My husband Mark, I have to admit it, hates fish. And people fish evangelize him all the time. I used to too, in my pre-vegetarian days, when a trip to the aquarium would make me hungry. The problem, you see, is never that people were different and have different needs and tastes; the problem is that Mark has never had “good” fish. “You’ve never tried really fresh fish. You haven’t tried this fish; it’s not a fishy fish. You haven’t tasted fish the way I make it. You haven’t been eating fish the right way. Try this. You’ll like it.”…

A friend called me last night. She’s in the midst of some very messy office politics at work. She thinks her coworkers are being difficult. They think she’s being unreasonable. Her boss thinks they’re all wrong and they all think the boss is wrong. “Do you think I’m being unreasonable? Am I crazy or are they?” she asked. And I paused, because I’ve seen a whole lot of crazy at this point in my life and I’ve gotten a pretty secure grip on two things: the first is what I think is and isn’t crazy, and the second (and more important)…

Years ago, I met a woman who, when she was disagreeing with her partner, would tell him, “That’s not my reality.” She had a way of saying it that implied there was a real Reality (hers) and some alternate Crazytown Reality (his). You had only to hear those few words and know that he was totally batshit and she not only had a PhD in Reality, she was the president and CEO of Reality. In recovery, I’ve found myself clinging to similar mantras — most often “that’s not my experience” or “that’s not my truth” — and often (admittedly) with that…

This morning, Alix at The Second Road forwarded me a link to an article about sex addiction by psychologist Michael Bader. When I saw the title (”Sex Addiction: A B.S. Excuse for Not Thinking“), I almost didn’t click through (the whole “excuse” thing is so tiresome) but I couldn’t resist some good blog fodder, so I did anyway. To my surprise, Mr. Bader wasn’t talking about sex addiction being an excuse for acting badly in addiction. However, not to my surprise, the article did focus on the same old semantic argument: “Sexual compulsions are real and they harm the person…

I was browsing around Target the other day, when I came across the most fabulous book I have seen in a long, long time: How to Change Someone You Love: Four Steps to Help You Help Them. I laughed the kind of laugh that ought to have sent flocks of birds scattering in alarm. Instead just startled me, and I quickly ducked behind the shelves in embarrassment as I grabbed the book.

I wavered a little over whether it was more morally wrong to skim the book in the store without buying it (is that the literary equivalent of downloading music…

Last week, I was sitting cross-legged on my plump little black cushion on the floor of the Zendo I visit regularly and listening to a talk about cleaning incense burners. And as I listened, the very deep and profound thought that came to me was, “I seriously am never going to volunteer to clean incense burners at this place.” It wasn’t that the task sounded unpleasant — it didn’t — but the volunteers who hadn’t done it right, who hadn’t been sufficiently thorough in their cleaning, were the subject of the dharma talk. Yikes! Wouldn’t want to be those guys!

Now…

I was reading over some of the words of Martin Luther King Jr. today, and came across some that reminded me very much of something I used to repeat to myself and my husband in the wake of disclosure of his sex addiction: “There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.” Dr. King was talking about his love for the church when he wrote those words, while I was talking about my love for what (at the time) was my God and my religion — my husband — but they were true all the same.

I used to…

My husband Mark cannot take care of himself. Really, the man cannot even keep track of what he likes. I have to do it for him. I present as evidence the last few weeks of grocery shopping…

Last week, Mark was sick, and I (sweet and loving spouse that I am) asked him to make a list of anything special he wanted me to pick up for him during my grocery store run. So, he made a list of comfort foods, saying that if I was in a hurry, he really only wanted some Gatorade because he felt a little dehydrated.…

As someone who lives with the reality of sexually compulsive behavior every day, I have to admit, articles like last month’s Forbes magazine piece on whether or not sex addiction exists make me roll my eyes. It’s always the same thing, “The idea of being addicted to sex is … quite controversial.” Which always misses the same point: the “controversy” (as I’ve said before) is over nothing more than semantics.

Yep, that big sex addiction controversy you hear about all the time. Contrary to what you’ve been led to believe, it’s not over whether or not it’s possible to have compulsions or…

So, I found out last week (much to my disappointment) that I am not the Ultimate Ruler of the Universe. In fact, I’m not even a competent Ultimate Ruler of Me. Maybe some of you knew that already. Actually, I knew that already, but I always forget. You see, I make these grand proclamations like “I am going to get enough sleep this week!” expecting the universe is just going to fall in line and let me do that and that I am going to be able to use my willpower to change deeply ingrained habits. And, go figure, everything…

Our family keeps a pretty rigorous schedule, with nearly every night of the week blocked out for some activity or another, but rather than shuttling between soccer games and dance practice, like many parents in our social group, we’re shuttling between different 12 Step meetings.

So, a week ago, as I was lying in bed making the decision to try to attend my first Overeater’s Anonymous (OA) meeting, my first thought was: How am I going to fit this in? I mean, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights as well as Saturday mornings are booked. What if the only…

I remember the first time I ever saw my husband; I even remember what he was wearing. It was our first week of college, and he was standing in line behind me, wearing Coke bottle glasses, a white, retro (to put it kindly), marching band t-shirt with red trim and red polyester running shorts with white trim. I took one look at him and said to myself, “Oh my God! He’s, like, a total dweeb.” (We met in the 80’s. That was how I talked to myself back then.) So, yeah, not exactly love at first sight. He took some…

Before I knew my husband was a sex addict, I knew that he liked flirting with other women. Probably a little too much. I could tell he got a thrill out of it, and I worried that he would accidentally take this “entertainment” too far. He’d lead some poor woman on and she’d get aggressive and Mark would find himself in bed with her before he knew what hit him. So I had a brilliant solution; I would be the other woman. I would give myself a new name, a new e-mail address and a new look (complete with a…

As long-time readers of my blog know, I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. After all, setting a specific goal is great if you hit it, but disheartening if you don’t (which, let’s face it, I usually don’t).  But for the last few years, I’ve kept up the practice of setting an intention word for the year; in 2008, I picked “happy”, and in 2009, I picked “God.” And both years have been quite successful, in a progress-not-perfection sense.

I’ve decided that my word for 2010 will be “health.” I plan to continue focusing on my mental, emotional and spiritual health, but I hope to…

Earlier this year, I read an article about technology that would allow us to record and store every moment of our lives. Imagine: our whole lives stored in a single searchable archive. We could settle those arguments with the boss by replaying what was actually said. (”See, you did tell me you wanted this by Thursday, not Tuesday!”) We could go back to that first kiss over and over again. In fact, if I were recording my whole life, I’d even be able to figure out where the heck I read this elusive article (The New York Times, maybe?) and…

Just days before I discovered my husband Mark’s sex addiction, we were shopping in Target, when we passed a young woman. “Hi, Mark!” she chimed, smiling brightly. Then she turned to her shopping companion, a man who was glowering at Mark, and said, “Jimmy, this is my friend Mark, you know, the one I’ve told you about. I’ve been having such a great time with him lately!” Then turning back to us, she introduced Jimmy as her boyfriend and chatted for a while before cheerfully parting with: “Well, it’s been such fun to run into you here. Bye, Mark! See…

“You know,” joked my husband Mark, “I think you ought to be paying me royalties. You wouldn’t have anything to write about without me.”

“I know. It’s true. That’s the sad life of a codependent. My problem is being all wrapped up in your problems. But you haven’t given me much to write about lately anyway.”

“Well, do you want me to go out and do something addicty for you so you can write about it?”

“No, that’s okay. Please don’t. I have a lot of other things to write about.”

“Yes, but no matter what you write about, I’m your inspiration. I’m your…

One day, early in his recovery work around sex addiction, Mark and I were standing in line at the grocery store, when I commented on a headline on one of the news magazines. “I can’t look,” Mark said.

“What?”

“It’s not good for me. Those magazine and tabloid covers are awful. I hate the grocery store checkout. There’s no place I can safely look.”

I hadn’t thought about it before, at least not in terms of recovery. Most of the magazines were insipid and pandered to the worst in people, but when I wasn’t tuning them out, I was mocking them. I never…

“I can’t hear this song without thinking of you,” I said to Mark as The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” came on my music mix a few days ago. It reminded me of falling in love with him in college: how he made me scream, and laugh, and promise to run away with him, how dreamlike and obsessive it was, and how I lost him for a time.

There are thousands of songs in my iTunes library at this point, collected over decades, and nearly every one has an association with some person or event. Play “Footloose” and I’m with giggling with…

A few days ago, my daughter Janie walked into the kitchen, which my frantic holiday baking had turned into an indoor winter wonderland, covered in soft mounds of flour and dustings of sparkling sugar. “What are you making, Mama?” she asked.

“A pie for a potluck dinner with some friends,” I answered.

“Mm,” Janie said, “Is it a cherry pie?”

“No, it’s apple.”

“Is apple your favorite kind of pie, Mama?”

“No, actually my favorite is blueberry. Although I really like cherry too. I like both of those better than apple.”

“Why didn’t you make blueberry then? Or cherry?”

“Actually, come to think of it, I’ve never…

Last night my husband Mark and I stayed up past midnight finalizing the details of our Christmas budget and to do list. We divided up the errands and agreed on which of us would buy for whom and how much money we would each use to do it. I (in an uncharacteristically organized fashion) made a detailed list of everything I’d volunteered to take care of as well as a few other things that occurred to me. I set it next to my computer along with a calendar showing my deadline for each item, so that I’d be ready to…

Someone I grew up with drank (still drinks) a lot. And over the years, I’ve struggled with her alcohol use. Year after year, the incidents around her drinking have piled up. There was the time she was laid off and spent the next several years living rent free in a home her parents owned, spending her days drinking and watching TV, rarely bothering to get dressed. There was the night of her brother’s wedding, where she was found vomiting in the bushes outside the reception site after overindulging in the free alcohol. And there were the trash cans full of…

“Is Tiger Woods a sex addict?”
“What do you think about Tiger?”
“Aren’t you going to write about Tiger Woods?”

The questions have been peppering my inbox, but I’ve been avoiding the topic. On the one hand, I love a good celebrity sex scandal, both because I can relate and because I see it as an opportunity to educate people about what sex addiction can look like. I remember when my husband disclosed his addiction, I realized that his words and actions bore an uncanny resemblance to Bill Clinton’s (even down to the “oral sex is not sex” line). And I was pissed, not…

One thing most addicts have in common is a history of childhood abuse or neglect. According to research by sex addiction expert Patrick Carnes, 81% of sex addicts were sexually abused as children and 97% were physically and/or emotionally abused or neglected. But quote those statistics to some (especially those of us who have been badly hurt by addicts) and you’ll hear, “Big deal. I had a rough childhood too, but I didn’t get so drunk I missed my job interview or spend my child’s first birthday with a prostitute or shoot up in a rest stop bathroom instead of…

Several people have asked me if I watched Oprah’s show on sex addiction last Monday. The answer is “sort of.” I don’t watch Oprah much, and apparently Oprah likes it that way. I missed episode, and while there are clips on YouTube, I can’t seem to get video of the full episode for love or money. Unlike, say, my beloved Colbert Report, Oprah is not available for viewing online. And unlike other favorites, her show is also not available for purchase from iTunes or Amazon. I think Oprah is now going to have to be part of my next 4th…

Earlier this month, I decided I was going to set aside one day each week for spirituality and health, a sort of personal Sabbath. I picked a day of the week and made some rules for myself and set about my spiritual experiment. This week will be my fourth “Sabbath,” and while three weeks is hardly enough to see substantial change, I have noticed some interesting things:

1. It’s hard to break out of my routine and not do my usual work. It’s like the first time I sat in meditation and was there for about fifteen seconds and thought, “Ok, is this…

You know why I hate the word codependent? (And although I have taken on that label, I still truly do.) It has the word “dependent” right there in the word. Weak, wussy little “dependent.” It practically whines at you: “I’m so helpless. I can’t do anything for myself. Waaaa! Someone do it all for me, I’m just not capable!” And that’s so not the way I’ve seen myself. In fact, the only word with “dependent” in it that I’ve ever associated with myself is “independent,” which adds that nice little “not” before its dependent. I don’t need help, no sir,…

On Thanksgiving morning, I needed to run out to the grocery store for a few last minute items, and if the parking lot of my local store was any indication, I was far from the only one. As I weaved my way slowly through the traffic at the front of the store looking for an available space, I noticed a man standing in front of the store holding a hand-lettered cardboard sign bearing the words, “Please help.” I thought about the family I had at home, the friends we would be getting together with later that day and the feast…

My 12 Step group had some difficulty recently around a reading that listed some of the behaviors partners of sex addicts might have in common. Many of the women in the group found it triggering, because they felt the list of characteristics implied there was something wrong with them, that they were “sick” for reacting to an insane situation in a way they felt was normal and understandable, or that they were being told they must have reacted in some way that they hadn’t simply because they were part of Club Partner-of-a-Sex-Addict. I knew that feeling. I had had it…

This post includes some spoilers.

It’s been a long time since I nerdily reviewed a movie, but my husband and I went to see New Moon this weekend, and I just couldn’t resist writing a post about it. The movie is a vampire love story. No, actually it’s a vampire, werewolf, human love triangle. Bella (a human teenage girl) is the object of affection of both Edward (the 109-year-old teenage-looking vampire) and Jacob (the teenage werewolf). It’s also a stunning portrait of codependent craziness.

Picture Mark and me, cuddled up in a dark theater, surrounded by shrieking teenage girls. On screen, shimmers the…