Making Amends Meant I Could Finally Look in the Mirror Without Cringing

And it took me nine Higher Powered, self-loving steps to get there

It’s about time you apologized for f*cking up my life!

This is what my then-husband yelled into the phone when I called him to schedule my amends with him.

He was not exaggerating.

I F’ed up his life, my life, and our marriage while out salsa dancing in San Francisco four or five nights a week. That was no secret but was a problem in and of itself as it took us farther and farther apart.

There’s a line in a ballroom dance film where Richard Geer’s character admits the impact his nightly dancing habit had on his wife: Even though I wasn’t sleeping with (the dance teacher), it was still ‘an affair.” He could feel for her.

All I could feel was the power of the compulsion to get out of the house, across the bridge, into the city, and onto the dance floor where I would finally feel okay. Which really meant high, but I didn’t see it that way.

I once heard an AA member say there was a booze-bottle-shaped hole in her heart. Meaning alcohol was the only thing that filled it.

So maybe I had a Capezio dance shoe-shaped hole in my heart.

That was bad enough.

The secret part was me sleeping with dance partners before returning home. Maybe they helped me win the dance contest. Or showed me some new moves. Or I was extra needy that night.

When my husband who I’ll call Simon asked me if I had a boyfriend, I’d answer something glib like what good would that do?

Ironically it wasn’t guilt that got me into recovery. It was loneliness. When our roommate, a young UC Berkeley student, moved out of our house to move in with his lover, I went into a funk.

Now there would be no buffer between me and Simon. I felt all those raw edges. Raw and sharp. That night I attended my very first meeting. And felt right at home.

I hated admitting to being a sex and love addict, but I was willing to do what the sober ones did to get what they had. That meant surrendering to a higher power, staying out of the clubs, feeling my feelings, crying–a lot, and working the steps.

I wrote prayers, inventoried my life, asked God to remove my compulsive behaviors one day at a time, and my character defects. I tooled along at a pretty fast clip until we got to the dreaded step nine.

Making Amends

I knew I had to. That was not an option. But did I want to? Hell no! I put it off as long as I could without my sponsor firing me.

Finally, with shaking hands I dialed Simon’s number (we had separated by then.) And heard the dreaded words: It’s about time you apologized for f*cking up my life!

I did need to apologize. But amends is more than apologies. We can apologize, be sincerely sorry, and go right back out there and do it again. And again.

’Cause, it’s an addiction. And we’re hurting. And we believe the substance or behavior will stop the hurt. Until we understand what we are running from and become willing to face it and ourselves, we’re just going through the motions.

Making amends means changing our lives.

It means no longer needing to do those hurtful things.

With Simon, I could not take my hurtful actions back. I couldn’t take away his hurt and pain and feelings of abandonment. I could promise not to do them again and mean it, but since we’d separated, that no longer impacted him the same way.

What I could do was take responsibility. Which is part of true contrition. When we feel the hurt we’ve inflicted, it makes a difference.

I drove to his place in the Richmond hills full of dread. Would he grill me? Would he ask who I was really with those nights I ‘stayed over at Blanche’s house?’ Would he want names, dates, or numbers? I’d lost track and count. But I believed he deserved those kinds of answers.

I tucked a cheat sheet into my purse in case I got tongue-tied. And I prayed the whole way there.

Simon listened attentively as I sputtered out an honest but summarized confession. Nothing I said seemed to shock or surprise him. He just took it all in. Then I waited, holding my breath.

He didn’t ask any of those questions. No interrogation.

Instead, he went over to his desk to get a framed photo of himself at age nine. Dressed in a suit if I remember correctly.

He put it in my hands and told me about his inner child. The lost little boy sat on the front steps every time Mommy left the house. Waiting for her to come home.

Even though Dad and four siblings were inside having fun. He stayed out there waiting. Feeling abandoned did not start with me, or his first wife. It started long before that.

We’d never talked like this in ten years of knowing each other. All our hurt, all our hurting, marked our faces with its tears. When we hugged goodbye, we were different people.

Afterward, I felt like I was flying down the hill on my own wings. Twenty pounds lighter. Nine steps and ninety-nine tears freer.

So what does it mean to make amends? It means getting my dignity back. It means holding my head up. It means rejoining the human race as a valuable member.

Especially in my own eyes.

Thank you, Marcus aka Gregory Maidman, for this heart-opening series of spiritual prompts!

Enjoy this reading list of Mystical Poetry

Marilyn Flower writes humor to laugh the changes she wants to see and make. She’s the author of Creative Blogging: Ninja Writers Guide to Character Development and Bucket Listers, Get Your Brave On. Clowning and improvisation strengthen her resolve during these crazy times. Stay in touch!