Image credit: Photo by Kikishua on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons In my bedroom, buried in a pile of papers is a questionnaire labeled "The Marriage Expectation Inventory." Each question is answered in neatly printed block letters in purple ink. After nearly a decade and a half, the ink has started to bleed through the [...]
Posts under ‘I’m not codependent shut up’
A Letter from my Past Self
Image credit: Photo by Deltasly on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons Memory is notoriously unreliable: we leave out some details and enhance others; we rewrite old understandings based on what we currently know; we simply forget. I've written about most of the incidents in this blog from memory, even those few events I do have [...]
How to Change Anyone!
I was browsing around Target the other day, when I came across the most fabulous book I have seen in a long, long time: How to Change Someone You Love: Four Steps to Help You Help Them. I laughed the kind of laugh that ought to have sent flocks of birds scattering in alarm. Instead [...]
Love at First Sight
Image credit: Photo by marimoon on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons I remember the first time I ever saw my husband; I even remember what he was wearing. It was our first week of college, and he was standing in line behind me, wearing Coke bottle glasses, a white, retro (to put it kindly), marching [...]
Codependence Is the Mother of Invention
Before I knew my husband was a sex addict, I knew that he liked flirting with other women. Probably a little too much. I could tell he got a thrill out of it, and I worried that he would accidentally take this "entertainment" too far. He'd lead some poor woman on and she'd get aggressive [...]
Asking for Help
Image credit: Photo by Jose Téllez on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons You know why I hate the word codependent? (And although I have taken on that label, I still truly do.) It has the word "dependent" right there in the word. Weak, wussy little "dependent." It practically whines at you: "I'm so helpless. I [...]
My Denial
Image credit: Photo by mon of the loin on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons When I first found out that my husband Mark was a sex addict, I threw myself into the thing that had always saved me in the past: research. I had graduated at the top of my high school class, gone to [...]
How to Get the Man You Want (the Codependent Way)
Warning: this post is self-satirical in nature. It should not be read by the sarcasm impaired. Image credit: Photo by DaveAustria.com on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons So, you know, I'm not really codependent. (I hate that word anyway. Sincerely I do.) I just like to do nice things for people. Really nice things. Like [...]
The Trappings of Success
Image credit: Art by Rob Sheridan on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons 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 [...]
Finding God Together
Image credit: Photo by ashley.adcox on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons "Do you remember what you said to me when I first started talking about God?" Mark asked the other day, "You said, 'I am willing to try to work through this sex addiction crap, but if you ever become a Christian, I swear, I [...]
