The lonely wife of PA spouse

Isn't like, hookers... Worse?

 

It sounds as if he is still in denial about the reality of his addiction and the damage it, and his deceit, are still doing to your relationship.
I am so sorry.

ANH

 

My guy I caught right away towards the end looking at people on Craigslist... The hookup meet up part?
He said he just liked to see how ugly people were on there.
He did it a total of 3x,got caught every time.
Glad I saw

It was right during the end fall.
I don't know if if I could take the dating site this.
It would distroy me.
I think you're amazingly strong

 

He's still deep in the addiction, but it is never okay to mock your SO. Especially when it's a defense mechanism. He's taking your feelings for granted- and not being open and honest about his activities leads me to believe he is not in this fully. He needs to come clean or it will not work. He has to face his demons and he's not doing so by keeping them in the dark. No amount of hard effort and work will make up for the secretiveness and dishonesty. It's a form of fleeing from the problem.

Having to ask an SO questions and getting half-answers, lies of omission, and straight up bold-faced lies is like trying to hack down a steel tree trunk with a banana.

 

@SOSo and anh are right. Your guy isn't playing yet. He's still defensive and doing really stupid hurtful things to "protect" himself. It's awful.

You haven't asked, but if I may make an observation/ suggestion. This current situation is killing you and not helping him. Until he wants to play in the recovery dance, you hunting and finding and confronting and being emotionally abused is pointless and unproductive.

IMO you sorta have two options here:. 1) wait him out. Let him do his thing, and you take care of you. 2) up his pain and hopefully force him to get in the game. This is some sort of ultimatum or you just leaving. It's can be done with love, but he needs to see he has a decision: you or his right hand.

That is a scary thing to do because he may make the stupid choice, and that would be even more awful for you to deal with.

I honestly feel for you. Please don't act on just my comments. Get the opinions of the SOs here, talk with a pastor or other trusted counselor. Don't forget you need to care for yourself along the way, have spa day, do a girl's night.

Best wishes.

 

I'm NO therapist, but I don't think this is so far off. Nothing in life is straight line and nobody can stand on his/her toes 24/7. So... if he's still migrating to another state of mind it's to be expected that this is a bit of an up and down process -- even though the trend must be up. It's not, of course, that he can let himself go... but it seems only natural to me that he'll automatically advance in cycles. Don't we all, in everything we learn?

 

I read your journal. I am so sorry. This addiction often escalates to real life encounters.

It certainly does show he is at least thinking about it (even if he hasn't gone live... yet).

If he was serious about his recovery, he'd tell you the truth instead of you having to find this stuff. I'm so sorry. It's extremely traumatic.

For me, the lying and secret life hurt me much, much, much more than anything my husband actually did. He always lied about little things that didn't matter (such as - "Did you finish the hummus?" - when I was just trying to find it - no big deal if it was gone). I didn't like that, but just thought he had a bad habit from his childhood patterns regarding lying. We all have "stuff" from our childhoods. Wow - I was really wrong about the depth of his lying.

Lying and a secret life are serious character flaws. Lacking in integrity. It's too bad he doesn't want to look at that problem, and get help. You certainly can't make him do anything he isn't ready for. All you can truly do is take care of yourself.

It can take addicts a long time to wake up, and they have to hit bottom. It's really hard, b/c we see it and they don't.

I hope you are able to get some help for your trauma. I have PTSD now b/c of my husband's suicide attempt and his secret life. I'm sure you can imagine how "low" my husband got before he woke up (almost dead - I intervened and fortunately, he lived). It still took him over a year and a half after his "bottom" to finally be engaged in recovery b/c he was so sick at that point with depression.

I hope my husband can eventually share his story with other younger addicts to help them see the light.

***sending some support***

 

In my experience, I'd say literally 100% of partners of addicts would agree with you. Literally every single one I've talked to said the lying was worse than the infidelity.

 

Thanks for this post. I was thinking about relapsing but it brought me back to my senses.

 

This!

This this this!

I wish PA's could just understand this. I just want to know the truth. Lying is the worst part of this whole mess.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm a big girl and can handle the truth- I want to know every nitty gritty ugly detail as long as it's true. Even if you cheated! It's therapeutic.

I can't handle lying though, that's what makes me livid, and depressed and I am flat out not attracted to someone who lies.

 

"It's your fault" still seems to be his default attitude. He is still being defensive and not understanding your perspective on this. Anxiety may be contributing to the ED problem. Even if things have been working for a while, it only takes one 'failure' for performance anxiety to creep into the subconscious and set up a vicious circle. But it may also indicate that he hasn't really embraced a no PMO life and the mindset that goes with it. His defensive and aggressive attitude says to me that he just doesn't get it. To overcome ED, I'd normally suggest a period of you both focussing just on you, your body and all the ways he can make you feel good without using his penis, but that requires that he be selfless, loving and committed to working through issues as a couple. All your posts tell me that that's not the man he is - at least not at the moment.

I'm sorry that you are still suffering so much because of his behaviour. @phuck-porn! 's post of August 16th still makes a lot of sense to me.

I wish you all the best

ANH

 

In my book you did the right thing. You're very brave. He has to pay the price that he might be redeemed; that you might have him back a different man.

 

I feel like where living in the same story.. your story brought tears to my eyes as you and I are both victims in this... the fear of never being whole again the fear of not being able to trust, forgive of her passed this...
unfortunately I have no advice to give as I’m in the same boat as you.. but I jus want you to no ur not alone...
I realy hope things get better and that whatever is the best for your happiness and sanity

I’m so sry your going through this

 

^^^Yes. True. In our situation, we learned that my husband (who is BIG on blame) has Intimacy Anorexia. This is something he has to work on in order for me to stay in the marriage. I need to see "progress, not perfection" - anyhow - here's a link about this problem and how it manifests often with sex addicts:

http://intimacyanorexia.com

@Ash89 - I know that feeling. The thing is, though, that we can heal ourselves in spite of whatever the addict does/doesn't do. We have the power to work our own recovery and heal ourselves. We will be whole again if we do solid work to heal and make ourselves whole. And yes, it sucks that we have recovery to do. But it's our reality.

I heard a good analogy today about this and the victim mind-set (yes - we are victims, but we can't let it be our identity, or we won't heal). Anyhow, this was the analogy (it was in a video with two therapists discussing partner trauma and sex addiction --- say a person gets hit by a drunk driver and is severely injured. That person is a victim, for sure! But if the victim wants to regain her life and get out of the wheelchair, she needs to do the physical therapy and more to be healthy again.

That made a lot of sense to me. I'd rather be spending time on other things - BUT - if I don't do the recovery work, I won't be able to enjoy my life. Hugs to you.