POSA™ Blog

- by Elisabeth Crago 

The day my marriage turned upside down I tried to put it upright.

Traveling for Business and Pleasure 

submitted by Sandy M.

We were cleaning up our game of checkers, our daughter beaming with pride as the conqueror, as you first laid eyes on your new conquest across the dark bar.

I slipped her Strawberry Shortcake nightgown over her head, as you discreetly slipped your wedding ring into your pocket.

"Come on sweetheart, let's go brush your teeth," I coaxed, as you flashed Her your most coaxing smile.

I looked into our daughter's beautiful brown eyes- your eyes- and talked about plans for the next day, as you looked into Her eyes- brown? blue? green? and planned your night with Her.

A PoSARC reader wrote to us a few days ago, telling us how grateful she was for having found us, for our advocacy on behalf of partners and for the POSA Support Group Meetings that acknowledge she's not a co-addict, she's a trauma survivor of a multiple-decade-long marriage filled with her sex addict's deception. She's grateful her healing has begun now, and she wanted to gift us this poem.

We would like to share it with all our PoSARC readers in gratitude to all of you this Thanksgiving. We are continually inspired by the courage, determination and resilience we witness in partners of sex addicts every single day.

Happy Thanksgiving…..and thank you for this gift, RL in California!!

A POSA told me through her sobs today that this is her "day 16" after Discovery.

It is also day 15 of her sleeping alone in the marital bed and wondering how her life has become the nightmare she can't seem to awaken from.

Even though she managed to spare her son the details, he knew something was terribly wrong because she can't seem to stop crying for very long.

In his incredibly touching effort to console his mom, he found this poem to give to her and asked her to put it on her table so she would see it every day and stop crying.

I receive a lot of e-mail from readers but yesterday a long-time PoSARC reader gave a gift to all PoSAs out in the world so I decided to post it to the blog today:

Hello
My name is Jacque C. I attend a POSA meeting in Oak Park, Illinois. I shared this poem with my support group today, all of us partners of sex addicts. I was encouraged to e-mail it to you for possible consideration for the website. I will include a bit of context.

I am the partner of a sex addict. It has been three traumatic, long years since my first discovery of my husband's addiction. We have been married for 33 years, have 3 adult children and 6 grandchildren. Today after many months of hope, prayer, waiting, watching, and seeing no recovery in him I came to the decision to file for divorce. The day I filed, I read a verse in Psalms 1 that talked about "a tree firmly planted by streams of water"….as a response to this journey, my future and what I have learned from it so far, I wrote a poem that really applies to any partner on this very long, difficult process, no matter the outcome. This is true about me and you!

I always feel blessed when a PoSARC reader or a client sends in their story, their favorite song, or something else of significance that's helping move them through their experience as a POSA. Yesterday, a PoSARC reader in New Zealand sent me what I feel is an incredible poem.

In her words, she describes her journey as the partner of a sex addict using viscerally powerful and evocative metaphors.

After telling her how deeply I was able to connect to the emotion in her words, I asked if she would allow me to publish it here. Fortunately for us, she was honored to share it with all our PoSARC readers.

I hope it'll move you as much as it did me---Lili Bee

(Thank you for your generosity, E.C., and for your artful rendering of this passage in your life.)

I easily (and nostalgically) recall the days before the pornography flood rolled in and so badly damaged so many in its wake. The privilege of my having grown up in the seventies and eighties (besides the excellent rock and roll) is that I know who we all were before the "porn as normal" deluge hit. I knowwhat courtship, dating and real, relational sex looks and feels like, both personally and from other singles and couples I know.

What has been exceptionally difficult is working with young women in their 20's and 30's who contact me for private sessions to help them to work through the discovery of sex addiction/compulsion in their primary relationships. Heartbreakingly, very few of these young women feel they have any ground to stand on to evencontemplate a life that is free of the influence of pornography.