Yesterday marked yet another milestone in my journey with my husband. It marked nine years of his continuous sobriety. Words cannot say how proud I am of him. How honoring it is to have gotten this far. He has worked so hard - grown, and learned how to deal with and put to rest the pain that created his addiction. He will be the first to admit that he's a human being and that he does not take any moment for granted. He had to learn how to deal with the stresses and temptations he faces daily. And he does well.

In September, we will have been in recovery for 13 years. As is the case for most men, the first year or so was a real struggle to gain any length of sobriety. Still, he didn't give up. His last slip was February 16, 2004. He'd had about two and a half years of sobriety at that point. It was the year of our 10th anniversary. It hurt. Boundaries were strengthened, new ones added. I don't know what specifically changed for him, but he got back on track and never looked back. It hasn't been easy. I know he still faces many challenges and temptations. But whatever changed, it gave him the determination to keep following his recovery plan - one moment at a time. Soon days became weeks, became months, became years. His growth - and especially his leaning on God - has increased, and with it his sobriety. The triggers aren't going away - stress, the sexually charged world we live in - all of it can make recovery difficult. He is the first to say he takes none of it for granted. He knows the moment he does, he's in trouble.

I have so much respect for him, and gratitude to him and to God for my husband's sobriety. It is abundantly clear to me how much he honors our marriage and our family by continuing to do the hard work that sobriety requires.

A conversation with a client recently left me laughing. By the way, I asked and recieved permission to share this, as it was a great analogy of what we sometimes experience when we ask our husbands to get help for their sex addiction.

My client had been sick in bed for several days. She and her husband were separated, but he stopped by to see if there was anything she needed. Just as he got there, her dog, who needed to go out, didn't quite make it and pooped on the floor. He, noticing the unfortunate pile, stepped over it, then proceeded to ask her what he could do to help her. "If he really wanted to help," she said, "he would have cleaned up the poop, THEN asked if there was anything else he could do to help!"

Sometimes our husbands are indeed willing to go to counseling with us. They are supportive of us getting help to heal. They might even be willing to go to a group themselves. But while they are willing to do something to "fix us," they continue to step over the issue - really digging in and dealing with the issue that is stinking up the room - their addiction. Often addicts are so caught up in the illusion that their issues are everyone else's fault. It is everyone else that needs the help, the healing, to be "fixed" when all along they are completely ignoring the real issue.

So what do we do? This is one of the many areas where setting boundaries fits in. When we use boundaries to ask our husbands to focus on and get help for their addiction rather than focus on trying to "fix" us, we are in essence asking them to pick up the poop rather than step over it. Once they've acknowledged their own stuff and started to work on it, then there are indeed other things that they can do to help us heal, then to start to heal the marriage. But even though we can heal without their help and even if they don't work on their stuff, the marriage cannot begin to heal until they do. As long as the pile of addictive behavior is stinking up the room, the marriage cannot move forward. If they really want to help the marriage heal and support us in our own healing process, they won't merely step over the problem, but will deal with it.

Hello, ladies -

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Blessings,

Christy

Eighteen years ago today, I walked down the isle. In so many ways it seems so long ago. Yesterday, we broke out the old video of the ceremony, and watched it with our two children. It has been a long time since we have done so. Of course, there were the initial impressions about how young we looked, how skinny I was, that Dan didn't have a beard then. My kids got a kick out of their grandfathers still having hair.

The pastor had selected a passage from John 17, in which Jesus prays, "“Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began." He went on to say that God had given us - both as individuals and as a couple - a task to do, and part of fulfilling that work was joining together. As I was reminded of this while watching the video, I realized that at the time, I had absolutely no idea what that work was - nor the depths of pain I would go through in preparation. I do now.

I am so blessed to be a part of this ministry - to get to walk alongside other hurting women and share the journey with each of you. Through my greatest struggle has come my greatest blessing - and has resulted in the huge calling I feel to ensure that no woman goes through this painful journey to healing alone. No, I had no clue 18 years ago what lay ahead of us, but despite everything, I do not regret the journey.

One of the most controversial issues in sexual addiction recovery is whether or not the recovering sex addict has a role in their wive's recovery process. Traditional 12-Step circles will often tell the men that just as their own recovery process is solely up to them, our recovery is solely up to us. In many aspects they are right. In order for a man to recover, he has to take responsibility for himself, his choices, and his recovery. He has to do the work. We cannot do it for him. And for us, we must focus on ourselves and our own healing process, accept we cannot control what our husbands choose to do or not do, and detatch from their recovery process. They cannot do this for us.

However, because our pain is due to something they did, there are ways they can also help us heal and regain our trust in them. My oppinion is that if they want the marriage to survive, these are not only things they can do, but must do. The list is simple, though the actual actions are not: