POSA™ Blog

This past week, someone sent me a recent advice column from the successful online magazine Slate. In the Sept. 16th issue, a woman who is married to a sex addict submits to their advice columnist a question all of us no doubt have struggled with. The response from the advice columnist, Dear Prudence, will leave you dumbstruck.

Here is a direct reprint of Slate's Sept. 16th Dear Prudence column so you can read it for yourself:

Congratulations to the POSA who just began a new free, POSA support meeting in the west end of the Greater Toronto Area!

In my correspondences with this partner, she was so thoughtful and kind, I knew the Toronto area POSAs would feel fortunate to get to share with her. I also know she's very committed to healing through the damages of sex addiction in her primary relationship and understands how holding the space for other POSAs to heal in community with her will be a real advantage for all.

You can learn the particulars about the Toronto meeting by e-mailing her here: torontoposa@gmail.com

If you are curious about whether meetings exist in YOUR area, please check the listings on this page:
http://www.posarc.com/resources/posa-meetings) before e-mailing us here to enquire.

"Melissa" wrote this short story as a gift for PoSARC readers so they wouldn't lose heart in this grueling process, especially if they are older and feel they are now truly stuck and without viable options. I know how very long this journey has been for her since D-Day (decades) and I bow to her tenacity to not give up on herself.

Melissa is a grandmother in her 60's and to me, she is a testament to the power of self-renewal. Most of all, I am inspired by her self-respect, a lesson we can all learn from no matter where in the process we find ourselves.

We are ALWAYS worth respecting, no matter who else is or isn't along for that journey.

Thank you for that reminder, Melissa!

Seems good old Noel Biderman who founded Ashley Madison had an app in development that allowed men to rate their wives' appearance and then invite other members of the married cheater's site to go ahead and contribute their own opinion of what someone's wife was worth, looks-wise.

The screenshot (below) shows the app with the rating and the woman's value in dollar amounts that appear as the ratings come in.

What this woman writes here about how her husband preferred pornography to her is not extraordinary. In fact her letter is one that so many women, tragically, could write. I myself could write it, as could the majority of PoSARC's readers.

What's noteworthy, however, is that it ran last week in the world's second most popular English-language online newspaper. The Guardian has more readers than even The New York Times does!

PoSARC's inbox was full the past few days with e-mails coming in from readers wanting to share the news: the world's largest married cheaters website, Ashley Madison had been hacked by insiders who called themselves The Impact Team.

The hacking team gained access to almost 40 million website members' personal data, including their names, addresses, credit card numbers and even their sexual preferences, causing the site to immediately suspend operations as panic ensued.

Nothing makes me happier than learning that POSAs are creating grass-roots healing circles in their communities. What I know for sure is that for partners, the healing is accelerated through the sharing of our stories and that often, life-long friendships can grow out of these powerful gatherings. My own closest friend comes courtesy of having been a life-line to me during the early days post- D-Day.

One of the more fascinating ways synchronicity shows up in my life is that I might notice that a POSA will bring up a topic that particularly inspires me, grabs my attention. I might think about it later on that day and then sometimes within the next day or two, the very same theme will be brought up in a similar way by yet another Partner I speak with. Seems like a coincidence, right?

When that particular aspect or motif is raised by a different POSA a third time within a matter of days, I know there's a definite synchronicity happening, and I delight in knowing we are all connecting to something larger than us.