Image credit: Photo by Lori Greig on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

When my husband first started recovery for sex addiction, I used to try to give him these helpful practical tips for how to not cheat on me. After all, I was very successful at not cheating on him. In "Not Cheating on my Husband," I was getting an A+; I had an absolutely flawless record. He, on the other hand, was getting an F in Not Cheating on his Wife and was clearly in need of some tutoring. And who better to get guidance from than me?

In theory, doing such exceptional work at Not Cheating wasn't easy for me. After all, men still liked me and I still liked them. Before I became a mom and reached 40 (the age at which women become invisible in our society), men adored me. (I was reasonably attractive, preferred baseball to ballet and action movies to shopping for shoes, liked to flirt and enjoyed sex enough to have married someone addicted to it.* What was not to love?) But when I got married, I worked hard to perfect my techniques for Not Cheating. I built a force field around myself so formidable that if other men so much as glanced at me, they'd run off squealing, stung by the electric force of my love for my husband.

So, I figured I just needed to teach Mark how to turn on his own invisible fence, something he clearly lacked the know how to do himself. He didn't want to cheat, but he was finding himself in situations where he'd let flirting progress too far. I'd tell him things like, "Just inject 'my wife' into the first sentence of every conversation. You know, like if a woman says, 'I like your shirt.' You can say, 'Thanks, this is my wife's favorite.' It's that easy." Or "Women may take it as a come on if you say, 'I'm so attracted to you that I don't think we can be friends anymore.' Why not stop talking to her instead?" Yes, I was very helpful. I was like the wife of an alcoholic, who says, "Well, it's easy, honey. When someone asks you if you want to go to the bar after work, just say you're coming home to have dinner with me." Or the wife of a gambling addict who says, "Here's a thought, baby. How about if you don't go to the track and we go to a movie together?"

But that's really the problem. It's not an addiction if you can actually take those little bits of advice and just say no. It turns out that I'm not getting an A+ in Not Cheating because I'm exceptionally skilled at it. I'm getting an A+ because it's easy to not do things I don't have an interest in doing. I also get A+'s in Not Listening to Classical Music, Not Exercising, and Ordering Take-Out Instead of Cooking. But I get an F in things like Not Eating Sugary Treats or Not Drinking Coke. (Go ahead, tell me I shouldn't have those things in the house and watch me drive to the 24 hour market at midnight. Go ahead, do it.)

It turns out addiction is only totally easy to handle if you're not an addict. Damn.

This post originally published at The Second Road.