S-Anon, Stripping, & Such...

A few of you have talked about not really being able to find a good, like-minded connection to members in your S-Anon or COSA group. Some of you can't find a support group for wives of sex addicts in your area at all; this is such an unfortuante bummer.

I just wanted to share that the 2 S-Anon groups I attend have been invaluable for me. Blessed, I am. I helped start up my second group and have those support meetings on Thursdays & Saturdays (just about every day if I was willing to travel further in lurching death-traffic-gridlock here in S. Calif.-- NOT!).

Both of my groups have some grateful old-timers w/ long term experience, strength, & hope; this is key, I think. I remember when I first started going to S-Anon I was curious as to WHY some members were still attending when they had been long since divorced OR they'd been in Recovery with their qualifier -spouse & in S-Anon & SA for YEARS & shared they were doing well as a couple...so WHY were these people still coming to meetings? I hadn't a clue.
But I soon got it. I soon learned what S-Anon was all about & got to see how these old timers came to learn early on that they had to work on themselves...their own recovery. Really? That they had their own issues apart from their sex addict spouses or ex-spouses (usually, ex-spouses if the sex addict qualifier refused to get his addict-y arse into recovery: "I'm not like them! They are perverts & wanna slake small animals & children!").

Sure, they initially came to S-Anon because their husbands got busted doing really horrendous sexually acting-out-things like fecking vacuum cleaner hoses & platinum pretty strippers and worse--much worse. They simply couldn't cope anymore & someone told them they needed a support group so they could Stop Crying!, so they came (our counselor always said, "We just have to stop the bleeding first..."). But. One of the first things you learn in S-Anon is to talk about yourself, YOUR feelings, your pain and that trashing your qualifier & littering him up w/ the F-word every few breaths ain't gonna make you whole or help things much (that wasting of mental energy jazz is goodly stuff!). Plus, it's stated as against the rules & they'll steer your Newbie butt back to YOU if ya get going on the "AWFULIZING" & how HE, the SONOFABITCH!, did all of the preschool teachers in your 3-year-old's Montessori & still considers himself a Good Catholic!

Week after week, these women would share how much they had learned & had grown over the weeks, months, and years of just showing up. And how even though they were now divorced, they still had to DEAL w/ the ex-husband who was still a Screaming Sex Adddict without a lick of Recovery. They had children with the man & had to learn to detach from the insanity & find serenity & peace in the midst. Really find it.

Plus, if they didn't work the steps, get support, & work on their own character defects & ill-gotten jacked-up life patterns (so yeah, maybe I didn't grow up as little-house-on-the-prairie-esque as I swore!), they'd simply pick ANOTHER sex addict from the pervert pool. Bingo!

So, these old timers came to grow themselves up & look at their co-dependency square on. Even when it stung. And then through their honest sharing and show-and-tell, helped be of service each week to others by showing them the path...that they are not alone...and that we can all kiss each others' pain while holding hands in a Serenity Prayer Circle.

I found lots of strong women I could connect with. Some are divorced & kicked the unrepentant bastards to the curb, some are hanging in with their husbands in mutual recovery like me. Some are just not sure what-the-hell-to-do. But I get them...they are an honest bunch and all of very different stripes, but I couldn't ask for a better connection in both of my groups.
I'm grateful and just wanted to share that.

I'm glad some of you have found those connections here in the Blogging World...I'm glad to have found that, too...

Perhaps, I'll get to the Stripping part next...outta time!