Marrying in Sexaholics Anonymous

“A.A. has many single alcoholics who wish to marry and are in a position to do so. Some marry fellow A.A.’s. How do they come out? On the whole these marriages are very good ones. Their common suffering as drinkers, their common interest in A.A. and spiritual things, often enhance such unions. It is only where “boy meets girl on A.A. campus,” and love follows at first sight, that difficulties may develop. The prospective partners need to be solid AA.’s and long enough acquainted to know that their compatibility at spiritual, mental, and emotional levels is a fact and not wishful thinking. They need to be as sure as possible that no deep-lying emotional handicap in either will be likely to rise up under subsequent pressures to cripple them. The considerations are equally true and important for the A.A.’s who marry “outside” A.A. With clear understanding and right, grown-up attitudes, very happy results do follow." Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (pages 118-119.),

For me, "the prospective partners" should be solid SA members, which means that they've worked the Steps with a sponsor. The person could also be "outside" SA, but for me that would mean that the person has some S-Anon or Al-Anon program experience with a sponsor. This is what literature teaches me, and my experience tells that only a person with a spiritual disease would want to get closer to me. Before Sexaholics Anonymous, I did not have have anything in common with spiritually healthy people.

Also, before marrying I may tell my partner that, in an “-anon” fellowship, she might get tools to manage a life living with an addict, and she also learn what addiction looks like. What result would I get if I were to start a marriage with a deception about my addiction? Would that be fear driven? It's definitely not a good way to start a marriage; it would be unkind, unloving. How could I be working a program of rigorous honesty while lying to my fiance or wife? A woman who is planning to live the rest of her life with me has the right to know all about me. She needs to know that I might be a threat for her, her life, or her children, and that it could be dangerous to get involved with a lust addict.

However, “Courage is a fear that said its prayers.”