I rashly went out Halloween costume shopping a few days ago. I'm not sure what I was thinking. Well, I know I needed to pick up a costume for my daughter — Yes, a few days shy of Halloween. I'm totally on top of it as a mom. — but for some reason I thought maybe I could find something cute for myself. You know, something suitable for a 40-year-old mother of two married to a recovering sex addict. There must be tons of costumes to fit the bill, right? At the very least there had to be a nice Hillary Clinton, complete with businesslike pants suit.

Instead, I prowled through the store grimacing, rolling my eyes and blowing exasperated puffs of breath like some kind of crazy person. I wasn't fussing, like most of the other customers, at the cost of the costumes (although, yeah, ouch! Shouldn't those things be marked down with just moments left to go?) but at the sexuality of nearly all the costumes for women and girls, with the exception of those for infants and toddlers. (Boys and men, I noticed, had a variety of different costumes available. Most of these were neutral in terms of sexual content, while even those with a sexual element (I'm thinking the orange "Department of Erections" jumpsuit with penis prosthetic) comfortably covered their bodies.)

The womens' and girls' costumes were a veritable Fredrick's of Halloween catalog.  There were tens of different variations on the same micro-mini barely covering the buttocks matched with the same plunging, cleavage baring neckline; I could choose to be any number of porn star characters: the cop porn star, the nurse porn star, the super-heroine porn star, this hippie porn star, the movie star porn star... It was like looking at Carvel ice cream cakes back in the day; Fudgie the Whale would look like a whale, while Santa would come out sporting a red cap topped by a suspiciously untraditional two tassels. (Apparently, Tom Carvel didn't get to the top of the ice cream game through extravagant purchases like molds that would be used only once a year.)

Needless to say, all those droopy eyes, pouting lips, fishnet clad legs and ample bosoms can be triggering for sex addicts and their partners alike. I can't dress up like that: not after the way it's been mixed up with feelings of trauma and degradation.  My husband can't look at anything like that: not after the way he's used it as a drug, an escape into fantasy.  I found myself wondering if there was a special Halloween store for Mormons and if they'd let me shop there. (You make the costumes yourselves, don't you? Sigh!)

Hanging out with my kids all day, going to their Halloween parties at school, watching them dress up with their friends, I sometimes forget (even having had experience with it in recovery) what a sexual (sexually objectifying?) holiday Halloween can be for adults. I think that I, married to a sex addict, with all of my complicated issues around sexuality, can just pop into a store and pick up a fun little costume for myself, not have it trigger the shit out of me. And I'd be wrong. Halloween is just too scary. Next year, I'll stick to eating cupcakes and shopping for modest pantsuits on the Internet.

The sweet delights tempt,
but I pause, hand trembling.
Jack-o-lanterns watch!

“For certain, a bat!
Unless I should be a witch.
Or maybe a cat.”

“I’ll be a princess!
A vampire! A zombie!
A princess zombie!”

Mama thinks she’ll be
whatever’s left in the store
on Halloween eve!

I've heard that the first year is always the hardest, whether it's the first year after you lose a loved one or end a relationship or start recovery. There are all those significant dates rolling around for the first time in your changed life. Last year on your birthday you were chatting with your dad, but this year he isn't around. Last year on New Year's Eve, you drank until you blacked out, but this year you're trying to do it sober. Last year on Valentine's Day, you had a beautiful night with your husband, but this year you know he spent that afternoon with someone else.

In the first year, those milestones serve as markers for the depth of the loss or uncertainty or instability. But as time goes on, those same dates become markers for progress, and that's what I'm feeling on this Halloween night...

On Halloween five years ago, I wasn't certain if my marriage would last another month. Just months after discovering my husband was a sex addict, I felt less like a human being than like a wounded animal, barreling forward, blind with rage and pain.

I remember my husband telling me, that first Halloween, how hard it was to navigate the world on a day when fantasy was indulged and accepted; a day that is for a sex addict like St. Patrick's Day to an alcoholic. And I remember how anxious I was the following Halloween, wondering what scantily clad witches or devils or pirate wenches would cross my husband's path.

But five years later, I can look back at each Halloween and see a little progress: progress in my detachment from my husband's addiction, progress in the intimacy of our relationship, progress in my own healing and spiritual growth. This year, my concern was more for maintaining my balance amidst cupcake commitments than it was for maintaining my husband's sobriety. And that made this a very happy Halloween.

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

October 31 of 2003 was a hard day for me. I don't remember any longer what, specifically, was difficult about it, but I do know that told my husband, bitterly, as we climbed into bed that it had been a hard day. My son Austen was two at the time and not yet able to speak. My daughter Janie was an infant, still breastfeeding. And it was Halloween, with all of the overstimulating kid-related activities that go along with it. So, I don't know that anything in particular did happen; that combination of circumstances alone was enough to guarantee a hard day.

The reason I remember telling Mark that it had been a hard day for me was because he said, just moments earlier, that it had been a hard day for him. And I was having none of it. It was just over three months after I'd learned of his sex addiction, and at that point, he wasn't allowed to have hard days as far as I was concerned. What did he do but get out of bed in the morning and go to work? I'd lived that life, and I knew that the worst day I'd ever had in my paying jobs was easy -- easy -- compared to any given day at home with a two year old and an breastfeeding infant. And then there was that little added detail: his sex addiction. I was walking through my days feeling like my skin had been torn from my body and every inch of me was raw. I was in post-partum and post-disclosure, physically and emotionally broken and exhausted. How could he possibly have a day that could compare to mine?

So, when he pulled back the covers that night and said, "I had a hard day today," I let him know exactly how hard a day he had in fact not had. I told him I didn't want to hear him whine about his boss or his coworkers. If he wanted to know what hard really was, I sneered, he should try carrying half the burdens I had to each and every day.

He sighed and said with deep sadness, "That's not what I meant. Today was Halloween, and for adults, it's all about sex and fantasy. For me, that's what it's been about. People are supposed to let go of their inhibitions and be someone else, and I've always loved that. But I don't want to be that guy anymore. And today I kept seeing women wearing sexual costumes, and I was getting sick and dizzy walking around looking at my feet all day because I was struggling and I was too scared to look up and get sucked back into that fantasy world. It was just really, really hard..." His voice trailed off as he choked back tears.

And something brittle in me shattered. We had both had really hard days. We were both struggling with the fallout of his addiction. And for that night, at least, we both understood it, and fell asleep with our arms around one another, holding on for dear life.

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

The glow of red eyes.
A mouth slashed across the face.
Jack-o-lantern glares.

Candles flickering.
A little witch waits outside.
Ghouls rap on my door.

Green hands hover, curl,
then plunge into the cauldron
and draw out candy.

Everybody scream
Whether with fear or delight.
It's Halloween night!

More Haiku Friday haikus at A Mommy Story.

Most of us remember from our own childhoods, or (if we were severely deprived by our mean parents) our friends childhoods, the bacchanalian debauchery, the candy carnival, the sugary ecstasy that surrounds Halloween. I remember coming home after a night of childhood trick-or-treating and dumping my haul of candy out of my orange plastic pumpkin onto the floor. It sat there in a beautiful mountain of brightly colored wrappers: slick, shiny and delicious. I would sort it first, from most desirable (Milky Way bars) to least desirable (those tan, vaguely peanut flavored taffy that came wrapped in orange or black waxed paper). I always gorged myself on the most desirable candy first, all in one day, and then let the icky taffy sustain me when there was nothing left, but I simply had to have candy anyway.

I know plenty of parents who take the hard road these days and limit their children's Halloween candy intake to one or two pieces a day. I admire these parents, because I can't even limit my own candy intake to that degree. As I type this I am eating at least my seventh Tootsie Roll today. (Those things are tasty!) I feel like I "should" teach my children (ok, my daughter, since I'm thrilled that my son even tried candy this year) restraint by limiting their access to candy, but this year I decided to try a different technique, one that worked on me, at least as far as Swedish Fish are concerned...

Yep, I let my daughter just go for it. I let her dive into that pumpkin in all her unbridled greed and desire. I let her eat candy at will, reminding her all along that it was going to make her sick. I put out healthy food, which she rejected in favor of mounds of candy. She ate candy for breakfast, lunch and snacks, and I would have let her eat if for dinner too, if we had gotten that far. Around 5 p.m. Thursday, cranky from lack of sleep and high on a day long mix of sugar and artificial flavors and colors, my daughter completely melted down in the kitchen where I was cooking dinner. She threw a huge crying fit and then vomited a spectacular chocolaty pool filled with colorful gummy bits onto the floor.

Then she ran of cheerfully to play with her brother, telling him that she had eaten too much candy and it made her sick. She ate her dinner, went to bed on time, slept through the night, and has limited herself to a single piece of candy (at most) per day since then. No more whining about candy. I taught her self-regulation through my excellent parenting. And I totally planned it that way; it didn't have anything to do with the fact that I'm sick, exhausted and took the easy way out to make my daughter quit whining about candy. I'm just that good at my job.