You all know how the song goes: honesty is such a lonely word. Yep, and everyone is so untrue. Or to take us into the current century and an entirely different pop culture icon: Everyone lies. Tell me that you never lie, and like House, I'll tell you you're lying.Yet, if you're anything like me, in spite of telling your share of lies, you expect people to tell the truth, especially the people who have the greatest incentive to lie: our children, parents, partners, friends, spiritual and political leaders. People in relationships with us, who depend on our trust, who don't want to lose us (or our love or our trust or our vote) sometimes feel they have to lie to keep us. Somewhere behind those lies is the belief inside every addict and codependent: if you really knew me, you wouldn't love me. The lies weave a fantasy to comfort us and protect the liar.
Addicts (as I've said before) are consummate liars. (In fact, I read a New Yorker article recently about lie detectors, which featured one researcher became interested in working on lie detection after working with -- you guessed it -- addicts.) They are successful liars because they believe their own lies, and are often quite charismatic and compelling. I don't think it's an accident that the two most recent U.S. presidents have struggled with addiction (Bill Clinton with sex and George W. Bush with alcohol). An honest politician is an oxymoron. But a politician who can lie effectively enough to themselves to seem truthful (or crazy)? President!
My husband and I were out on a much needed date when just this subject came up. I was surprised to find that of all the reasons I had given for supporting Hillary Clinton, I hadn't ever shared with him the one reason I feel most passionately about her (and the one reason I can share with very few people other than Mark): Hillary's husband is a sex addict in recovery.
When my husband admitted that he was a sex addict, when he told me in a breath both how he loved me and how he'd horribly betrayed me and debased himself, I slipped beyond the event horizon and into crushing darkness. I felt so frightfully alone. Who was going to understand this, understand me? I had friends, but no friends who had gone through this before. I scrambled and I searched. I went to S-Anon meetings. I was looking for someone like me: a smart, attractive, successful, driven, intellectual woman whose husband had cheated with women who weren't her (or his) equals (women he obviously didn't love) but who still loved her husband and wanted to make her marriage work. Hm...
I used to say Hillary should have left Bill's sorry cheating ass, just like I was going to leave anyone who cheated on me. I didn't get it. As an intelligent, strong woman, I related to her so much, and that choice seemed morally weak, a politically calculated move. Then my moment came, and I didn't leave. And suddenly, I understood why she didn't either. I didn't see a loveless sham of a marriage any more. I didn't see political calculations. I saw a woman who was willing to work hard, to be judged and shamed and ridiculed in public, for what she wanted in her life.
I know Hillary is smart and I know she's driven. I know women like her. I am a woman like her. I know Bill is working recovery because I hear the recovery speak like code mixed into his words when he talks now. I know she's working recovery, because I hear it too. I know she must be approaching recovery with a fearsome tenacity, a mind that must understand and improve. And I know that she is committed to rigorous honesty, because that is what a recovery program requires of her. In the same way I trust my husband, I trust the person I know is in therapy, not the ones who should be but aren't. I trust the one who is working on honesty, not the ones who are so good at lying to themselves that they appear honest.
Everyone lies, but presidential candidates lie more. And everyone has issues, but presidential candidates have presidential sized issues. If you don't know what Obama's or McCain's issues are yet, it's not because they're healthier or saner or more honest than Hillary, it's because their shit hasn't hit the fan in public yet.
And for your entertainment, a video to remind you that while addicts may be charming, codependents are the ones who actually get stuff done:
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