I'm Not Codependent, Shut Up!

When Mark admitted he was a sex addict, my life crumbled down around me. I don't know where I would have been without my son and the little life inside me that was growing to be my daughter. Maybe I would have laid on the ground and let the wreckage rain down on me. Maybe I would have kicked those broken pieces until my feet bled. Maybe I would have thrown that detritus out into the world to wound anyone I could reach. Instead, I clutched those babies and ran, screaming for help, for the nearest shelter that might keep those broken pieces of my perfect world from crushing me.

One of the places I found shelter was in S-Anon, a 12 Step group for partners of sex addicts. There were things about S-Anon that didn't work for me, but it provided what I needed early on: a place where I could meet other people who were living through the trauma I was living through. Here people knew my pain and anger, and I knew theirs. I could share and vent and be heard. I could listen and let go.

I went every week. I went when I was pregnant. I went with a newborn in my arms. But while I attended regularly, I would routinely show up late. In part this is who I am: perpetually late to everything due to a combination of disorganization and a deep desire to avoid small talk that comes with arriving early. In part it was due to logistical challenges with babysitting and with my husband's meeting being on the same night at a slightly different time in another location. But I made no effort to overcome the challenges; I continued to be late, because the truth was that I hated the first part of every meeting.

If you've never been to a 12 Step meeting, the start of the meeting is when the groundwork is laid, the rules are read, the newcomers are welcomed. At the beginning of each meeting, we would say hi, read the 12 Steps and other administrative tidbits, all of which was dull but comfortingly routine. The part I really despised was reading The S-Anon Problem. Every single time someone read "The S-Anon Problem," I would sit there seething, just blind with rage at that freaking document that did not describe who I was or how I had grown up.

The S-Anon problem? I did not have a problem! I was not the one with the problem. My husband had a problem. I was a well-adjusted person with healthy self-esteem, who was going about my life, happy and normal, and I had been tricked! Lied to! Bamboozled! I wasn't lonely or angry or depressed (well, not before my husband lied to me anyway). I didn't feel unlovable; I felt bewildered that my husband would do what he'd done when he had someone as lovable as me in his life. I didn't think sex was the most important sign of love; sex was fun, sex was important, but the be all and end all? Please! I hadn't tried to control him; quite the opposite, I was pissed that he'd taken advantage of my, not just acceptance of, but support and encouragement to be who he was. I didn't feel like I didn't deserve happiness; damn it, I totally deserved happiness. I used to have happiness and he wrecked it! It was his fault I wasn't happy anymore. My life was only unmanageable because it was tied to his unmanageable life.

And it didn't help that I couldn't relate to the other women in the meeting, most of whom seemed to have very different family backgrounds, very different relationships with their husbands and very different levels of self-esteem than I did. They had husbands (and families) who were physically or verbally abusive. They had husbands who blamed them for the affairs and the porn and the prostitutes, who told them they were too fat, too skinny, too ugly, too bitchy. They had husbands who were narcissistic, who were emotionally cold and distant. And many of them felt that they were worthless and this was what they deserved. Many of them wanted to leave, but didn't feel strong enough. Some of them knew about the horrific things their husbands were doing and never said or did anything, but just kept spying, trying to control the behavior or cover it up.

But I had a husband who worshiped me, who looked at me with stars in his eyes, who treated me like a princess, who romanced me and wooed me even after years of marriage, who called me beautiful and sexy even when I was pregnant, unshowered and over 200 pounds. My parents both loved me and treated me that way, even if they fought with each other. I was smart. I was attractive. I was sexy. I was strong. And I knew it. When I had suspicions, I confronted my husband and I wasn't scared to leave if I felt it was right. I was a hurting, injured woman, but I wasn't weak, I wasn't controlling, I didn't enable or ignore his behavior and I played no part in winding up where I was now. I was tricked, the way anyone could have been. The word "codependent" did not apply to me. Right?

One night, I was sitting in a meeting and one of the women was sharing about her marriage and her family of origin, about how growing up with a cold, emotionally distant, addict father led her to believe that this situation was normal. It led her to feel more comfortable in relationships with men who couldn't meet her needs than with healthy men who could. "We're all with these guys for a reason," she said. And I started internally rolling my eyes again, thinking, "There she goes generalizing and assuming that all sex addicts are cold and abusive and that all of our families were abusive. For goodness sakes, I wasn't raised to expect abuse, I was raised to be adored." And then it hit me. I wasn't different. I was just looking in a different fun house mirror. I was only comfortable with extreme adoration. I grew up lavished with affection, and now I couldn't feel loved unless I was worshiped, unless I was with someone who was actually addicted to giving love and attention.

I wasn't some nice, "normal" girl who grew up in a nice, "normal" home and somehow was tricked into marrying a sex addict. I was drawn to that addict, because Mark gave me what I needed, wanted and expected in a relationship, because I had a distorted view of the world and my place in it. In fact, I had the same warped view of reality as my husband. It's what drew us to each other. I didn't recognize his particular brand of craziness as craziness, because it's what I grew up with and it seemed normal to me.

I am not with an addict by mistake. I'm here for a reason, and that reason isn't that I am a healthy person who was bamboozled. So, hi folks. I'm Mary and I'm codependent.