). The focus this month is getting through the holidays, and my topic is “Being away from a loved one because they are living in active addiction.” I plan to focus mainly on practices of detachment, self-care and, most importantly, ways of cultivating gratitude during a time when many of us find it hard not to think about what we don’t have and resent that we’re not receiving. I’d love for you to join me and share your ideas and experiences.

Open Sesame

2009-12-03T14:17:00.000-08:00

Spending time with my “second family” for Thanksgiving was exactly what I needed. It got me out of my head, I was able to stop obsessing about the impending divorce, and I was (miraculously) able to enjoy everything in the present—good food, good company, good conversation. There were a few difficult moments, such as when Leigh’s grandmothers each pried into my job situation and my marriage situation, but I feel like I was able to handle them with grace and not let their meddling spoil my serenity.

Since I’ve been back, I’ve noticed a shift in my priorities. I’m focusing less on my grief and more on my future. While I was away and relaxed, another idea struck me for something I can do about my career, and I’m both excited and a little bit scared to try it. Excited because it has the potential to get me back to New York, introduce me to new people, and boost my job prospects in a relatively short time. And scared because lately I’ve been losing faith. I’ve noticed that these days, I’m wary of getting too attached to any idea, because it seems that over the past year, no matter what I try (and I do keep trying—relentlessly), nothing seems to be the “open sesame” that makes the doors to my future swing wide open. I do realize that I’m still here for a reason, that I’m right where I’m supposed to be and all that jazz, but sometimes it’s extremely difficult not to beat myself up for still not having the answers, for still not being able to see what's ahead of me with any sort of clarity. I have to continually remind myself not to panic, because it’s only with a calm, peaceful mind that I’ll be able to determine the next right action.

With that truth in mind, I’ve been attending more meetings and making more time for yoga, prayer and meditation. If nothing else, this time in limbo has certainly been teaching me how to take care of myself and how to cultivate patience and hope, even when those virtues seem in short supply. And in my more serene moments, I'm able to see that even though I haven't stumbled across the idea that's going to move me up and out, each idea leads to another idea, which continually leads to more and more clarity.

Taking Off My Thinking Cap

2009-11-21T20:56:00.000-08:00

All the feelings surrounding what’s been going on lately—the dad stuff, the divorce stuff—caught up with me this week, and I took some time out for grieving. The longer I’m in recovery, the more I’m able to recognize my tendency to intellectualize as a way of numbing out and avoiding the pain. As soon as something challenging or difficult occurs, my mind kicks into overdrive to make sense of it and my heart becomes paralyzed. And even now that I’m aware of this tendency, it still takes me a while to figure out I’m doing it. It’s such an ingrained coping mechanism, and probably one of the hardest to give up because, in many ways, it served me well in the past, allowing me to achieve in school, at university, in grad school and at work and, in the interim, create the illusion of having it all together—to both others and to myself—when everything else was falling apart.

But right now, things are not okay and that’s okay. I’m sad that every time I set boundaries with my dad, he refuses to adhere to them. I’m hurt that he isn’t capable of having a relationship with me. I’m sad and angry that, in only a few months, my marriage will be coming to an end. Even though I know that it’s probably best for me to no longer be tied to my husband in any way, I’m in immense pain over losing someone I love—no matter how fraught with confusion that love is, and the reality of that loss is now hitting me like a punch to the gut. Something inside is telling me it’s time to completely let go.

In order to get through these next couple months in the healthiest way possible, I’ve decided to add a couple more meetings to each week. I’m feeling like my established once-a-week routine just isn’t cutting it right now. I attended two extra meetings this week, and it made a huge difference in helping me feel my feelings and achieve some serenity.

Religulous

2009-11-12T11:43:00.000-08:00

It's ironic that out of my husband being "unfaithful," I have launched myself into a deep exploration of faith.

--Woman Anonymous7

For a lot of people who live outside the Bible Belt (or even those of us who, like me, begrudging live here but aren’t all Bible Belty), talking about God is the equivalent of your worst going-to-school-naked nightmare coming true. It’s embarrassing, it’s too much of the private made public, and people look at you like you’re a tad bit loony. Because, let’s face it, the people who make talking about God their main hobby often are a tad bit loony. Or, more accurately, there are a few serious loons (televangelists, the guy who spends his day riding the New York subway dressed as Jesus, and the people who hang out with signs outside abortion clinics) who give God a pretty bad reputation.

In my life, my dad is one of those people. He just can’t shut up about God, and it’s really annoying—annoying to the point that I can’t stand to be in his presence. So it’s pretty ironic that, as I’m going through this particular stage of my grieving process, I can’t shut up about God either (though I prefer the terms “Higher Power” or “The Universe” to “God”—it totally ups the cool factor, though I’m aware it may put me in another category of weirdo—one who reeks of Patchouli).

But why? Why can’t I shut up about God right now? I’ve been realizing it’s because, as I’ve been contemplating divorce, the only other divorce I’ve been a part of was a bloody battle over beliefs—lots of God stuff got dragged into my parents’ split. To give you an idea: My mom, who grew up Lutheran but converted to Catholicism, consulted our priest before she made the decision to divorce (he gave her the go-ahead), and my dad, to this day, is very vocal about how that priest should be excommunicated because there is absolutely, under no circumstances, any valid reason for divorce. He also believes that, negligent priests aside, he could have avoided divorce all together if he simply hadn't married a heathen Lutheran. Do y’all see what I’m dealing with here? My parents didn’t just hire lawyers, fight dirty over money, and sign papers with a flourish. God was this huge factor in their agonizing decision.

I sometimes wish that God didn’t have to be this huge factor in my decision (though I could probably let up on the agonizing a bit). It sucks that I have to unravel this stuff as part of my process. And I sometimes wish that, because it’s highly likely that Mark is going to divorce me, I could just push it all out of my mind and passively let him make the decision, or race to be the first one to serve the papers to protect my ego ("Okay, you want to divorce me? Well I want to divorce you, too!"--which, in essence, would mean he would still be making the decision).

But this is about so much more than whether Mark and I divorce. In fact, it’s about so much more than divorce. It’s about making an active, informed decision (which, once I've worked through this, still might be to do nothing at all--doing nothing is a decision) based not on what Mark does or believes, what my mom does or believes, what my dad does or believes, or what anyone else does or believes, but on what I believe deep down in my guts. It’s about discovering the God of my understanding. It’s about taking responsibility for myself and finally growing up.

And, in the meantime, I have to risk sounding a tad bit loony.

We Are Family

2009-11-10T12:37:00.000-08:00

Ever since the fourth grade, I’ve been best friends with two sisters, Tara and Leigh. Our friendship has survived and thrived over the past 20-plus years despite, at various points, living in different cities, living together in cramped apartments, a brief falling out between Tara and me, and disagreeing every so often about each other’s lifestyle choices. And as I’ve been dealing with this sex addiction trauma, Tara and Leigh, as well as the rest of their family, have been my biggest supporters. In fact, when I got married and my dad refused to attend my wedding, Tara and Leigh’s dad had tears of pride coursing down his cheeks as, during his toast, he read a poem he had penned about how he’s watched me grow up. This Thanksgiving, instead of spending the holiday with my family, I’m going with Leigh to their grandmother’s house for some good ol’ Southern cooking. Their family is my family.

In the meantime, my father and I are estranged. My husband and I are estranged. I talk to my brother maybe once a year. Throughout this sex addiction trauma, I’ve avoided most of my family because everything in my past suggests that I wouldn’t have their support. My family (besides my mom) doesn’t feel like my family—in fact, they feel like strangers. However, because they have the labels “father,” “husband” and “brother,” I keep hoping that one day they’ll feel like family. I keep hoping that they’ll do the things that the people who don’t have the labels but do feel like family do.

When I think about my relationships in a practical, worldly sort of way, it seems like a no-brainer that I should take as my family the folks who bring joy and ease to my life and drop the people who, no matter what their labels, bring pain and seemingly insurmountable challenges. And it seems like even though I have no control over the family I was born into, I do have control over who I’m married to because I chose him.

But when I think about my relationships in a spiritual, higher-plane sort of way, I can’t help but feel that my “father” is my father and my “husband” is my husband and my “brother” is my brother for a reason. If my Higher Power had wanted Tara and Leigh to be my sisters and their father to be my father, then I would have been born into that family. And if my Higher Power had wanted me to be married to someone who wasn’t a sex addict, I’d be married to someone healthy. And, therefore, it’s my spiritual challenge to accept the wisdom of no escape, to find some way to stay committed and to keep praying to find a way to take these relationships out of theory and put them into practice.

These two views are so incredibly black and white. I’m aware of that, but, after so many years of struggling, I still can’t seem to find the middle road, the balance between worldly pleasure and spiritual integrity, when it comes to my understanding of family.

The Prettiest Girl

2009-11-05T19:40:00.000-08:00

Something that apparently is very common after doing the cord cutting meditation I mentioned in my last post is that some of the people whose cords you cut wind up contacting you days later. They supposedly sense the loss of your energy, and attempt to reengage you in order to retrieve it. When I first heard that, I didn’t believe it--it seemed just a bit too Twilight Zone for me. But today, only a day after I did my last cord cutting, my dad wound up contacting me yet again, even though I had made my boundaries abundantly clear in my last response to him a week ago. And when I realized the close proximity of this email to the most recent cord cutting, I also realized that I first began hearing from him again (after several years of no contact) when I first began doing this meditation. Bizarre, no?

New Agey freaky-deaky stuff aside, I can’t say that I was all that surprised to hear from him again. I had sort of sensed that firmly outlining my boundaries wouldn’t be the last of it. Because, for people like my dad, it seems that the whole point of boundaries is that they’re there for pushing up against. But I didn’t expect for him to push against them in quite the way that he did, which ended up being highly illuminating. The boundaries I had set were: I will not tolerate judgment or verbal abuse about the way I choose to live my life or practice my faith. (He’s very religious and seems to believe he’s got God in his pocket). He sent me two lines (I won’t quote here for reasons of anonymity), one of which said something to the effect that I’m still the prettiest girl he’s ever seen, and the second line justified his God-ordained right as a parent to judge me and tell me exactly how to live my life and practice my faith.

The second line made sense—it was more of the same and exactly what I had expected. But the “prettiest girl” line—uh, come again? It’s not that I’m unaccustomed to hearing that from my dad. In fact, I pretty much heard the “prettiest girl” line every day of my life. But, in this letter, in response to my boundaries, it made absolutely no sense. And then it made perfect sense.

The “prettiest girl” line is my fix. Throughout my entire childhood, I truly did believe my dad had God in his pocket, if not that he wasn’t God himself. If he told me I was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen, well, then, I was the prettiest girl in the world—no contest. Because my dad knew what pretty was and, if you disagreed, well, you were wrong. And pretty, for reasons I couldn’t completely comprehend but you didn’t question my dad, was very, very important. In fact, pretty was more important than anything else. He never said this directly, but what always seemed to be implied was the chance that, one day, he might see someone prettier, and so I’d wait anxiously for the daily validation that I still held the No. 1 spot. As long as I knew my dad still thought I was the prettiest girl, then everything was right in the world, even when he was causing me immense pain and trampling over every boundary in sight.

But this time, so many decades later, the “prettiest girl” line made my stomach lurch. It didn’t feel flattering. It felt manipulative and highly inappropriate. It felt like something someone writes to a lover, not a daughter. And, for the first time, I didn’t care if he thought I was pretty, or if anyone other than me does for that matter.

For the first time, pretty seemed completely and utterly unimportant.

Release

2009-11-04T11:03:00.000-08:00

I have this muscle in my back that, ever since this whole sex-addiction scenario started getting really bad, tenses up from time to time. It’s one sore point on the right side of my back, and the ache sort of wraps around to include my oblique, hip and sometimes even my thigh. I have a feeling it may be my psoas muscle, which, if you click on the link, you’ll see has a lot to do with fight or flight.

I remember riding the subway home to my husband and feeling it tighten up against the hard, cold bench. I also remember it clenching and spasming when I first shared at an S-Anon meeting. And now, as I’ve been stressing out about divorce, my dad’s emails and all sorts of other little issues piled on top of those big ones, that muscle in my back has been acting up again. I’ve literally felt as though my body is holding onto something and, no matter what I’ve tried—Icy Hot patches, Advil, hot water bottles—I haven’t been able to coax it into loosening its grip.

But then something very weird but very cool happened last night.

About a month ago, Willow passed on a cord-cutting meditation to me, and I’ve been doing it every so often. If you’re not familiar with cord cutting (and I wasn’t before Willow told me about it), it’s a meditation in which you imagine yourself connected to various people in your life by cords running from your body to theirs. By cutting the cords, you let go of the negative energy and unhealthy dynamics that have been or still are passing between you and those people. It is, in essence, a meditation that’s meant to foster letting go.

I didn’t even make a connection between letting go and the fact that my back was hurting when I decided to do the meditation last night. I just knew that I wanted to meditate and that that meditation always seems to relax me and leave me with a sense of wellbeing. But when I got to the actual cord cutting, I was shocked when, in my mind’s eye, I saw all the cords converging into this particular spot on my back—usually they’re coming out of different parts of my body in a seemingly random fashion. Also, whereas when I usually do this meditation all the cords are identical, each person’s cord was different and highly representative of his or her impact on my life. For example, my dad’s cord looked like a tree trunk and it had to be sawed through to get to all the tangled roots, while my husband’s cord was steely, wiry and fibrous.

After all the major players’ cords had been cut, I felt the throb in my back significantly diminish. However, I still felt a pang, and then suddenly became aware of these other smaller cords that were still connected. These belonged to ex-boyfriends, frenemies and other people I was somewhat surprised to see. Not long after, I went to bed and fell into a comfortable sleep. This morning, when I woke up, the pain in my back was gone. My mind also felt much more serene.

I’ve always believed in a connection between mind, body and spirit, but this was kind of freaky.

Surfacing

2009-11-02T12:27:00.000-08:00

This weekend, my mom and I went shopping in a city about an hour away. The car ride gave us a chance to chat and connect in a really wonderful way, and we ended up talking about my parents’ divorce for a while. Neither of us brought up the topic in a premeditated or pointed way, it just sort of came up organically, which is the way it usually happens, I realized. It’s sort of an ongoing dialog in my family; I think because we’re all still attempting to process it. And it’s definitely been popping up more in conversation since I separated from my husband, and even more now that that separation is nearing its deadline.

My mom ended up saying some things not in defense of her decision (which is the way I've usually interpreted her words, as defensive, whether or not that really has been the case), but just about her feelings and the way she experienced the divorce (again, something that she might have always been doing but this time I heard it differently) and, no matter whether her words or my way of hearing them was different, I experienced an emotion I’ve never felt during one of these conversations: gratitude. For the first time, I was able to see some of the ways my parents’ divorce might have had a positive influence on my life and those of my family members. As I juxtaposed the new possibly positive with the old definitely negative, I realized that there’s no way of knowing if a situation is inherently good or inherently bad in the grand scheme of things, but instead it is what it is and the things that happen are clearly meant to happen or they wouldn’t happen at all.

What makes an event good or bad is my mind labeling it one or the other and, since that’s the case, I might as well look for the good because I can no longer change the fact that it’s a part of my history. Like a lotus flower growing in a pond of scuzz, choosing gratitude is the difference between wallowing at the bottom of the muck and surfacing to bloom and create beauty. However, I think an important part of the growth process--and the difference between denial and clear, informed thinking-- is spending some time in the dark, fetid muck before pushing towards the sun-dappled surface.

I realize that this way of looking at things is hardly original and it’s the basis of pretty much every tome on peace and serenity in existence, but it was the first time I’ve felt the truth of it in regard to my parents’ divorce. And that feeling of truth led to a visceral sensation of letting go of trying to understand what happened and why.

It didn’t bring me any closer to knowing what to do about my marriage. Or rather, I still don’t feel like divorce is an action that feels true for me to take right now, so the answer is to continue doing nothing at all. But this new realization did make me feel much more comfortable about having that feeling. It’s not good or bad—it’s merely the way I feel. I also came to the conclusion that if I’m still feeling this way in a few months and my husband decides to divorce me, that’s okay, too. If that’s what happens, then that’s what’s meant to happen and his feeling differently doesn’t mean my feelings--or his, for that matter--are wrong.

I’m sure I’ll freak out and overanalyze the whole divorce thing again as the deadline looms closer, but, right now, it feels really good to emerge from the grime and bask in some sunlight.

Housecleaning

2009-10-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

I did a little much-needed housecleaning on my blogroll. I deleted a few folks who haven't updated in more than a year, and added people who have joined the recovery blogosphere since I last tidied up, um, a really long time ago. I'm clearly averse to housecleaning even in the virtual world.

If you have a blog and you'd like me to include a link, my general rule of thumb is that you comment on my blog semi-regularly, or you used to comment a lot and now you're sort of a friend and I can't bring myself to dump your ass. (Shut up, I'm not codependent!) Or, instead of or in addition to the latter, your blog is just too damned good to not share with everyone who stumbles my way. If you're one of the beloved slackers, you decide which it is.

Happy reading!

Comfort in the Vague

2009-10-29T00:34:00.000-07:00

I’ve been suffering from fall allergies for the past few weeks—the ragweed in this area is out of control. My eyes, nose and ears are itchy, I have a dull sinus headache, and I feel slightly fatigued. It’s a frustrating discomfort in the sense that it’s vague: I don’t exactly feel sick, but I also don’t feel 100 percent, and so it’s difficult to know exactly how to take care of myself. I’ve been a little more gentle with myself by cutting back slightly on my activity level and taking more time to relax, and that seems to be working. But, still, I often have to remind myself to go easy. Low-level activity doesn't come naturally to me.

Last night, I contemplated whether or not I should go to my yoga class in this vague state, and ended up deciding I was up for it. I reminded myself that yoga is all about honoring where you’re at today and, therefore, I could take it easy in class just like I’ve been doing in the other parts of my life. And, when class started, I stuck with that plan. I pushed myself only in the few instances where it felt comfortable and when it was time to rest, I sometimes took Child’s Pose in lieu of Downward Dog.

This, however, is very different from my usual M.O. Ninety-five percent of the time, I will do whatever crazy shit my teacher suggests as a challenge—or at least try. If she tells us we can grab our ankle with both hands in Standing Split, I’ll go for both ankles. If she tells us to touch the floor with one hand in Dancer, I’ll reach for the floor. If she tells us we can rest on our forearms in Camel, I’ll bend my arms. Most of the time, striving to meet the challenge feels true to me, and, over the past year or so that I’ve been in her class, she’s learned to automatically come over to my mat to assist me with the next phase. I am The Woman Who's Always Striving For The Next Phase.

However, last night, she just didn’t seem to get that I wasn’t in my usual next-phase mode, despite the Child’s Poses and the fact that I wasn’t modifying as much. The more she came over to my mat to challenge me, the more I’d attempt to rise to those challenges without feeling the truth of it, and the more my body began to shake and my resentment began to build. I wanted to scream, “I’m obviously trying to cut myself some much-needed slack, lady, so quit pushing me!” But I kept my mouth shut and kept pushing myself.

After a while, however, I realized that maybe the intention that seemed so clear to me wasn’t all that clear to her—after all, on my own, I was rising to some challenges while rejecting others and my Child’s Poses were sporadic. And every time she came over, I’d bite my tongue and go to the next phase like I usually do. Finally, I decided I had had enough and, when she came over to challenge me yet again, I spoke up and told her it wasn’t in my practice that evening. It was that simple. For the rest of the class, she looked to me for cues rather than just automatically coming over to my mat, and I began to go easy on myself again.

Which brings me to this week’s post-class yoga lesson: Others’ expectations of me can seriously trip me up, as do my expectations of myself. Sometimes I get so caught up in how other people have come to perceive me or how I’ve come to define myself that I’m too concerned with being consistent with those definitions to defend what I need right now. Sometimes I forget that who I am is not a definition, is not a series of actions I may have taken countless times before, but only a feeling of truth right here, right now, in the present. As for what’s outside the present, I can look for comfort in the vague.

The Heat Is On

2009-10-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

Things have been pretty intense lately. I feel like the heat has been turned up, and I’m having to face a lot of core issues all at once. Living with my mom and stepdad is unearthing long-buried parts of my relationship with my mom, though I feel like we’ve been working through them in a pretty healthy way. My father, from whom I’ve been estranged for several years, has begun contacting (and guilt tripping) me again, though this time it feels much different now that I know how to set boundaries. It’s easier to discern where his responsibility for the relationship begins and mine ends, whereas, before, I would have taken full responsibility. Overall, I feel much more confident about my ability to take care of myself with him, whereas in the past, even the slightest shred of communication sent me into fits of panic.

Speaking of panic, I’m beginning to come down from my interaction with the lawyer a couple days ago. Divorce is such a difficult issue for me. When my parents divorced when I was a teenager, I didn’t properly grieve, so I still have so much confusion and unresolved pain over their decision. It’s been hard for me to separate my issues around their divorce from what’s happening between me and my husband. A big part of my turmoil is that, no matter how hard I try to be okay with it, I can’t seem to make myself feel right about divorcing my husband. There’s something about divorce—at least in my situation, in my heart—that feels spiritually wrong. It’s like every time I contemplate it, I feel something within me flinch and recoil. Attempting to talk myself into it feels the same as if I were trying to talk myself into killing someone. No matter how I try to spin it, it feels like a black, bilious lie.

(Please note: This is not to say that I’m judging others who choose divorce—I have no delusions of knowing how other people’s Higher Powers direct them, and under no circumstances do I believe that what’s right or wrong for me is what is right or wrong for someone else. That’s part of the reason I’m having such a hard time understanding my parents’ divorce—and maybe the point is that I have no business trying to.)

All that said, I realize that no matter how wrong divorce feels to me, Mark might feel otherwise and initiate it. I have no control over that. But I suppose a part of me wants control—or the illusion of it— if I’m trying to force myself into owning half—or all of—the decision, despite what my gut is telling me. I’m beginning to think that the only way to find a resolution around both Mark’s and my situation and my parents’ divorce is to keep exploring boundaries, to continue feeling around for those edges that define where I end and others begin.

It sometimes baffles me how boundaries seem to be the answer to everything.

Tempting

2009-10-22T18:22:00.000-07:00

I’m having a really hard time enforcing my most recent boundary with my husband. It’s not for lack of trying on my part; it’s more like every time I attempt to take action, something ends up barring the way. Without rehashing too much, this boundary has to do with the money my husband owed our landlord, half of which he now owes me. Our separation agreement gives me the legal right to hold him accountable, but I can’t seem to find a way to do that without investing so much of my time, money and energy that I’d end up suffering consequences that are almost equal to the consequences he should be experiencing.

Today, I spoke with a lawyer who suggested that I use the money that I’d be putting towards this court case towards a divorce (and sue him as part of the divorce). I had already spent a long time detailing my situation when he suggested this. “It sounds like you want to get back here to New York, get a job, and get on with your life,” he said. “If you start the divorce paperwork now, you’ll be all set to file when your separation agreement is up in a few months. We might even be able to find a way around having to wait. We might be able to file now.”

It sounded so tempting. I’m so tired of my marriage hovering in purgatory, especially when my husband’s actions are showing me that there’s simply no longer any reason to hold out hope. Right now, I really don’t want to be married to my husband—it’s boring, it sucks and it’s completely unglamorous. I'd much rather be getting dressed up and going out to New York clubs with cute boys who shower me with attention and actually want to have sex.*

A recovery friend called me not long after I hung up with the lawyer, and I told her how I just feel so over it—so over being stuck down South, so over not having a job, so over being married to an active addict who’s on the periphery of my life. I told her how I'd thought I’d hold out to the bitter end, but that now divorce was something I was seriously considering.

Not long after I spoke with that friend, I called another recovery friend who I had promised to catch up with a few days earlier. This friend is incredibly intuitive in a way that always makes me think she’s a bit psychic, so I always listen very carefully to what she has to say. We wound up talking about some issues I had been having with my parents last week, and this friend commented that she thinks I’m still here at their house in order to face some pretty major childhood wounds. “I think you’re being held there for a reason, Margaux—you’re being shown so much and it’s not over with yet” she said. Later in the conversation, she brought up how she admired that I haven’t lost sight of the fact that Mark is my husband, that I’ve been able to hate the disease without hating the person. She also commended me on how I’ve given this situation patience and perseverance.

When I got off the phone with her, something made me realize that I was being loony. Something made me realize I was so caught up in my own will that I forgot to consider my Higher Power’s will in all this. I suddenly remembered that I hadn't been to a meeting in two weeks, that I'm coming off a highly stressful weekend, and that I'm PMSing with a vengeance. I also suddenly understood that it’s not Mark’s fault that I’m still in limbo. As tempting as it is to force an early divorce because I’m starving for some sort of change—any sort of change at this point—divorcing Mark now is not going to get me a job and it’s not going to get me back to New York—even though it might look that way to some lawyer who heard bits and pieces of my story for the first time today.

That’s not to say that divorce isn’t a highly likely outcome a few months down the line, but I promised myself and my Higher Power that I would stay committed to my marriage and surrender my will until February. I promised God I’d step back and give him time to do his thing. If I'm indeed reaching the conclusion that divorce is inevitable, then I can give that decision some time to prove consistent and crystal clear instead of acting on a whim as soon as it's suggested.

It’s only a few more months. But, damn, that desire for instant gratification can be so intoxicating.

*For those who aren't familiar with my sense of humor, please note the sarcasm and irony.

Jordan Catalano Syndrome

2009-10-08T22:31:00.000-07:00

The thing about resolutions is that it's hard to remember them around someone like Jordan Catalano.

--Angela Chase, My So-Called Life

It’s been kind of chilly and rainy here lately, so I’ve been spending a little more time holing up in front of the TV. The other night, I ransacked my mom’s movie cabinet and was incredibly stoked to find that she owns the complete box set of My So-Called Life. I hadn’t seen that show since I myself was a jaded, flannel-clad ’90s teenager attempting to navigate high-school suckdom, and I was interested in watching it through adult eyes.

It only took a few episodes to realize that there’s a much more adequate term for what we now begrudgingly refer to as codependency. (As everyone who’s codependent loves to point out, “codependency” just sounds so lame and hard to pin down, not to mention sort of made up in a pop psychology kind of way.) But this new term I propose is based on pop culture rather than psychology, and if you mention it to anyone who hasn’t been living in a cave for the past 15 years, I guarantee they’ll instantly get it. Drum roll, please. Ladies and gentlemen, behold Jordan Catalano Syndrome.

Here’s the lowdown on the character Jordan Catalano, in case it’s even possible that you forgot (Because what is My So-Called Life without Jordan Catalano?): He’s fucking beautiful—so beautiful it hurts to look at him. But he’s an ass. Though that’s not the real problem. If he were just a hot jerk, Angela Chase (and you and every other teenage girl in the '90s) would get over him pretty quickly. The real problem is that you can’t be totally sure that he truly is an ass. You can’t be totally sure about anything with him. He’s illiterate and inarticulate, yet sometimes he says these really profound, poignant things. He’ll do something totally stupid and heartless, and then the next day he’ll apologize and be completely chivalrous and charming. Only to say or do something really stupid and heartless—even more stupid and heartless than the last thing he did—in the next episode. And the cycle continues endlessly throughout the entire show.

What’s really insidious is that (and I’m convinced of this—don’t call me paranoid) the people who produced My So-Called Life manipulated the camera in such a way so that you couldn't not fall in love with Jordan Catalano. When I was standing in front of my mom’s movie cabinet, contemplating my little trip down memory lane, I felt this tiny stab of worry. “Do you think you can handle Jordan Catalano, Margaux?” a little voice whispered. Of course I can handle him, I thought, shushing the voice. Jordan Catalano is so 1994 and, besides, I’m now a wise and world-weary 32-year-old woman. I know Jordan Catalano’s game and it can’t work on me anymore.

But then, even at age 32, you get those fleeting glimpses of him leaning against his locker and, just like Angela, you’re jonesing for more and going out of your way to find him in every scene. And when he’s right there in front of you, you can’t look away. But that’s not the worst part. Just like Angela, you are utterly convinced—no matter how selfish and insensitive he appears to be—that Jordan Catalano is actually a deep, complicated soul and that one of these days you will solve the mystery and crack the code. Until then, you will repeatedly put up with his shit. You’ll forgive him for ignoring you, you’ll feel like the loser when he pressures you for sex, and you’ll get back together with him after he’s slept with your best friend and given you a fake apology he didn’t even write.

Despite my conspiracy theories about the way that show was filmed, I have to admit that I sort of wonder if someone else my age—someone a little more well adjusted, for instance—would watch that show and truly be immune to Jordan Catalano. And I also have to admit that I might not be the most reliable barometer of his expiration date. Because, honestly, who am I kidding? I didn’t leave Jordan Catalano back in 1994. I held him in my heart and I dated him repeatedly in seemingly shifting physical forms. I even married him. And is it really any wonder? Jordan Catalano was an addict. It wasn’t something the show’s producers made really obvious (they were too busy showing you how gorgeous he was and getting you to forgive him), but remember how he was constantly dropping Visine into his eyes?

I'm telling you--Jordan Catalano Syndrome. Describes it perfectly.

Codie Humor

2009-10-02T17:42:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine found the above image at PerezHilton.com. If you've ever read Perez, you know he's famous for scrawling all matter of offensive messages over photos of celebrities. Usually, I find his captions obnoxious, but this one had me chuckling. (Not because of the celebrities pictured, but at the thought of codependency being cocktail-party conversation.)

Secondly, I found the "12 Steps of Non-Recovery" a while ago and have been meaning to share it.

The Twelve Steps of Non-Recovery
(Author Unknown)

1. We admitted we were powerless over nothing, that we would manage our lives perfectly and those of anyone else who would allow us to.

2. Came to believe there was no power greater than ourselves and the rest of the world was insane.

3. Made a decision to have our loved ones and friends turn their will and their lives over to our care, even though they couldn't understand us.

4. Made a searching moral and immoral inventory of everyone we knew.

5. Admitted to the whole world the exact nature of everyone else's wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to make others straighten up and do right.

7. Demanded others to either shape up or ship out.

8. Made a list of all persons who had harmed us and became willing to go to any length to get even with them all.

9. Got direct revenge on such people whenever possible, except when to do so would cost us our lives, or at the very least a jail sentence.

10. Continued to take inventory of others, and when they were wrong promptly and repeatedly told them about it.

11. Sought through complaining and nagging to improve our relations with others as we couldn't understand them, asking only that they knuckle under and do it our way.

12. Having had a complete physical, emotional and spiritual breakdown as a result of these steps, we tried to blame it on others and to get sympathy and pity in all of our affairs.

Just Breathe

2009-10-01T13:04:00.000-07:00

Last night, on my way to yoga, I was really looking forward to a workout. The week before, we had done some pretty challenging asanas—mostly heart-opening backbends—and, by the time class wound down, I was drenched in sweat and had this satisfying sense that I had broken through something and gone beyond previous limitations--physically, mentally and spiritually. Still feeling exhilarated from the previous week’s class, I was hoping last night to be challenged further and break through just a little more.

But when I got to class, my teacher was fighting a cold and I could sense her lack of energy. What’s more, there were several newcomers, which typically means that, even without a cold, my teacher will keep things pretty basic and low key. Before class even started, I felt disappointed at the likelihood that my expectations probably weren’t going to be met. I also felt a little resentful of my teacher for having a cold, and pissed at the newbies for deciding to take up yoga on this particular day.

Read the rest of this post at The Second Road...

Doing the Unstuck

2009-09-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

When I decided to separate from my husband, I was convinced that there wasn’t anything I wanted to keep from the life I was leading. I didn’t want my job, I didn’t want my relationship, and I didn’t want New York. Everything seemed so intertwined that untangling one facet from the others seemed impossible, so I desperately concluded that I’d just cast it all aside. My life had become so unmanageable that I felt this intense urge to run away from it all. And that’s exactly what I did—I ran away. Realizing this now doesn’t mean I regret running away. I needed to get away from everything that comprised my life pre-recovery in order to come to the point I’m at right now. And the only way I can describe where I find myself now is by likening it to doing a rigorous Spring cleaning on an overflowing closet.

It’s like I’ve got this huge pile of old clothes, and I’m dividing them into smaller piles of “keep” and “throw away.” And as those two piles become more defined, something else is becoming more clear: an idea of what new things I might add to replace what I’ve thrown away and complement what I’ve decided to keep. Surprisingly, I’m beginning to see that I really don’t need much new stuff. Most of what I’ve needed has always been there, but hidden among things hideous and outdated. All I need to do is put things together in different, newly considered combinations to create ensembles that are totally fresh and fierce.

I’ll give an example of how this has been playing out. Lately, I’ve been complaining to anyone who will listen about how stuck I feel with my job search. For the past several months, I’ve been searching for a particular type of job (that has very little to do with anything I’ve done in the past) in a certain city (where I’ve never lived before), and I haven’t been having any luck. As more days have passed, every time I’ve been sitting down to apply for jobs, this recovery slogan has been getting louder and louder in my mind: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. But even though I could acknowledge that I wasn’t having any success doing the same thing over and over, I didn’t know what the hell else to do, even though I had been asking my Higher Power to show me for a long time. Enter my brilliant mother.

The other night, I was bitching about my fruitless job search yet again when she suggested a type of job I hadn’t thought of. She told me she had recently met a relative of my stepfather’s who does this sort of job, and it immediately struck her as something I’d be interested in. At first, I totally dismissed it out of defensiveness. How dare she think she knows what I want better than I do? But when I mustered enough humility to entertain the thought, I realized that the suggestion was fantastic. In fact, the job pretty much combines every element of what I’ve loved about each of my other jobs, and leaves out most of what I loathed.

As soon as I was able to accept her idea, I ran with it. I spent most of Sunday creating a new cover letter and resume, and I’ve already found a ton of ads for this type of job. But taking her suggestion into account led to considering yet another factor: While I might be able to do okay with this sort of job in the city I was considering relocating to, I could kick ass with it in New York, where I already have a ton of experience and contacts in this particular industry.

At first it was hard to consider New York. I met my husband on the day I moved there almost a decade ago, and so much of my New York is colored by memories that include him. But then I also had to acknowledge that the last time I visited the city I’ve been thinking of moving to, I got this sick feeling in my stomach, like just entertaining the thought of moving there was akin to cheating on my beloved New York. I also had to acknowledge that I’ve felt a horrible ache every time New York is referenced in a book or depicted on TV. (Even though Gossip Girl isn’t triggering pain over my husband, it’s killing me over New York.)

But it’s not just the memories. I’ve been pushing away my love for New York for so long because my husband still lives there. I haven’t wanted to be anywhere near him. But when I began to really consider it, I thought about how codie it is to avoid an entire massive city because of one inhabitant, and how much I've managed to detach over the past several months. Letting him scare me away from city and career that could work best for me is giving him way too much power. Besides, it would be so easy to claim a totally different part of the city and never even have to run into him.

Of course, I have no idea if this new job/New York plan will truly lead me to where I need to go, or if it’s just a plan. And we all know what makes God laugh. But right now, I’m excited about feeling unstuck, seeing something salvageable in my past, and having something new/old to try. I’m going to continue searching for jobs in the other city, just to make sure I’m not being rash, but it’s good to have more than one possibility. Who knows where I’ll end up.

Vacuuming Out the Void

2009-09-24T12:22:00.000-07:00

I love Enigma’s comments—they always seem to spark some sort of new realization in me. On my last post, she shared a situation where she set a boundary with a friend and noticed that after the boundary was set, things were incredibly awkward and distant between the two of them.

It automatically made me think about an experience I had a couple months ago with setting a boundary with one of my friends. (Can you tell that boundaries are kind of a big deal in my life right now?) After I set the boundary, I didn’t see this friend for about a month. When I saw him again, I noticed that things were oddly stilted—we didn’t seem to have anything to talk about. It was as though this huge, yawning chasm the size of the Grand Canyon had stretched out between the two of us. Now that the unhealthy elements were gone, it became clear that my relationship with this friend had become based almost solely on those unhealthy elements. It made me realize that boundaries have this incredible way of stripping down a relationship and revealing its true nature in the present. (Which is probably why we're so afraid of setting boundaries--we're terrified of seeing the emptiness sprawling before us.)

Of course I then transferred this realization onto my relationship with my husband. Though at one point our relationship was based on some good things, after a while, our marriage became based solely on his sex addiction. It got to a point where the sex addiction was all we talked about and all I thought about when I was in his presence—our relationship was sex addiction. Once I set the boundary—either the sex addiction “ended” or the relationship ended—it showed me how little was left. That gaping void, now represented by our separation, was all that remained between us.

That’s not to say that relationships that have become based on something unhealthy can’t be filled in with something healthy (though, at this point, I have little reason to believe that will happen in my relationship--after giving it plenty of time, the void between us remains and will probably have to be filled, for each of us individually, with things having nothing to do with our relationship). As they say, nature abhors a vacuum. But to make room for those new, healthier behaviors, we have to set boundaries, let them Hoover out the bad stuff, and sit with that emptiness for a while until the good stuff comes slowly seeping in. And that doesn’t just apply to relationships with other people, but also to our relationships with ourselves.

Thanks again, Enigma, for helping me see something that I hadn’t realized was bobbing just below the surface.

Testing My Detachment

2009-09-23T13:20:00.000-07:00

When we’re struggling, trudging along from one day to the next, we often don’t realize how much we’re growing in the process. But then, a familiar situation will come up and we’ll automatically respond to it in a way so different and so much healthier than what used to be our typical M.O. that we can’t help but notice that somehow, at some point, something magical has occurred.

After several months of no contact with my husband, something has come up that is forcing me to deal with him, albeit mostly indirectly. During this time of no contact, I haven’t always been so sure if I’ve only been mildly progressing because I haven’t been dealing with him or if the very fact that I’m not dealing with him means I’m seriously progressing. Put another way, sometimes I see my not dealing with him as a cop-out, as the easy way out, and dealing with him as the true test of my progress in recovery. But this situation of dealing with him has made me realize that not dealing with him truly has been a huge healing factor in my recovery, and that there's probably no way I would have gotten this far if I had stuck around and tried to deal with him. And, even with that said, dealing with him now weirdly is a true test of my progress.

This current situation has to do with enforcing a boundary I set a while back, which he has since crossed. And I’m finding that I’m resolute in sticking to it. In the past, I would have done anything to avoid sticking to it. I would have made an infinite number of excuses for him and excuses for myself, spinning, rationalizing and justifying myself into a fat, tangled ball of denial. I also would have been devastated that he wasn’t taking care of me, and I would have used that as an excuse to not take care of myself. But somewhere along this journey, when I wasn’t looking, I seemed to have developed the ability to detach. I’m disappointed, but not devastated. I’m slightly sad, but not shocked. And most of all, I’m wonderfully and extremely serene in the uncontested knowledge that choosing me is always the right thing.

Trigger-Free TV

2009-09-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

Mental health is a dedication to reality at all costs.

--M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled*

Lately, I’ve been noticing a sign of growth in myself that, from the outside, might seem insignificant, but for me is kind of a big deal: I can watch TV and movies again without feeling panicky. Sex addiction is largely a disease of fantasy. Not being able to cope with reality, sex addicts retreat into fantasy and eventually begin believing that fantasy is reality and, at the same time, that reality is somehow flawed when it doesn’t match up to fantasy. Of course, on the surface, this fantasy-based perspective seems to mostly revolve around sex (porn, to the sex addict, is representative of real sex and if real sex is nothing like porn, then it must be flawed); but I’ve found that it typically bleeds into all areas of life. When we were still living together, my husband often seemed to take TV shows and movies at face value. To him, the way the characters (or “real” people on “reality” shows) lived their lives was indicative of the way real people (or real people without their own TV shows) actually do or should live their lives.

In my codependency, I had my own fantasy: that I could control the situation by choosing what we watched very carefully or by adding my own string of commentary in an attempt to show him that what was being portrayed wasn’t truly how people live. It never worked, but I clung to my illusion of keeping it all under control. It got to the point that even when he wasn’t around, I couldn’t watch certain movies or TV shows without worrying about all the erroneous ideas he would have if he were watching with me. Sick, sick, sick.

But lately, I’ve been noticing that I’m now able to watch stuff I never would have been able to watch before and actually enjoy it. For example, when Gossip Girl was in its first season, everyone kept telling me what an awesome show it was, but I knew from the commercials that it would be way too triggering for me. Sex, betrayal and girls in school uniforms? Forget about it. Recently, however, I decided to rent the first two seasons on a whim, and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying it without a thought in my mind about how Mark would see it. I realized that I can separate fantasy from reality and that I can appreciate the drama without feeling a need to live it. Mark’s perspective is no longer my problem, and that’s the way it always should have been, with or without him.

And that's a new dedication to reality, in and of itself.

*If you haven't read The Road Less Traveled trilogy, I highly recommend it. It'll change your life, and it's a great companion to recovery.

Music for the Soul

2009-09-10T11:17:00.000-07:00

Enigma made a really interesting comment on my “Mix Tape” post that I feel deserves a post in and of itself as a response. She wrote:

I'm finding that some of the "love" songs I use to love and relate to are soooo "codie" in nature! I'm on a quest to revamp my iPod with some new "healthier" tunes. Any suggestions for a "recovery" mix tape?

I, too, have noticed this about love songs (see my post about the NKOTB concert I attended about a year ago). But what really got me thinking was her request for suggestions on “recovery” songs. When I was making my mix, I wondered whether compiling a list of addiction songs wasn’t wallowing in the problem rather than focusing on the solution, when we're encouraged to do the latter in recovery. However, so many of the songs I chose, even though they do seem to focus on the problem, have had a very healing effect on me over the past year-plus that I’ve been in recovery.

For me, music is often a portal to spirituality and an access point for emotions. (Which is why music plays an important role on this blog and I often employ it when I’m having a hard time expressing my feelings with words. Fortunately and unfortunately, I'm a good writer and a crap musician, so I'm stuck with my words--or lack therof--and other people's music.) But back to my point: There’s something about music that allows me to feel a connection to both the Universe (the collective consciousness) and another human being (the artist) in a way that no other form of art can. However, in order to feel a very deep connection, it's important that the artist has experienced something that I have--and the closer that experience is to mine, the more powerful the hit to my core. Right now, I'm grieving my experience with addiction, and who better to speak to me than those people who have walked a similar path? To me, listening to "I'm angry" or "I'm sad" music as opposed to listening to "I'm angry and sad about addiction" music is the difference between joining a general grief support group and attending a 12-step program.

What's more, even though we're told in recovery to "focus on the solution," we're also told to "feel our feelings"--and, often, those two pieces of advice are one in the same. Feeling our feelings is the solution. When I’m divorced from my emotions, falling into a dangerous pattern of intellectualizing and obsessive circular thinking, my choice of music can help me pinpoint the emotion I’m attempting to evade and aid me in releasing it. For instance, if I choose something in the screamo category—Bikini Kill or Mudhoney’s “Touch Me I’m Sick” or Hole—it’s a good indication that I’ve got some unexpressed rage going on. When I listen to the song and thrash around and maybe do a little headbanging, I release the anger. The same goes for sadness with any song that makes me weep—The Pretenders’ “Back on the Chain Gang” or Neil Young’s “The Needle and the Damage Done” often can inspire a good cry after which I feel peace and space and a sense of being unblocked.

But the biggest lesson I learned when making this mix was that my truth can be very different from minute to minute, hour to hour, and day to day. I can listen to Jojo’s “Leave” and think, “Yeah, jerk, get your unfaithful ass out of my life—and don’t come back, ya hear?” and then listen to Pink’s “Please Don’t Leave Me” and identify with the fear of abandonment, with the desire to clutch at a relationship at all costs. Recovery, like this mix, is moment-to-moment; it’s messy, and one emotion doesn’t always make sense in the context of the next. Listening to this mix as a whole helped me to make peace with the bigger picture, which is truly more of a Monet, with its millions of seemingly unrelated dots, than a Rembrandt, with its smooth, decisive brushstrokes. Even though the dots don't make sense--or worse, seem to make a lot of sense--when you're looking at one or two up close, stepping back and seeing how they all relate gives one a sense of breathtaking, harmonious beauty.

That’s not to say that Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All” or a little Krishna Das don’t have their place in the picture, especially when it comes to lifting the spirit and inspiring hope. Sometimes I need to feel that, too. But often I can’t connect to that feeling until I’ve let go of the other, more toxic feelings that the songs I listed here help me release. And the greatest sign of healing? When I can laugh or dance to a song that usually makes me want to scream or cry.

So to answer Enigma's thought-provoking question, this mix is both an addiction mix and a recovery mix.

Love Is A Mix Tape

2009-09-09T20:44:00.000-07:00

Ok, I finally got a chance to put my addiction-related playlist together. It’s on the right-hand side, where all the other junk is. If you don’t feel like scrolling through or listening, it’s printed out below:

Sex Addiction Songs

Touch Me I'm Sick--Mudhoney
Womanizer--Britney Spears
Domino Dancing--Pet Shop Boys
Addicted to Love--Robert Palmer
Freeek--George Michael
Mr. Brightside--The Killers
Self-Obsessed and Sexee--Sonic Youth
Where Did You Sleep Last Night?--Nirvana (Lead Belly cover)
Leave (Get Out)--Jojo
Say My Name--Destiny's Child

Miscellaneous Addiction Songs

Jane Says--Jane's Addiction
Kiss the Bottle--Jawbreaker (I couldn't find the Jawbreaker version, so I used the Foo Fighters')
Heroin--The Velvet Underground
She Talks to Angels--The Black Crowes
Too Much Junkie Business--Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers
The Needle and the Damage Done--Neil Young
Comfortably Numb--Pink Floyd
Mr. Self Destruct--Nine Inch Nails
I Wanna Be Sedated--The Ramones

Codependency Songs

Big Girls Don't Cry--Fergie
Heart-Shaped Box--Nirvana
Bruise Violet--Babes In Toyland
Please Don't Leave Me--Pink
Let Go--Frou Frou
About A Girl--Nirvana
Back on the Chain Gang--Pretenders
What Have You Done for Me Lately?--Janet Jackson

Wrestling With My Will

2009-09-08T10:20:00.000-07:00

At my S-Anon meeting this morning, the topic was Step 9. It was perfect, considering that I’m about to start working Step 9 and I’ve been stressing out about it pretty much ever since I started this new run through the steps. I shared that I’ve been freaking out and that I have no idea how or even if I should make amends to my husband right now, considering that I’m experiencing a lot of resistance to the idea. This resistance isn’t new. The last time I worked the steps, I was still living with him, and something didn’t feel right about making direct amends then, so I wound up making living amends. I’ve continued making living amends to him, but I’m still not ready to contact him and make myself vulnerable with a formal apology. Part of it is that I’m still trying to unravel my role from his role in the destruction and dysfunction. Another part of it is that I don’t feel that I’ve detached enough to put that apology out there without worrying about his reaction.

Still, I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself to do Step 9 and get it over with. Another woman in the meeting shared that Step 9 has a lot to do with timing, and that it might take her years to make her amends. She said that, in many cases, she needs to wait until she’s ready and the opportunities present themselves. After her share, it hit me that I’m still very stuck in trying to control the process. I think my desire to rush Step 9 reflects my overwhelming desire to push for closure and get a move on with my life. Lately, I’m so sick of being in a state of flux. I don’t know what’s going to happen with my marriage, I don’t know what’s going to happen with my career and I don’t even know where I’m going to live next. I haven’t known any of these things for close to a year now, and sometimes it feels like I’m going to be stuck in “in-between” forever, despite my relentless efforts to force some sort of change. I was okay with my situation at first, but I never dreamed it would take this long to move on to the next chapter.

I’m really wrestling with my powerlessness lately, and my impatience is suffocating me. I alternate between letting go and accepting that I’m still right where I need to be, and ripping my hair out at the thought that, actually, I really need to be somewhere else.

Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

2009-09-03T13:22:00.000-07:00

Well, I’m back from my little vacation. It was, weirdly, both restful and stressful at the same time. I’m not feeling as antsy and restless as I was before I left, but I’m still not back to feeling completely serene and centered. I guess I’d describe my current state as “resigned.” I feel peaceful in a tired, accepting sort of way. I’m having trouble fully articulating it, but there’s a sense that I’ve let go of something and surrendered on a new level, and now I’m slowly acclimating to the absence of whatever I relinquished. I feel the inner quietude that one often experiences after a long, exhausting struggle.

I wish I had more insight into this feeling, but that’s all I know right now.

In other news, someone who occasionally comments on this blog asked me a while ago if I would create a playlist of sex addiction-related songs and share it here. Because I love any type of music project, I agreed to, but it’s taking me a while to compile it. Like all music nerds, I’ve been doing research and trying to create the perfect combination of songs (I was the queen of mix tape-making back in the ’90s). Anyway, as part of my research, I recently re-watched the above performance (Nirvana’s cover of Lead Belly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?”) after not seeing it for about a decade and it hit me right in the gut. (It’s near the end that’s breathtakingly powerful.) Watch it, and tell me what you think.

Un Chien Andalusia

2009-08-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

I’ve been feeling a little better over the past couple days, and I’ve gained some insight into this latest little depression: I’m so freakin’ ready to stop grieving. Not in the sense that I wish the grieving would stop because I don’t want to deal with the pain, but in the sense that maybe it’s mostly run its course. While this time out (not having a job, being separated, living with my mom) was really good for me for a while—in fact, it was exactly what I needed—I don’t need it anymore. I’m ready to start the next chapter of my life, whatever that is, even though it’s going to be scary. And I think why the whole job-in-a-city-where-I-don’t-know-anyone thing threw me into a tailspin is because it’s the first opportunity for change that’s come along in quite a while, but it just wasn’t right. But maybe it took wishing it was right for me to realize that I truly am so ready to move on.

The good news is that I’m getting away from my mom’s basement for the next few days. Some friends are picking me up tonight and we’re driving to another city for a little vacation. We’re going to go out on a boat and do some sightseeing and, best of all, go dancing. I haven’t been out dancing in so long, even though it was one of the things that kept me sane in New York. Also, this sounds really frivolous, but I’m also really missing getting dressed up. Here in the South, people typically dress down and seem to sort of look at you funny if you’re wearing anything besides jeans and a casual shirt. What’s more, there’s nowhere to go—besides church (which I do not attend)—if you feel like getting dressed up. I mention this because I have this crazy but totally fierce jumpsuit I’ve been dying to wear, and I’m so stoked to finally have the opportunity to bust it out. In fact, part of me has to admit that one of the major draws of this trip is the fact that I get to wear the freakin’ jumpsuit. Does that tell you how much I need to get back to civilization?

Anyway, I wish you all a fantastic weekend and I assure you I’ll have the same. Oh, and I’ll leave you with my favorite dance song of all time, The Pixies’ “Debaser.” (Actually, it ties with Salt-n-Pepa’s “Push It,” but I’m going to go with my gut here and decide that that song is, uh, probably not so appropriate for this blog’s demographic.)

Birthday Blues

2009-08-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

I’ve hit another dip in my grieving process. I was feeling progressively better for quite a while, and now I’m back in a funk. I’ve noticed that this usually happens around anniversaries and holidays, and my birthday was a week ago. I’m 32 now, and I’m sad and so incredibly angry about the very real prospect of having to start over completely. I’m angry with the Universe for allowing something so unfair to happen, I’m angry with my husband for being sick and selfish and destructive, and I’m angry at everyone who’s happy and seems to effortlessly have everything work out according to script. I’m angry that there aren’t any easy, concrete answers and that I’ll probably never be able to resolve loving my husband with the horrible things he’s done. And, most of all, I’m angry with myself for being angry. I want to be all white light and forgiveness, but that just ain’t happening right now.

I know this is all a part of the process and that it will eventually go away, but right now it really sucks.

The Only Way Out

2009-08-20T13:24:00.000-07:00

As much as I’ve been complaining lately about living with my mom and stepdad, it’s been proving, like all things that are difficult, to be an opportunity for immense growth. This week, I found myself in a conflict with my mom that, now that it’s blown over, has been highly illuminating.

Last week, when I was searching for jobs, I came across a job that seemed really interesting and fit perfectly with my experience. The only problem was, it was in a city where I didn’t know anyone—not a soul. I decided to apply for it anyway, telling myself that I could mull it over on the off chance that I was chosen as a candidate. Well, a few days ago, HR contacted me, telling me I had made it to the next round and asking for my writing samples. I panicked. I began to imagine myself moving to this city where I didn’t have a single friend and feeling incredibly isolated and lonely.

I told my mom about the job, and she immediately got really excited about it, encouraging me to send in my samples. “Well, that’s the thing,” I told her. “I’m not so sure I want to move somewhere where I don’t know anyone.” My mom seemed disappointed. “Well, you could send in your writing samples and then think it over some more.” “No,” I said. “I don’t need to think it over anymore. I wasn’t sure when I applied, but I’m sure now.” Again, my mom gave me a look of disappointment. “Mom, would you want to move to a place where you didn’t know a single person and didn’t have any built-in support?” “I’m not sure,” she replied briskly and somewhat snottily. “I’d have to think it over.”

Well, that’s when I exploded. You have never been alone or done anything on your own in your whole goddamn life. You married at age 19—you went right from your parents' house to dad’s house--and when you and dad split, you got remarried before the ink was even dry on the divorce papers. It’s really fucking easy for you to tell me I should do this when you’ve never done it yourself. And, in fact, I know what it’s like to do things all alone. I moved an ocean away at age 18 and went to college in a place where I didn’t know anyone. I spent Thanksgivings and other major holidays with other people’s families. I moved to New York fucking City all alone. All my life, I have done everything all alone and I’m sick and fucking tired of it and it makes me want to puke.

My mom was silent for a moment, and then finally spoke up. “You’re right, Margaux, I don’t know what you should do. Trust your gut.” (The reason I can explode on my mom like this is because, despite her defects, she truly is awesome and truly does give me the space to be myself. She’s a safe person in my life and we have been able, over the years, to achieve true intimacy in our relationship. And, P.S., I apologized immediately after this rather adolescent blow up.)

I talked this out in therapy today, and I realized—surprise, surprise—that I’ve got some unresolved beef with my mom. When I was growing up, my mom constantly stressed the importance of being an independent woman. While she babied my brother and did pretty much everything for him, I was always encouraged—and often pushed—to do everything for myself. I often complied in order to avoid being a burden to her--she seemed so harried in catering to my brother and my dad, that I wanted to be "good" and stay out of her hair by relying only on myself. Part of the reason I was having such mixed feelings this week about the job was that, even today as an adult, I was still trying to ease the burden on her. I've been feeling guilty about living under her roof, and even though I've been doing everything in my power to get out of her hair, I'm realizing that I won't sacrifice what's healthy for me by only considering her needs.

In hindsight, I can see that my mom had the best of intentions. She was in an incredibly unhappy marriage, but she was emotionally dependent (and, even though she had her own high-paying job, somewhat financially dependent)—really codpendent-- on my dad. I’m guessing she told herself that if she taught me to not depend on anyone but myself, I wouldn’t end up in her situation.

But we all know now that I did end up in her situation. Going to the other extreme often brings us right back to the place we’re trying to avoid. And, throughout my adult life thus far, I’ve often used her voice in my head to pressure myself into doing everything all alone and to convince myself that I don't need other people at all. But what I’m learning these days is how to achieve some balance—how to be independent and still acknowledge that I do need other people, that I do need support.

I’m proud of myself for listening to my gut and not pressuring myself to make a move that I really didn’t feel was right for me. I’m also grateful for the learning opportunities that have come my way through living with my parents. Lately, I’ve been wanting to escape, but I’m wondering if it’s because I’d been trying to avoid the pain in facing these realizations.

The only way out is through.

Learning How To Fall

2009-08-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

My mom was telling me today how, when she recently went to visit my brother, she brought him a motorized scooter as a gift. (I’m not talking about a motorized scooter as in a Vespa, but one of those little metal contraptions you push with your foot). “Really?!” I asked, incredulous. “And he didn’t think it was lame?” My brother, who’s in his late 20s, has been skateboarding practically since birth, and he’s always been very vocal in his opinion that anything with wheels that isn’t a car or a skateboard is for poseurs. “No,” my mom said. “He’s becoming tolerant in his old age—he loved it. Well, as soon as he got the hang of it. He had a slight accident at first.”

Laughing, she told me how he had turned on the motor, stepped onto the scooter, and then the tiny yet surprisingly powerful thing had ended up bucking him off like a mechanical bull. “Oh, shit!” I said. “Was he mad?” “Oh, yeah,” my mom answered. “He screamed, ‘Mom! You should have warned me. I could have dislocated my shoulder!’” She rolled her eyes at this part of the story. “He’s such an exaggerator,” she said. “There’s no way he could have seriously hurt himself. He’s fallen a million times skateboarding—he knows how to fall. ”

Read the rest of this post at The Second Road...

Spiritual Midol

2009-08-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I get really bad PMS. (Men, if you’re squeamish about this sort of hush-hush lady stuff, you might want to stop reading here). In the few days before my period, it’s like someone else--a real twisted sister--takes over and it’s really difficult for me to be aware and conscious. In fact, I’d say that 90 percent of the shitty things I said and did to my husband probably happened when I was under the dark, diabolical influence of PMS.

Anyway, it’s that time of the month again and, for the past couple days, I’ve been a bitchy, irritable little monster. I’ve been angry and weepy and tired, and I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what idiots other people are and concocting conversations (well, more like monologues) in my head whereby I instruct these imbeciles on how to live their lives (you know, because I’m the expert). I’ve also been telling myself that I’m disgustingly fat (I barely tip the scale past 100) and that my life sucks and will always suck (my life is actually pretty damn good and I have a lot to be grateful for).

This afternoon, though, as I was wallowing in my pissyness, a thought occurred to me: What if I just embrace these bad feelings? What if I remain very aware that I have PMS and just don’t try to fight it? What if I tell myself that it’s perfectly okay to feel angry and weepy, it’s perfectly acceptable to feel like a beached whale, and it’s perfectly fine to feel that my life is hopelessly lame? After all, I told myself, these feelings will go away in a few days, and if I try to push away the feelings I’m having today, I’ll miss out on fully experiencing this little part of my life.

Not long after I had this thought and allowed myself to wallow with gusto, a weird thing happened: I stopped feeling like shit. I suddenly had the energy to get up and do things I had been putting off. The people who were irritating me seemed to have magically gained a few IQ points. And when it came time to change into my tight-ass yoga clothes, I didn’t even wrinkle my nose when I looked in the mirror.

After years of trying all sorts of PMS-busting methods—hot water bottles, herbal remedies, various methods of birth control—I was pretty stoked to have finally come across this simple (but really not so simple) little trick.

The In Betweens

2009-08-11T12:19:00.000-07:00

Nothing has the ability to drive me crazy like being in a state of in between. I’m a person who craves forward movement, and I loathe standing still. Surprisingly, however, I feel like I’ve been doing really well with accepting and making the best of my current state of in between. I feel like I’ve been using this time very wisely—I’ve been working my recovery, exercising, traveling, updating and organizing my professional portfolio, writing frequently, reading like a fiend, pursuing lots of little hobbies and interests (the latest is Latin dance!), applying to every job under the sun, and networking with a vengeance. This time that I’ve been living with my parents during my separation has felt like a preparation for something, like I’m being given the chance to organize and break down a pile of rubble, and, in the process, I’m laying a strong foundation for when in between finally dissolves into the next stage. Though there’s been very little change to my external circumstances, my internal workings have been evolving at a very quick rate. I feel like as a result of this in between phase, I’m a much more disciplined, serene, strong and clear-thinking person.

Read the rest of this post at The Second Road...

Balancing My Bookshelf

2009-08-05T09:37:00.000-07:00

Ever since I started this strange journey more than a year ago, a portion of my bookshelf, which could be referred to as The Sex Addiction Section or The Recovery Library, has been growing. I’m not one of those people who arranges her books neatly, tall to short, but instead, I tend to place them on the shelf, seemingly willy-nilly, in the order I read them. The other day when I was dusting, I noticed that the majority of the books to the left—signifying the beginning of my journey--are clinical tomes on sex addiction and codependency that offer clear-cut definitions of the problem. But as I slid my gaze farther to the right, I noticed that these books had been replaced halfway through by other, very different types of books: daily devotionals, books by the Dalai Lama, books by Buddhist monks and Christian scholars, books about meditation and yoga.

Surveying my shelf, I had a sudden flash of insight: I’m not so interested in the problem anymore. And in fact, something about looking at the sex-addiction and codependency books gave me a sudden sense of bitter distaste, like I had licked chalk or sucked on a penny. I had flashbacks of how miserable I felt when I was still obsessed with the mechanics of it all, when I spent a lot of my time intellectualizing what was happening. Don’t get me wrong: It’s not that I disagree with addiction experts that there is a problem, nor do I disagree with the way they’ve picked apart the problem and defined it. (After all, the first step in our recovery is admitting that the problem exists.) In fact, at the time I was devouring those books, I was shocked and relieved to see the patterns of my husband’s behavior, my behavior and the behaviors between us spelled out in such clear, concise, irrefutable terms--finally, I had an answer.

There came a point not too long ago, however, where I felt like reading, writing and talking about the problem was no longer healthy. Actually, obsessing about the problem made me feel hopelessly sick. I began to see that I was pathologizing my husband, myself and my marriage to the point of objectification. I'd been adding up the sum of my husband’s parts and coming up with “addict” or “love avoidant.” I'd been checking off every symptom on the list and reducing myself to my diagnosis: “codependent,” “co-addict,” “love addict.” I'd been charting out our relationship on the disease-model grid and finding that our peaks and valleys lined up with its every hill and dip, ultimately spelling out this message in bold, loping letters: Codependency or, according to other books, Love Addiction.

But no matter how much my husband, I or our relationship fit these diagnoses, a part of me felt that there was more to him, to me, to us. He might be an addict, I might be a codependent , and our relationship might be manifesting the twisted symptoms of love addiction, but, no matter how far I came out of denial and understood that we were both very ill, I still could not fully agree with Patrick Carnes, who says Don’t Call It Love. What about those beautiful parts of my husband that weren’t on the list of symptoms? What about those interesting, loving, creative parts of me that couldn’t be chalked up to codependency? What about that undeniable spiritual connection, clearly separate from our crazy cycles and patterns, that was a tangible force between me and my husband?

Then I began to focus on the solution. As I began to read more books about spirituality and came into deeper contact with my own good parts that I had known were there, I became more and more convinced that actually, we can call it love—not just when referring to the foundation of a relationship, but when referring to the foundation of our Selves. All the fucked-up parts in me might have been attracted to the sick parts in my husband, creating a “Betrayal Bond,” but at the same, the healthy parts in me were attracted to the healthy parts in him, creating a spiritual bond. As much as addiction uses conflict to grow like a cancer, our souls use conflict to grow like healthy muscle fiber. It’s just that the growth we experience depends on whichever force happens to be greater at the time. And much like our bodies use illness to build immunity and grow stronger, can’t our minds and spirits use mental illness and spiritual maladies to strengthen the soul?

All that said, it’s important to take the first step and admit to the problem, and it’s important to become as educated as we can about the problem. But the key to solving the problem is understanding that we are more than the problem.

Today, I’m straightening my bookshelf to create a much more balanced view.

Someone Else Gets It!

2009-08-04T08:37:00.000-07:00

I've been attempting to explain the approach I'm taking to my separation for months now, and writer Laura Munson managed to explain it perfectly in this week's New York Times "Modern Love" column. Seriously, folks, this explains my desire to put my ring back on and everything, and I'm so glad someone else gets it. (Of course, I'm under no delusion that my husband will indeed respond in the way Munson's husband did--addiction adds another dimension to the scenario--but it explains my attitude.) Read the article here.

Musings on Marriage

2009-07-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

When Mark and I were deep into the process of planning our wedding, I decided that I was going to ask my father to walk me down the aisle. For most brides, this is a given, but for me, it took months to arrive at this decision. My father and I had been estranged for years, the main reason being that our religious views didn’t match. Basically, his religion is a brand of Catholicism that borders on zealotry and, at the time, I wouldn’t have even called myself spiritual, much less religious, much less Catholic. Looking back, my lack of conscious spirituality was a direct rebellion against my father’s religious fervor, which he wielded like a weapon against anyone who seemed likely to get close. And, like anyone who comes to rely on a weapon to navigate the world, he lashes himself with it just as often if not more than he uses it to flog others--a devout monk practicing self flagellation. Still, like so many times before, I had hoped that somehow I could convince him to disarm, and I hoped that his little girl’s wedding would be the long-hoped-for catalyst.

But I had been through enough disappointment over the years that when he declined, I wasn’t all that surprised. He told me that because Mark and I weren’t getting married in the Catholic church, there was no way he could, in good conscience, give his blessing to a heathen marriage. “You should be marrying a good Catholic boy, Margaux,” he chided in an email. “There’s no way a marriage is going to work without God, and that’s the whole point of marriage: to grow together in a deeper relationship with God.” I didn’t write him back. I had a strict boundary with my father: No contact as long as he was beating me over the head with his religion or judging me in any other way. Yes, I would reach out every so often and see if he had changed, but as soon as he proved he hadn’t, I was done—at least for now.

Still, what he said bothered me. I wanted to ask him what in the hell a good Catholic boy would want with me when I’m not Catholic. He knew that—in fact, it was the source of the majority of our disagreements, and so it seemed to me that he was placing full responsibility for the marriage’s success on my husband’s shoulders. Still, no matter how crazy my father is or may seem, there often is a grain of pure, unadulterated truth in what he says, and even though I wouldn’t have called myself spiritual at the time, that part of me that could identify the truth couldn’t reject this little nugget: That’s the whole point of marriage: to grow together in a deeper relationship with God.

But rather than examining this smooth pebble of wisdom, I tucked it away in my pocket. I went ahead and booked the nondenominational officiant who had presided over a friend’s wedding a few years prior. Several weeks later, however, for reasons I can’t explain, I decided I didn’t want that officiant anymore. My friend’s ceremony had been dull and unmoving, and I wanted something with a little more pizzazz. The woman who ran the old plantation where we were getting married suggested a female officiant, who, she assured me, had plenty of pizzazz. Sure enough, our ceremony could only be described as magical. It was as if there was something immensely powerful there, connecting everyone in the room in a very deep, profound, but indescribable way. Mark, usually stoic and cool, was moved to tears—even snotting all over his fancy jacket—and there wasn’t a dry eye in the audience.

(A couple weeks ago, I randomly mentioned our officiant to a friend who I’ve met since we got married and who is totally separate from my other social circles. Oddly, she had been to a wedding where this woman presided, and she, too, could recall just how powerful the ceremony she attended was. The thing that had stuck with my friend—and that had occurred at our wedding as well—was that the officiant included everyone in the ceremony, asking the guests to recognize that the marriage didn’t stop with the two people; marriage, she said, was something that had a profound effect on the couple’s community, and the community on the couple. How the couple loved each other, and how the community loved the couple, were symbiotic. Essentially, her point was this: Marriage is a bond that , if used in the right way, is powerful tool for transforming the people around us and bringing love into the world.)

I often credit my S-Anon program with having awakened my spirituality, but now, with more than a year of perspective, I can say in hindsight that my spirituality was sparked during that ceremony. One particular memory stands out: A few days after we returned from our honeymoon, a coworker’s fiancé died suddenly and unexpectedly. For the first time in several years, I found myself deeply contemplating Meaning--the meaning of his death, the timing of his death, and what it might have said about their impending marriage that had been scheduled for a date only a few months away.

I also contemplated what it meant that Mark and I had been "allowed" to get married, without death or anything else barring the way. I knew Mark was a sex addict when I married him, and, though I loved him deeply, I had doubts and reservations. Why had death stepped in and stopped this normal, healthy couple from proceeding with their marriage while we, the sick ones, had been given the go-ahead? Even though I had known my friend's fiance very superficially, his death and the circumstances surrounding it shook me to my core in a way that I don’t think they would have before that first sweet taste of spirituality at my wedding.

But back to that pebble in my pocket: That's the whole point of marriage: to grow together in a deeper relationship with God. Now that I’m finally getting around to taking it out and turning it over in my hands, running my fingers over its smooth edges, it’s hard not to feel that though I’m not Catholic, though I’m still not even religious, and though it hasn’t happened in a way that my father would even understand—in fact, it’s happened in a way that would horrify him—I am growing in God through this marriage. And I think that’s why, as I continue to evolve in my spirituality and fine tune my inner compass, it’s becoming more and more difficult to not see this marriage, despite or in spite of its sickness, as something good. But then there’s that pesky little word together, as in “growing together.” Whether the growth happens in tandem has yet to be seen.

Reprogramming My GPS

2009-07-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

Sophie in the Moonlight, whose insight I always value, made this observation on my last post: You're in a profound state of flux and you will sort out your feelings and follow your heart to the right choices. I don't know that your ring wearing is about Mark; perhaps it is more about your commitment to yourself. As usual, she’s right on target. Most of what I’m going through during this period in my life, even though it seems like it all has to do with my marriage and Mark’s sex addiction, really is all about me. It’s about me realigning with myself, with my inner compass, with that part of me I ignored for so long that’s aligned with God, The Universe, The Truth—whatever you want to call it.

The question isn’t Do I stay in my marriage?—at least not fully; the real question is What’s the right path for me, and what am I meant to do in this life? Finding the answer to the second question will allow me to find the true answer to the first question. For too long, my approach was ass-backwards: Question No. 1 was skewing, concealing and erroneously informing the answer to Question No. 2. That said, the marriage crisis and the sex addiction fiasco were only catalysts, caution signs on the road telling me I had been driving in the wrong direction for miles. This separation has been the equivalent of pulling over to the shoulder to reprogram my GPS.

What’s confusing and frightening me lately, however, is that the longer I sit on that shoulder, taking deep breaths and realigning myself with my spiritual compass, the more I feel like the arrow is pointing in the same direction as my marriage. Meaning, the more I commit to myself and the more I commit to my Higher Power, the more it seems that commitment to my husband--or rather maybe I should say commitment to the marriage, which, in my mind, seems to be becoming a living, breathing entity in and of itself, something much bigger than just two people--is a no-brainer. Which is scary, because the last time I consulted the GPS, my husband and I were heading in opposite directions. Driving all the way to Marriagetown when it’s highly likely he’s still across the country in Addictionville would be incredibly embarrassing and foolish.

But as Sophie and all my other lovely friends who comment here have reminded me, it’s important not to look ahead and try to decipher the name of the destination. So maybe right now I’m on the road to Marriagetown, but later I’ll take the exit for Divorce Boulevard or a detour to Reconciliation Road. As long as I keep following my inner guide, all roads, really, will lead to the junction of Truth and Independence. It’s just that sometimes, it’s so incredibly difficult to train my eyes on only one mile at a time and have faith that I’m not going to yet again become disastrously lost.

*Note: The GPS analogy used above was actually inspired by a conversation I had several months ago with my brilliant blogger friend R at Discovering Recovering. I knew there was something that felt familiar about the idea of the GPS as a spiritual guide as I was writing this, but the conversation had slipped my mind until R good-naturedly reminded me. In an attempt to correct the idea stealing, please recognize that this post was inspired by the brainchild of the lovely R.

Conversations with God in a Bathroom Stall

2009-07-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

Last week, I spent several days visiting friends in another state. One of my stops was to see my friend Tara, who informed me on my arrival that she had been in touch with a couple of our old friends from junior high, who happened to now be living in her city. “We’re meeting them for drinks tonight!” she said happily. I wasn’t as enthusiastic. In fact, I felt panicked. First of all, I’ve been avoiding bars like the plague, for two reasons: 1) The meet-market vibe triggers the shit out of me, even if I’m not an active participant and 2) I don’t even want to be a passive participant, i.e., I really don’t want anyone to hit on me while I’m in this fragile, recovering state.

Another reason I felt panicked was that ever since my husband and I separated, I’ve been avoiding superficial friends and acquaintances. No one except my very close friends and family members know what’s happening in my marriage. There are several reasons for this, among them being that I have no idea where to even begin explaining. Very few people understand sex addiction. Another reason is the fact that we hadn’t even been married a year before the shit hit the proverbial fan. The last everyone had heard, we were blissed-out newlyweds.

And finally, I have no idea what the outcome of this separation is going to be. When you tell people you’re separated, most tend to immediately jump to the conclusion of divorce and have very little understanding of the hard work that’s still being done behind the scenes. I’ve found that the energy spent explaining my views on marriage, which diverge significantly with those of popular culture, is better expended on working on myself. (Another reason I don’t always explain my views fully—not even here on this blog—is because those views are frequently changing and evolving the longer I’m in recovery. As soon as I think I have it all figured out, something happens to expand my understanding).

Anyway, so yeah, back to meeting up with those friends. I finally agreed to the little reunion, but I told Tara that I wanted to keep my marriage issues private. She agreed to not mention anything and to not look at me funny if I had to creatively talk my way around the subject. With that agreement in place, I relaxed and actually began looking forward to reuniting with our friends. On the way to the bar, however, a thought popped into my mind and nagged at me relentlessly: I wasn’t wearing my wedding ring.

The truth is, I hadn’t been wearing it for months. I had taken it off as soon as my husband made it clear that he wasn’t going to do anything to work on our marriage. “Fine,” I had told myself, shimmying the ring off my finger and tucking it away in my jewelry box. “If he’s not committed, then neither am I.” But as we edged closer to the bar that night, I began to feel like a colossal hypocrite. I was going to pretend that everything was perfect, that I truly was a blissed out newlywed, telling myself all along that the reason I was pretending was because my friends wouldn’t be able to understand that I truly am committed, just in a weird way, all while not wearing my wedding ring in a fucking bar of all places.

We instantly found our friends in the bar and began catching up. They told me that they had heard I had gotten married, I hid my left hand, told them, yes, just a little over a year ago, and that was that; on to the next subject. I breathed a sigh of relief, and began to truly enjoy their company. A group of guys came over and hit on us, but they left as soon as they realized none of us were interested. Again, I lamented not wearing my ring, but breathed another sigh of relief as they skulked away. But then something really crazy happened. One of our friends spotted a guy she knew, the husband of a close friend. He and another guy were canoodling with a group of women—none of them his wife--in the booth next to us. Our friend told us that this guy had a history of rampant infidelity, and that her friend, his wife, had caught him in a series of lies and questionable situations. “But she’s totally in denial,” my friend said, rolling her eyes. “She keeps ignoring and explaining away the evidence.”

In an attempt to find some way to break through her friend’s denial, my friend began stealthily snapping photos of the canoodling. “Is he wearing his ring?” she asked excitedly. “If he isn’t, I need to get a picture of his hand.” We all squinted, trying to zero in on his left hand, but none of us could tell from our vantage point. My friend then asked Tara to approach the guy and ask him to take our picture. “If he’s closer up, I’ll be able to tell,” she reasoned. Tara came back with the guy, who immediately recognized my friend and immediately seemed sheepish. He tucked his left hand into the pocket of his shorts the entire time he was talking to us. “He’s definitely not wearing his ring,” Tara said, as he slunk out of earshot. “If he were, he wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of hiding his hand the whole time.” We all nodded in sad agreement.

At this point, I was on the verge of a full-on panic attack. All I had wanted was to have fun with my friends and avoid the topic of sex addiction for one freakin’ night, and it wasn’t happening. No matter where I go, I thought, sex addiction seems to follow. Feeling the beginnings of a pounding headache, I excused myself to go to the restroom. In the sanctuary of the stall, I pressed my forehead against the cool metal door, closed my eyes, and breathed deeply. I whispered a prayer. Please God, help me. I don’t know how to handle this. I don’t know how to navigate a world that’s so fucked up. Please God, please, please, please. Help.

The next day, I took the train home and, as I was unpacking, I felt a pull to my jewelry box. I opened it and picked up the ring I hadn’t looked at or thought about for months. A little voice inside my head said, Put your ring back on, Margaux. So I did, and I’ve been wearing it ever since. Sometimes I look at it and its beauty and sparkle dazzle me, and other times I look at it and feel scared shitless. I don’t know why I’m wearing this ring when everything outside of myself is telling me it’s hopeless.

The Party Ain't Jumpin' Like It Used To

2009-07-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

When my best friend Tara and I were living together in New York, before I started dating my husband, she went through this weird period where she became obsessed with mainstream hip hop. What made it weird was that, up until that point, she listened mostly to obscure indie rock and pretty much hated any song on the radio. But during that time, Hot 97 and Power 105.1 were blaring pretty much constantly from her bedroom. We lived with this guy who was also a music snob, and it bothered him to no end. He'd beg Tara to explain her bizarre obsession, but she'd just smile enigmatically and turn up the music.

The music annoyed me a little at first, but after months of hearing it, I started singing along and, after a while, I'd join Tara in her room for dance parties. (Lot's of grumbling and eye rolling ensued from our roommate.) After a while, the hip hop obsession faded and Tara went back to the music she had always listened to. Still, a lot of little inside jokes are still going from that era, like saying "Bank Amurrrrica" (from Chingy's "One Call Away") whenever we drive past a Bank of America, or laughing about how some lame-o guy serenaded me with Snoop Dogg's "Beautiful" on our first and only date.

Today, I got a surprise package in the mail from Tara. Inside was a homemade CD and a note. The note said, "Here's some music from a really fun time in our lives." I popped it in my computer, and sure enough, it was a mix of crappy-crap hip hop circa early 2000s! One of the songs was Usher's "Let It Burn," which describes perfectly the ambivalence of letting go of a toxic relationship even though you still love the person. So I'm adding "Let It Burn" to "Margaux's Mix" that I've got going here. Also, I was so touched and stoked to have received that CD and I wanted to share some of it with ya'll. (Above is just the song, not the official video. The video had content that could potentially be triggering to sex addicts and their partners.)

Practice Makes (Contentedly) Imperfect

2009-07-10T11:47:00.000-07:00

Last night, a couple members of my step group and I were philosophizing about the steps. We were talking about how so much of the internal change we experience after each step is out of our control, and that, therefore, it’s futile to stress over whether we’re doing the steps “right.” Still, even though we knew this, we all agreed that it’s often difficult to keep our perfectionist tendencies in check. Then someone who’s working the steps for the first time shared a tool she’d been using to be gentle with herself: “I just view this journey through the steps as my practice run.”

When I heard her say the word “practice,” something clicked. I started thinking about yoga, which I’ve come to see as a metaphor for life, and how what my classmates and I do every time we step onto the mat is referred to as a “practice.” There are no yoga performances, pageants or competitions. Each week, we twist our bodies into various shapes and pay close attention to our breath with no end goal in mind. We do it for the sake of doing it, for no reason except to connect with the present moment. But still, something changes and improves over time. That something, however, is not that we progressively get better at each pose, that we edge closer to peak performance each week. Instead, we progressively get better at accepting our imperfections and limitations. We accept that the pose that was strong and precise yesterday might be wobbly and sloppy today. We accept the differences in focus and energy from session to session. We accept non-linear change. We accept that practice is truth, performance is myth.

Read the rest of this post at The Second Road...

I Get So Tired Of Working So Hard For Our Survival

2009-07-08T18:38:00.001-07:00

At the beginning of yoga class tonight, the teacher asked us to each set our own personal intention. She does this a lot, and usually I set my intention around general spiritual principles like "letting go" or "acceptance" or "unconditional love." Tonight, the first thing that popped in my mind was "some sort of healing between my husband and me." My practice tonight was really rejuvenating and I sweat and I stretched and I shook, and by the time we began to wind down, I felt like a two-ton load of tension had been lifted off my body.

As we were settling into Savasana, the corpse pose, shifting and fidgeting in an attempt to find comfort, the teacher remarked that it's the most difficult pose in yoga. "The hardest thing to do is to just let go and relax when you feel like there are a million other things you could and should be doing." Normally, I wouldn't have thought much about her comment, but since I kept going back to my intention, I thought about how difficult and scary it has been to let go of my marriage and to not think about the million things I could and should do to try to bend it to my will. Thinking back to my last blog post, I realized that right now, I'm in Savasana. It hasn't been at all easy to find comfort. Letting go has been a process fraught with squirming and shifting and fidgeting, but little by little, I continue to sink in and trust that I'll be supported. And little by little, I've been finding peace.

When I got home, I took a nice, long soak in the tub and listened to the radio. As I was washing my hair, Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" came on. It seemed really strange that some deejay would be playing it, considering that it's circa 1986 and you just don't hear it that much anymore. It also seemed really strange that it would come on tonight, considering that it was Mark's and my first-dance song at our wedding. It had taken us a long time to choose our song, and we selected "In Your Eyes" mostly because we both loved the scene in Say Anything where Lloyd Dobler blasts it on a boom box outside Diane Court's window. (Soooo romantic. Sigh.) I had never paid much attention to the lyrics, even though I had heard the debate over whether it was about Peter Gabriel's love for Rosanna Arquette or if it was about an intense religious experience he had.

After listening more closely tonight, I'd personally like to think it's about both--about a person's spirituality and human love growing in tandem. (Lyrics here). I also like the fact that it seems to be about a person who's lost and runs away and doesn't know what to do until all the person's instincts suddenly return and "reach out from the inside."

I'm not quite sure what all tonight's events put together mean, if anything at all. But for some reason, I wanted to write it all down and share it. Enjoy the video!

Just For Today

2009-06-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

Today, a blogger pal of mine was wondering out loud whether I’d continue writing here and, if so, in what capacity. I told her that I purposely didn’t officially sign off when I was feeling sick of the blog because something I’ve been learning in my recovery is to avoid promises of “always” and “never.” As I’ve been becoming more aware of my feelings, I’ve been learning that feelings come and go. I’ve been learning to replace “always” and “never” with “Just For Today.” What’s right for me this minute, day, week, month or year might not be right for me in the near or distant future. All I can do is pay close attention to what my soul is calling for, and answer that call. So, while writing here wasn’t what I needed a few weeks ago, I’m now feeling the pull to write here again and I’m yielding to it. However, I’m not going to make a commitment that’s set in stone (X amount of posts a week, for example). When I set those sorts of expectations for myself, I just wind up feeling stressed and fuzzy-headed. Instead, I’ll keep this blog open, knowing that it’s always here when I feel like writing.

As I was reflecting on the blog situation, I realized that the “Just For Today” philosophy also explains how I’ve begun to view my husband’s and my separation. Right now, I don’t feel like being around him and he doesn’t feel like being around me. For a few months after we first separated, I denied those feelings. All I could think about was our commitment and my expectation that we find a way—any way—to get this shit straightened out, stat. But as the months went by and I began to be more honest with myself, I realized that my soul was calling for a time-out from the relationship. I listened, and gave myself permission to stop forcing myself to work relentlessly on something I no longer felt like working on.

But, just like I did with this blog, I’ve been avoiding promises of “always” and “never.” I don’t know whether one day in the near or distant future he or I or both of us will want to pick the relationship back up. I’m honoring the feelings I have now, and I’m under no delusion that,with the way things are looking now, the future seems to hold a lot of promise for our marriage. Therefore, I don’t spend my time holding out hope, and instead all of my energy goes toward moving forward in my own life, not moving forward in my marriage. However, I honor the fact that we're still married and, therefore, I'm not doing anything that goes against that, such as dating other people. (In turn, I'm honoring myself--after all, the reason I separated was to give myself the space to get my head together, without the outside noise of any relationship).

Still, I’m open to whatever feelings and situations might arise later on. There’s no way of knowing where my path will lead me and where Mark's path will lead him, and whether or not those two paths with once again converge. Ultimately, my Higher Power will be the one who decides the fate of our partnership. Fortunately, because we’re legally separated, there’s a deadline for that decision and letting go won’t lead to procrastination. In my separation, I’m right where I’m supposed to be.

Enough About Us, Let's Talk About Me

2009-06-29T18:48:00.000-07:00

I stopped writing on my blog for a while recently, mostly because I had so saturated myself with the subject of sex addiction that I began to feel that if I wrote or read one more word about it, I’d puke. This feeling of being fed up to my teeth coincided with a sense that I had finally arrived at a point in my recovery where it was all about me. Sex addiction was my husband’s disease, and I was done focusing on my husband. I knew I had my own serious issues and that I still needed recovery, but I was thinking that maybe what I needed to fully extricate myself from my husband’s issues was to drop out of S-Anon and join a group like CODA, where it was all about codependency and not codependency by proxy.

Read the rest of this post at The Second Road...

Hands Are Shaking Cold

2009-06-26T13:58:00.000-07:00

I'm sort of missing this blog right now, but I don't have a lot of time to write, so I'm going go half-assed and offer up yet another cheesy pop video, this one courtesy of my friend Tara, who knows that I seem to be compiling a playlist unofficially titled "Songs That [Could Be]/Are About Addiction." This one is called "Move Along" and it's by a band called All-American Rejects. It's about a person, apparently an ex-lover, who's decided to "move along" rather than face her issues (lyrics here). I kinda like it--it's catchy. Oh, and something worth mentioning is that I think the lead singer is seriously hot. It's been a long time since I've been attracted to anyone or felt the least bit sexual (not that I'm objectifying this guy, but you know what I mean). It's kind of a big deal.

Quiet

2009-06-09T13:26:00.000-07:00

I've had a few people check in with me recently, pointing out that this blog has been pretty "quiet" lately. I'm not completely sure why, but I just haven't been all that motivated to write here over the past month or so. It's not that I'm isolating or that I'm feeling depressed--in fact, it's the opposite. I've been spending a lot of time with friends, and I've been busy searching for jobs, doing yoga, going to meetings, working the steps, and enjoying the gorgeous summer weather.

I've also been noticing a gradual internal shift lately. Even though I was intellectually focusing on myself, it wasn't until recently that my recovery wholly became all about me. Up until the recent past, I spent a lot of time trying to understand sex addiction, psychoanalyzing my husband, deconstructing our relationship and separation, and generally just trying to understand what the fuck had been happening during the years I was in this relationship. I'm not quite sure how it happened (and maybe my grasping for the words to explain is why I've been hesitant to write here), but I feel like I've arrived at a place of peace and acceptance for where I am. I now know for certain that I made the right decision in separating from Mark, and I feel completely prepared to accept whatever outcome results from that decision.

With that acceptance, I've been noticing that I've been wanting to distance myself from the topic of sex addiction. It's not that I want to deny that it exists and that it was the catalyst for my recovery, it just doesn't occupy my every waking thought anymore. Instead, I've been focusing on deeper layers of myself--emotions I've kept buried, childhood experiences, past relationships, and my true wants and needs. But most of all, I've been focusing on living--appreciating the people around me, enjoying nature and staying in the present.

How Stuff Works

2009-05-21T14:10:00.000-07:00

When I moved to New York after graduating from college, my first job was as an intern for what’s often referred to as a “laddie magazine,” the kind that caters to a certain type of guy and that focuses on gadgets, sports, cars and beer, but mostly on babes in bikinis. At first, I thought it was weird that they’d hire a girl, considering that I was clearly not in their demographic, but when I arrived on my first day and saw that I was only one among several blonde female interns—not a single guy in our gaggle of coffee-fetching peons—I quickly got the picture. Though I had very few healthy boundaries back then and didn’t hesitate to sell out my values in the name of employment, I still wouldn’t have stuck around if my sole (unofficial) job description was to be some associate editor’s “naughty intern” fantasy. I had some self respect, and I was there to write.

After a few months of crafting tantalizing photo captions (“In the winter, Tatiana keeps the thermostat at 80: ‘I hate wearing clothes,’ she says, licking her lips.”), I was finally given my own little corner of the gadgets section after my supervisor sensed my unmasked lack of enthusiasm. My job was to answer random, wacky questions sent in by readers, queries like “How does a fan work?” or “How does a toilet flush?” Answering these questions involved a lot of research and tricky Internet searches, but, after only a few frustrating attempts, I quickly found that HowStuffWorks.com was an invaluable resource. Nine times out of 10, I could type the question in the site’s search engine, and I’d have the answer in seconds.

Read the rest of this post at The Second Road...

I Can Be So Mean When I Want To Be

2009-05-18T20:59:00.000-07:00

Over the past month, I've been working Step Four, which entails taking responsibility for my part in the dysfunction in my life and relationships. Tonight, I heard this Pink song, "Please Don't Leave Me," on the radio and I realized it could pretty much be a substitute for the pages upon pages I've written in response to my fourth-step exercises. (The video is another story--I never hit my husband with golf clubs or pushed him down the stairs). Enjoy my indirect confessions!

Treadmill

2009-05-14T09:41:00.001-07:00

I've taken several deep breaths and I've managed to dig a little deeper to figure out just what the hell is going on with me right now: I'm feeling really restless and stuck. I'm getting really tired of living with my parents. I'm getting really tired of searching and applying for jobs every day, and, after almost a year, having no job to show for it. I have a lot of experience and qualifications, and I shouldn't be jobless. I feel like an unemployed loser, I've got this relentless itch to move on with my life, and I feel like I'm on a treadmill.

My stepdad wants me to move on, too--he hasn't said anything, but I can feel it. He's acting really pissy towards me, and he's getting oddly possessive about my mom's time. What's more, their relationship is super codependent, and it's triggering the shit out of me. I bite my tongue and mind my own business, but it's tough being in this environment. Last night, I witnessed a really fucked-exchange between the two of them. My mom and I came back from yoga a half hour later than we usually do. We had stopped at Rite Aid so I could pick up some stuff, and we had also stopped to get ice cream. When we walked in the door, my stepdad was raging and accusatory. He kept demanding to know what went on, why we were late. My mom explained that we made a couple stops on the way home, but he wouldn't hear it. He kept asking, "What the hell went on?"

Seeing him behave so irrationally brought me back to when I did the same to Mark, after he dropped out of recovery and started coming home late. The difference between that situation and the one last night is that Mark had given me plenty of reasons to be distrustful and my mom doesn't do anything shady. Mark is a sex addict who snuck porn every chance he got and flirted with other women as soon as my back was turned. My mom is 60-year-old school teacher whose idea of a wild time is restoring antiques on a Saturday afternoon. My stepdad has no reason to fly off the handle. Still, watching him act like a suspicious freak brought up a lot of guilt for me. I kept thinking, Is that what I sounded like? Was I that irrational?

All I know is that I need to get the fuck out of here soon. I really need a job and my own place, and I'm exasperated because I'm doing everything in my power to make that happen, but nothing's happening. In some ways, that pain I mentioned the other day really has more to do with my frustration over this scenario than with Mark. But at the same time, I keep feeling like I wouldn't be in this situation if Mark had kept his promises and honored his commitments. I'm angry and frustrated, and I want it to be someone else's fault.

Shredded

2009-05-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

That excruciating pain is back, throbbing right below my breast bone. I can't even say what brought it back, just that it's there. It's strange to me, how I can be moving along at a steady pace, enveloped in warm pockets of peace or at least contentedness, and then suddenly feel that sharp pain all over again, like a lung full of ice-cold air.

Sometimes I just can't wrap my head around what's happened. It seems absurd and unreal. Sometimes I don't think I'll ever be able to understand it, the destruction. It doesn't make sense that you can lovingly give someone something beautiful and white and pristine, and that person can accept it with a smile, then turn around, piss all over it and slash it to shreds. I will never understand that kind of mind, that level of brokenness. It scares me shitless.

Sharing My Grief

2009-05-04T11:58:00.000-07:00

I spent part of the weekend with Mark's childhood best friend Ryan, who lives only an hour away from my parents' house. Ryan and I became good friends over the several years that Mark and I were together, but a part of me has still felt strange about continuing the friendship, considering that Ryan and Mark are much closer than Ryan and I are. I often feel like Mark deserves his support in the midst of our separation and I don't. If this were a normal split--one that didn't involve addiction, I doubt our friendship would continue. But because it does involve addiction, there's a bizarre dynamic between Ryan and me--almost like two people who are mourning the death of someone they both deeply loved.

Ryan sees that something is seriously not right with my husband. Over the past several months, he's observed many of the drastic personality changes that I've noticed in Mark. He's sensed Mark pushing him away and shutting him out. He gets the overwhelming feeling that Mark is lying to him and possibly to himself. He doesn't understand the decisions Mark is making, especially when it seems obvious to him that these decisions are destructive and disastrous.

Though Ryan and I agree that Mark is definitely not himself, we've been disagreeing over the cause: Ryan believes that Mark's primary issue is alcoholism, whereas I believe it's sex addiction. However, the more I talked to Ryan this weekend, the more I had to admit to myself that Mark may also have an addiction to alcohol that I completely overlooked while I was so busy freaking out over the sex addiction. As I listened to Ryan point out several red flags--Mark's habit of double fisting whiskey and beer, the fact that he gets drunk every time he drinks, his seeming propensity to binge--parts of my relationship with Mark that I had previously ignored came into sharp focus.

If I had come to this realization a few months ago, I probably would have flipped out and regarded the situation as being even more fucked up than it already is. But what I've been learning in recovery, especially through my friendships with women whose husbands are other types of addicts, is that an addict is an addict. It's not the substance or behavior that's the problem, it's the maladaptive way of dealing with life. Drug addicts often go through stints of running around with other women, alcoholics often dabble in drugs, sex addicts will have periods of drinking or compulsive spending. No matter what the primary addiction, every addict has the same core issues.

That said, Ryan and I didn't spend a lot of time arguing over the problem; we mostly grieved our powerlessness over fixing Mark. But we also did something that I haven't been able to do with anyone else in my support network: We shared our good memories of Mark before this crisis hit. Ryan told me about some of his and Mark's hijinks when they were rough-and-tumble little boys tearing around the neighborhood. I told him about elaborate meals Mark had cooked for me, and about the time Mark did something seriously embarassing in Barnes & Noble and we were both crying we were laughing so hard, and about endearing little quirks you see only when you're married to someone.

As we laughed and shared these happy memories, I could feel healing taking place. I've really been needing to be around someone who not only understands why I left, but who also understands on a personal level why that decision was so incredibly hard and can see the inventory of all the wonderful things I've lost.

Liberty and Justice For All

2009-04-26T21:12:00.000-07:00

I took it easy this weekend. After expending a lot of energy on Mark's--and, by default, my--legal troubles and the residual suckiness of my anniversary, I felt physically and emotionally drained. So I slept a lot, watched movies, and read books in bed. The only time I ventured out was to see my hairdresser/guru Robby. I'm blonde again as opposed to dishwater, though my bangs are a bit too short for my liking. I feel like a Rockabilly chick, even though they're probably not that extreme--it always takes me a while to get used to a haircut.

Anyway, all the stress that led up to my needing to recuperate was worth it: I managed to get somewhere in the seemingly never-ending saga of the lease. It all started when my parents sat me down and told me that they'd give me the money to get out of this mess. My stepdad told me I had had enough drama over the past year and it was breaking his heart to watch me suffer more. (I got a little misty eyed at that point.) He suggested I contact the landlord and strike a deal: I'd give the landlord "my" half of the amount owed, as long as he'd agree to absolve me of any further responsibility and would promise--in writing--to leave me out of the lawsuit. It sounded like a pretty ingenious plan, but I also didn't want to just take money from my parents, especially for a debt I didn't rack up. So I decided to consult a lawyer first to see if the landlord could indeed hold me to the lease and, if so, if I could turn around and sue Mark according to the terms of the separation agreement.

The lawyer confirmed that my stepdad's suggestion was the best plan. She told me that to avoid all sorts of future inconveniences--bad credit, a seriously hard time renting or buying property--I should do whatever I can to avoid a lawsuit. She also told me that, according to what Mark agreed to in the separation papers, I'd have no problem suing him for the money I paid the landlord. I got in touch with the landlord, he sent me a certified letter absolving me of responsibility upon receipt of my check, and I put the money in the mail. I then emailed Mark, explaining that while he was busy avoiding the situation, I had taken care of my own business, which means he's now on his own and, by the way, he owes me $3,000 and some change.

Still, even though I know it's not my debt, the idea of suing him has been nagging at me all week. I'm really tired of fighting and the thought of suing my own husband--estranged or not, crazy-ass addict or not--just hasn't been sitting right with me. Above all, I want peace, and investing more time and energy into this draining situation is going to be, well, draining. But then I also keep thinking that if I don't sue him, I'm going to be enabling him and I'll have to use my own money to pay my parents back for a debt that isn't mine. So is taking care of myself doing what's going to bring me the most serenity (letting it go and not suing him) or fighting him to ensure that I'm not taken advantage of?

I talked to a recovery friend today about my dilemma, and she suggested I pray about it, though she didn't feel that either course of action would be wrong. So I did--I prayed about it--and, as I was replying to Mark's surprisingly polite and diplomatic response to my last email, I quickly found my answer. I realized that even though I'm 95-percent certain that bad decisions on his part created this situation, I wasn't around when this fiasco was happening and I haven't been privy to his conversations with the landlord. For all I know, the landlord could have told Mark he could move out and then renegged after Mark left, claiming abandonment of the property so he could get more money. Highly unlikely, but, like I said, I wasn't there. So my solution is this: I'll let the law decide. If, when they go to court, Mark is found to not be at fault, I won't expect him to pay me back. However, if he is found to be negligent, then I'll hold him to reimbursing me.

Innocent until proven guilty.

Restored to Sanity

2009-04-20T22:30:00.000-07:00

You know how in some cultures back in the day, all the women in the village would be quarantined during the week they were menstruating? I think I read that somewhere once. Well, sometimes I wish someone would lock me up as soon as Aunt Flo decides to visit because, whenever that bitch arrives, I get pretty damn loco. This month, it certainly hasn't helped that at the same time I'm crampy and bloated and irritable, I get slammed with an impending lawsuit and a no-reason-to-celebrate wedding anniversary.

But I'm doing better. I talked to a lawyer today, sent her all my documents and she's on it. I've also been doing whatever I can to stabilize my less-than-stellar mood. I did a chakra balancing meditation tonight, a yoga nidra meditation last night, I'm going to an S-Anon meeting tomorrow morning, and Wednesday is yoga. And on a not-so-Zen note, I sweated my ass off doing some kickboxing today, imagining that every punch and kick was knocking my husband in the kisser.

Seriously, though, I feel bad for calling him a "dumbass" in my last post. (Though a small victory is that I didn't say it to him--not too long ago, I wouldn't have been able to bite my tongue.) I know he's sick, I know he's sick, I know he's sick. But sometimes I really wish his disease wasn't so similar to assholeitis. It makes me feel like a dumbass for actually still loving him and wishing he would do something to get better. And sometimes this whole business of letting go and watching him fall on his face is painful--it goes counter to everything I've been taught about love, and it still doesn't come very naturally to me so it almost seems to require the strategy and concentration of a chess game. It really tires me out. But I'm taking care of me, and hopefully I'll soon return to a more serene state.

I Want My Life Back

2009-04-17T16:53:00.000-07:00

I'm in a really foul, pissed-off, crying-tears-of-rage mood. Yesterday, I received a letter from our landlord telling me that if Mark and I don't pay him the $6,000 Mark accrued in debt on our lease (after racking up the $5,000 his father already bailed him out of), he'll be suing us in 10 days. Even though our separation papers absolve me of responsibility for this debacle, it's a document that's completely separate from the lease and, even though I've explained the situation to our landlord numerous times, he's still holding me equally responsible. Oh, yeah, and have I mentioned that I'm unemployed and that even if I wanted to pay this guy I couldn't?

To make matters worse, when I told him I was looking for a lawyer, Mark told me that he wanted to fight this together rather than separately. My immediate thought was: How in the hell would we fight this together? To me, it's Mark's string of distastrous decisions that has gotten us both into this mess. And my whole argument is that my husband is a dumbass, I have no control over his idiotic decisions and, look, I even have the separation agreement to prove it. However, since our landlord keeps insisting that the separation papers are a separate issue, I told Mark I'd be open to hearing the argument he plans to put before a lawyer. Of course he's already been late in all his responses to me, showing me yet again what it's taken me so long to learn: I cannot rely on him for anything. So, once again, I'm striking out on my own, resenting the fact that I married someone who is incapable of taking another human being into consideration.

I'm tired. I'm sick of this man who isn't a man fucking up my life. There are a ton of things I had planned to do over the next couple weeks--all tasks that were geared towards moving forward with my life--and now I've got to drop everything and deal with yet another Mark-created mess. I feel like, up until now, I've been a pretty good sport, but my patience is threadbare. I want him out of my life.

Fresh Ink

2009-04-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

Practice forgiveness, recognizing that everyone is doing their best from their current state of consciousness.

--Deepak Chopra, The Soul of Healing Meditations

It’s said in 12-step programs that newcomers are the most important members. To me, the unspoken deal has always seemed that they serve as a reminder of where the old-timers have been, while, in exchange, the old-timers heave the newcomers up from bottom with their experience, strength and hope. Now that I myself am a program veteran (ha!), I’m beginning to see just how valuable newcomers are to my recovery from codependency when I compare my progress to where they are now. But, oddly, I can also find newcomers to be triggering as all hell. What’s that about?

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Hey Little Sister, What Have You Done?

2009-04-14T07:23:00.001-07:00

My wedding anniversary is this week--it's already come and gone, and I won't give the exact date here to protect my anonymity. I had been dreading its arrival, but once the day came, I forgot the date entirely for several hours. It was a really busy and productive day--I ran errands, I cleaned my apartment, I did laundry, I worked out. It wasn't until I got into the bath to wash off the day's dirt that it finally hit me that it was my one-year anniversary and I was spending it alone, barely on speaking terms with my husband. The floodgates opened, and I cried hot tears into the steaming water and iridescent bubbles.

I thought about how I felt on that day--nervous, hopeful, happy. I wasn't a beaming bride, bursting with joy. It had only been three weeks since Mark had flirted with another woman at a bar, so there was a feeling of apprehension looming like an angry, gun-metal cloud just over my head. But, still, I loved him deeply and when I slid the ring onto his finger, I handed him my good faith with my family and friends as witnesses. I forgive you and I believe in you. God, I was a fool. Love is just not enough and, apparently, it easily disappears--gone in a flash, like MPJ's magician paper.

These days, it often feels pointless to cry. Yes, Margaux, we've been over this a million times already. And I rarely forget that this wedding was really my baptism by fire, waking me from my reverie and forcing me onto a more enlightened path. But, goddamn, sometimes it feels good to feel bad.

Say It

2009-04-11T11:19:00.000-07:00

On my dad’s side of the family, I have an aunt, Mary, who all my relatives compare me to. Mary and I don’t look much alike nor do we have similar mannerisms, but we’re both perfectionists, overachievers and, most notably, we’re known for our stubbornness. In family circles, Mary and I are often referred to—and not always with admiration—as “strong-willed women.”

Mary and my father had a gaggle of siblings and two overwhelmed parents, so being closest in age to my dad, who was older, Mary was often placed in his care. And she notoriously drove him to distraction because she refused to listen to his brotherly advice and insisted on doing everything her own way—maddeningly, with successful results. When I would assume the same attitude in our father-daughter relationship, my dad would often yank at his hair in frustration and groan, “I don’t know what to do with you! You’re just like Mary.” And I would secretly think, Good.

But after fifty some years of always managing to get her own way, Mary was diagnosed with lung cancer. At first, she railed against it, determined to use that iron will that had never failed her. But as the disease spread and the treatments stopped working the magic they were supposed to, I watched a peace come over my favorite aunt. She made jokes about her bald head, she began talking about death with an air of acceptance, and she began focusing all her attention on the present along with ways to make the most of the little time she had left.

This month last year, I was honored when one of the ways Mary chose to use her precious time was to attend my wedding. As a gift, she brought me old photos of my grandparents, some of my late grandmother’s jewelry and all her fond memories. While she was reminiscing, she told me that whenever she thinks of me, she thinks of Say it. “What’s ‘Say it’?” I asked. She and her husband looked at each other knowingly and laughed. “When you were little, you were all about learning new words,” she explained. “So you’d often point to an object whose name you weren’t familiar with and command the adults to ‘Say it.’ And everyone would stop what they were doing and tell you the word. If they didn’t, you’d repeat ‘Say it’ until you got what you wanted. There was no question about it—you were in control, Margaux.”

After all that’s been out of my control in the year since my wedding—losing my job, having my identity stolen, getting knocked on my ass by my husband’s addiction, our messy separation—I often think back to that conversation. Hairless and humbled, the woman with the strong will—the one I take after, seemed to be gently shining a light on my biggest character defect during the very event that would ultimately lead to the breakdown of my own sinewy will. Today, it almost seems like an omen.

It Just Doesn't Make Sense

2009-04-10T09:41:00.000-07:00

Before I walk into a meeting, I typically prepare myself by defining some sort of intention. If I’m struggling with obsessive thoughts, I’ll dedicate my meeting experience to letting go. If I’ve been locked in conflict with another person, I’ll focus on boundaries. If I’ve been trying to do everything at once, I’ll meditate on taking it one day at a time. I find that by having a clear idea of how I’m struggling, I end up hearing solutions in the shares and the literature that I would be oblivious to had I not checked in with myself beforehand.

This morning, I went into my meeting with thoughts on Step Three, which I’m preparing to work with my online group. I was hoping to contemplate more deeply why I had decided to turn my will and my life over to the care of God the first time I worked the steps, and why, in this go-round, I should relinquish the little nugget of self-will I had stashed for later—just in case. We had a newcomer at the meeting, and as she talked about the raw discovery of her husband’s sex addiction, she kept repeating a phrase over and over: It just doesn’t make sense. And that’s when I knew I had my answer.

Read the rest of this post at The Second Road...

Everyone Has To Grab Their Own Tissues

2009-04-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

In their book On Grief and Grieving, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler mention that many grief recovery groups have a rule: Everyone has to grab their own tissues. “Sometimes when someone starts to cry, everyone grabs the tissue box and shoves tissues at them,” the authors explain. “While this may be an act of comfort, it often sends the message ‘hurry up and stop crying.’ Also, if we go into the role of caretaker, we avoid our own emotions.”

When I first began attending 12-step meetings, I thought the “no crosstalk” rule was bizarre. I had been in therapy for years prior, so I wondered just how were we supposed to work out the crazy without getting feedback from others. I wanted those folks who seemed all blissed out to tell me their secret so I could get on with my life. Moreover, I thought, I’m a pretty smart cookie—I could probably help fix all these people in a matter of months if only I could speak up and offer my sage advice. I mean, no wonder so many of these people had been going to meetings for years and considered the program a lifetime commitment—all they did was sit around and listen to themselves talk. Nothing was getting accomplished.

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Reminder: Chat Tonight

2009-03-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder that I'm hosting a chat at The Second Road (TSR) tonight at 8 p.m. EST. In order to join the conversation, click on "chat" in the upper right-hand corner and you'll need to create a login--it's pretty quick and simple. Here's TSR's writeup about the chat:

You are invited to join our weekly Sunday chats that each week feature a new host from the recovery community. Margaux will be our host this Sunday, March 29th, at 8pm EST.

I read Margaux often, for inspiration, for reflection on how to stay strong and transform pain into self-discovery. Her words are candid and insightful, punctuated with both humor and grimace. She brilliantly communicates all the emotions and revelations that come up as she and her husband unravel the knot of his sex addiction.

She discovered her husband’s addiction three weeks before their wedding. As she writes, “Ending up in a sex therapist’s office three weeks before my wedding was an act of desperation, a reaction to catastrophe. It wasn’t on my wedding-planning To-Do list, wedged between calling the caterer and ordering the flowers. It didn’t–and shouldn’t–belong on that list. ”

Her blog is not yet a year old; these wounds and experiences that she shares with us are raw and new. Margaux attends S-Anon meetings and works the 12 steps. Her story reveals a woman hoping to preserve the relationship as she struggles to reconcile her actions with her values. She explores how the sensuality of the both the addict and co-addict is affected by sex addiction. Well, she covers an array of subjects, so stop by on Sunday to the join the conversation and get to know her a little bit better.

To read her story from the beginning, visit:
http://www.thesecondroad.org/tsr/author/margaux/

A little note of importance: The chat is not all about me (I'm merely the host), but rather a bunch of folks coming together to discuss addiction in general (not just sex addiction), recovery tools and whatever else might come up.

Hope to see you there!

Letting Go Is Not Giving Up

2009-03-27T13:18:00.000-07:00

Ever since I separated from Mark a few months ago, I’ve been wrestling with a lot of guilt. I’m one of those people who doesn’t believe in divorce, I’m one of those people who takes “for better and for worse, in sickness and in health” very seriously. What’s more, I’ve always been a fighter and “giving up” has just never been a part of my vocabulary. But still, I was the one who packed my bags and peaced out. How do I reconcile my actions with my values? Does having left mean I’m running away from or facing my problems (albeit on my own)?

In the months leading up to my decision, Mark’s addiction had taken over to the point that the man I was living with no longer resembled the man I fell in love with. He had pushed me out of his life and his heart, and he was leading an existence that didn’t include me. He’d attend events alone, telling me in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t invited. He’d stay out hours past when I expected him home and tell me to fuck off when I’d get upset that he hadn’t called. He’d blatantly act out his addiction in our home and disregard any boundaries I set. And no matter what I tried—dragging him to marriage counseling, clinging desperately to my own program (still in its infancy), demanding that he return to recovery—none of it made our relationship or his addiction more manageable. I was powerless over my husband’s sexaholism. And the more I tried to control it, the more I tried to restore sanity to our marriage, the more insane and out of control we both became.

When I left, I didn’t view the separation as permanent. I viewed it as detaching and letting go—something I simply could not do with the tools I had while still living with him. I told Mark I loved him, but that I needed some time and space to pull myself together. I also hoped that, without having me around adding fuel to the fire, he might be able to face his addiction head on. But mostly, it was about me. As Fergie says in her song about the codie plight, “I hope you know that this has nothing to do with you. It’s personal, myself and I. We’ve got some straightening out to do.”

Still, no matter how many times I have tried to explain this to him, Mark views my leaving as abandonment and, in turn, the end of our marriage. He has since filed legal separation papers, which will allow him to file for divorce in a year. This is where the guilt comes in: Every night, I’ve been tossing and turning and praying to my Higher Power to help me figure out how a person who has been fighting with every ounce of strength to save her marriage could inadvertently cause its end. Then last night, in a moment of desperation, I dusted off my S-Anon book and found this passage:

Letting go by placing the situation in God’s care is not the same as giving up. Letting go is not buckling under pressure; it is placing my concerns in God’s care and surrendering to God’s will.

Not long after reading this, I remembered a conversation I recently had with a friend. She was telling me about how her husband had written a heartfelt letter to a fellow addict/acting out partner with the aim of ending their (now platonic) relationship. She and her husband both believed the woman would understand. Instead, the woman called him a few days later, acknowledged that she had received the letter, and then acted as though their relationship was still intact. My friend and her husband were floored. “Well, I did what I could, but I’m dealing with an active addict,” her husband surmised. “I said what I needed to say and there’s nothing else I can do to make her ‘get it.’”

Recalling this story, I realized my situation was similar: I told Mark clearly that my separating from him was not the same as permanently leaving him. And if he doesn’t get it, there’s nothing I can say or do to make him understand. There’s nothing I can say or do to prevent him from taking steps to end the marriage. I may have let go, but he’s the one—in the throes of addictive thinking—who’s giving up.

And all I can do now is keep letting go and keep turning it over to God, in hopes that in some way, somehow, sanity can be restored to this situation. In the meantime, I will not feel guilty for carving out the time and space to take care of myself.

Talk To Me

2009-03-26T12:02:00.000-07:00

I'll be hosting a chat over at The Second Road this Sunday, March 29th at 8 p.m. EST. So if you have any questions you've been dying to ask me or if you'd just like to interract with me on a more spontaneous, personal level, please come chat with me! I would love to "meet" all of the lovely folks who read this blog.

Build Your Own Rehab

2009-03-25T14:26:00.000-07:00

Sincere spiritual investigation is, and always has been, an endeavor of methodical discipline. Looking for Truth is not some kind of spazzy free-for-all, not even during this, the great age of the spazzy free-for-all.

–Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

I just finished reading Eat, Pray, Love, the cult-status, slightly chick-lit memoir that chronicles Elizabeth Gilbert’s year-long spiritual journey across Italy, India and Indonesia. Whenever I would mention to someone that I was reading this book—especially to my pals in the recovery community, I’d get snarky remarks about the privileged author. “Of course it was easy for her to reach new levels of enlightenment—she had the time, money and freedom to traipse all over exotic locales with no other responsibilities but to meditate, practice Yoga and hang out with Gurus.” I have to admit that, as I was reading the book, I shared my friends’ envy. I want to live on an Ashram in India! I want to learn meditation techniques that put blue pearls of bliss in my brain! I want my own toothless medicine man who delivers an endless string of wisdom and makes me drink foul but soul-healing concoctions.

Read the rest of this post at The Second Road...

Weeping at the Gate

2009-03-22T13:31:00.000-07:00

I'm late to the party when it comes to reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. I've picked up the book countless times in bookstores and libraries, only to put it back on the shelf in mild revulsion. Every time I'd read the synopsis on the back, I'd get a weird sense that I was just not ready to go there. I finally began reading it in the airport, and when I got to this part, I wept without caring who was watching:

...Richard says, "Listen to me. Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing and you were in the best possible place in the world for it...Let things work themselves out here in India."

"But I really loved him."

"Big deal. So you fell in love with someone. Don't you see what happened? This guy touched a place in your heart deeper than you thought you were capable of reaching, I mean you got zapped, kiddo. But that love you felt, that's just the beginning. You just got a taste of love. That's just little rinky-dink mortal love. Wait till you see how much more deeply you can love than that. Heck, Groceries--you have the capacity to someday love the whole world. It's your destiny. Don't laugh."

"I'm not laughing." I was actually crying. "And please don't laugh at me now, but I think the reason it's so hard for me to get over this guy is because I seriously believed David was my soul mate."

"He probably was. Your problem is you don't understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it. ...David's purpose was to shake you up, ...tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so a new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. That was his job, and he did great, but now it's over. Problem is, you can't accept that this relationship had a real short shelf life. You're like a dog at the dump, baby--you're just lickin' at an empty tin can, trying to get more nutrition out of it. And if you're not careful, that can's gonna get stuck on your snout forever and make your life miserable. So drop it."

"But I love him."
"So love him."
"But I miss him."

"So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, and then drop it. You're just afraid to let go of the last bits of David because then you'll really be alone, and Liz Gilbert is scared to death of what will happen if she's really alone. But here's what you gotta understand, Groceries. If you clear out all that space in your mind that you're using right now to obsess about this guy, you'll have a vacuum there, an open spot--a doorway. And guess what the universe will do with that doorway? It will rush in--God will rush in--and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed. So stop using David to block that door. Let it go."

Geographical Cure

2009-03-17T08:54:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting in a cozy coffee shop, surrounded by relaxed-looking hippie types, in another city. I'm here for week, visiting a friend and doing a little recon to figure out if this is a place I'd like to live. So far, I'm thinking I could see myself here. I've got a couple freelance deadlines today, so I'm going to sit here and write for a while, and then go out and explore. The idea of starting a new life in a new city is exhilarating, and as I sip coffee and people watch, I feel a sense of contentment. After the year I've been through, just being with myself and enjoying my own company is bliss.

A project that's been on hold for a while looks like it could be back up and running, and it's exciting to think about how I might be able to use it to retool my career, all while essentially being my own boss. Also, rent is very affordable in this city, so if I moved here, I'd be able to enjoy all the fancy things I could never have in New York: a doorman, a dishwasher, a washer and dryer, an in-building fitness center, a rooftop pool. My girlfriend has all these things, and she pays less than what I paid for my pre-war, four-floor walkup in New York.

Which leads me to this realization: Though it's obvious that my marriage hasn't been easy, now that I've been away from New York for a few months, I'm seeing just how much life in that city was also a struggle. And the latter certainly contributed to the former. It seems like Mark and I were in a constant state of near panic, worrying about how to get from here to there on the subway in less than an hour, how we were going to lug our laundry across the street, how we were going to avoid layoff in a highly competitive market, how we were going to stretch each paycheck, how we could avoid getting hit by speeding cabs when crossing the street. Try living that way every day, and you'd see how hard it is not to snap at your spouse or soothe your frazzled nerves with an addiction. People who visit New York are always dazzled by the city's energy, but actually living there is a non-stop exercise in trying to stay sane in the midst of frenetic overstimulation.

And normal folks can't afford to constantly do all the fun things tourists pack into a weekend trip. My salary more than doubled during the seven years I was there, but my quality of life basically stayed the same. I was still living in a tiny apartment, I was still taking the subway everywhere, and I was still living from paycheck to paycheck. Which is, I think, a big reason why many New Yorkers never really grow up. If you're in your 30s and living like a college student, it's easy to keep acting like a college student. Not that having nice things is what life is all about, but conveniences certainly make a difference. And not that a geographical cure is really the answer to all life's problems, but I can honestly say I'm much happier in a more serene location.

War

2009-03-15T20:29:00.001-07:00

This evening, Mark and I engaged in yet another email war. He's freaking out about the mess he's gotten himself into with our landlord (no, it still hasn't been resolved), and he wants me to swoop in, save him and give him money. Though our separation agreement clearly states that I'm no longer liable for the lease, he's looking for any loophole that might hold me to it. In the meantime, he's covertly telling me he wants me out of his life so he can fuck other women, though of course this is still very much considered adultery. So, essentially, he wants all the financial benefits of still being married while (unofficially) declaring our vows null and void. He wants to have his cake and eat it, too--story of our relationship.

None of his arguments about the lease are backed by research. He repeatedly makes up his own legalities on the spot, and it's testing my patience. It's really difficult to maintain my composure when he's acting like a whiny, demanding manchild playing lawyer. I find myself wanting to tell him he's not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, among other hurtful things. I can be incredibly mean when I'm angry, so I've had to use every ounce of self control to not give him a tongue lashing.

The one positive in all of this is that he's making it so easy for me to walk away. I've lost so much respect for him--even though intellectually I know it's his addict talking, and I'm finding it hard to take his tantrums seriously. I'm tired. I want this to be over.

Dimmer

2009-03-14T19:10:00.000-07:00

Over the past couple weeks, my depression has been lifting and all the Whys and What-The-Fuck-Just-Happeneds have vacated my mind. Self care has become less of a "To Do" list (exercise--check, bubble bath--check, meditate--check) and more like spontaneous second nature. A few friends visited last weekend and, at one point, I realized just how present I was. Without my husband around, I'm able to socialize without constantly worrying about whether he's zoning out or checking out other women. Basically, I've been getting my own life back, and I often stop to wonder how I ever let it slip away.

I've also been noticing that my feelings for Mark are waning--not like the flipping of a light switch, but more like the lowering of a dimmer. They're just sort of slowly fading away. I've been learning new things about the choices he's been making since I left, and that knowledge is helping me to accept just how incredibly lost he is. Unfortunately, I really don't think he'll find himself for a very long time--if ever. Though a part of me will always love him, I feel like I'm finally prepared to completely cut ties.

I feel simultaneous sadness and joy admitting that.

Your Mat Is All That Matters

2009-03-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

The teacher sat before us, spine like a taut rubber band, legs like a pretzel. “This next hour is all about you and where you are in mind, body and spirit today. This class is your practice and it doesn’t matter what anyone else around you is doing. Your mat is your world, and what’s happening on other mats is inconsequential.” Breaking the rule within seconds, I looked over at my mom sitting cross-legged on her mat and smiled. Taking yoga classes together is one of our new mother-daughter bonding activities. Up until a few weeks ago, my mom had never tried yoga and, when I suggested we go to a class together, I wasn’t all that hopeful that she’d like it as much as I did back when I practiced in college. But when she walked out of that first class gushing over how strong, limber and energized she felt, I knew I had a convert on my hands.

Read the rest of this post at The Second Road...

Feeling Feelings

2009-03-10T18:58:00.000-07:00

“To spare oneself from grief at all cost can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes the ability to experience happiness.” –Erich Fromm

As I’ve been facing the potential loss of my marriage while at the same time assessing the role addiction has played in the destruction, I’ve been reading a lot about the grief process. Every book seems to agree that the only way to heal is to feel every emotion and to trust that there will eventually be an end to the pain. Every book also seems to caution that if one ignores these feelings—especially through the use of addictive substances or behaviors—the unexamined grief will cause countless problems in the future. Grief will pile on top of grief, and all those repressed emotions will lead to complexes and pathologies. Conversely, allowing oneself to feel the pain and move through the process guarantees growth and increased strength. Also, finding one’s faith in God is highly recommended. And, finally, every book prominently features the Kubler-Ross five-stage model of grief: 1) Denial, 2) Anger, 3) Bargaining, 4) Depression and 5) Acceptance.

Read the rest of this post over at The Second Road...

Weekend Update

2009-03-01T14:35:00.000-08:00

After I filed our separation papers on Friday, my husband and I ended up talking on the phone for the first time in a quite a while. It was nice to hear his voice, and we had a really pleasant conversation. Expecting a tense dialog, I had meditated beforehand to put myself in a protective bubble of clarity, but he seemed pretty serene himself, so there wasn't much need for patience or self-restraint on my end. Still, when we hung up, I was sad. It goes without saying that I love my husband, but I truly like him as well. Sometimes it's so difficult for me to grasp how, with such an abundance of love and friendship, addiction has still managed to turn our marriage into a war zone. But I'm really coming to accept my powerlessness over fixing it. I'm beginning to understand that the only way we'll have a chance of staying together and having it work is if it's God's will.

In other news, I found an S-Anon meeting in this tiny town! It turns out a woman who also just moved here from a big city recently started a meeting, and I'm the first person to call her and inquire. It'll only be the two of us for now, but I'm really grateful that I have an opportunity to continue my face-to-face meetings. My mom and I have also signed up for once-a-week yoga classes at a really nice studio here, and now I have a whole white-light plan of action.

Despite feeling pretty healthy overall, I've also been a little tired and irritable over the past few days. The more rambunctious of my two cats has been spazzing out in the wee hours of morning, waking me up over and over as he attacks my feet and then purrs in my face as if to say Please love me NOW. So I've been sleep deprived and, in turn, bitchy. I used to think that whenever people annoyed me when I was in one of these states, it was because I was seeing the world from a negative perspective. But, lately, I think it has more to do with the law of attraction: When I'm pissy, assholes seem to gravitate towards me or people who are usually tolerable pick up on my energy and do irritating things.

For example, my mother has been hyper to the point that I've been calling her the "Energizer Bunny" over the past few days, and even my stepdad has been telling her to simmer down. Also, I wound up at a dinner party last night, and the token sex addict sniffed me out. The guy was married (though his wife wasn't there) and he was old enough to be my father, but that didn't stop him from making inappropriate comments, touching the small of my back repeatedly even after I shrank away from him, and feigning interest in the tattoo on my wrist so he could rub it and hold my hand. It's always so hard to set boundaries in those situations where the behavior isn't all that overt and where you'd be spoiling the party by talking sharply to a fellow guest.

Blah

2009-02-25T14:33:00.000-08:00

I've been walking around in a haze all week. I have to file my husband's and my separation papers on Friday, and every time I think about it I feel like throwing up. I've also been sleeping for 12 hours every night, and it's so hard to drag myself out of bed. This is seriously the most difficult experience I've ever been through in my entire life.

Still, I've been doing everything possible to be healthy. I've been calling friends and recovery folks every day. I'm praying a lot, and I'm finding ways to feel my feelings and express them--crying, hitting pillows, letting out a quick shriek in the backyard. Yesterday, I ordered some books on working through the grief process. I've also managed to exercise most days, which does wonders for my mood and my energy levels. And to keep myself from isolating, I invited some friends to visit the weekend after next, and I've made arrangements to visit another friend in the middle of March.

It just seems weird to have to strategize normalcy. It's a bizarre feeling to have to use every ounce of strength just to get through each day.

Wisdom from My Hairdresser

2009-02-19T13:52:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, I decided to treat myself to a haircut, highlights and a blowout. Valentine’s Day was the only day Robby, my hairdresser, had an opening, and it didn’t matter much to me considering that my husband and I are estranged. In fact, I really just wanted to sit back, be pampered and pretend it was any other Saturday. But when I walked into the salon, the first thing I noticed was a glum, dejected look on Robby’s face. Fighting back tears, he told me his girlfriend had dumped him a few days prior. I felt a burning in the pit of my stomach. Don’t cry, I silently begged him. Please don’t cry, because if you cry, I’m going to lose it.

He didn’t cry, and somehow I managed to listen to his tale of woe without the dam in my own heart breaking. “It’s just so hard, because she was good people, you know?,” he said. “It takes so long to find a quality person because everyone else is lost in The Matrix.” I nodded knowingly, automatically thinking of MPJ’s now-famous Matrix metaphor for addiction. He explained further, “It’s like the dating world is basically fantasyland—virtual reality. It’s a bunch of people getting loaded, pretending to be someone they’re not, getting involved with other people who buy into the fantasy, and then making a big awkward mess out of everything when illusion wears off.” I nodded again, this time in deep contemplation.

Read the rest of this post over at The Second Road.

Bullet With Butterfly Wings

2009-02-16T17:49:00.001-08:00

My mother-in-law called me tonight. She's sad, and she's just as confused as I am. She kept saying, "I just don't understand." Eventually, we started talking about the rest of her family, who I will sorely miss--my husband has really wonderful relatives. Then I told her about some of the plans and goals I have in the works and it's funny, because I strongly suspect that she has some Al-Anon in her past. She kept saying, "It's good that you're focusing on yourself. Keep taking care of yourself." I thanked her again for the Christmas gift she had sent me, which even at the time seemed oddly symbolic: a butterfly pinned behind glass. In the note, she had written, "This butterfly reminds me of your beautiful spirit. May you always heed its call and set yourself free." We both lamented the fact that that "freedom" has come at such a high cost.

Sunny Days

2009-02-13T18:50:00.000-08:00

Today was, overall, a pretty good day. The weather is so beautiful here down South. Lately, it feels much more like May than February. I took the dog for a long walk and then I laid out on the grass, playing dead while the dog sniffed at me until she got bored and pranced off to chase squirrels. I closed my eyes and let the sun permeate my lids, luxuriating in the present.

I have a few job interviews lined up, so I went shopping and bought a very chic Michael Kors dress (on sale, of course). Tomorrow, I have a hair appointment for a cut and highlights, which I desperately need. My bangs are skimming my eyelashes and my roots, though fortunately not very dark, are two inches thick. It's important to treat oneself from time to time.

Still, despite feeling centered and self-cared for, that sadness in me lingers. The ache in my heart is constant and the times are rare that I forget about it. I really, really miss my husband. And all of this--being so far away from New York, not knowing what's going to happen next, having things happen that I know would amuse Mark and not being able to tell him--all feels so surreal, like I'm stumbling through a bad dream. My therapist told me today, however, that I'm doing a good job of processing my grief. She feels that, even though I'm not feeling so stellar, I'm in a healthy place.

Shedding Some Light

2009-02-11T16:55:00.001-08:00

I mentioned the other day that I couldn't really pinpoint all the factors that have contributed to finding forgiveness for my husband. However, one thing I can say has helped is reading the blogs of recovering sex addicts. Many of these folks, like Rae and Ken, are so incredibly honest and work diligently on a daily basis to dig deep into themselves to find the truth. When I read their blogs and am able to see the real people behind the addiction, it confirms what I know to be true about my husband: He is, in essence, a very good person who's doing some very fucked up things. Ken once mentioned that he almost left his wife for his addiction and, in an attempt to understand my husband's recent behavior, I asked Ken to explain what he was thinking at the time. Here's his response to me:

Margaux,

I'm not sure that I'm able to explain the thoughts in my head at that point. I was totally insane. I felt like a lunatic and my wife was a frantic, crazy mess because I had just destroyed her world. I was having an affair with an unbelievably horrid, messed up girl from work and actually thinking about leaving my wife for her. At the time I was angry at my wife. I could not connect with her anger and hurt (I don't believe that I will ever truly understand that pain) and I still had myself convinced that she was partly to blame in all of this. If she had only given me more of what I needed... but that wasn't true. It was all about me, but I would twist it around in my mind and convince myself that she wasn't adequate for me.

Turns out she's the best thing that's ever happened to me. But I couldn't see that. I just knew that I hated myself, felt unloved and worthless, and couldn't see a solution anywhere in sight. I didn't truly believe my wife could ever love me now that she knew the real me. I thought the marriage was irreparable and that she'd be better off without me. I wanted to follow my path to ruin. I also wanted to be free of my marriage and be free to chase my sexual desires where they lead. I had no idea at the time that I was an addict, just that I couldn't seem to find happiness and that I hated myself.

Quitting my marriage had a certain allure to it. The apparent reward of immediate sexual freedom and being able to ignore the mess I'd made sounded great. I would be able to pursue my sexual fantasies without the shame and secrecy. I could be open and "free" about my sexuality, having sex with as many partners as I'd like. I thought that maybe I wouldn't experience the burning shame anymore, now that I "wasn't hurting anyone else."

But I recognized that this selfish decision would come with serious emotional consequences. I already hated myself; leaving my wife in this state would have left me with more shame and self-loathing than I could imagine at the time. Pursuing my sexual urges to the next level was probably not going to make me feel any better. I had enough experience cycling between shame and ecstasy to recognize that it probably wouldn't go away. It never had gone away; maybe it never would. Pursuing my sexual desire for more partners would not make the shame go away.

Once I recognized that I had some serious sexual issues and eventually sought help, I realized how badly I had treated my wife and how all of my problems were my own making. It's been difficult, but I'm finally coming to terms with the reality of my decisions and their consequences. Every now and then I'm still floored by how messed up I was. It's tough, and I try to remember to be gentle with myself. I'm out of the denial and working back into reality, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly.

--Ken

Nothing Major in the First Year

2009-02-10T13:22:00.000-08:00

The lovely folks at The Second Road have invited me to blog over there, so once a week I'll be taking a page out of MPJ's book and teasing you with half the post here and then sending you to The Second Road for the rest. This first post is a synopsis of my story, so if you've just recently started reading this blog, it will give you an outline of everything that's happened since I first began writing here.

The first year of recovery is said to be the hardest, and the same has been said about the first year of marriage. There’s also that 12-step slogan that cautions, “Nothing major in the first year.” Well, my Higher Power had other plans. In the past year, I came out of denial about my husband’s sex addiction, got laid off from my job, got married, entered recovery, had my identity stolen and my bank account cleared, separated from my husband, and relocated from New York City to a small town in the South.

Hi, my name is Margaux, I’m the estranged wife of a sex addict, and, even with a rollercoaster of a year behind me, I’ve somehow managed to not go batshit insane…yet. I’m also very grateful that the wonderful folks at The Second Road have asked me to share my recovery-related thoughts—sometimes lucid, sometimes delusional–with all of you.

Read the rest of this post at The Second Road.

Mad vs. Sad

2009-02-09T15:52:00.000-08:00

The other day, after I had shared in one of my recovery groups, several of the women noticed a shift in my outlook that has been growing over the last few months but that, up until they pointed it out, I hadn't fully acknowledged: I'm no longer angry with Mark about his addiction, I'm just very sad at the circumstances. When I was still living with him, I had old hurts that hadn't fully healed and new hurts kept being added. The pain was relentless, and it seemed that every time I'd get to a point of resolving an old hurt, something new would happen to make the wounds grow and fester. I was in such a crazy, enraged place at the time, feeling like a trapped, skittish animal whose sole motivation was survival.

Somehow, though, having the last few months to myself has brought about a shift in perspective. I've been able to work through the anger, separate my husband's addict from his true spirit, and arrive at a place of forgiveness. Many of the women in my group asked me how I got to this place and, unfortunately, I can't measure out the magic formula. I'm guessing that forgiveness is something personal and unique to each of us, and none of us can really explain exactly how it got there.

Moving Right Along

2009-02-07T17:16:00.001-08:00

The past few days have been up and down, but mostly productive. Operation: Move Forward is underway, and I applied for a teaching job in my mom's town in the hopes of saving enough money to buy a car (living in New York, I haven't needed one of those for a long time) and drive into my new life. I've also been making arrangements to visit a friend who lives in a city that seems like it could be an interesting place to eventually settle, once said money and car have been procured. I'm going to stay with her for a week, get a feel for the place, and also spend lots of time doing girl things and going out dancing.

I've also had a lot of friends reach out to me over the past few days, and it's been wonderful to receive their support. My friends have been truly amazing throughout this whole ordeal, and even people I wasn't all that close to before have really been there for me. Last night, I had an interesting conversation with one of my best friends, who recently divorced a sex addict. She told me her ex-husband had recently admitted, while sobbing, that when he had asked for the divorce, he was in an insane place and that he now deeply regrets his decision to throw away his marriage and his relationship with his son.

"I think most divorces happen because someone's in a crazy place," she observed. "Someone goes through an existential crisis, and suddenly it's all their spouse's fault." Looking back on all the divorces I've witnessed from the outside, I had to agree that they all seemed pretty damn crazy and pointless from my perspective. She also told me that all the people she knows who also know us are completely perplexed by Mark's behavior and decisions over the past several months. "Everyone keeps saying, 'Is he nuts? Margaux is so awesome. How can he give her up?'" she told me. Not that it makes much of a difference what other people think, but there was comfort in hearing that.

Like the Deserts Miss the Rain

2009-02-03T16:19:00.000-08:00

Grief is a strange process. I've never had someone close to me die, so this experience is very new to me. What makes it all the more weird and trippy is that the person I seem to have lost isn't gone from the world, he's just gone from me and there's no way of knowing whether his absence will be permanent or temporary. I looked up the Kubler-Ross model of grief today and, apparently, there are five stages: 1) Denial, 2) Anger, 3) Bargaining, 4) Depression and 5) Acceptance. I seem to be in a different stage every day, and I often shift from one stage to another in a matter of hours, sometimes skipping from an earlier stage to a later stage without dipping so much as a toe in the in-betweens.

Yesterday was an "acceptance" day. I cleaned my apartment from top to bottom, ran a bunch of errands and searched for jobs in this Southern town I'll be calling "home" for a while. I felt productive, if not close to content. But today was much more difficult. I woke up with that familiar ache in my soul and succumbed to the urge to anesthetize it with another hour of deep, dreamless sleep. For most of the day, I fought to dislodge a horrible shard of intuition ripping at the pit of my stomach: My husband's addiction is progressing. I can't explain how I know that, but this piece of information feels like the iron in my blood or the marrow in my bones. All I can describe it as is a deep, inner knowing that Mark is moving farther away from himself and sinking into some scary quicksand that's going to be hard to wrestle out of.

What's even more bizarre is that, in the midst of feeling this icky intuition, I've been missing him like an amputee mourns a severed limb. I miss kissing the freckle in the center of his back, I miss hearing him talk in the special language he made up when he was six, I miss him feeding me Chubby Hubby, twirling the spoon and telling me he found an extra-big "chunkus" just for me. I even miss our stupid fights, which no matter what the pretense of the day happened to be, really boiled down to me wanting to know him and him pushing me away. Grief is a strange process.

Glass Half Full

2009-02-02T16:45:00.000-08:00

The other day, I wrote about how, right now, it seems as though my marriage is being wasted. In response to my sentiments, an anonymous commenter shared part of her story:

Yes, yes, yes! How can someone throw away 12 years of marriage and three beautiful children and a comfortable life and friends in recovery and hey, I'm pretty cool, if I do say so myself. He still writes FROM PRISON to tell me how he is so glad that I came into his life and that I was the most significant friendship of his life. He writes from prison, because he was a sex and drug addict, contracted HIV, didn't inform his partners about his status, and one of them found out and blew the whistle. This is how I will spend the future--as this as my past. It is an unbelievable waste, I totally agree, and it didn't have to be this way.

As I read this comment, I was overcome with a profound sadness for this woman, but even more so for her husband. Oddly, thinking about this man who lost everything--his wife, his children, his health, his freedom--got me to thinking about gratitude. Up until I read this woman's story, I had always regarded practicing gratitude as simply a way to look on the bright side. In fact, sometimes I'd get annoyed when, after engaging in a particulary long bitch-and-moan fest, a recovery friend would suggest I list what I'm grateful for. "Why do I have to do this?" I'd think to myself. "This is so freakin' cheesy." But after I had dutifully turned my cloudy thinking inside out to expose the silver lining, I had to admit I felt better.

The thing with addiction, codependency or really any unhealthy way of living is that we're always chasing bigger, faster, better, more. We don't stop to look around and really see that right now, we've got all that we could ever want or need. For some reason, this man, who had a loving wife, beautiful children, supportive friends and a strong body, just didn't believe that all he had been given was enough. He didn't understand that the void was inside him, so he began looking outside himself, attempting to fill it up with drugs and women. And it wasn't until it was too late--until he had lost everything--that he realized he had actually had it all.

Now I'm beginning to understand that practicing gratitude is not just some dorky 12-step exercise, but rather a lifeline. If I don't take the time to be present and appreciate what I have now, in this very moment, then I might throw it all away for a fleeting urge that strips me of every gift I've been given. That said, I'd like to retract my statement about my marriage being wasted.

No matter what happens, I will always be grateful that I married my husband and, no matter if our marriage lasts another one year or 50 years, I will value it immensely. In a strange way, I'm even grateful for the sex addiction. If I hadn't married and gone through all this with my husband, I wouldn't know what I know now--and continue to learn--about love, commitment, forgiveness and spirituality. If I hadn't loved Mark deeply, I never would have bothered to enter a program or face some of my hidden demons, or branch onto a path that's dark and scary and uncharted. In fact, I'm even grateful for this separation because it's offering me a perspective I couldn't get in the thick of things. Today I know that whether Mark and I stay together or split apart, I've been given a precious gift.

On a final note, I encourage you to read the post "Ten Years Ago Today" that Rae wrote a few weeks ago about discovering the beauty of her marriage after taking it for granted for years. It's a heartwarming example of someone who was on the path to throwing it all away and, for some reason, was able to suddenly stop, look around and appreciate what's in front of her.

Sexy Beast

2009-02-01T11:40:00.000-08:00

There's a fantastic article in this month's Elle called "Sexy Beast: Is sex addiction a medical condition--or a lame excuse to be a bastard?" in which the writer, AJ Grossman, shares her personal story of being in a relationship with a sex addict while providing information on the disease and quotes by sex-addiction expert Douglas Weiss. Grossman actually interviewed me and several other sex-addiction bloggers for the article, but either we all gave sucky interviews, there wasn't enough space for our quotes, or the article was whittled down at the last minute. Even though I'm disappointed that we weren't included, it's an informative story--and so much of it resonated with my experience (especially the parts about sexual anorexia), so I'm going to share some of the highlights here:

· For much of the first year we were together, his interest in sex was annoyingly low. Once, when we were in the process of moving in together, I set up a scavenger hunt in the apartment, and the treasure at the end was a lace teddy I’d bought as a surprise. I modeled it, but he barely gave me a glance and insisted I throw on a T-shirt and help him unpack the kitchen. As soon as all the boxes were empty, he fell asleep.

· Intimacy…always felt slightly out of reach. After we’d been together about a year, I tried to express the fact that, even when all systems were go, sex with him often left me feeling bereft, not desired. He accused me of having unrealistically romantic expectations.

· The morning after he and I had had what I thought was the most intimate, connected sex of our relationship, he threw a tantrum over nothing.

Why are you doing this after such a nice night?” I asked.

“It’s because of last night,” he screamed.

· I came around to thinking he just didn’t like me anymore and was daring me to break up with him, afraid to do so himself.

· [When I discovered the addiction] I was as confused as I was angry. What had I just lived through? Who was this person? Was he lying about wanting to be with me, or was he lying about his inability to control his actions, or just lying about everything?

· When my therapist suggested the book How Al-Anon Works for Families & Friends of Alcoholics, I found I could substitute the word Matt for alcoholic, and the narrative flowed just fine, right down to the insecurities that commonly plague those around the addict. “In the face of the alcoholic’s vehemence, we begin to doubt ourselves and our perceptions,” I read. “We do whatever is demanded of us to avoid conflict” with the addict, who will lash out at the people who aren’t able to stop him from the cycle of getting his fix, feeling despair over his powerlessness, then drowning that sense of failure out with another dose.

· [Douglas] Weiss tells me that when an addict chooses sex as the agent of distraction and soothing, it “often results in a separation of sex from any kind of relationship that holds the possibility of intimacy.”