I'm completely ashamed of this — what I now recognize as an attempt to control his addiction — but when I shared this with a friend, she said she thought it was brilliant. In her opinion, my control freakishness inspired me to an innovative approach to the problem. I was a codependent Thomas Edison. Of course, there was the little matter of it, you know, not working. I hadn't so much invented the codependent lightbulb as set up a sluttly cardboard cutout to sit beside me and try to harness lightning directly through our bodies.

But as I was flipping through a catalog recently, I found I'm not the only codependent with fabulous ideas. Someone has decided to create a product that will help prevent their alcoholic or drug addicted partners from driving under the influence: a picture frame that clips onto a car visor and sends the following message (I'm paraphrasing of course): "If you really loved your family, you'd drive sober." Sure, that's not the literal message and it has a wider appeal than just addicts — theoretically, it's for any unsafe driver — but partners of alcoholics and other addicts are veritable gold mine for the manufacturers of this frame.  (Come on, you Al-Anoners and Nar-Anoners know you would have wanted one!)

Like my alter-ego, this little frame brilliant in its own way, but it's also doomed to failure (at least on addicts).  What addicts do or don't do isn't about those of us who love them; it's about the addiction.  And a picture of someone's family isn't going to prevent what the family themselves can't control even when they're present.

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.

And (based on this highly accurate and scientific measure) I am Galadriel. Yep, this quiz (and who am I to dispute the wisdom of Internet oracles like these?) says (well, in essence, I'm interpreting a little here) that I'm a white light recovery queen. (Those of you familiar with Elvish -- which I spent a little too much of my time in childhood studying -- will recognize that "galad" means "light.") As Galadriel, I choose to relinquish the One Ring and my will to control with it, then sail off (very spiritually) into the West. (This blog is my big swan boat, so you all get to come with me.)

But somehow I'm still actually a little envious that Mim got to be Picard.

While the marketing material (always a reliable source of information) implied that this book was different, what really led me to not judge a book by its title and give it a go was the fact that I had heard of the author, Shannon Ethridge, through the Every Woman's Battle series, which some other women in my S-Anon group found helpful.

The Sexually Confident Wife has the broad purpose of helping women (regardless of their issues) gain (or regain) sexual confidence within their marriage. Because the scope is broad, I believe this book will be more helpful to some than others, particularly women who come from more repressive backgrounds or women who have had issues with their own sexual acting out. However, I am coming at this review solely from the perspective of whether or not the book was helpful me, as a generally sex loving, body confident woman who is in a continuous process of healing in my marriage to a recovering sex addict.

The book starts with a variety of questions designed to help pinpoint the areas that may have caused women to lose their sexual confidence. Not surprisingly, my areas of concern centered around trusting my husband, believing that I was entirely safe with him and carrying memories of past hurt into the bedroom with me. Unfortunately, the book didn't deal a lot with these specific issues. Shannon Ethridge infuses the book with much of her own personal experience, which is in many ways the opposite of mine: she was the one acting out in her marriage, so it took some mental gymnastics to make some of her experiences apply to me.

In addition, she addresses the stereotypical imbalance in the bedroom quite a bit: men want lots of sex, women don't. She gives a number of suggestions on how women can deal with this imbalance of desire. However, the problem for me, and for partners of sexual anorexics is quite the opposite. The women will often have a stronger desire than the men and will experience hurt and rejection that that their advances are not accepted. The book doesn't deal with this reverse scenario much at all. What do we women do to maintain our confidence when our husband's are withdrawing due to their own issues and traumas?

Some of the best chapters in the book focus on getting to the root of our sexual insecurities by healing the scars of childhood sexual abuse, looking at the messages we received about sex in childhood, improving our body images and cutting painful ties to the past. The most interesting to me was Chapter 5, "Cutting Soul Ties That Bind," which contains an exercise on looking for the common thread between your favorite movies, books and songs and seeing how that reflects upon the (potentially hurtful) ways you view relationships and the ghosts you carry into your sexual present.

If you all care to psychoanalyze me: my favorite movie is It's a Wonderful Life, my favorite books include Wuthering Heights, A Tale of Two Cities and Peter Pan, and my favorite songs... Well, you've probably got the idea already, but to take a line from one of my favorites by James Taylor, "they were true love, written in stone..." If it's got true love in it, especially with an edge of tragedy or bittersweetness or loss or sacrifice, I'm all over it. And I'm still chewing on that knowledge, which has been quite enjoyable (ok, yes, I enjoy those kinds of things) and helpful.

What I found most disappointing was that, while the book tried to go about things differently (for example, showing drawings of real, imperfect, women's bodies) and did discuss boundaries, there was still plenty of material that tended toward the Cosmo pop culture perspective that I feared: that pleasing men (through anything from shaving and vaginal deodorants to pole dancing) is something that creates sexual confidence. What I found most problematic from the perspective of sexual codependency was the emphasis on the woman's power to keep the man faithful. For example, from Chapter 10 (Tantalizing Sexual Techniques):

"while it is never a wife's fault that her husband turns to pornography rather than to her for sexual gratification, we do possess the power to lessen his desire for it."

And from Chapter 17 (Whipped Cream and a Cherry), which talks about a woman who created a personal Playboy magazine for her husband while he was away in the military:

"When a man knows he has a woman like that at home, why would he wast his time looking at or even thinking about any other woman? A well-fed man doesn't feel the need to go looking elsewhere for scraps. he knows where his satisfaction can be found -- in you!"

This is the very lesson that has to be unlearned by those of us who are married to sex addicts (and have, in many cases, including mine, tried a variety of sexually uninhibited and adventurous techniques in a misguided attempt to control our husbands' addictions and get his interest to stay on us). We sexual codependents have had to learn that no matter what we do -- no matter what techniques we use or how exhibitionist we become or how comfortable we are with our bodies or how much we show our husbands love and respect or how sexually confident we become -- our husbands will continue to act out until they love and are confident in themselves. Maybe The Sexually Confident Husband is next?

Just one last quick funny story about the book. In Chapter 7 (Befriending the Body Image Bear), Shannon Ethridge discusses how men have "their own body image hang-ups," among other things that "they fear they are too short and too pale." My husband, whose skin is a beautiful dark chocolate color, giggled when I read that part to him!

* In the interest of full disclosure, I was not paid for this review, but did receive a free copy of the book. And that's no small incentive to someone like me. I'd be happy to stand on a street corner with a sign that reads, "Will work for books." (Back to top)

I should add that the article includes a video featuring interviews with two sex addicts. Please note that these men are in active addiction, not in recovery. Addicts and their partners may find this video triggering.