My Secret Shame -- - Part 8

My partner and I continued in couple's therapy, but I hadn't been able to let go of one relationship with a younger man with whom I had formed an attachment. I had started to fall in love with him. That part of my addiction would ultimately spell the end of what had become twenty-four years with a lifetime partner. Another problem was also looming. After years of freedom from mental illness, I began to destabilize. The eventual breakup would be accompanied by incredible unmanageability as I sought to change so many major areas of my life all at the same time.

Losing my partner was a huge emotional price to pay. I would not begin to realize how much pain was involved until the following year. In the meantime, I bought a new home and started a new relationship. Ironically it was not with the young man with whom I had fallen in love. I met someone even younger - an unlikely partner with whom I began a most unusual love story about which I will tell you in another article. Every aspect of my life was now changing.

The amazing thing is that, following multiple slips during the previous two years, I had suddenly become totally sexually sober. There was no compulsive desire or sexual obsession. I was able to give complete fidelity to another for the first time in my life. Talk about miracles!

That continued for one and a half years before I began to experience intermittent slips. I had taken my sobriety for granted. Even so, I no longer needed to live in a place of shame. I kept picking myself up and coming back to meetings. I never lost hope or faith as I continued to work my program to the best of my ability.

Although I created incredible pain for my new partner, he supported me. He realized I was dealing with an ingrained lifetime problem for which there would be no easy fix. Yet I was recovering. I began to realize a joy that I had never dreamed possible.

I learned to pursue new dreams and resurrect long-abandoned interests as I became free from what had been a daily and time-consuming obsession. I began to write my life story and, when I was done, I was ready to embark on another writing venture. This was to be the beginning of the Sister Mary Olga series.