Idiots by Laura Clery

Author:Laura Clery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2022-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

I tell him from time to time, “I do not need you, Stephen. I want you and I love you with all of my heart. But if you deceive and betray me like this again, I’m on to something better.”

Now more than ten years in, Stephen and I are both too exhausted from working and taking care of two small kids to even think about an affair. He’s working his program, and I’m working mine. Not perfectly; it’s progress. We argue, we cry, we laugh until we cry, we make love, we go on lots of walks, and we get better. We criticize each other and then motivate each other. We get annoyed with each other, then are in awe of each other. Most importantly, we giggle a lot. We still have so much fun together. Not every single day, but a lot of the time. We are supportive and creative together. And on the big stuff we mostly agree. There is truly not a dull moment in this relationship. Sometimes I wish there were! I truly believe that as long as we stay sober and our intentions are aligned, we will make it until the end. We’ll be old and wrinkled, tits and balls down to our knees, making comedy sketches about our loss of elasticity—and still, hopefully, deeply devoted and in love.

I truly never stopped loving Stephen through all of this, but I also learned that I don’t need him to be complete. Affairs are less forgivable for most people than a drug or alcohol relapse. IT JUST HURTS MORE! I get it. It’s breaking a vow, whereas I don’t think we vowed during our wedding ceremony never to snort a line… though we should have! “I ask you to take me as your devoted wife, for I will be loyal, a listening ear, and definitely not coked out of my brain, ’til death do us part.”

I hope to help take the shame out of any sort of addiction or mental illness, which is why I’m telling these stories now. Anyone suffering from a physical illness would get treatment, and addiction is no different. It’s a cunning, baffling, and powerful disease that affects the brain in profound ways. We fragile humans can get addicted to literally anything—drugs, alcohol, gambling, sugar, sex, food, shopping, work, or licking toads. (Seriously, google the last one. Or no, don’t.) Work is a big one for me. I justify it because I feel my work is my calling and it’s helping people, but I need to be consciously aware. I need to keep my sobriety and higher power first. Because if I’m addicted to work and then I get cancelled for accidentally using Demi Lovato’s wrong pronouns, then I’m at risk for a relapse or mental breakdown… Right?

Instead of telling myself I need Stephen, I tell myself I want him. He is not my “other half.” We are both two whole people who joined together to love, inspire, and bang each other. It feels FREEING to know that I am totally whole and I don’t need ANY man or woman to complete me.

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