And the only thing that stands in the way of our enduring love is the fact that I'm not a cartoon character. (Oh, and he already has a thing for that cartoon reporter, Roxanne. Whatever. I'm sure the animators can just draw me as her. I mean, let's not get picky about it. I'm sure we can work through those little details in the name of true love.)

Yes, that's right. My new imaginary boyfriend is Megamind, the blue space alien evil genius with the soulful green eyes voiced by Will Ferrell (for whom I totally would not leave my husband). But to tell you why he's so hot, I'm going to have to include some (moderate) spoilers, so if you're the kind of person who likes to approach movies as a blank slate, go watch it now.

So, did you see it? Did you see how Megamind was alone in his dark prison cell as a child, working on his plans for a popcorn maker to get the other kids to like him? And how it didn't work? And how he sat alone at a table at school with the fish that was his only friend? Did you see how he said the only thing he was good at was being bad? And how guys like him never get the girl?

Did you see how everyone abandoned him his whole life long? Did you see how lonely he was? And how misunderstood? And how he pretended to be someone else? And he lied? (Favorite line in the movie: in response to the question of what he will do when the girl he loves finds out about his deception, he says, "She'll never find out! That's the whole point of lying!" If you were in the theater with me, I apologize for the fact that you couldn't hear the next five lines of dialogue over my howling laughter.)

That all is so. freaking. hot.

That's like a cartoon portrayal of my dream man, which I recognized, because I was sitting next to the man I've adored for twenty years now, who was lonely and never felt good enough to get the girl and pretended to be someone else and lied. And it ate my heart out that no one would love this poor space alien right. I was cheering so hard for him to get the girl, from the deepest reaches of my codie soul, I was yelling at Roxanne to recognize the goodness and fragility beneath his evil exterior. For crying out loud, couldn't she see it? She could save him, and he would love her forever. Sigh. So goes the fantasy.

Ok, I'm off to hang a picture of Megamind up by my bed, and wonder what our children will look like. Only not really, because please, I'm like 40-something, I've had my tubes tied and which makes me too old for the sad geekiness of cartoon romance. (You know, if I were 30, maybe...) And besides, who needs Megamind? I've already played out that fantasy with his real life counterpart, and I'm happy to hold hands with him as I walk out of the theater, smiling.

For some time I have been turning an idea for a novel around and around in my head...

Oh, I know.  Who doesn't want to write a novel, right?  Nearly everyone who has luxuriated in the feel of taking pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and shaping the words out like clay has toyed with the idea of a novel.  Yes, I'm no different.  Blah blah.  Like all the rest of you, I was going to write a novel someday.  And sometimes I have started, but always I've stopped.

So, yesterday I started something new (again).  This idea that has been bouncing and turning around turned itself into an opening line, an opening scene.  And I wrote it down.  Scrawled and scribbled and scratched out some words on one side of a sheet of notebook paper.  (Old school!)  And I got excited, and then I started to panic.

I mean, what name am I going to publish it under?  My real name or MPJ?  What if I have to do media appearance?  How could I go on book tour as MPJ?  And won't my MPJ readers see the hidden bits I've stolen from my real life?  But if I write as Real Me, I don't get to talk about it with all of you and...

I have written one page.  One!  One really rough and unready page.  That's it.  But in my head, I'm already several thousand miles down the road.  In my mind, I've skipped over all the hard work of writing.  And rewriting.  And editing.  And running by writer friends.  And polishing.  And querying.  And rejection after rejection.  And rethinking.  And retooling.  And querying.  And more rejection.  But forget all that!  My mind has not only got the novel finished, it's got the agent, and the publisher, and the media appearances and book signings to worry about and maybe the movie deal, because it will be that good, of course.  Will David Letterman have me on his show?  Does he usually interview the authors when the movie is released?  Let's see if I can recall...

Seriously?  You think I'd have learned by now.  All that is craziness and fantasy and pain.  All that is what got me to a rock bottom crying on my bathroom floor seven years ago because my perfect life of fluffy, pink, marshmallow cloud wonderfulness had dissipated and left me falling, like the cartoon character who looks down and realizes he's not running, but hanging in the air over a ravine.  All that is pushing a hammer higher and higher to try to escape its inevitable fall.

What's good and real is what is right here, right now.  The hammer is lying on the ground as long as I don't pick it up, and I can't fall from those clouds when I'm sitting on the ground too.  I had fun writing a page of words.  That's all.  And that's all I need.

"Where's the ketchup?"

"Don't you remember?" asks Mark, a little exasperated. "We had this conversation," he says as he begins to describe it to me in elaborate details: all the full sentences I said to him in response to what he said to me about some colossal ketchup accident and grocery store followup fiasco.  I wish I could remember, it was probably funny.

"Sorry, honey. I just don't.  I, um...  I wasn't looking you in the eye when I said any of this, was I?"  I'm embarrassed, because I'm fairly certain he's not making this up.  I know, we both know, that the conversation took place, but that I tuned him out, my mind's auto pilot answering him automatically.  And we both know what I was doing when it happened: reading.

"I get scared when you don't remember these things," Mark admits.  And I know how he feels, because I've recited a thousand lost tidbits, odd facts and snippets of conversations to him over the years, little bits of time and place that were lost to his addiction, times when he wasn't present with me because his mind was occupied with the next high, or the last one.

Shortly before this conversation, in my 12 Step group, we were talking about the ways in which we partners of addicts sought to escape from reality, the ways in which we literally and figuratively ran away from our problems.  And I shared that reading has always been mine.  For as long as I can remember, for as long as I've known how to decipher these symbols on a page, I've used them as a way to take my mind someplace else. When I was a child, I would shut myself up in the cool of my room and read from the time I got up until late in the night.  I'd forget to eat.  I'd lose sleep.  And when at last I did shut off the lights, I'd try to block out thoughts of whatever I'd done wrong (there was always something) by inserting myself into the books I read: putting myself on the island of the Swiss Family Robinson, in Laura Ingall's house on the prairie, in a cozy hobbit hole, on the Orient Express.

Sometimes my reading has been wonderful and beneficial; I've learned and been exposed to new ideas, experienced wonder and beauty, grown mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  (Go figure, those things they say in the public service announcements for your local library really are true.)  But I have to admit that sometimes, picking up a book or a magazine, or even reading a blog post. has been a way for me to escape into someone else's mind, a world someone else creates for me, while I avoid being present in the world right here around me.

Since my conversation with Mark, I've been making an effort to change my programming, to try (often with his help) to look up and shut the book or the computer when someone is talking to me.  When I am able to manage it, I've noticed I'm often annoyed.  I find it difficult to focus, as I'm often all too eager to leave my real life and plunge back into the familiar fantasy of someone else's words.  But at least this notice I'm taking of my annoyance and impatience is, if not comfortable or natural, at least a form of presence in my real life, one I've never had before.

Years ago, before I knew about my husband's sex addiction, one of the things that drew me to him, that I really liked and respected about him, was how he seemed to have broken away from the pattern of addiction and dysfunction in his family. His dad was an alcoholic, his siblings had done time for a variety of drug related crimes, and here he was: the one sane and functional member of his family. He didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't do drugs and was (as far as I knew then) scrupulously honest. He drove the speed limit, signaled when he turned and came to a full stop at every stop sign. I met him while he was taking some of the most challenging classes at a prestigious university, having worked hard and graduated near the top of his high school class.

After his addiction came to light and I saw just how deep and how far back his compulsive behavior extended, and as my eyes slowly cleared from the fantasy and denial that clouded my own thinking, I began to realize just how hard it is to overcome the scars that a dysfunctional childhood leaves. When I met him, the solution to dysfunction was easy; follow the codependent mantra: work harder, do better. So, I assumed Mark was better, stronger and more determined than others, allowing him to come through his childhood unscathed, when weaker and lazier men (or weaker, lazier children) would have succumbed.

The truth was, my husband hadn't come through his childhood unscathed. (Does anyone?) He knew he did not want what he had grown up with, so he tried to imitate the trappings of a sane and fulfilling life — getting good grades, going to college, getting a job, staying away from the alcohol and drugs that wreaked havoc in his family — without really knowing what lay beneath, unable to recognize the ways in which he was repeating the same compulsive patterns in a new way. And I (as much as I thought I was oh so healthy and sane and better than he in my not-addictness) wasn't truly healthy enough myself to realize that the popular indicators of success (a college degree, a job, the lack of a criminal record, abstention from drugs, alcohol and cigarettes) are not necessarily indicative of mental, emotional and spiritual health.

Neither of us realized it was possible to, as we both had, work extremely hard at entirely the wrong things. Neither of us realized it was possible to remove some of the symptoms, and take on some of the trappings of health and well-being, without touching underlying distortions of thinking so deeply ingrained they weren't even noticeable anymore. Until those trappings fell away, until we'd nearly lost our marriage and torn apart the family and the new life we'd built, neither of us could see that we were living a fantasy of health and not the real thing at all.

Image credit: Photo by kchbrown on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from a woman named Paula Saardchit. She told me she'd found my blog while doing research for an article she was writing on sex addiction for her website, and she wanted to write and tell me how moved she was by my story. Of course, I was curious to know more about her site, so I googled her. And I found out that she helps women plan lingerie and sex toy parties. (And I know what kind of party some of you have in mind. No, not that kind! You know, this is like a Tupperware party, only with vibrators.)

When I found out about my husband's sex addiction, one of the first things I did was get out my big, black garbage bags and start dumping in porn, lingerie and sex toys. The sight of them, of anything that made me think of sex or by extension of my husband's sexual acting out, made me want to vomit. So off in a landfill somewhere are all the artifacts of my subconscious attempts to control my husband and keep his sexual attention firmly fixed on constantly exciting, porn star me: the dildos and the vibrators, the bustiers and fishnet stockings and the crotchless panties and the wigs and the costumes, the X-rated board games and the porn DVDs. Yeah, I tried it all. Well, except a stripper pole. That hadn't occurred to me yet. And thank goodness because how would I have carted that out to the trash?

I had been as conventionally sexy and exciting and adventurous and engaged as can be, and my husband loved it. But it wasn't enough. That endless, aching need of his wanted more than I could give. More than all the women in all the lingerie with all the sex toys in the world could give. And still I wanted to give it. Which is how I ended up there, with the black Hefty bag in my hand, sick to my stomach with shame and disgust and rage.

And now, six years later, I was on a lingerie party website, full of pictures of that conventional sexy I dumped in the trash, wondering what kind of sex addiction article Paula intended to write. As I glanced at the site, I saw that there was plenty of the usual "hot" and "titillating" sex selling, but Paula also genuinely seemed to see these parties as a way of empowering women to learn about and appreciate their own bodies. Black and white thinking is common in the lives of addicts and those who live with them, and I've been slowly working toward a place where, after fully indulging in our culture's idea of "sexy" and then fully rejecting it (from lingerie to makeup to shaving my legs), I am exploring more shades of grey. So, just because I can't incorporate lingerie and sex toys into my relationship in a healthy way right now, doesn't mean they are evil in themselves. There are definitely aspects of lingerie and sex toys that I'm deeply uncomfortable with, and even perceive as dangerous to women, but there was enough that was positive about Paula's site that when she asked if she could interview me, I said, "Well, send me your questions and I'll see."

When I saw the questions, I found that not only was I comfortable with answering them all, this would be a good opportunity to reach out to women who may not realize (yet) that their partners are sex addicts. (I mean, what better place to find a sex addict's partner in denial than out buying lingerie?) So, while many women may be using Paula's parties as a healthy expression of their sexuality, I (taking to heart that 12 Step message of reaching out to those still suffering) couldn't pass up the opportunity to plant some seeds among those who might be indulging in sexy, not as an act of empowerment, but as one of desperation and degradation.

Then had to take that last leap of faith that Paula would put it up as I expressed it before I clicked send. (Not that I have trust issues or anything!) And she did. The interview is up, and after having thought long and hard about linking out to such a potentially triggering site, I thought I would share it with you all, especially since many of you don't have sex addiction as part of your lives at all and may find it interesting. There is nothing in the content of my interview that I wouldn't post here, but images and links in the header and sidebar are related to lingerie and sex toys. So, one last time before the link...

Warning: Sex addicts and their partners may find images and language in the linked site triggering!

(If the thought of clicking through raises any concerns about your sobriety or serenity, please feel free to e-mail me for a copy of the information contained in the interview instead.)

And here's the link (isn't it cute that I'm an expert?): Interview with Mary P Jones at Lingerie Party and Adult Toys.

I was one of only five people on the planet who didn't own a copy of Thriller, largely because I like to be contrary; it allows me to feel superior and rebel against alcoholic absolutism by being absolute in a different direction. But because I grew up in the 80's, I couldn't escape knowing every song on the album whether I owned it or not. (And then secretly singing them to myself when there was no one around to see me being anything less than contemptuous of their choices.)

When Michael Jackson's skin whitened and his nose became skeletal, when he was accused of child molestation and and sued for debt, when there were reports that he bought the Elephant Man's bones, when he nicknamed his son Blanket and built an amusement park in his back yard, when the tabloids dubbed him Wacko Jacko, I liked to tell people "I told you so. I always thought there was something wrong with him." As if that were really the reason I pretended to disdain him when he was at the height of his popularity and continued to mock him as his untreated mental illness* played out on a global stage.

But my relationship with Michael Jackson (as with so many people in and out of my life) has changed as my relationship to myself in recovery has changed. Instead of seeing him as someone to mock in order to feel clever and healthy, I started to see a someone who was aching enough inside to have visibly mutilated (or paid his plastic surgeons to mutilate) his body. I saw a talented man who lived imprisoned in his own deep pain, a man who self medicated through fantasy in many of the same ways I had myself. As I came to better understand my own love of Peter Pan and the fantasy of Disney and my own desire to escape into some fantasy childhood, I suspected I better understood his too. And I used to, in my own way, pray for him. I thought about how hard it must be for someone so insulated from the world by money and fame to finally reach a point low enough to break through denial and bring desperation for change, and I would hope that he would finally lose enough to get help.

When I learned of Michael Jackson's death, I felt the same sadness I felt at the death of my father-in-law: the grief that he died without ever finding relief, redemption or recovery (in its broadest sense) in this life. But I am grateful, as I see my own progress mirrored in my changing perceptions of him, that I can finally crank up "Thriller" and spin a bit in his honor.

It was raining the night I first kissed my husband. The wind was hissing and howling through the bare branches of the trees, rattling the last of the dead leaves still clinging to their posts. Before we kissed, we twined our hands together and watched our arms weave against each other like snakes, mahogany and golden. And when at last, softly, lip met lip, I wanted to rush out into the wind and rain and throw my arms out and laugh wildly or scream at the sky, like Ophelia drowning or Lear going mad in the storm. I couldn't resist him, nor he me, and the intensity of the pleasure in that kiss rode the edge of being blinding pain. It was the kind of high that addicts seek to return to and sustain forever, that I, in my own issues around love and romance and sex, have always wanted to return to again and again with Mark.

Last night, the kids were asleep and after a long busy week, Mark and I finally had a moment alone together. We were lying in bed and he twined his hand into mine, a sweet prelude, just like that night we first kissed. Only this time the contrast -- between what magic I thought we had back then and all the craziness of addiction and fantasy and delusion and denial that overlaid it and everything else since -- was too much for me. I burst into tears and Mark said, "Whoa, you're sad. What's the matter?"

I fumbled to explain where that gesture, so reminiscent of an earlier time, had taken me and said, "You know, people who are just starting recovery sometimes ask me if it ever stops hurting. And I tell them it does, mostly. But I say that sometimes it comes back, just not as strong. This is one of those times. It's better, but the pain's still there. Sometimes I just miss that fantasy, that irresistible passion. I miss the person I used to be, when sex didn't seem so complicated."

I put my head on Mark's chest and he stroked my hair and shoulder while I lay there feeling angry and disgusted at myself for being so caught up in the past and in the unknown that I couldn't enjoy an intimate moment right here in the present. I worried that Mark would be angry at me and level the charges at me that I'd heard others had leveled at them (and that I'd even leveled at others myself): that I was "freaking out," being "neurotic" and "overly emotional," being a stereotypical woman "too uptight" to have sex. I mean, geez, why didn't I just say I had a headache while I was at it? I imagined he wanted me to "get over it" so that he could get his needs met without having to deal with my troublesome and annoying emotions. And I thought about a conversation I had with a friend who said healing from the violation and trauma of being in a relationship with a sex addict has similarities to healing from the violation and trauma of rape, and I tried (without much success) to be forgiving of myself for still struggling sometimes, even six years after disclosure.

Then Mark interrupted my thoughts as he ran his hand over my shoulder, sighed happily and said, "I love you, and I'm so glad to be here with you!" I looked up at his face, and he was beaming. "God is good!" he said, almost laughing with happiness. What? No sex and he, the sex addict, was still happy? To be here with me? Wow. I snuggled in close and kissed him, and then I started laughing. "You know," I said, "just a minute ago, I was missing that irresistible passion and addictive inability to say no. I was thinking it was the sexiest thing in the world and I was never going to be able to get moments like that back. Now, a minute later, I'm seeing the ability to say no as such a gift, and I don't have to get back there, because recovery is looking pretty darn sexy on you..."

When my husband was still active in his sex addiction and I was still unaware of it, we lived our life (as many living with active addiction do) enveloped in fantasy. We frolicked inside a rainbow in a castle made of pink cloud fluff. We grew roses straight out of our heads, and the bees that hummed around our heads courting the flowers would drizzle their honey straight into our mouths. We were love and romance. I was his dream and he was mine. Everything seemed perfect, except when it didn't quite.

Every now and then I'd catch a glimpse of the smoke and mirrors, of the man behind the curtain — I'd find a suspicious receipt or notice that he was glossing over details — and know something wasn't quite right, but not really believe anything could be seriously wrong, especially when Mark was so adamant that the fantasy was real. I believed more in that fantasy we wove than anything else, and it was easier to believe that I was wrong or crazy than that my husband — who loved me, adored me, told me in word and showed me in deed how special I was — could ever knowingly lie or hurt me.

But over ten years into our relationship, I found out was that he also told and showed lots of other women how very special they were too. The mirrors shattered, the smoke dispersed, the man behind the curtain stepped out and we both began the process of learning to see and own our own truths.

Now, you might think that, having seen both, it's easy to tell the difference between solid ground and the cloud fluff of fantasy. You might think it's easy to stay rooted firmly in fact without getting lost in the mists of fiction. And if you don't live with with addiction, maybe it is. But although I'm better at holding to my truth now than ever, it is still all too easy for me confuse my truth with someone else's: to doubt that I know what is real, to doubt my intuition, to doubt my senses, to doubt myself.

Occasionally, I'll share about my recovery work with one non-recovery friend or another, and as I try to explain what it's all about, I'll see them curious, intrigued and perplexed. And I'll find myself struggling for words. I'll see just how far this all is, how incomprehensible, to people who haven't been there. I'll start see my life through their eyes, I'll see the very different ways they've dealt with their own losses and hardships, and if I'm struggling or tired, I'll start to doubt myself. Are Mark and I making a big deal out of this weird recovery thing when we should just be putting it all behind us and moving on like "normal" people do? Shouldn't we be over all this? Isn't our problem really some kind of neurotic hypochondria rather than addiction?

But I remember what our lives used to be like in the wake of disclosure. I remember the lies that kept the facade propped up. And I know that our life now is happier and more serene than ever before. I know that only I know how I feel, that my feelings are real and that other people can't tell me how I should or do feel. I also know that it doesn't matter what works for other people, only what works for me. When I'm rested and in touch with my higher power, I know all these things — I know my truth — but when I'm not, I doubt my truth just as well as my fiction.

I know what you're thinking, 'cause right now I'm thinking the same thing. Actually, I've been thinking it ever since I got here. Why, oh why didn't I take the blue pill?
~Cypher, in The Matrix

I feel good about my recovery work and good about the way my life is. I've come to accept that life doesn't work the way I thought it did and that my marriage wasn't what I thought it was. I've come to understand that happiness comes from my own mind, not from working endlessly (and without error) to ensure that everything in my life remains in a constant state of perfection. And that's so freeing. I've found a relationship to my Higher Power, that (when I can tap into it) brings me a peace and serenity and freedom from fear like nothing I've ever known.

But sometimes, I still miss the life I never had. I think of that scene in The Matrix where Cypher is so sick of eating real life gruel that he'll turn in his friends for a chance to eat imaginary steak again. I know the steak I miss doesn't really exist, and yet sometimes I long for it anyway.

Sometimes I want to fix other people's problems by bossing them. I want to live in that belief that I'm smarter and better than they are because I have their lives all figured out for them, and I would be able to follow through where they can't.

Sometimes I want to slide into that land where everyone who loves me acts in my self-interest to the detriment of their own, because that's what love is: everyone else putting me first.

Sometimes I want a lie detecting superpower that would let me know in absolute terms who I could trust and who I couldn't.

Sometimes I want to dive into that lottery fantasy where I own my own island and swim in pools of hundred dollar bills and all that wealth insulates me from every having to deal with anyone or anything disagreeable anymore, so my life is perfect.

Sometimes I want to work hard enough and do well enough that I can quit, retire, stop having to be in recovery and just be a shining angel of white light.

And sometimes all I need to do is admit all that and know that I would choose, still do choose, to be where I am today, in the real world.