The Back Door Letter

It is common for the anorexic to have a "back door."  The back door is a belief or dream that you can live without your spouse.  You might think that you could actually do better than the spouse you have.

The belief is that there is another person, real or imaginary, that they can leave this marriage for and pursue real happiness, freedom, and love.  The back door is great because you can at least emotionally have one foot, and more importantly your heart, outside the door, so to speak.

The back door also keeps you on the hunt for Mr. or Mrs. Right as well.  You can romanticize or sexualize benign relationships, wondering if they are the one.  The back door provides an escape to your marriage or relationship. 

To be intimate with your present spouse takes a full commitment.  This back door keeps you from the work and pain of making this full commitment of your heart, for intimacy, so instead you stay anorexic in the marriage.  The following is a thank you and goodbye letter to this half-hearted commitment.


I believe there was a "back door" implied in the "fantasy/ideal person" letter, but in an effort to be coachable I will try to write a different letter this time around.

One thing I emphasized in the "fantasy/ideal person" letter was the importance of putting lots of hard work into my marriage.  Would it be possible to do all that work and yet keep the "back door" open to potential inappropriate relationships?  I believe it is.  It's easy to get it in your head that you belong to your spouse alone, but it's not as easy to tell your heart.  Your heart still may want to  be like a stallion that has his way with all the lovely fillies.

I absolutely love the analogy given in this regard in "Every Young Man's Battle."  They ask the reader to consider such a horse in the context of war horses.  When it's time to go to war, only the trained horses may engage in battle.  The wild ones never leave the corral.  As a recovering sex addict, I can definitely relate to the concept of sitting in the corral with my imaginary fillies while other less "studly" horses are called to do great things in the Kingdom.  I can't help but wonder what those horses have that I don't.

I think the answer is commitment.  These guys understand that Christ is fully committed to his bride, and they need to be equally committed to God and/or their wives.  The only problem is that commitment means pain and sacrifice.  It's much easier to feign commitment than it is to be truly committed.

This actually leads me to another problem.  How often is our commitment tested?  I've told my wife I'd be true to her, but I've never actually had to turn down a woman's advances.  I have identified and destroyed the adulterous practice of viewing pornography, which indicates the back door is closed.  However, that could just be something that changed in my head.  Now I have to allow my heart and mind to be cleansed and renewed to the point that no sign exists to suggest there ever was a back door.