Earlier this year, I read an article about technology that would allow us to record and store every moment of our lives. Imagine: our whole lives stored in a single searchable archive. We could settle those arguments with the boss by replaying what was actually said. ("See, you did tell me you wanted this by Thursday, not Tuesday!") We could go back to that first kiss over and over again. In fact, if I were recording my whole life, I'd even be able to figure out where the heck I read this elusive article (The New York Times, maybe?) and link to it.

Maybe it's the year (and the first decade of the 21st century) drawing to a close, but the idea of a life archive was on my mind the other night.  My memory is flawed — as memories are —and ever since I was a child, I have wanted the ability to go back and reconstruct the past if I need to.  It's one of the reasons I write so much: not just here on my blog, which is a relatively recent occurrence, but in the thirty plus years of journals I have stacked up in my closet and in the copies of letters I have in file drawers (yes, years ago, back in the days when people did things like write letters on paper and send them to people in the mail, I started fastidiously making and keeping copies of my outgoing correspondence) and in the e-mail archive I have dating all the way back to the early 90's.  And I'm not just an obsessive chronicler, as Mark can attest from the paper laden state of our bedroom/office, I keep nearly every scrap of information that passes through my hands: from calendars to holiday letters to post-it notes.  And it's still never been enough.

My craving for a complete record of every moment of my life reached a height when I discovered Mark's sex addiction.  I went back over what I had and found it scandalously lacking.  How could I not have written anything at all on what turned out to be several major dates of acting out?  How could I not have a copy of some of those suspicious receipts that caused me so much angst?  And how could Mark have deleted all the e-mail in the secret accounts he used for contacting other women, so that, when at last I discovered them, I would have no way to verify dates and times?

I wanted to weigh every word he had written to someone else.  I wanted to compare each date and time to other events in our lives so I could thoroughly revise our history together based on what I now knew to be the truth.  I wanted to go back to each instance of his acting out and see what I had missed.  Did he look different when he came home after having sex with someone else?  Was there some way I could have known?  Now that I had all the information about what was happening at the time, would our lives together look different to me?  I wanted to go back to those sections and play them over and over again, like a detective in a crime drama, ready to pause it and say, "There!  See that!  The way he raises his eyebrow right there.  That's the tell."

I believed that somewhere out there was some objective reality that I'd failed to completely capture, and if I just knew how to access that, if had a more complete picture, if had more information, everything would be different; I'd be safe.  I would have something to point to in my self doubt and say, "I'm not crazy!  There was something there, something wrong, I just didn't know how to look for it."  I believed the whole truth was knowable by me if I just tried hard enough, if I had all the pieces to the puzzle.

What I didn't realize at the time was that the information alone was not enough.  The security of some objective truth is an illusion.  I still need the ability to interpret what I know and the confidence to believe in my own interpretation, my own truth, in the face, not of contradictory facts, but of contradictory interpretations.  There were times I did have evidence of my husband's addictive behavior, but I didn't have the ability to understand it or the confidence to hold to my feelings in the face of contradictory spin from Mark.  If I could play back the movie of my life, it wouldn't appear the same to me now as it did then or as it will in ten years or twenty years, not because of new information, but because of new experiences.

Still, I'm pretty sure that, given the chance, I'd totally buy something that would record my life.  After all, the fact that I still don't know where I read about all this in the first place is going to bug me for at least the rest of this year.  And wouldn't it be nice to just look that up rather than do all this tiresome letting go?  Maybe if I check my e-mail...

Just days before I discovered my husband Mark's sex addiction, we were shopping in Target, when we passed a young woman.  "Hi, Mark!" she chimed, smiling brightly.  Then she turned to her shopping companion, a man who was glowering at Mark, and said, "Jimmy, this is my friend Mark, you know, the one I've told you about.  I've been having such a great time with him lately!"  Then turning back to us, she introduced Jimmy as her boyfriend and chatted for a while before cheerfully parting with: "Well, it's been such fun to run into you here.  Bye, Mark!  See you tomorrow?"

"Um, yes," Mark replied, with much less enthusiasm than she showed.

I had no idea who this woman was, although she obviously knew Mark well enough, had been spending time with him lately and was planning on seeing him again tomorrow.  As she walked away, I whispered to Mark, "Who was that?"

"That's, um, Ashley."

"Who's Ashley?  I don't think you've ever mentioned her before."

"Really?  I haven't?  She, um, works at Starbucks."

"She seems to know you pretty well."

"Well, I go in there every day, and the servers get to know the regular customers.  It's good business.  You know, they learn what you like and they try to make you feel welcome, so you'll keep coming back.  That kind of thing."

And it was true that Mark was a regular at Starbucks.  He was out of work at the time, and I was pregnant and a stay—at—home mom to our two year old son, which made our home a less than perfect environment for concentrating on a job search.  So, each morning Mark would get up at about the time he would usually go to work, take his laptop and head to Starbucks where he would work on his résumé, send out job queries via e-mail and do research online.  This much I knew.  Apparently, along with the work finding a job, he spent time chatting with Ashley.

Still, as surprised and uncomfortable as I felt about this encounter, that was Mark — at least as I knew him then.  Of course, he would spend time chatting with folks at Starbucks; Mark was always sweet, charming and friendly.  And of course, having a nice regular customer like Mark would make Ashley's work easier and more pleasant.  I was a little crazy (as was Ashley's boyfriend) to feel suspicious about this, wasn't I?  Just more proof, I told myself, of my irrational and jealous mind, as I tried to put thoughts of Ashley out of my head.

And I might have been successful at forgetting her if it weren't for the fact that, days later, I found out about Mark's sex addiction and the whole picture changed.  I found out that Mark had Ashley's e-mail address and had been carrying on a flirtatious private correspondence even outside of business hours.  And Ashley wasn't the only one: Mark's Palm Pilot had a list of women he'd met during his mornings at Starbucks, each one with a physical description and a short summary of her interests, likes and dislikes.  He would use the notes to woo the women by showing how interested he was in the things that interested them, talking to one about the latest episode of CSI and another about jazz music.

Among the many demands I made of Mark in those early days after disclosure was one that he not visit any Starbucks ever again.  But since giving up his sexual compulsions turned out to be easier than giving up his tall mocha frappuccinos, we compromised on not visiting the Starbucks where Ashley worked again.

Tonight, Mark and I went out for coffee.  Mark headed for the Starbucks closest to our home, but I reminded him that it closes early, and suggested we go a bit further to a larger Starbucks that is open later.  As we were sitting there enjoying our gingerbread spiced beverages, I said, "I want to do some writing tonight, but I can't think of what to write."

"Write about Starbucks," he said.

I looked at my drink and the picture of the red velvet cupcake on the wall and couldn't think what I'd have to write about Starbucks.  It actually took a few minutes before it hit me.  Starbucks.  There was a time when I couldn't come anywhere near this place without being thrown into an attack of post-traumatic stress.  I couldn't walk in without wondering which of the baristas Mark would have slept with if he hadn't found recovery when he did.

"Oh," I said, minutes later, "I could write about Starbucks."

"That's what I said," said Mark.  "See!  I am your muse!"

"It's just that I forgot."

"You forgot?  And this was the Starbucks!"

"Hey, look how healed I am!" I said, and then joked, knowing I'd long ago let up on forcing Mark to boycott this particular store, "Wait.  This was the Starbucks?  Then you're not even supposed to be in here! I thought I told you never to come in here again!"

"But I'm here with you, because you wanted to come, baby," he laughed, "Besides we let go of all that years ago, remember?"

"Yes." I said, smiling, "I guess we did."

"You know," joked my husband Mark, "I think you ought to be paying me royalties. You wouldn't have anything to write about without me..."

"I know. It's true. That's the sad life of a codependent. My problem is being all wrapped up in your problems. But you haven't given me much to write about lately anyway."

"Well, do you want me to go out and do something addicty for you so you can write about it?"

"No, that's okay. Please don't. I have a lot of other things to write about."

"Yes, but no matter what you write about, I'm your inspiration. I'm your Muse. So, back to those royalties. What do you think Muses usually get?"

"They usually get beautiful works written in their honor. And I'm already doing that."

"Oh. Darn."

"It's okay. I don't really have any money anyway. Maybe after I sue Stephanie Meyer for stealing the story of our crazy early romance and turning it into a vampire novel, okay?"

"Fair enough."

"Just keep not doing anything addicty for me to write about in the meantime. Deal?"

"Deal."

I fear business trips. But it's not my own business trips I fear — as a mom who left corporate work behind some nine years ago, I don't get those myself anymore — it's my husband's. When Mark was active in his sex addiction, (unbeknownst to me at the time) the trips he took for business were veritable perfect storms for acting out. The simmering brew of loneliness in an unfamiliar city, exhaustion brought on by travel and stress about his work triggered the compulsive behaviors he used to self-medicate. And on top of that, his location (most often a hotel room in a major city) generally provided plentiful opportunities for acting out (from porn to strip clubs to prostitutes).

When Mark started in recovery, he changed jobs and took a position that required no business travel at all. He didn't feel he was ready to travel safely at that point, and I was grateful that I didn't have to add one more post traumatic stress trigger to my life just then. Over the years, as his job has changed, he has occasionally been asked to do business travel. He weighs the merits of each trip and talks to me about the impact on me and on our family; sometimes (especially early on) he has refused to go, but sometimes he takes the trip. And every now and then, when he does, a bit of fear creeps up and wraps itself around me. Ok, ok, sometimes more than a bit. There are times when business trips can really make me crazy.

It so happens that Mark has one of those crazy making business trips coming up in a few weeks, and I've felt that fear tightening its grip around me once again. He'll be flying overseas to visit a wealthy business partner who will be treating them to a tour in his private jet, lavish meals and a stay at a luxurious resort. And when I think of wealth and power and indulgence, my mind flies to an overseas trip years ago, when a wealthy and powerful executive in his company rewarded Mark an his coworkers with a night at a strip club, complete with lap dances for all.

And there, as the past casts its shadow on the future, lies fear. It's a fear that has nothing to do with the present moment, where we are both using all the tools we've amassed in the last six years to communicate our feelings honestly and to maintain our respective states of mental health and sobriety. But as I sit with that fear today, with those tools at my disposal, I'm reminded by its dark presence that I must be out of touch with my Higher Power. When I am present and in touch with my Higher Power, there is no fear. The fear, I realize, is a gift that reminds me what I need to do to be free of fear. It guides me back to contact with my Higher Power and back to my faith that Mark and I both (together or separately) will be ok whatever happens, because it is all part of our journey, our learning, our growth. As feel my Higher Power once again, I'm able to breathe, let my shoulders drop away from my ears and gently release that dark shadow and watch it fade away.

I have spent my share of time cyberstalking the women my husband has acted out with. (Hey, I'm codependent; I'm really, really good at focusing on people who aren't me.) And I'm not alone. Focusing on and obsessing about the activities of acting out partners is an unhealthy behavior nearly every partner of a sex addict engages in at some point. During my last binge googling the name of one of my husband's former lovers I realized I was engaging in a form of emotional cutting, purposely causing myself pain (and getting something from it).

Since then I have been tempted a few times to just check in, you know, and make sure his old lovers still have fewer Facebook friends than I do (because we all know what an important measure of a human being's worth that is), but thankfully I've been able to recognize that I'm standing there, ticket in hand, ready to jump on the crazy train, and have stopped each time. (Actually, just writing about it has me itching to do it. "What harm could it do?" the little voice in my head is saying,"You can just check real quick. No one will even know. And then you don't ever have to look again. Just this one last time." Yep. Craziness. Still.)

But in spite of being cut off from the good stuff, that little crazy part of me has been weaseling its way around the rules and getting some cheap thrills lately anyway. You see, if you're in recovery around your relationship with a sex addict (go figure!) you tend to meet other women whose partners have been unfaithful and you tend to be the one that your existing friends call with they're dealing with infidelity. This week, a friend fresh in the pain of her own cyberstalking adventures shared some of the information she found with me. And I found myself thinking, "Looking up my husband's lovers is obviously bad for me, but it doesn't hurt to cyberstalk someone else's lovers a little, right? After all, they didn't do anything to me. So there's no harm in looking at their pictures and bios and résumés and Facebook friends and tweets. I'm just getting enraged on my friend's behalf, and that's not nearly as bad." So I poked around beyond what I had been given already.

But spending time googling other people's lovers is obviously (when you're not off in Crazytown) a healthy way to spend time. In fact, in a lot of ways, it seems crazier than obsessing over my husband's lovers. At least when I'm focusing on his acting out partners, I'm feeding off my own pain rather than voyeuristically engaging in someone else's drama. And I'm seeing that the fact that something like this feels like a safe way to indulge myself only shows how deep the need to indulge is. But spending my time googling people in my friends' lives can't really be a harmless new diversion for me, any more than beer would be a smart recreational choice for an alcoholic who has given up hard liquor. It's a simply a crazy new twist on the same old unhealthy behaviors.

With the story of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's week-long disappearance to visit his mistress in Argentina buzzing about, we're faced yet again with a barrage of images of a public figure tearfully apologizing for his infidelity, while his job hangs in jeopardy.* And in the wake of this story, the same discussions will repeat themselves that have echoed down from all the scandals past. Why did he do it? What does it say about our society? Should he keep his job? And, my perennial favorite, was he justified in cheating?

Yes, rest assured, people will whisper about the cause being his bitchy wife (she must be or he wouldn't have done it, right?) and someone, somewhere out there, will use this as an opportunity to bemoan our culture's moralistic attitude toward sex. It's a charge that is sometimes leveled at partners of sex addicts (at times by the addict or even by ourselves): that the problem with infidelity lies in our own uptight attitudes about sex and if we'd just lighten up and not get so upset about sex outside of marriage, everything would be fine. Which completely misses what every partner of a sex addict knows: the pain of infidelity doesn't have nearly as much to do with the sex as it does with being lied to.

Ask nearly anyone in a relationship with a sex addict what the worst thing about active addiction is and they will almost universally tell you that it's not the sex, but the lying and the horrible breach of trust that comes with it.  Sure, the sex part of it matters; it's not like I would have fallen down on the bathroom floor sobbing and hugging the toilet in sickness if my husband had lied to me about his secret life helping poverty stricken orphans.  The lies hurt because they were about something as intimate and personal and hurtful as a breech of sexual trust. And yes, I wanted the sexual acting out gone, but I know wanted the lies gone still more.

When my husband disclosed his activities to me, I laid into him, "If you wanted to have sex with other people, why didn't you tell me? If you want an open marriage, I need to know that. Hiding your actions and covering things up and lying shows a total lack of respect for me. I didn't have what I needed to make an informed decision about this relationship. You didn't give me the option to decide for myself, like an adult, you decided for me based on what you wanted. If multiple partners is what you want, let's talk about it. If that's what you're going to do, then tell me. I can deal with the sex, but I can't deal with the lying and the hiding and the deception." (See, it was early in recovery, I still "youed" at him a lot then. Also I bargained and tried to control him. Please do not try this at home.)

And in my husband's most major relapse since starting recovery for sex addiction, it wasn't the details of his acting out that hurt me (I wasn't even interested in them), but the fact that he would lie about going to a 12 Step meeting (a sacred meeting) and then cover it up for a year before coming clean.  I know he's an addict, I knew chances were slim that he would enter recovery and go the rest of his life without another slip ever, but I didn't care what he had done with this other woman so much as I cared that he had deceived me about it.  Even knowing that lying goes with the territory in addiction, the lying undid me.

What are my attitudes toward and beliefs about sex and relationships? To be honest, I'm still working that out; they're ever changing as I grow. But I do know that I didn't (and couldn't) begin to explore them until my husband and I both started talking honestly and openly about our wants and needs, our hopes and fears, our goals and values.

A version of this post was originally published at The Second Road. Additional comments can be found there.

I understand, very well, the fear and misunderstanding that surrounds addiction, and sex addiction in particular (why do you think I blog under a pseudonym?), but this kind of sensationalist coverage of recovery meetings is the worst way I can think of to address those fears and concerns. It would be like busting into a closed AA meeting to try to talk about drunk driving. After all, there really are (insert ominous drum roll) cars outside those meetings and (insert slow motion negative image) some folks convicted of drunk driving inside them, some of whom (insert scary music) slip in their recovery and show up drunk. Yep, folks. It's true.

As my husband and I always say, it's fine to worry about the sex addicts in the meetings. They're addicts. They've screwed up and done hurtful things to themselves and others. Sometimes (but not always) they've done illegal things, and in some small minority of those cases the things they did posed a danger to others. Their behavior is compulsive, and there's no cure, so they may well act out again. Of course, it's wise and healthy to maintain one's safety by exercising good boundaries. It's wise to ask questions and learn (although certainly not by busting into a 12 Step meeting and outing everyone). But if viewers really wanted something scary to worry about, they'd worry about the folks who aren't in those meetings and who aren't in recovery. Because active addiction, with no glimmer of recovery, is what's really scary.

I attend a weekly 12 Step meeting for friends and family members of sex addicts, and part of our meeting script asks that group members refrain from mentioning specific company names or websites in their shares to avoid triggering others. Whenever I hear this part of the script, I always imagine that what's really meant is "please refrain from saying the word Craigslist."

While I've found Craigslist wonderfully useful for everything from finding writing jobs to getting rid of the kids' baby furniture, it has played a part in the addiction that has ravaged the lives of so many people Mark knows that (well before news of the so-called Craigslist Killer hit the stands) he refrained from visiting any part of the site for any reason in spite of never having used it to act out himself. (After all, if Facebook is dangerous to his recovery, a place like Craigslist would be lethal.) In fact, Mark has so many disturbing negative associations with the name alone that he does not even like to hear it.

Today, under pressure from law enforcement, Craigslist announced that it was doing away with its Erotic Services section and replacing it with an Adult Services section, which will be reviewed by Craigslist employees to ensure only postings from "legal adult service providers." While this may (depending on how well the ads are monitored and reviewed) curb prostitution, I have no doubt that, given its many perfectly legal ads for sex, Craigslist will have no problem retaining its dubious place of honor as an Internet hub for active sex addicts and a painful trigger for many addicts and spouses in recovery.

When I found out about my husband's sex addiction, I spent weeks ripping every last Who and Where and What and How Often out of him. While he was at work, I'd make lists of questions and then keep him up late into the night interrogating him like a CIA agent would a terrorism suspect during the Bush administration. (And if I had known about water boarding, believe me, I would have used it.) We didn't have the support of a therapist or a group during this process. I discovered the sex addiction and attacked like a wild animal. I was either going to savage out what I needed or I was going to leave. So, we looked for support as I held onto his neck by my teeth, growling.

Mark was a wily subject, and I spent hours in frustration trying to determine precisely the right wording for my questions. I found that he was more skilled at finding loopholes than the most highly paid lawyer. I couldn't ask a question like, "Did you kiss Sue?" I would have to say, "The questions I am about to ask you refer to Susan Benson who worked at Widget Co. with you from 1998-2000 in the role of company receptionist and who will be referred to for the remainder of this session as 'Sue.' Did either your upper or lower lip, your tongue, teeth or any adjoining part of your face touch any part of Sue's body including, but not limited to her hair, teeth, toenails, fingernails, skin, lips, etc... Please note that the answer will still be yes if your lips touched any item or substance placed over Sue's body, again including but not limited to paper, food items, cloth, bed sheets, the salad stuck in your teeth, scarves, shirts, blouses, bras, panties or other items of clothing belonging to either of you."

I kept at it (for a time) because I believed that somehow, if I had The Facts, I would know The Truth. I'd be able to pin it down like a butterfly and spend my life examining it under a microscope. I'd be able to see what it was I had missed and how I missed it. And I'd be able to break the chain of secrets that kept him intimately linked to the women he'd acted out with. In the end, I collapsed in exhaustion, with enough to satisfy me that more was not going to help. I could see that from here, I had to find a way to a truth that went beyond the details a journey I expect to continue for the rest of my life.

I later found out there is a name for this sharing of information early in recovery: disclosure. It can be an important and beneficial part of rebuilding trust within the relationship, although I've also learned that the method by which I attained went about it is, ahem, not recommended. (Therapists say, "Kids, don't try this at home." Oh, and they don't endorse torture either. Go figure.)

My husband and I left the kids with a babysitter and went out on a date last night. Mark had a work crisis he wanted to deal with before leaving the office, so to save time, I decided to meet him there rather than waiting for him to meet me someplace else. When I do have to meet Mark at work, I tend to make sure it is after hours, when his coworkers are unlikely to be in the office. Visiting him at work always provokes anxiety in me, because he has a history of acting out in his sex addiction with coworkers, most recently by taking a female coworker out for a dinner date about a year ago.

I'm not ready to meet or interact with any of the women he works with, in spite of the fact that Mark says he has not been physically intimate with anyone there, even Candace, the woman he took out to dinner.

In my earlier days, I would have spent a huge amount of frantic energy trying to find out "the truth" about his relationship with each and every woman he came into contact with during the day. I would have tried to find evidence to conclusively prove or disprove his assertion that he did not have sex with Candace. I would have reviewed the 24/7 videos from the monitoring system and GPS tracking system I'd have had installed on his body (if such a thing existed and my codependent craziness had progressed along the path it was taking). I would have looked for some indication about whether or not I should feel hurt and whether or not I had a right to be upset.

But here's the thing I've found as I've worked on my own healing: It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what he actually did or didn't do. Even with conclusive proof that nothing more has happened than what I already know about, I would still feel hurt. I still wouldn't want to meet any of his female coworkers, because regardless of whether or not I should find them triggering and upsetting, I do. My feelings are real, regardless of the circumstances, and the past still haunts me. And that's what I have to deal with by continuing to work on myself.