Letter to Blaming

Blaming is important to the entity of intimacy anorexia.  Blaming is the insider game.  The anorexic really believes that circumstance, their spouse's abuse (real or imaginary), family of origin issues or personality is to blame for the lack of intimacy, criticism, or sexual disinterest.

The anorexic, after all, is wonderful and all the other people in their world agree who they treat respectfully and thoughtfully.  It's only their spouse that has the problem, even if this is spouse number three, having the same problem as the last two.

Blaming fuels anorexia like denial does any addiction.  It allows the anorexic not to take responsibility for the pain of others or the pain of seeing their own flaws or take any responsibility to change.  For that reason I needed to write a thank you and goodbye letter to blaming.


This letter will not be what you expect.  I'm supposed to write to you and thank you for shifting the blame for my addiction onto my spouse, but as I pointed out in my "victim letter," that never actually happened.  My addiction began years before I met my wife, so it just didn't make sense to blame her.

However, there is someone that I met long before my addiction began that received his fair share of blame.  I'm referring to God.  I was taught about Him from early on, and actually said the sinner's prayer at the age of three.  Unfortunately, I didn't understand that that was not enough.  The behaviours I mentioned in my "letter to selfishness" all showed up after my initial commitment, and some even began after a re-commitment at a youth function about seven years later.  If God disapproved of these things, why would He let me form such habits?

Of course, that's an absurd question, but you have never been one to encourage rational thinking.  You led me to believe that I was an inherently good person, but it was just too much for God to ask me to remain sexually pure.  If I, the one everyone thought was "perfect" couldn't do it, no one could.  My dad couldn't.  My friends couldn't.  No one ever told me they knew from personal experience that purity was possible.  Heck, even the deacon from church I respected the most told me he had slipped up when he was dating!

As far as masturbation is concerned, I shifted the blame to James Dobson.  He says that something like 95% of all teenage boys masturbate, and the other 5% are liars.  I didn't want to be a liar, so I joined the 95%!

Okay, so I'm not willing to blame my wife for my acting out.  How about my acting-in behaviours?  Surely my wife was the one to blame for some extent of my witholding.  Or could God be the one to blame for those as well?  

Unfortunately, I believed you when you said"yes" and "yes."  Just like Adam blamed Eve for acting out, I blamed God and my wife for acting in.  I blamed God for making me an introvert, afraid to show affection.  I blamed my wife for not encouraging me to be more affectionate once we were married.  It was hard for me to blame her for my addiction, but easy to say that my acting in had nothing to do with my addiction and everything to do with her.  "If you're supposed to praise your wife, she has to blow you away with praise-worthy actions!" is what you told me.  "Affection?  That ended with the honeymoon, dude!"  It's clear that you've been coming up with crap like this since the dawn of man.

It's also clear that you are an absolute menace to personal development.  I've learned that the people who see success in life are the ones who take 100% ownership of their lives.  Some of the greatest composers, inventors, politicians and the like are people who came from what looked like hopeless situations.  Rather than use their circumstances as an excuse to live and die anonymously, they chose to shun mediocrity and earn a place in history.  If they could see opportunity to excel in their lives, I see no reason for my life to flop in any way.  That certainly includes my sex life.

To end off this letter, I must give honourable mention in the "blame" category to my father.  I can't help but think of him when I think of who's to blame for my addiction.  After all, he's the one who was responsible for teaching me how to live the most fulfilling life possible.  Why did he do such a miserable job teaching me about sex?  I suppose it's because he didn't know himself what healthy sexuality is.  Or maybe he just felt way too uncomfortable talking about it.  No matter what the reason, now that I know what healthy sexuality is, it's my responsibility to pass that knowledge on to my son in a way that's not judgemental or legalistic in any way.  If I dwell on the past and just look at the lack of such knowledge that I was given, I will not improve the situation at all.  On the other hand, if I say goodbye to you, I can start a legendary pattern of men being raised up as leaders in healthy sexuality.