Doubt

Image credit: Photo by Daniel Y. Go on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

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.

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This post was originally published at The Second Road.