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Relapse as a revenge

Discussion in 'Rebooting in a Relationship' started by dewdrop, Dec 4, 2018.

  1. dewdrop

    dewdrop Fapstronaut

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    After three years on this rollercoaster my PA disclosed a relapse for the first time. He has relapsed earlier but never disclosed by his own. Turns out the latest relapse was a revange bc I didn't want to have sex with him that morning. Since his latest relapse four months ago we have only had sex two times. He hasn't initited anything, not sexually or emotionally. Then when he initiated I began to cry and told him that a part of me longed to come close and have sex but the other part felt to scared to open up. He got upset and told me I wasn't the only one feeling hurt. Then he left me in the bed. A few hours later I went to visit a friend and he relapsed. Later in the evening I called him and he told about the relapse. No "I'm sorry" or anything like that, and still two days later he hasn't apollogised. Just said that his day was shitty. When I asked if the relapse was a revenge he admitted.

    Actually it feels like I don't care anymore. I am just numb. No anger, no sadness, just a little grief. I'm done with the emotional circus. It feels as though it is time to choose ME. Even though I love him, I have to love myself more. I have put up with so much, slowly moved my fences (witch I shouldn't). Given him so many chanses. I believed in him. I believed in us. Turns out I was wrong. The man who should love and protect me chose to take revenge on me.
     
    freeit likes this.
  2. Is revenge here, gaslighting and blaming you?

    You mentioned slowly moving your fences,
    knowing you shouldn’t.
    So there is one action you can change.

    Wishing you the best.
     
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2018
    0111zerozero11 likes this.
  3. Like @Trappist , I also thought that this sounds like gaslighting behaviour on his part.

    I'm sorry to hear of your troubles. Get some solid support, and do what you know needs doing. It might hurt for a while, but then you start to heal.

    Good luck!
     
    0111zerozero11 and Trappist like this.
  4. samnf1990

    samnf1990 Fapstronaut

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    Frustration and revenge can be part of a more complex cocktail of emotions. Having no sexual outlet that is condoned by you (sex is rejected or presumed to be, so not requested or initiated, and masturbation is forbidden and will cause pain) can make someone feel hopeless, unable to pursue pleasure and the sexual fulfilment/happiness/contentedness that is desired. Biological needs have a loud voice and are happy to shout over the psychological and conscious desire to stay true to you, and the easiest way to achieve sexual stimulation and release is through M. The bravery and emotional vulnerability required to seek sex from an unreceptive and emotionally hurt partner is more difficult to put in place than to give in to allowing negative thoughts such as frustration over an unwilling partner to morph into blame, resentment and anger, which becomes a fleeting and regretful justification to relapse.

    My guess is that he is sorry and regretful of his relapse, but that his lack of an apology is down to genuine frustrations and resentments that he is unable to have the active and rewarding sex with you, his partner, that he really wants. He might be feeling like you should be making some sort of movement towards intimacy or rebuilding the relationship.

    My assumption, based on my own experiences living as a male with male biology and psychology driving my sexuality, is that most men PMO because it feels good, and because their drives make them more enthusiastic about sex than women (at least more easily excited about the prospect of sex/sexual activity, and a desire to have sex at higher frequencies) with an excess of desire that most partners are unwilling or unable to match. For the times their patner is disinterested, men turn to M, and for most men, M is better with P. To use pornographic imagery of the partner in times when the partner is unwilling can be emotionally difficult, and so imagery and fantasy of other women is used instead, where connection and emotion are absent and an abstract erotic appreciation of bodies and certain acts is the sole stimulus and focus. When this strategy of dealing with excess desire is taken away because of the hurtful realities of indulging in fantasies of other partners in PMO, the ex p user then needs to adjust to the new, lower frequency of sexual stimulation and orgasm. This is made a lot more difficult if the frequency of partnered sex also drops. Twice in four months is a huge drop for a regular masturbator. The drop is perhaps understandable due to the emotional hurt and difficulty in enjoying sex if it is marred with negative associations, but I think it is worth considering the effects of going from an orgasm a day (assumed) when sex or PMO are considered an option, to one attempt at reaching orgasm every two months, in what have been emotionally frought and difficult situations.
     
    Rehab101 likes this.
  5. dewdrop

    dewdrop Fapstronaut

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    Thank you for your answer! Maybe it is gaslighting, for sure blaming.

    Yes there is one action I can do. I'm like the cooked frog. Things happened slowly so I got used to it. I can see that I have given him too many chances when he has crossed my boundaries.
     
    0111zerozero11 and Trappist like this.
  6. dewdrop

    dewdrop Fapstronaut

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    Thank you for your support!
     
  7. dewdrop

    dewdrop Fapstronaut

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    I hope that you come with a good intention but this is bullshit! Excuse my language.

    I have read your own thread and it seems as though you project your own problems on me and our relationship. You know nothing about me and our relationship. You know nothing about my BT. You know nothing about my partner except the few words I wrote here. You know nothing about the deep black hole I fell down to after his relapse in August. The betrayal trauma and how my body collapsed. You know nothing about the lies, the hiding of proof and all the gaslighting I been through. For instance he was fantazising about having sex with a friend of ours. I felt something was going on. He gaslighted me for eight months. Calling me suspicious and jelous. Turned out my feeling were right all the time.

    I am aware of all the things you wrote about male biology and sexual needs. How much do you know about betrayal trauma and about a womans sexual biology? For instance most of us need to feel safe to be able to make love.

    You wrote: "He might be feeling like you should be making some sort of movement towards intimacy or rebuilding the relationship".
    WTF!!!!! The most stupid thing to write to a spouse...

    It isn't me who has brought us into this mess. Believe me, I have tried so many times and I'm sicken tired of it. The movement towards building the relationship should be on him aswell, not only me.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2018
  8. Gaslighting is a terrible, disgusting betrayal of trust and humanity. I myself have been a victim, as have some friends. I suspect that @samnf1990 might have never come across this, and so is unaware of how insidiously it works.

    You have my full sympathies. Get whatever support might be available to you wherever you live, and if you have understanding friends, ask for their support. But share only with friends whom you absolutely know will support you.
     
  9. dewdrop

    dewdrop Fapstronaut

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    Thank you for your support! Yes I feel it's a dangerous place but here we are. I thought we could beet this but now I'm not sure anymore.
     
  10. dewdrop

    dewdrop Fapstronaut

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    Thank you @Mordobarn, you are so kind. Now my face is washed with tears. I wish you the best on your journey.
     
    Mordobarn and Trappist like this.
  11. @dewdrop,

    Your ‘Revenge’ thread here made me recall an early aspect of my PA...decades ago. I started to say this then deleted it when I first posted.

    Once engaged to a lovely woman and we both were in 12 step programs. My PA was unknown to others and to me as a problem.

    I was abruptly initiating sex once and she preceded to grab me and imitate;
    Mocking my attempt. I shut down after that and sex became extremely limited, monthly or less, for the next 9 months until we split up. This was a sort of revenge or anger that I had. I did not know how to deal with it and therapy did not find it.

    I think her part was she was a rape survivor and although I thought I had compassion for that, I really had no idea how that presented. I simply had P for solace, which is a poison.

    @AnonymousAnnaXOXO once noted,
    If you seek revenge, dig two graves.
    And so I was angry and our relationship died.

    I was angry, but did not want to consciously hurt, I just did not understand the way to fix it.
    Someday my HP may allow me a way to make amends to her, but as a married man, it will be not as my own plan.

    I’m not sure how this completely applies to you, but as a corollary and acknowledgement of your intuition and of making your post on revenge.

    I had a thread here obout a movie
    ‘On Chesil Beach’ in which the newlyweds has no words to deal with her rape trauma and his sexual ineptness. This may not be your issue, but I am glad there is greater understanding today for something that sank my relationship years ago.

    Glad we are all here trying to thread this needle and pull our lives back together.
     
  12. newlife321

    newlife321 New Fapstronaut

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    im new to this forum, looks like community of intelligent and beautiful people, i was reading a book on randomness " drunkard's walk" ( how randomness rules our lives) and randomly i picked a topic and a post of yours. and thought to reply it. i had been facing the issues of similar nature, (and well, we are all similar, intelligent, and beautiful hearts, all here), i am not sure why you were selected to be given with such partner or why i was the victim in my childhood? or why anyone else, i think it is just a random distribution of journey and a roadmap given to us, there is nothing good or bad in it, or feeling sad or numb or even more caring to wrong behavior, both probably are the wrong response, it just is, the way it is, although to understand, realize and conquer it, is not easy! but thats what the journey is all about, there is something more fulfilling waiting for you, more enriched and satisfying, may be a realization or a nice partner perhaps. but lets see what you are learning out of all this now from this experience, and lets see that people around us are the reflection of our own self, and if you agree then lets be agree that problem is more easier to work which is not him but the "self" so lets help each other to build your"self" and also my"self" so once the right self is ready, then right surrounding, right people and partner will appear around.
     
  13. samnf1990

    samnf1990 Fapstronaut

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    Sorry for being insensitive to you. I am, of course, ill informed of your particular situation. But where connection between two people is becoming difficult, both people do need to take actions for the rift to heal. You might not be there yet. You might not know whether you ultimately want to be close again. You may be considerig leaving. And he may deserve to lose you.

    I gave you a potential reason for his poor behaviour. I don't mean to suggest that this is the only possible reason. But the optimistic view is that he is handling the distance from you badly, and struggling to communicate his regret and sorrow for his own actions. The worst case scenario is that he was being malicious and deliberately hurting you. I hope that the reality is something in the middle that allows both of you to heal.

    If you need to leave, that is always an option.
     
    Rehab101, dewdrop and 0111zerozero11 like this.
  14. RecoveringLion

    RecoveringLion Fapstronaut

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    BS on his part. Don’t accept it. I would actually encourage you to create some “Quit Criteria” for yourself and share it with him. So that when X happens again, you are gone (or more than likely, he is gone). And enforce it! Means nothing if you dont.

    What you described is emotional abuse on his end towards you. Don’t put up with it. If you want the relationship to work, then he needs to get professional help, go to a group, and stop the manipulative bullshit.

    Those of us who are progressed in our journey have the exact same emotions and feelings he does, we just mature to the point where we dont accept them as reality, and dont take them out on our spouses...and if we screw up and do, we come back and ask for forgiveness on our own accord, because we know its our own fault.
     
  15. That's an excellent point. A mature man doesn't blame others for his actions; he owns his actions and takes responsibility for them.
     
  16. dewdrop

    dewdrop Fapstronaut

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    Thank you for telling me @Trappist. I'm really sorry about your experience. I can hear your pain. How much it Hurt you. Hopefully it's good to have your memory up from the shadows so you can work it through.

    Sex can be so natural and easy but so difficult when there is wounding and different expectations. The fear of rejection and abandonment.

    In our case both of us have been sexually abused as kids. And lots of our problems are due to that. I think his PA comes from all the abuse in his childhood. There is also a big mother wound in him. His mother is really cold and distant. She can not show love and it seems as though she doesn't care anything about him. I think she cares but she isn't able to show it. I guess all that rejection from her is one reason why it hurts so much when I say no to sex. Maybe he want me to suffer from all the rejection from his mother. Not consciously.
     
    Trappist likes this.
  17. dewdrop

    dewdrop Fapstronaut

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    Thank you for randomly coming in my way! I know why I met my partner. It was to work through some of my carma. Thanks to the pain and suffering I was going through after dday my childhood traumas was exposed. My spiritual journey has been deep and painful towards my real Self. But now it seems as though it's time to move on.
     
  18. dewdrop

    dewdrop Fapstronaut

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    Thank you @samnf1990, now I know that your intention was good. I am with you that both partners have to put in effort. I'm totally up to that. But we have been spiraling down so deep and it seems as though he doesn't care to do recovery work. He has been free from PMO for longer strikes but he has not recovered, and that is probebly the reason why he acts like he do. He does not take ownership for his shit when he behaves in a bad way. I need him to recover and mature if I choose to stay. Not him acting like a 15 year boy when he is 50.
     
    samnf1990 and Trappist like this.
  19. dewdrop

    dewdrop Fapstronaut

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    This is so good! Exactly what I want him to do. Not be perfect but own his behaviour. To me it feels as though the only reason for telling me about the relapse was to hurt me.

    Yes this is emitional abuse but I have difficult to embrace that that's what going on. He is a kind man. I don't think he is aware of the abuse and I'm unsure how to point it out. We have such a communication dissonance.
     
  20. dewdrop

    dewdrop Fapstronaut

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    Haha you made me laugh. Thanks for encouragement and laughs :)
     

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