The first direct question from my wife...

I'm leaving my husband over a two year long staggered disclosure.
If he would have just told me about the affair two years ago when he told me about the porn and escorts we would have had a chance.
I don't care to go through all this again after this long.
It's two difficult.
Two years of lying...
I just can't do it anymore.

 

I am sorry you have to go through this
I like the way you are moving on... Frankly.

 

I’m just going to leave this link here for you read, anyone really. As an SO I can say this article is on point.
Keep the email, read it to her in person so you have something to reference, or at least print it out and be there for her when she reads it. Being honest with her is the right thing and even though she may decide to leave it’s most likely your best chance at true reconciliation.
The reason I say in person is because this is something that should be done face to face respectfully. Unless you have no other way to do so.

She may get angry and yell, I know I did. I didn’t want him touching me. It won’t be easy but doing the right thing usually isn’t. Don’t make the same mistakes so many have here with their SO’s including my hubby with me.

https://www.infidelityhelpgroup.com/2013/03/16/trickle-truth/

 

Man, you should not tell her anything. There is no way she will ever find out, and you are not doing any good to yourself and her. She will never fully understand what sexual addiction is, and the fact that she asks those type of questions just proves it. She will most likely think, that she is not good enough for you and will have a lot of reasons to manipulate you in the future. Any fight you will have from now on will result in her bringing this stuff up. Just close yourself, do reboot. You are by yourself in this fight. Therapist and other BS will not help you. You have to give up porn completely and masturbation and that’s it.

 

It’s going to be a very long, drawn out, painful road for you and any SO if this is how you handle the situation. If there is one thing I’ve learned in life and remains true is TRUTH ALWAYS COMES TO LIGHT! It might not be today, tomorrow, even five years from now...but it does. And lies will only destroy you from the inside out. Then destroy everyone in their path.

 

I hate NoFap community for this, everybody here trying to become white knight and preaching with religious BS. We are trying here to SAVE lives and not destroy them. We are trying to recover from porn addiction and PIED. Lying is part of our lives, you will have to lie in many situations in life. I am 2 months into NoFap, not watching porn for over 6 months. I have never in my life had any situation where I would benefit from telling other people that I watched gay porn, stuffed fingers up my ass and other crazy things I did.

How do you think a normal woman will react he had sex with other men? Do you think this will help him reunite with kids?

NoFap’s main goal is to deal with sexual perversion, not become saint.

 

I'm sorry you're having to go through this. This reiterates the importance honesty has in a relationship.

My thoughts are with you. Stay strong.

 

Nowhere in my post did I get religious on you. I also did not say it was necessary to disclosure every gruesome detail (unless she asks). This is a consequence of the choices you’ve made as someone else mentioned above. I have a few more years of life experience under my belt as do many of those that are also encouraging disclosure. Im also married w children which is very different from just dating imo.

I think that’s great that you are doing so well in recovery. NF is a great community and is extremely helpful. I wish you the best in your recovery:

 

This might be true if you are not married (or in a committed relationship), and already had your wife/SO discover some of your activities. If you are, and she has, that all changes.

The link @Jennica left is worth a read. It saves you searching for threads and finding the SOs all saying the exact same thing.

As an unmarried man, I'm not sure I fully understand why years of good acts can be negated by a late disclosure of activities long past. (I think I get it: It's about trust. It's about knowing there are no more ugly surprises.) But it doesn't matter if you or I understand why - it only matters that it does. Every woman here that I've read has said this.

Lies are a wet tissue, a house of cards. Any tiny inconsistency can bring them all down. The SO has plenty of time to chew on it all, to investigate, to go through all your stuff.

The wonders of modern electronics, and the fact that most people simply cannot keep their mouths shut, also work against you.

 

I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am. I'm trying to unravel 10 years of lies. Love to you, bless you,all of my good will to you.

 

It’s most certainly about trust. It’s being able to trust in their Integrity, and self respect as m hubby says it’s having a shared reality. Trusting in the good times, trusting those moments and times weren’t tainted by covering things up, or out of guilt or shame or doing what ever was happening in the background but genuine.

Withholding truths takes all of that away with betrayal, that why there is so much questioning everything, absolutely everything feels like a lie, a false reality as everything you believed is turned upside down, including how you feel about yourself. It is being able to trust not just the OP’s word it’s trusting that they respect, value us and the relationship through their actions.

The reality is the burden has already been put on the SO’s, damage control does not work anymore at this point. It’s more about taking responsibility and accountability, ownership of behaviors.

If I may be frank to speak openly to anyone reading this who may have crossed these lines in a relationship you have made your choices in regards to acting out, If you didn’t want to “hurt” your SO should have chosen differently. The old saying “you’ve made your bed now you get to lay in it”. This is incredibly hard and takes a lot of inner strength to put someone else first in these situations, it is a roller coaster but if you want true reconciliation it has to be earned and so does the all encompassing trust. A person can only forgive what they know and so much harder to forgive the longer the lies go on.

Any PA here that has chosen the high road in regards to their SO’s trust is working on the accountability and bringing back their integrity and self respect with respect for others, that’s an admirable road to take in my opinion.

 

@pdw123
How are things? What did you decide, I hope it’s more of the best rather (with everything given) than prepare for the worst.

 

Hi, thank you for this link, even if it not for me.Lots of love and power.

 

If you haven’t heard of yet, @TryingHard2Change has a men’s group here in NoFap, I know it’s helping my hubby quite a bit.

 

SA (the original sex addiction 12 step fellowship) advises to be very cautious and careful when making a disclosure to a spouse. See the bottom section of this pamphlet:

http://www.coloradosa.org/ToTheNewcomer.php

I met lots of people in SA who had gone through this process. It might be worthwhile for you to go to an SA meeting and get some advice there.

I think the question of lying vs. telling the truth is important but it's not the only thing you should be thinking about. In SA the advised moral approach is one of making amends. Amends include honesty but go beyond it. It's a more holistic approach that includes sobriety, harm reduction, a changed lifestyle and a renewed commitment to a relationship. You probably won't know what is the best course until you have some solid sobriety under your belt. If I were you, I would wait until at least 90 days of reboot before making this decision. And I would get many opinions, especially from men who have gone through this process and handled it well.