Double Lives

In the years before my husband was in recovery, he led a double life: lying about his actions to present a pleasant surface image that allowed him to hide his addiction underneath. The double life of my codependency was much more subtle, as I was hiding my emotions rather than my actions. But we were both quite skilled at hiding from the most important person: ourselves.

Now, five years in to the recovery process, I am still leading a double life, although what I am now trying to hide from the world (but not myself) is my recovery. It seems a little crazy to hide becoming healthy the same way one we used to hide our dark dirty secrets, but my husband is a sex addict, and I’m not that brave person who is willing to educate my friends and family and society that my husband is NOT:

• A pedophile


• A rapist


• A joke


• A jerk who is just making excuses


• A normal guy who is being repressed by his bitchy wife and an uptight society

And I’m not the brave person who is willing to educate my family and friends that I’m not crazy for staying.

So when friends and family visit, I lie about what I’m doing on the computer and how I’m spending my time when I go out. I have two separate browsers open on my computer at all times: one for my secret recovery identity and one for my real life name, and the computer locks down when I leave it. I hide recovery literature in paper wrappers in the glove compartment of my car, secret as a porn stash. And I hide God in a secret part of my heart that I never speak about out loud.

Maybe one day the world will celebrate recovery from addiction and mental illness, rather than seeing admitting the problem as worse than lying about it. Or maybe (not likely, but more likely) I’ll get so fixed that every last shred of codependent caring what other people think and say is gone. Until then, I’m here sickly hiding the fact that I’m not quite the same sick person I used to be.

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This post originally published at The Second Road on August 1, 2008.