After I hung up the phone, I wondered what to do. I had been married for 19 years, and my husband (Gary) had been home for supper every night. I would never have imagined that he was leading a dual life. I was completely naive and had no idea what to think of the fact that my husband had been arrested. My mind was in a whirl, but I managed to make a phone call that helped me know I should get him out of jail. Since I knew nothing of how to bail anyone out of jail, it was quite a learning curve. I did not know what to think, and of course Gary claimed that it was all a big mistake. But intuitively, I knew that our lives had forever changed, and that nothing was going to be the same. I went to work asking many questions and finding people who could answer those questions. The first phone call I made to a counselor, I heard the words: sexual addiction. I did not even know what a sexual addiction was. I couldn’t believe that Gary could have a sexual addiction–I didn’t think he even liked sex, or at least he seemed uninterested in having sex with me. I had to take a cold, hard look at the man I was married to–and begin to open my eyes and take in the new information that I was getting. It all seemed like a nightmare…my comfortably intact life was crumbling before me.
