2 years, 8 months

Things continue to be...good. I think that's the best word. When I focus on being related and connected, Husband are I are related and connected. Sometimes, though, I become aware of the distance that I still feel between us, all coming from my side I think.

We were making love last night and I felt like Husband couldn't come and I was wondering if he was or would have to think about other women in order to climax. Wondering if I wasn't turning him on.

So still a lot of work to be done on my side of the street.

We hardly talk about sex addiction these days. We talk about recovery instead. But I still have nagging thoughts pop into my mind regularly.

Last night I went to a spa. Lying on the table with my eyes closed, I wondered if there was any way Husband could get a relaxing scrub like I was getting. But I really have trouble with the idea of him going to get a massage. My mind wondered about husband at those massage parlors. What it must have been like with strange women rubbing his body and jerking him off. Eventually, when he got bold enough to leave the right amount of money on the table, climbing onto the table and sliding him inside them. How did they feel in his hands? How do I feel different from them?

Yes, my crazy mind still goes to these places.

I do a pretty good job of stopping myself before I go too far down the dark rabbit holes of my frightful imagination. I know they all lead to the same place, and I don't want to go there because it has nothing to do with the reality of the present.

Jeff Bridges said in a recent interview about his wife of 30-something years that they've been through hard times and the very things they thought could rip them apart made their bond stronger in the end. I find myself longing for the closeness I used to feel before all of this, but I can feel that I don't trust husband enough to feel that way. Maybe I never will, because maybe it was a naive kind of trust that I've grown past. Perhaps I'll need to find a completely different kind of deep bond in who I am and who we are together today. Not a very satisfying thought at this moment. But healing demands time, if nothing else.

So 2 years and 8 months later, things are good, Husband is truly a different man, I am a different woman, and neither of us are perfect. And my absolutist self now understands the peace to be found in letting that be, in surrendering (once again) to "progress, not perfection."