Picture Your Future

I had been married for more than half my life–24 years–when I discovered that the man I loved and with whom I had borne five children was a sex addict. I gradually came to acknowledge all the layers of unfixable personality dysfunction that goes with that. For a long time, I could not picture anything different than the life we had shared for nearly a quarter of a century. I had grown used to his idiosyncrasies. I was comfortable with our lifestyle and income. I had my "share" of the household responsibilities, but I was used to him taking care of his.

When I contemplated life as a divorced single mom, I had many fears: How could I take care of the kids and the house on my own? Would he financially support me? Would I have to move? I couldn't imagine being alone: How could I live without sex? What would it be like to date? Would anyone be interested in a middle-aged woman with special needs kids? Who would be willing to put up with me?

For a long time, I was convinced that I HAD to find a way to repair my marriage. How else could I live?

When in the balancing of positives and negatives I became certain that divorce was the only realistic option, I began ever so cautiously to dare to picture a different future. At first, I pictured unrealistic things, like packing up everything and moving 700 miles away to live next door to my high school sweetheart, since he was still single. Silly, huh?

Part of my journey at this point was to go back into my life, consider past relationships, my home of origin, and ask myself why I had ended up married to a sex addict. I hauled my diaries out of the closet and read them all again. I looked at my own damage and tried to make sense of it. I looked at the relationship with my father and at his family history, which included domestic violence and child abuse.

I analyzed the serious dating and sexual relationships I had before I met and married my husband. Perhaps one of the most enlightening things I did was reach out to an old boyfriend–still a trusted friend–and ask what had happened in our relationship. (He finally admitted to me, 30 years later, that he was gay.) All of this helped me discover things about myself.

Then, being a writer, I sat down and wrote about what I wanted in the future. This evolved over several months. I kept going back and refining it. It was about the partner I wanted, not the lifestyle. This is what I wrote:

I'm looking for a man who has integrity. What he looks like on the outside needs to match who he is on the inside. There is nothing more important to me than honesty. I love a good laugh - and I really appreciate cleverness. Clever humor. Clever problem solving. My ideal partner loves learning new things and embraces each day as an opportunity. He's not afraid of an independent, confident woman. He doesn't NEED a woman; he wants an equal partner. He enjoys children and participating in family life.

The thought of dating was scary to me. As I expressed my fears, my counselor basically played Glinda the Good Witch to my Dorothy.

Dorothy: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?

Glinda, the Good Witch: You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.

Dorothy: I have?

Scarecrow: Then why didn’t you tell her before?

Glinda, the Good Witch: Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.

The question is not how to get what you want. The question is how to recognize what you already have.

What my counselor actually said was, "I can't tell you what will happen in the future. I don't need to. You already know what will happen."

I thought about it for just a few minutes and replied, "Yes, I do. I'm a nice person. An interesting person. I'm not bad to look at, and I'm worth loving. Someone will see these things, and appreciate me."

I am glad now that I spent time analyzing myself and picturing what I wanted. Today, that picture is a reality.