Since I made the decision to "divorce" my father, so to speak, I expanded my life in unimaginable ways. But I wouldn't have been able to do this without my husband. Our relationship was and is a deeply emotional, mental, intellectual, and spiritual one. He became the father-figure I needed to move on with my life. He stood back and allowed me to develop without interference; he indulged the child in me, then permitted the rebellious teenager in me to take over for a while; he then observed as I moved on toward maturity. He was calm and patient with this process for years; I've never seen or heard of anything like it. He has been supportive to the extreme. He did not pressure me for anything all these twenty years, except my respect and love, which he deserved in full abundance!
Under his comforting protection, I developed interests and hobbies and self-pride and learned what boundaries were. We learned together how to maneuver through difficult situations in our marriage; we went to counseling together when it was desperately needed-as I was transitioning to womanhood, really, in my "re-"development, and we had to change the nature of our relationship, from that of romantic love, best friend, and father-figure to sexual partners.
My husband allowed me to undergo the processes I needed for recovery from the covert incest, including the sex and love addiction that inevitably followed my sexual awakening.
I think that the intensity-charged atmosphere that I grew up in, the emotional intimacy of my relationship with my father, and the fact of being my father's "chosen one" set up the preconditions for my particular brand of sex and love addiction. (idea credited to Dr. Love's Emotional Incest Syndrome)
I also struggled, and still do, with codependency and a tendency toward seeking out drama, just to feel the buzz of adrenalin, the hit of cocaine. But the love and sex addiction controlled my body and my mind obsessively for a period of about three years. I still struggle with it in some form today and I have devised boundaries for myself to keep the worst of the temptation at bay. I attended an SLAA (sex and love addicts anon) meeting at one point about a year ago, where I immediately was drawn to a particular male and only "woke up" when he mentioned something about an ex-girlfriend from one of his SLAA groups...oh shit, I'm fucking doing it again! I left the group immediately after that and decided that I am unable to attend in-person SLAA meetings. Too much temptation. Online meetings work out well for me, as well as having been upfront and admitting my tendency to members of the group, who suggested only talking with female members.
My sexual self had been dead for years, and I was content to let it be that way. I didn't need it; I didn't crave it. I was so frightened of having to grow up too fast in this process that I shied away from it. I hit a point, though, when overnight, almost, it seemed to be necessary for my survival and I hit a wall. Dh and I hadn't been here before and neither of us knew what to do. I needed sex to wake up after all these years, desperately. So did dh, but waking a long-hibernating animal is harder than it seems. We took a very controversial route, one that many people, I am afraid, cannot understand. We will always be judged harshly. But we listened to our instincts and took grave risks, and the end of the story is we repaired that aspect of our relationship and have a healthy, beautiful daughter today. So sometimes there really is light at the end of the tunnel.
I think what sparked this intense period was my realization that my biological clock was ticking ever faster, I only had a few years left if I wanted to reproduce. All of the sudden it MATTERED. I freaked out as the reality shot its way into my consciousness. A few years back, this thought had occurred to me, and I attempted to get the ball rolling, but it sort of fizzled out and I let it be. But now, what if on my deathbed I regretted never having my own child? Nightmares about this devoured me.
We got interested in a type of fetish behavior called "hotwifing" at this point. (definition from Urban Dictionary.com: A married woman who has sexual relations with other men, with the husband's approval. Usually while the husband watches or joins.) It seemed to suit our individual sensibilities; although in our case, I went out on assignations alone, for the most part. I think we both knew the risks, although the realities didn't hit us until afterward, when we considered what could have happened.
The high I got from this was incredibly potent. I signed up at a sex website, put out an "ad" and dove right in. The attention was addictive and enormous--over one hundred responses in a few days. I played around with these and found myself drawn to the most emotional of prospects, which I then pursued. The next was an aggressive, cold, completely opposite type. The third was somewhere in the middle, and with the fourth, I put not only my career but also my life on the line for the high. My needs got stronger, and I desired more risk, more insanity, each time to get the same high.
At the same time, these were human beings, and I developed relationships with all of them, different kind of relationships, which I learned from as well, as part of my own growth process. But the THINGS I did, the RISKS I took with my health and safety were the worst part of this addiction.
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