Question for partners of PAs

The lying and hiding is the worse.
I hate when he knows I am wanting sex, but yet chooses to waste away his drive on porn.
I think if our partners wanted us as much as they do porn, then we would all be in a better place.
The porn wouldn't bother me if he had sex with me MORE and showed sexual desire with me more often. It feels like he makes porn a priority at times...and that is what hurts 2nd to the lying.

I seriously doubt my husband ever made a decision to watch porn and then change his mind because he wasn't in the mood anymore. But, with me, he would easily get out of the mood. That hurts.

We are normal women and we don't look like porn stars, but here our partners are fantasizing about being with these other women...not us. That in itself is a stab to our self esteem.

Think about your partner viewing men with bodies that look way better than yours, a guy that was well endowed...someone who looks far better than you. Think of your partner fantasizing having sex with this guy and getting off to it. Then think about having sex with your partner and feeling like your partner is no longer there and she's fantasizing about this other man while having sex with you.
Does that bother you? Does it hurt to feel like the thought of only you isn't enough to sexually please your partner?

 

It also bothers me when I send dirty pictures or videos to my partner and he doesn't even use them or look at them.
Instead he uses porn. He says he loves me, he says he's attracted to me, and he says he wants me sexually...I gave him several pictures and videos. But, he still wants to Google his porn women and would rather view that. He claims I'm so much better than porn...that doesn't exactly prove it or show it.

I'm glad you are trying to understand how your partner feels.
This can really destroy the partner of the PA.
I wish you luck on your journey.

 

To all the SO's:

In recovery circles, it's common to hear therapists and addicts talk about "the addict", as if it's a distinct and separate part of the man's persona, apart from his real, 'authentic' self. I even find myself saying things like, "I can tell when my addict is running the show / that experience definitely triggered my addict", etc. A common phrase that uses this distinction is, "remember that while you're working hard in recovery, your addict is off in the corner doing push-ups."

How do you all feel about that kind of language? Do you believe that there's a difference between the addict and the authentic person, or do you see them all as one?

Personally, when I distinguish between the addict and the authentic person, things make a lot more sense. Then, I can understand why part of me genuinely found my wife more beautiful than any porn star, but I can also understand why I was still compulsively driven to porn. I think most addicts can relate to the Jekyll & Hyde syndrome, the double-life where they really do love their wives and want to do right by them, but feel sporadically controlled by a compulsion that they can't stop without help (Jekyll & Hyde, ironically, was a story about alcoholism).

My faith parallels this, when Paul talks in Romans 7 about "doing the things I don't want to do." He says at one point, "it is not me that does it, but the sin in me". As an addict, it helps me to remember that I am not my addiction. The distinction isn't there to give me license, but to lift some of the shame that would keep me believing that I'm just fundamentally an awful person.

 

I don't separate them, I see them as one.

 

I think (as a former drug addict) you should see them as two.
HOWEVER
the addict needs to see themselves as one person... Or they will never reach "addict in recovery" stage and will always be "addict in addiction" stage
And use this to excuse their behavior.
It's kind of like a murderer going
.. It's not me, it's the murder side of me... But I'm fine

However if the SOs do not separate, then the relationship will never heal because they won't find empathy to love their partner while they are recovering

 

I totally agree with you on both counts.

I worry about the SO's who see them as one. I worry that they'll always be in a state of confusion and never understand their partner's addiction, which is a pretty big part of the recovery process for SO's. How can an SO ever come to the healing understanding that 'it's not about her' if she sees her husband and the addict as one? In that mentality, her husband will always be the man who chose other women over her, and she will have justification to remain bitter and unforgiving, which might feel good for a while, but in the long term will hurt the SO far more than it will hurt the addict.

But I also agree with you about the addict ... in fact, Patrick Carnes gave us an exercise in treatment called the "Core Dialogue Queries" (CDQ). It was a nightly journal entry where we essentially had to have a conversation with our inner addict, writing out the dialogue as it came to us. The goal of the exercise, over time, was to re-integrate the addict with the true self.

At first, I had a brutally difficult time with this, because I had always characterized my addict as an evil, vindictive enemy who wanted me dead, and who wanted to strip away every important thing in my life. My addict was basically Satan to me. But the CDQ exercise taught me that my addict was just part of me that was trying to meet legitimate needs, but in illegitimate, maladaptive ways. That really helped me to do away with the "white knuckling" approach to recovery, where I treated my addict like someone who needed a constant beat-down. That approach never worked. In fact, the harder I fought, the worse my addiction got. I didn't start seeing progress until I learned to be kind to myself and to recognize that my addict was just trying to meet my needs. My addict is basically a teenager who thinks he knows everything, but really doesn't know anything, and needs a functional adult to show him the right way.

 

Hey so I totally validate your feelings, and understand where you're coming from. I dont know your husbands specifics with his addiction and recovery. My husband has said to me that he didn't enjoy the porn usage but rather the release that came from orgasm. It allowed him to escape all the pain he was feeling. I have been turned down for sex a lot in the past and I don't know if my husband ever connected it with his porn use, but even if he hadn't used I think the guilt made him not want to have sex with me. It wasn't about my attractiveness, but rather the feeling of knowing he had done something to hurt me. And when talking about watching porn versus having sex and not being in the mood, porn and sex are two different things. Porn is usually associated with the addict as an escape, so there's never really a time that an addict doesn't want to escape, hence the never not being in the mood for porn. With sex, it's real, and with realness comes feelings that might make the addict feel vulnerable, hence why with sex the mood can change.

I used to send my husband sexy photos before I knew the extent of his addiction. I took pics and sent them to him to compete with the instagram girls. But he never used my photos. For the longest time I was so hurt, but my husband said, he didn't want to reduce me to a sexual object and associate me with his addiction. He said I was better than porn and he didn't want to taint me by using my photos in his addiction. He liked my photos but never wanted to use them because he said that would be reducing me.



And to the point of separating person from addiction, that has been key for me in healing. Luckily I knew lots about addiction by the time I figured his addiction out, so in the beginning, despite the pain, I was able to try to help him and take a step back from my pain. I saw him as an addict that needed help. It's been over a year of him being clean and we've had many discussions now, and the way he talks about using and everything has been so sad and heartbreaking. He never enjoyed it, he felt guilt, self-hate, and it fed his depression and isolation more. He talks about how he needed to escape reality and porn and video games were the only way he knew how. I understand (most days) that it's not about me (but when my anorexic thoughts take over that's when it gets to me). I think it's healthy for the SO to be able to see their husband/bf and see the "addict" separately or else the person you love will always be a source of your pain and you won't see the good in the person you love.

 

Hmmm that is interesting that you guys view seeing them as two different things helpful for healing. I feel like I am not making a lot of progress healing, and I view them as one. I literally just don't get viewing them as two. That feels to me like not taking responsibility for it. I hope that isn't offensive to anyone, I am not trying to be, that just doesn't make sense in my brain. I'd love to hear why that isn't true!

 

Did you read my remarks on how they should view as one but why you should view as two

 

@TryingToHeal I see that it could be seen as not taking responsibility, but see my husband should see himself as one person but be able to distinguish in his head his thoughts from addiction thoughts (just like I can distinguish my thoughts from anorexic thoughts). But as SO's I think if I were to see my husband as a cheater only instead of an addict (who betrayed my knowingly aka cheating) then I would never be able to be with him because I would forever view him as a cheater who wants every other girl besides me. I said to my husband, "You keep saying, 'that doesn't feel like me' 'i can't believe i did that it feels like a different person.' I said, he has to get to a place where he says, 'i did that' so he owns his decisions. He needs to be able to see himself as one person who did those things but know that it isn't his true character, that it was the addictive thoughts/compulsions.

For me, when I hear in my head, "You need to restrict so your husband finds you attractive" I can identify in my mind those are anorexic thoughts coming up. I can then fight back with my thoughts. For an addict to porn their addict voice could say, "Just go look, come one, it won't hurt anyone" but they can fight that voice with their true character by saying, "no it will hurt me and my SO, I don't need that anymore I am getting healthy."

Did that help at all with explaining how SO's seeing their partner versus the addiction is helpful but the addict see's themselves as one but can distinguish the healthy versus unhealthy thoughts?

 

I did. That I should because I won't have empathy and love for them if I don't.

 

It wasn't like You directly.
But it's a hard balancing act.
Even I have trouble doing it and finding it within myself sometimes.
And I'm a addict myself.
Empathy is hard.
To truly try and place yourself in another person's shoes is difficult.

 

People are naturally selfish.
I don't know a single mother who doesn't hide candy from her kids.
A secret mommy stash.
Although.... Me and my SO do this together... We now call them "boat snacks"

 

I get what you are saying and how it helps you, but I just can't get there. I see the good parts of him, too, not just an addict, but I don't think I can just write that off in my head like oh that was a different part of him. Maybe because this happened really early on in our marriage, I told him then how I felt that it was cheating and he said he would never do it again, and I made the mistake of believing him. Then here we are 12 years later in this same place and it never stopped. However, he says it wasn't an addiction until early 2016. That before could look at it once in a while, like every few months when he'd see something, but that in 2016 it was a compulsion, a habit, a more than once daily, he couldn't stop kind of thing. So maybe because he was able to control it for so long and then he wasn't has something to do with it, like he chose it? I do have empathy and love for him. I understand he was in a bad place, the circle of guilt shame, that he didn't love himself, I see why it got to that point. I just don't see that as two things, it was all him. I see how he is different now, his whole personality has changed, he is happy now and wasn't before. But I see all that as him, too. Like a transformation, not as a separate thing. I don't know... maybe it is semantics? I just don't feel when he was doing PMO that there were two parts of him, one that could do that and one that could live the other part of his life. They were both one.

As far as SuperFan said about remaining bitter about him choosing other women over me if I don't see them as two. I don't feel he chose that instead of me. He wanted both, and that is the problem to me. He never denied sex with me, or had trouble performing, so maybe that is why I feel that way. He wanted me. But he also lusted after others and Med to them, and that is where I feel it is cheating. And just the fact that he felt that was OK to do, knowing how I felt, yeah that bothers me. And like I mentioned above on the timing of it.

I have experience with addiction. My father was an alcoholic, my mother, too, if I'm honest. He has never owned up to shit as far as that goes even though it hurt for years, all the things he did and said that were incredibly hurtful (as a child and as an adult, this went on for almost 30 years) that were then ignored after the fact. The next day they were never spoken of again, he never remembered or acknowledged any of it, to this day. He's apologized that he could have been a better day, but that is the extent of it, no specifics at all. I have seen so many similarities with this and with what is going on with my husband right now, when we talk about it. Do you think this could influence my healing?