Well, here goes. We had a doozy of a day on Thursday. Numerous commenters to this blog have called me a saint. I chuckle at the moniker, I am not a religious person and know no other connotation for the word. They are specifically speaking to my role as wife of the now infamous Blue Eyes.

Good old Blue Eyes… a recovering sex addict with two years sobriety under his belt. The man who made me promises and then turned my world upside down, and squashed me with it, nearly sucking the life out of me. How do I love thee, let me count the ways. I stand by my man no matter what he throws at me. And that makes me stupid… I mean, a saint. 🙂 Sure, I have bad days, who doesn’t, right? Okay, enough gibberish. I am trying to lighten my own mood as I trek down this muddy road.

So here’s what happens when a “sinner” (I don’t really believe Blue Eyes is a sinner as I don’t believe in sin, as a concept, but we’ll use it here, just for fun) and a “saint” (that’s me, I mean obviously I’m not really a saint, it would be silly–perhaps blasphemous is a better word–for me to call myself a saint, I am as fallible as the next gal, but we’ll use it here, just for fun) come face to face in a dastardly situation. Dastardly being a cute little adjective for what really was a very shitty circumstance.

So, the sinner and the saint happily drive together to work for a finance meeting. The saint hasn’t been to one of these meetings for a while and this is an important one, and the sinner is giddy with excitement that the saint has agreed to join him. They enjoy a wonderful Whole30 compliant lunch together at a lovely restaurant near their office and are only 7 minutes late to their meeting (that is a record for the sinner). The sinner is all smiles as he enjoys the undivided attention of the saint (she usually spends a great deal of time in front of her electronic devices these days). The saint does manage to snap a photo of lunch for her Instagram account while the sinner is distracted trying to figure out what sun chokes are.

At the meeting the saint, who is chief operating officer of the company, is feeling especially perky and she takes the opportunity to point out some obvious consequences of the sinner having been MIA from his company for about the last two years. Declining sales since discovery of the sinner’s addiction are obvious as charts and graphs are splattered across the screen in front of them. The saint proposes a plan for increasing sales by having the sinner commit to more time at his job. She talks about their services and peppers the sinner with numerous questions about the status of projects seemingly forgotten. She tasks the sinner with reinvigorating his sales team and igniting their passion for their jobs now that the sinner is back at the helm. The saint is convinced they can bump those sales right back up there where they were before the sinner crashed from his high addict pedestal. She realizes this will be a true juggling act as the sinner spends a great deal of time in recovery, but she knows he can do it. The sinner and the saint (and the rest of the finance team) set some goals and the meeting is adjourned.

The sinner and the saint had planned to go to a movie after the meeting. They are running late as the saint spent an excessive amount of time grilling the sinner about business and proposing her plan for company sales goals. The sinner is looking a little unsettled, but the saint shakes it off as residual anxiety from his being put on the spot by her in the meeting. The saint needs to use the restroom, so the sinner gathers his wallet and they agree to meet at the elevator. When the saint approaches the elevator, the sinner is approaching with an even more precarious demeanor than he had, a mere five minutes before. As the saint asks the sinner if everything is okay, a woman (let’s call her Delilah, shall we, just for kicks and grins) approaches from behind the sinner. Delilah smiles at the saint, and the saint smiles back. Delilah smiles at the sinner, but the sinner turns his head the other way and ignores Delilah. Needless to say, the saint is bewildered by the situation. As the saint starts to ask the sinner, WTF, the elevator door opens and there are people on the elevator, so not a good time to talk. The sinner and the saint proceed towards the theater and the saint wants to know, again, WTF? Not that saints often use the term fuck, but this fake saint does. The sinner starts in on how he thinks he is just a bit unstable after such an intense meeting. The saint is not appeased as she had clearly seen with her own two eyes the uncomfortable machinations of the sinner at seeing Delilah in the hallway. Unfortunately, as they are already running very late, they walk into the movie theater just as the movie is starting and the conversation will have to wait the two long hours while the movie ‘Carol’ plays out before them.

Once the movie is over and the credits are rolling, the sinner seems anxious to get off his chest that which has obviously been brewing there since the scene at the elevator. Again he goes back to his uneasiness after the meeting. Unfortunately at this point, the theater usher is desperate to clean around their seats, and the sinner and the saint exit the movie theater. They decide to take the conversation back to the sinner’s office. And it is there, that the saint learns that Delilah, who is a large, middle-aged woman with enormous breasts was another woman the sinner was grooming. They had shared numerous conversations at and on the elevator, in the hallway, outside the restrooms, etc… Delilah is apparently very chatty and gives off that “you can have me if you want me” vibe that the sinner fed off. Since discovery, the sinner’s proximity to Delilah has been limited… in other words, he avoided her. The bigger deal, however, is that as the saint sits there in the sinner’s office listening to what was really going on in the sinner’s mind, he admits that he thought of her in a sexual way–let me repeat that, he thought of her in a sexual way, just that very afternoon. The sinner explains that during the meeting, he felt horrible that he had let the business suffer because of his own weakness. He feels shame that he was unable to keep all the balls in the air, once he was found out. He admits that he carried those feelings of inadequacy out of the meeting and with him and then when he saw Delilah in the hallway, before she passed us by the elevator, he thought about her. He thought about having sex with her. It didn’t really help the situation that the sinner admitted his fantasy included a three-way with Delilah, AND the saint. The saint took the sinner’s hand in hers and told him she understood. She asked him if maybe her demeanor in the meeting, or her questions, or her tactics, had somehow prompted his feeling emasculated. The saint knows the sinner felt emasculated by his mother for many many years and it exacerbated his already delicate sensitivities. The sinner said no, that was not it. He said he was so happy that the saint was there at this important meeting, since she had declined so many over the past few months. The sinner said he did not feel humiliated, in fact he felt invigorated by the saint’s enthusiasm. But then, the sinner burst into tears and the saint hugged him. The saint knew there was more…

The sinner blurted out that what he was really afraid of, was that he was not going to be able to be the man he was, before discovery. He is horrified by the thought that he will no longer be the stellar salesman and corporate superstar he was when he had his addiction to fall back on. His fear was palpable and his sobs were heart wrenching. The saint hugged the sinner around his waist and they cried together as she told him she believes in him. She has always believed in him. The saint knows the sinner is not the same person he was before. He lacks the same level of enthusiasm on most days. He lacks the same killer instinct. He no longer has the desire to work long hours. Many times his focus is compromised, now. The sinner used his addiction in order to cope with his life. The saint understands this as well as anyone. The saint will figure out a way for the sinner to be successful without his addiction because his being successful, is her job.

In the end, the saint was grateful that the sinner was truthful and that he shared openly and honestly about not only Delilah and the fantasy sex he had allowed his mind to conjure, but that he had shared his deepest darkest dread and she was able to stay there by his side and give him the genuine support he so desperately needed, without bitterness, without anger, and without fear.