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

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Some ten or fifteen years ago, Mark and I were engaged to be married, living together in a cozy (read: small) one bedroom apartment with a computer named Abby. Abby, a Mac Quadra, took up nearly all of our dark brown laminate dining table, and Mark and I shared her for work and Internet access. Although we had separate e-mail addresses, we didn't bother to keep them private, and we shared one instant messaging account.

Not everyone had an e-mail account or was Internet savvy at the time, but Abby and her modem were helping us both reconnect with a few old friends, especially as the wedding approached. Mark's favorite e-mail pal at the time was Laurie, an old friend from high school who lived out of state. The two of them had a flirtatious, teasing relationship. That wasn't unusual for Mark, so I wasn't sure what it was that made me so uneasy about Laurie in particular.

Something about their relationship didn't make sense; I couldn't understand what he saw in her or what he was getting from this friendship. He couldn't be looking for intellectual stimulation: Laurie was far from his intellectual equal and the two had very different interests. He couldn't be looking for support or caring: Laurie seemed to be getting most of the support in the friendship, and Mark was getting plenty of love and support from me and other people in his life. He certainly couldn't be looking for a sexual relationship: Laurie lived thousands of miles away and Mark and I had a deeply satisfying sex life. Still, she seemed to desperately want or need something from Mark, and he seemed disproportionately excited to hear from her, as if he delightedly craved something in her neediness.

He never had to say when he was writing to her or reading a message from her. I could feel her there in our apartment as surely and oppressively as if she were hiding behind our curtains and I could hear her breathing. On the few occasions when I really did see her, we'd greet each other tensely; I'd meet her big, false-feeling grins with smiles that didn't quite reach my eyes.

I don't remember how I first ended up reading one of her e-mails to Mark, whether he left it up on the shared screen, as sometimes happened, or whether I grew uneasy enough to actively start snooping, but I did read a message at some point. And having read that one, I actively searched for more. I didn't feel entirely right about it, but nothing on the computer, his or mine, was password protected, and why should either or us want to hide anything if there were nothing to be ashamed of?

What I read started a sickly burn in the pit of my stomach that worked its way out to my shaking hands. The messages were suggestive and intimate enough to shock, confuse and hurt me deeply. Still, I knew Mark truly loved me and wanted to build a life with me. When I looked carefully, I thought I saw a man having fun flirting and a woman desperately seeking attention and connection. I didn't think he was intending to cheat on me. My biggest worry was that he was unintentionally in over his head, that Laurie had mistaken his harmless flirtation as being part of a real, intimate relationship, and that she would somehow trick or guilt my goofy, naive, overly trusting and tenderhearted man into accidentally going too far.

I wondered how I might talk to Mark about it. After all, hadn't I had my share of weird friendships laced with sexual tension? Did I even have a right to be upset? Was he really doing anything wrong? And hadn't I read his e-mail? Ought I to have done that, even if what came out of it showed that I had a right to be concerned?

I was mulling all this, working on Abby one evening while Mark was still at work, when Laurie invited me to an instant message chat. Of course, she wasn't really inviting me; even though Mark and I shared an account, even though our screen name included both our names, even though I was supposedly her friend too, I knew she wasn't intending to talk to me, nor did she have any interest in me. The virtual phone was ringing, and Mark was supposed to pick up. Should I let it go? Or answer with his virtual voice and see what she'd say? I paused.

I answered. We didn't say much beyond "hi, how are you, what are you doing" at first, but her friendly, teasing flirtatiousness made it clear that she thought she was talking to Mark. I pretended to interpret her flirtations as mere friendliness and responded with friendliness in kind, knowing that I was misleading her. I think we were talking chatting about her plans to go out for ice cream when she finally said something so overtly suggestive, teasingly wishing that the Mark she thought I was could be there to lick her creamy cone, that I had to make a choice: either actively pretend to be Mark or call her on it.

I paused again, and in response to her come on, I typed, "I think you have the wrong M." The chat instantly went cold and we signed off shortly after. I was embarrassed for having impersonated Mark (because however much I wanted to pretend that wasn't the case, I very much knew that's what I was doing), but I was incensed at Laurie's behavior.

Not long after, I sat down with Mark on our futon, the very spot where he proposed to me, and told him what had happened: that I'd chatted with Laurie and that I'd read his e-mail. I told him I was confused and worried and hurt. He was angry and hurt that I'd invaded his privacy, but he assured me that he loved me, apologized for hurting me and said I was right about the flirtations with Laurie having gone too far already. He said his friendship with Laurie was important to him, and he didn't want to end it entirely, but he promised me he would be more careful of the tone and frequency of his messages. And he wanted to prove to me how serious he was about his commitment to me; he rewrote his wedding vows that night and added "I will be loyal and faithful to you." In part, that was for me, and in part, those words were a talisman for himself. Either way, the words didn't hold against the addiction. However, I was reassured; I promised in return that I would stop reading his e-mail, and I did stop. If I hadn't, perhaps this story would have a very different ending.

Laurie came to our wedding (and her presence fully failed to dampen that glorious day one bit). We saw her once more a few months later at a high school function, but after that she and Mark gradually fell out of touch. I never saw her again, and only heard from her once a year, when we exchanged holiday greetings. No doubt this was because Mark kept his promise to end his flirtations with her, and she grew bored without the sexual intrigue and moved on. What other explanation could there be?

Still Laurie, and her messages, were the pebble in the pond: they may have disappeared below the surface, but they sent ripples echoing into the future to lap at my toes on a distant shore.