It's been a long time since I nerdily reviewed a movie, but my husband and I went to see New Moon this weekend, and I just couldn't resist writing a post about it.  The movie is a vampire love story.  No, actually it's a vampire, werewolf, human love triangle.  Bella (a human teenage girl) is the object of affection of both Edward (the 109-year-old teenage-looking vampire) and Jacob (the teenage werewolf).  It's also a stunning portrait of codependent craziness...

Picture Mark and me, cuddled up in a dark theater, surrounded by shrieking teenage girls.  On screen, shimmers the image of Bella talking about how she can't be happy without Edward.  Mark leans over to me and whispers, "She's such an incredible codie!"  And I whisper back, "Totally."

Of course, as I was contemplating writing this post, I thought, "Is it going too far to call Bella codependent?  Maybe she's just a typical teenager."  And then I realized that I thought she was a typical teenager because she was just. like. me.  And I'm, um, codependent.  In fact, I realized that she's so much like me that if you substitute "pasty white addict" for "pasty white vampire" and "hot ethnic addict" for "hot ethnic werewolf," the movie is so startlingly close to a retelling of my own teen years that I had a fleeting thought that I should investigate whether or not the author knows me in real life and then sue her for stealing my story.  Only I eventually broke up with the vampire, because, seriously, have you seen the werewolf with his shirt off?

For your entertainment and enlightenment, I thought I'd list some of the codependent behaviors and characteristics that Bella (aka Teenage Me) exhibits:

• Attracted to men who are unavailable or unstable.  (One could argue that Jacob seems available and stable at first, but note that Bella isn't attracted to him when he is.  It's not until he seems to be abandoning her, she chases after him and even asks him to run away with her.  This is the part I'm certain Stephenie Meyer stole from my life.)
• Attracted to men with big, dangerous secrets.  (Come on, a werewolf and a vampire?  How much more stand in for an addict can you get?)
• Addicted to romantic partners.  (She almost kills herself several times to achieve the "rush" she needs simply to see a dream version of Edward.)
• Terrified of abandonment.
• Embarrassed to receive gifts.
• Unfulfilled, depressed and empty without external validation.  (At one point she says that she is ok emotionally as long as she is not alone.)
• Feels responsible for fixing other people's problems and taking care of other people's feelings.  (She tells Jacob she'll run away with him to make him feel better, then flies to another country to keep prevent Edward from killing himself and more importantly, to keep him from, "feeling guilty.")

Ah, memories!  I can't tell you how relieved I am to have those days behind me, to have found recovery, and to be married to a werewolf, I mean, sex addict who has found recovery too.

Silk is a sexy fabric. It's smooth and soft and falls in glistening ripples like waves. Years ago, shortly before I moved to another state to be with Mark, I sent him a pair of silk boxers as a gift, and he wrote me an erotic letter about them in return. When I arrived in my new home, he had lined our bed in silk. At my bridal shower, a friend gave me a silk nightie for my wedding night and I was married in a dress of silk. I told my husband Mark I want to be wrapped in silk when I die: a long ream of white silk as my last cocoon.

But silk wasn't just for me, of course. Silk was for the Victoria's Secret models and fantasies and other women.

Silk for our bodies, silk for our bed, silk as a symbol of sex and of marriage, of death, fantasy and infidelity. In recovery from sex addiction, silk can be beautiful or like other symbols of romance, silk can be a trigger.

Every year, Mark and I have celebrated our wedding anniversary by following the traditional gift giving guidelines: paper for the first anniversary, wood for the fifth, and so on. We always got a kick out of coming up with creative ways to give each other things made of leather or steel or aluminum. Shortly before our anniversary this year, Mark said, "I'd like to give a traditional gift this year, but it's silk. I wanted to get you something to wear, but I associate that so much with silk lingerie out there that I just don't think I can safely shop for you without being triggered."

"Yes," I agreed, "that kind of thing might be triggering for me too."

"Are you going to be comfortable with do silk at all?"

"Yes, still love silk. It just has to be in a way that's safe for both of us.

We both paused, pondering, before I said, "I have an idea! You can shop for something silk for yourself — a tie or a shirt or pajamas — and I can shop for something silk for myself. That way we can each buy what we're comfortable with, and then we can share it."

"Perfect!" Mark said, relieved.

Addiction may have prevented us from handing each other wrapped boxes, but recovery allowed us to keep ourselves safe and have a date luxuriating both in each others' presence, as well as the the silk of our choosing. And that's a pretty wonderful gift.

I started keeping a journal semi-regularly when I was in middle school.  My very earliest journal entries are a thrilling roller coaster ride through the life of a suburban tween: from the heartbreaking lows of the cancellation of my favorite TV show to the giddy highs of eating raviolis from a can for lunch.  But by high school, my journal had become my closest confidant, not because I had any terrible secrets, but because the secrets I did have became so tiresome to the friends who had to hear them again and again.

I've never smoked, never done drugs and never drank a drop of alcohol in high school (and not much even beyond that).  But I did grow up to marry a sex addict, which means I had my obsessions and I had my own drug of choice: other people.  Like most schoolgirls, I had crushes, but unlike most schoolgirls, my crushes were epic fantasies that rocked me to sleep at night and sustained me moment to moment during my days.  They were the refuge I'd escape to when loneliness or stress or fear crept too close.  They were the rock I'd cling to in an unstable world.  One day my true love, my knight in shining armor, was going to catch me as I fell, swoop me up and save me, make everything perfect.  And until that day, I'd block out the dirty imperfections of this world by drifting off into the next in my mind.

My journal didn't care how many times I described the way that boy's hair fell across my math book when he leaned back or the precise shade of his eyes in the sunlight outside.  And unlike my friends, who grew bored with the unflagging nature (or perhaps just vaguely uncomfortable with the intensity) of my interests, my journal was quite happy to watch me carefully craft each intricate detail of those moments, happy to sit quietly receptive as I painted the same scene over and over from a thousand different angles, and happy to replay all of it for reuse in future fantasies.

And replay it I did.  For years I would go back and touch those pages, softly, like a lover and live that thrill again: here he taps my shoulder, there brushes my hand as he borrows a pencil.  Then in the moment that never came, yet always sustained me, he falls down on his knees and begs me never to leave, and he never leaves, never hurts me, but makes me (finally, impossibly) whole.

Now I see something different in those pages: the sling that gently cradled an unseen brokenness and held it safe for a time, the coma that protected the injured patient who could not have coped with consciousness.  And I'm grateful, both for the service those pages rendered and for the fact that I've healed enough not to be in danger without them.

A few months after I first met Mark in college, we ran into each other in a campus dining hall. As we chatted, he admired my high school class ring. I held my hand out to let him see it more closely, and peering down at the ring, he said, "Would you mind taking it off?" So, I took off my ring and handed it to him, expecting that he wanted to look at it more closely still. To my utter astonishment, he simply said "thank you," pocketed the ring and walked away. I stood there in the lobby, open-mouthed and paralyzed with wonder, like a newly carved statue. Had this man just stolen my ring? Was this a joke? Had he taken it to show it to someone else? Was he intending to come back? What did he mean by it? What kind of person does something so odd and unexpected? And what on earth do I do now?

Fortunately, Mark's roommate, who had witnessed the interaction, approached me. "Come on," he said wearily, as if this sort of thing happened all the time, "Let's go get your ring back." He led me, mute and meek, through the building until we finally found Mark in a game room, playing pool. "Mark," said his roommate, extending a palm, "the ring..." Mark smiled at me, looking both sly and awkward, as he handed over the ring, and I knew then that it had been a joke and that he was disappointed that I didn't (or didn't know how to) play along.

Eventually, I got used to Mark's odd tricks, spontaneous decisions, sudden new interests and chance conversations. He'd point over my shoulder and say brightly "Look over there!" while deftly swiping whatever was in front of me and seeing how long it took me to notice. We'd walk down the street, discussing what flavor we thought of when someone said "milkshake," and when we differed, he'd stop the next five random passersby to ask what they thought, as if he were Jay Leno and I were his camera. He'd decide he'd want to learn Russian or juggling or how to play the recorder. He'd strike up a conversation with a strange couple at the next table in a restaurant and leave with their phone numbers. I'd say I was thirsty, and he'd run out of the dormitory, returning with a plastic champagne glass from the cafeteria filled with soda and a flower from the nearest accessible blooming plant.

And I greeted it all with a mix of delighted awe and nagging discomfort. I loved that he did these crazy things that I was too scared, too shy, too bound by rules, too afraid of failure to do myself, and as I grew used to him, little by little, I started to feel more comfortable with spontaneity and novelty both in him and in myself, which I thought was a good thing. Yet I'd often find myself appalled and apologetic. "Yes, I'm sorry he took your coffee cup. It was a joke. He does those things," and like Mark's roommate had, I learned to take care of the people he startled or embarrassed or to tie up the loose ends he left straying behind him like jester's ribbons.

When, years later, he admitted to his sex addiction, much of that spontaneity didn't seem like fun anymore. I started to see that some of his tricks and jokes were ways to test people's limits, that collecting contact numbers wasn't always in the name of friendship and that he hadn't taken Russian so much from a sudden passion for the language as a sudden passion for a Russian classmate. And in an attempt to protect myself from more hurt, I started to wall off and become even more of a compulsive planner, even more rigid about rules, even more strict about structure, even more wedded to routine than I ever had been before.

Spontaneity is still extremely difficult for me. The other night Mark came home after the kids were asleep and said, "Honey, I'd like to take a shower and then make love to you." And as he showered, my mind raced: "That's not right! That's different. It's supposed to be make love first and then take a shower. That's the way it always has been. Has he been with someone else? Is that why he wants to take a shower first?" For a moment, I was as paralyzed as the first time he took my ring and walked away. What did he mean by it? What kind of person does something so odd and unexpected? And what on earth do I do now?

But I have a new guide within me now. One that gently led me to see that a shower was hardly a purloined ring, and not being able to tolerate even so small a change in routine without pain is the damage of disease. But it also led me to see that the gift of recovery is being able to talk to my husband honestly about it rather than pretending the fear and anxiety don't exist (because they "shouldn't"). And I trust that eventually, as my recovery continues, my need for that protective wall of structure will slowly slip away into balance with a new and healthy spontaneity.

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 Mark and I were at the very beginning of our relationship, moving from a flirtatious friendship into love, he signed off some early little love note "a thousand ships for my beautiful." Now who was I to resist a suave Helen of Troy reference to my powerful, intoxicating, doomed and dangerous, mythical beauty? (If I were that woman, I would have married a different kind of man.) But the name stuck and for years that was what he called me: "Beautiful... My Beautiful..."

It meant so much to me that he saw me that way: that whatever I saw myself as, or other people saw me as, I was his Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman who ever lived. So, at some still early stage in our relationship, when we were making silly promises to one another (we seem so young when I think of this), I asked him, if he ever were to be with someone else, to find her some different pet name and keep mine sacred. Of course, he promised (so seriously and sincerely), I would always be his one and only Beautiful.

The years went by, we got married, and I assumed "Beautiful" was safe, mine forever. And more than that, I thought other words were safe: words like "you're so special" and "I love you." But five years after our wedding, knowing something was wrong but not knowing what, and desperate to track down the source of my discomfort, I installed keystroke tracking software on our computer and saw some of those sacred words (along with our credit card numbers) given easily and freely to women who were known only by their suggestive screen names. And when the precarious towers of addict lies came tumbling down, I learned of other words, left casually for other women.

That old life of mine, in the fantasy of the Matrix, had been consumed with the quest for knowledge, for proof, of some objective factual truth. I sought to know by installing tracking software, by checking phone records, by holding an ear to Mark's lips to catch the words he mumbled in his sleep. But the answers I found only left me wondering all the more what was real. How could I know "I love you" was real if he could say it to a woman he met on the street as easily as his partner of over a decade and the mother of his children? How could I know "special" was real if the barista at Starbucks was hearing the same? How could I know "beautiful" was real if it applied equally to me and a tiny, pixelated video image in a chat box? If the man I trusted more than anyone I'd ever met could deceive me, how could I know anything that anyone says is real?

The truth is I don't. I can't. Not really. I can't see into Mark's mind and heart (or anyone else's but my own). I can't ever really know that his current words (or anyone else's) aren't another vast charade about to come crashing down on me. So my journey now plumbs the next question, the one that came when the answer to that old question broke me: How do I live with not knowing?

I know I can try to take back the words, like so many roses, petal by petal, over time. I can learn to look at Mark's actions — at the fact that, nearly six years after disclosing his sex addiction, he has grown and changed dramatically and that he's still here working — and I can take a leap of faith from there. I can trust in his commitment to his recovery program and through my own I can learn to see myself as beautiful, special, loved and wanted, always, and regardless of what happens. All those things I have done and am doing, but it only takes me so far. Not all the way to a new Beautiful.

But sometimes I glimpse it. Sometimes I can see it resting serenely in the unknowable: in a deeper, grander reality, something that goes beyond facts. Sometimes, when I'm able to see every individual moment of my life — the joyous and the painful ones — as just the way they ought to be, rather than as good or bad, sometimes then I see how my life can become my own Helen of Troy. My own Beautiful.

Pink cupcakes parties
Tinkerbell and Transformers
on small folded slips.

---

Love: dressed up, trumped up.
A girl stumbles in spiked heels,
her lips plastic red.

Alone and fretting:
the rich textures of life aren't
rose petal soft dreams.

---

Come.  White horse, red rose,
happily ever after.
Until tomorrow.

Chocolates hide secrets:
luscious, empty, sickly sweet.
It's Valentine's Day.

When my husband and I were first falling in love (ages and ages ago), I was dating someone else. I did to my ex-boyfriend what my husband would one day do to me: betrayed him in the worst way.

Mark and I were friends, who would flirt shamelessly, until one windy night, we kissed. We promised it would never happen again. Things weren't great with my boyfriend right then, but I loved him and wanted to work things out and Mark knew that. Still, I couldn't stop thinking about Mark and the way his presence in a room went through me like electricity. So, one snowy night, not long after that windy one, I sent my boyfriend home and begged Mark to meet me. We spent the night together and (again) promised it wouldn't happen again.

Then a few weeks later, we found ourselves alone together again, and I kissed him. He stopped kissing me and got up. I thought he was going to leave me. I thought he was done with my craziness. I thought he was done being hurt by someone who couldn't stay away from him, but wouldn't leave her boyfriend for him either. I had done it. I had blown it. He didn't say a word, didn't ask me what I wanted, didn't discuss the situation, didn't know for certain what my mixed signals meant. But he took off his shirt and threw it on my floor. And I knew as the shirt slipped off that he wasn't leaving; he was staying. And he was taking the chance that I wouldn't ask him to go.

That image stayed with me through the years, like a worn photo I kept pressed to my heart. It took on different meanings, that chance he'd taken in staying. Sometimes it seemed like a sign of irresistible love and passion and sometimes a sign of our mutual illness and craziness. But in the years since learning of my husband's sex addiction, it more often seemed to be the latter.

After all, so many of the old symbols had become tainted. He had a lover whose July 4th birthday he marked with a special overseas phone call. He had used the same words to compliment me that he used to woo a woman he paid for adult video chats. He had given a stripper a rose that lay wilting on a bar in shame while she danced. And in my pain, I banned from my home some of the formerly loving symbols that misuse had transformed into the trigger of the gun pointed at my heart. No more fireworks. No more pet names. Absolutely no more flowers. Through the years, I've worked to reclaim those things for myself. I managed to take back the fireworks, but was never quite successful with the flowers. Although lately, I was feeling I was so almost there: conflicted, but wavering, where a breath might push me over.

Maybe Mark saw that, the way he saw through my conflict all those years ago when he threw his shirt on my floor. This weekend Mark went to his usual SAA meeting and picked up lunch for us on the way home as always, but to my surprise, he walked through the door this time with more than lunch; he carried a dozen roses in full bloom: red and pink and yellow. And I felt like I was watching him again, taking off his shirt, leaving himself open and vulnerable and showing that he was staying at the same time. When I asked him why he had gone against the five year ban on flowers, he said, "Every week, when I drive home from my meeting, I pass the same little flower stand, and every week I want to bring some home to you. This week, I thought I'd take a chance."

"I'm so glad you did," I said.

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

This morning when I woke up, my husband was getting dressed. I leaned on one elbow in bed, watching his silhouette against the curtains as he took clothes from the dresser. As I followed the familiar lines of his body, I remembered the first time I saw him naked, the first night we made love.

We were in college. Mark had just turned 21 just a few weeks before. When we first met, we were teenagers. It's hard for me to believe now how young we were then. I thought we were such fully formed adults at the time. We had been friends for the past year or so, growing gradually closer and sharing more and more. We would stay up late into the night, talking and laughing: about our families, our childhoods, our past relationships, our past sexual experiences.

I knew he had a girlfriend he started dating in high school, who had broken up with him (and left him broken hearted) during college, shortly before I got to know him. I believed he was a faithful and loving man who had been celibate for at least the past year, since shortly after they broke up. He had told me about the youthful flings he had here and there -- long ago, before or after this last serious long-term relationship, before I knew him -- and how he had learned from them how much he was a one-woman man.

I had a boyfriend at the time. He had been at my place earlier that same evening. He brought with him a bottle of wine and an understanding that he'd be having an enjoyable night. My roommate was out of town, so the place was all mine for the night, so it went without saying that there would be sex, of course. Yes, the place was all mine, yet it turns out, I didn't feel like sharing it with him. Maybe we fought, maybe I just asked him to leave, but he left angry, disappointed and out some wine. And I got on the phone.

I knew Mark was in love with me. I knew he was attracted to me. I knew I loved him and was attracted to him. I knew I was alone and had the whole night ahead of me. I knew if he came over that night, we'd make love. And I desperately wanted to. I wanted him like I wanted to gasp for air after being tumbled underwater in the ocean. He knew it too, and tried hard to convince himself, to convince me, that he should stay away. After all, I had a boyfriend. But I asked him to come, begged him to come, and he came.

It was a winter night and we took a walk in the snow, our breath hanging in the crisp, clear, moonlit air, as we postponed the inevitable. When we came back to my place, on the sofa, kissing, I whispered, "I'm yours." I got up to get the lights, a condom, and I turned across the darkened room to see his silhouette against the window, dark skin darker than the winter sky. I watched the way his body moved undressing: movements I've seen a hundred times since, movements I watched again this morning as he got ready for work. I was in awe of his beauty. And he of mine.

His eyes opened wide when he saw me for the first time, wider still when he touched me, and I heard his sharp intake of breath. I felt like the most beautiful woman in the world. I felt like I was giving him a great gift and that my body, my sexuality, my femininity, my whole self -- not just body, but mind and soul -- were wholly accepted, treasured, cherished and loved. I was special. We were special. This was True Love.

We never made it to the bedroom, but lay twined together on the living room floor until dawn crept in soft through the windows. And for days afterwards, I could smell the deep musky smell of him on my hands and body, lingering with me, no matter how many times I washed, as if he were ingrained in me, still telling me he loved me.

Overlaid on this picture is what I know now: that he had never been faithful to his previous girlfriend; that the flings he was telling me about, casting in the distant past, were happening as he and I were flirting, falling in love, moving toward a sexual relationship; that he didn't struggle to stay away from me that night because of my boyfriend, but because he'd only just completed treatment for a sexual transmitted disease he picked up during a one night stand with a woman whose name he didn't quite remember and he wasn't yet sure he was disease free; that other women since then have seen the same movements and the same silhouette and maybe even thought they were my husband's True Love too.

There was a time when that overlay, that horrible ghost image, was all I could see; it blotted out the original for a time. It's still there now -- giving me a fuller, rougher picture than the soft blurred edges of my early twenties -- but the new lines don't cut anymore; they just are. And my husband -- older, more familiar, less romanticized, more real than that first night -- is still just as beautiful to me silhouetted against our window today as he was nearly twenty years ago.