Yesterday was my seven year anniversary.

Except.

We didn’t celebrate.

We painted the hallway and prepared the house for weekend festivities. Isaiah is turning 6.

We talked about our kids.

We don’t really connect on other levels anymore these days.

Three years ago, He came home and told me he was fired. Inappropriate content on his computer lead to his termination. I clutched my three month old baby tight as I listened to him explain, “it was  just a stupid mistake.” Three months later he was leaving for rehab after I discovered that inappropriate content also included fake profiles and a myriad of relationships with women.

The term “sex addiction” was used. He left for his first stint of rehab and I stayed home with my kids and tried to figure out what the hell my life was going to look like.  My mind rolled over all the times over the previous 4 years that I appealed to Him: “Is there something going on with you? Your relationship with her doesn’t seem typical.” He’d brush me off. Siting my father’s infidelity as my reasons for suspicion. I put myself in therapy to work through the trauma of my father’s affairs. “I can’t punish him with mistrust because of my father’s mistakes.”

As it turns out, that day I held my three month old, and my soon- to- be four year old wondered why mom was crying, was not the day he would be honest. It would take another year for FULL disclosure of all the things he was doing to come to light. Staggered disclosure tears at a person’s soul. How do you know what to believe when you start grieving what you perceived as loss, only to learn that you lost more than you thought? The whiplash of not knowing who you are sleeping next to takes a toll.

When someone learns they have cancer…what do they do? If they are told it is terminal unless they seek aggressive treatment, how do they respond? Most people would fight, I think. Most people would do whatever they need to do to save their life. Most people would not want to leave their family and friends sooner than they wanted.

Marriages involving sex addiction require both people working, ruthlessly, toward health and wellness. 

Sex addiction is like cancer, it can slowly (sometimes rapidly) take one’s life. It can consume, unless you actively fight against it. Passive recovery isn’t sufficient when others depend on your recovery to rebuild trust. Passive recovery doesn’t work when there are kids, dependents, in need of stability.

I watched a show once where a person found out they had cancer. The doctors and family urged them to fight. “You can beat this!” The person refused treatment. The person believed their mistakes, how they had lived, were too much. They believed a slow agonizing death was what they deserved. Sometimes addicts come to believe the same thing. Or maybe, truly getting well means facing dark parts of themselves that they are still too afraid to face. They haven’t lost enough to feel the pull of desperation to go hard after wholeness.

The kids were in bed . He and I sat at the kitchen table. We have had several treatment plans in place. External guidelines to help us navigate the nebulous world of sex addiction and recovery. 6 more months was my last attempt to stay in hopes real recovery might start.

6 more months to live with cancer, to fight it.

He looked at me with a sad resolve in his eyes. I looked across from him and asked: “Have you done the work, have you followed through with your treatment plan?”

He looked away.

The answer was no.

Treatment was mostly refused and on the best days it was handled with lukewarm seriousness.

I did the work… but I am not the one with cancer.

So when you have cancer, and you refuse to acknowledge it…you refuse to fight for health.

Death follows.