Splinters in my Mind

This is the third in a series of posts on how I came to discover my husband's sex addiction five years ago.

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"There's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad."
~Morpheus in The Matrix

Photo credit: TreMichLan on Flickr

Five years passed between the time Mark fell out of regular touch with Laurie and his entry into recovery for sex addiction. Those first five years of our marriage were magical, both in the sense that they were full of wonder and delight and that they were full of illusion. We moved out of our little one bedroom apartment and into a larger place. We were building successful careers. We paid off our debts and started saving for grown up things like babies and houses. We took romantic vacations, and everywhere we went we rained down happiness on people around us, who said they never had seen such a perfect couple.

The more time went on the more delightful things were, and it tickled me each time someone asked if we (laughing and skipping and singing through life) were newly dating and I'd get to say, "Oh, no we've been together for years!" (As if we were well into our golden years already.) Marriage was easy: all one had to do was pick the right partner and happiness rained down like gumdrops.

Everything was beautiful and wonderful and glorious, yet every now and then, something didn't fit. Mark was a friendly, good hearted person; he was a much nicer person than I was and had so many friends. Yet something about these friends, about the ease with which he took people into his life (our life), bothered me. He'd come home from business trips or from shopping or from eating lunch out having collected new friends, and he could be very enthusiastic about them. He saw the good in everyone: street vendors and coffee baristas and receptionists and hotel cleaning people. I found them totally uninteresting. Why was I such a bad, snobby person? Then again, what was so interesting about them?

I tried to talk to him about it, because we talked about everything (so I thought), but this was always different. Something about the topic was like swimming through sand to get to an answer. There wasn't any real resistance on his part; he was just watching me while I took swipe after swipe, only to remain locked in place watching the sand rush in time and again to fill the hole I'd scooped out.

Of course, while these people entered our lives easily, they also left before long. I never had to fret long about any one person, because these friendships seemed to dissipate as quickly as they emerged. It took me a long time -- years -- to start to see a pattern, and then only a vague one appeared. The pieces didn't all fall together until the very end. Still I started to suspect that Mark was looking for something he was missing, something he wasn't getting from me. I knew he loved me. I knew we had a fabulous sex life. I knew we were well matched in our interests, intellects and values. So, what could he be looking for that he didn't find in me? Why get excited about an e-mail from someone he only met once?

That's when I thought I had it all figured out and knew how to fix it too. He was looking for the one thing I couldn't give him anymore: newness. He liked the mystery, the flirtation, the thrill of the chase. He liked the fantasy. Well, that was easy. I'd just do what Dr. Ruth and Cosmo Magazine and all those experts say is perfectly good and healthy for a marriage: I'd inject more fantasy into our sex life. I'd role play. I'd dress up like a hooker or a teacher or a police officer. I'd create an alter-ego with an alternate e-mail address and the I would be the one sending flirty e-mails. He knew me, but did he know my alter-ego: Candi? Or when he was done with her another and another? I'd get a wig and meet him at his favorite flirty coffee shop and take him to a motel. I'd play out his fantasy in real life, and it would be better than a fantasy, because it would be with me.

I got far enough along with that plan to dress up once, in our own home, before the sex addiction house of cards came crashing down, and Candi's wig and bustier and tight vinyl mini-skirt and crotchless fishnets went into the trash dumpster with the porn.