Not again...

The last d-day was discovered because dear husband (we will refer to him as D from here on) couldn’t get it up. Again. We hadn’t had sex in 4 months, since right before I gave birth to our last child who ended up being breach. I delivered him butt first and did not have a c-section. There was tearing and stitches. It took a good while to recover, but I did and when I was feeling better, I asked D to move the baby’s bed in our room and said I was ready to be intimate again. 1st red flag- it took weeks for D to actually move the bed.

Red flag #2- D’s Junk didn’t work, couldn’t get an erection at all. He blamed me, saying it was because “that boy tore you up”. Anger and confrontation ensued for the next two days until D finally admitted he had been PMOing again for the last 4 years. Stupid me.

That was in March. Now D has all kinds of health issues going on. Constant headaches since April 8, swollen thyroid. No idea what’s going on. Docs just want to prescribe meds, no interest in what’s causing the issues, and I am torn between what may be PAWS and what is not.

Supposedly D is in recovery. Starts out strong, then drops the ball, not reaching out to accountability partners until the crap hits the fan with me, and I find myself triggered and angry. Then, all of a sudden, D is motivated to reach out and work his sobriety. What’s genuine and what’s him just trying to appease me and shut me up?

Fun tidbit, we are trying to rebuild a healthy sexual relationship. Great at first, sex almost every day, although very self-serving sex on his part, and I get pregnant again. We took measures not to get pregnant, but here we are anyway. Now, we are going days without sex and he’s not interested. OnLy has sex with me after five days because I got triggered and upset. I’m waking up having panic attacks that he is using again. Something is off, but he convinces me it’s my imagination.

Five days since last sexual encounter, felt like obligation sex to get me off his back. Everything works about 80%. I wake up feeling off. Kinda dead inside, not sure what to make of that. The next night D asks if he can spoon me. Sure, that would be nice. He snuggles up and then tells me he just can’t have sex tonight after we had sex the night before. Strange, since I wasn’t asking him for sex. I got triggered, since that’s what he did before when he was PMOing.

Woke up this morning and he was out milking goats, which he does every morning before work. I have serious anxiety, so I walk across the cold, wet lawn to the goat pen to make sure he is in fact where he is supposed to be and doing what he is supposed to be doing. He is. I’m not relieved because I feel like I’m going crazy. Am I imagining everything? I have no proof at this point, but his addict behavior is real.

I spent four years feeling like I was being unfair to him and going crazy this last time. Now here I am doing it again. Bouncing between feeling sorry for him and not wanting to push him back into this addiction and feeling like he’s already using again. I can’t prove it, so I must be the problem. Can’t believe a word he says. He rejected me last night, even though I wasn’t asking anything of him. Am I really so repulsive that he has to nip any sex in the bud when it’s not even being asked of him? I just can’t even stand him looking at me because I know he’s comparing me to all of those women.

 

Oh yes, and the answer to “why did you say you didn’t have it in you to have sex last night?” question? D said this morning, “it was a little joke about how amazing the sex was the night before. I was just saying that it was so good I didn’t have it in me to have sex with you again”. I never asked him to have sex with me. Funny, he always had the energy to have sex with himself. Every. Single. Day.

When d-day arrived, shortly thereafter he could not keep his hands off of me. He was still constantly defensive, but no matter how tired he was, how stressed, or even how crappy my attitude was, he couldn’t not touch me. Things have been different for the last month. I get spooned at night, but during the day it’s an occasional hug (like friends), a kiss here and there. Feels mechanical. No sexual initiation of any kind, except for the night before last and only because I spent the previous three days accusing him of relapsing. Now I guess he figures since he fulfilled his obligation to me he is off the hook for a while.

 

More disclosures of old behavior tonight, which he specifically lied to me about two days ago. He will no longer be allowed to lead our family in prayer at night and he is not allowed in my bed. You don’t get to continue to lie and have the mask on. Unfortunately, I’m pretty stuck until we can sell the house next year. It’s going to be hard to raise 7 kids by myself, but maybe that’s what he intended all along.

 

Thank you hope4healing. It’s nice when people get. Not many do. He still swears he hasn’t done anything since the last d-day, but he has been lying for sure. I never can believe a word he says.

 

He fully admits he has lied and justified to himself. The cheating on me with strippers in the beginning of our marriage (that’s what he finally admitted to yesterday) he justified bc it was not traditional intercourse. I asked for a full disclosure six months ago. He half-assed it once, put almost nothing in it (except he slipped up ever so slightly that I caught it, confronted him, and he still lied about it), picked it up again due to me nagging, still wrote nothing in it except about how hard this all was for him, and I never got my disclosure. He kept saying there was nothing else he hadn’t told me. He said I knew about the lap dances bc he had already told me.

I asked again and again. He admitted to frequenting prostitutes before he met me, and having public sex with strippers in the clubs. He swore that stopped when we met. That just doesn’t make any sense. Addicts don’t de-escalate. I’m tired of being lied to my face. I need to be numb now. I have six kids to take care of, and one on the way. I can’t do this anymore. He doesn’t get to do this to me anymore. I am a child of God. I am adored by my creator and this mere man does not get to take that from me. People say the heart wants what the heart wants, but the heart is a liar and will lead you astray every time.

 

So absolutely triggered last night. When the last big D-day happened six months or so ago, D told me something he had done to someone else that was absolutely awful. He went to a strip club to get dances and the girl passed out. He had sex with her, unprotected, while she lay there out of it. Poor girl never knew she was raped.

Fast forward to us getting married, he confides in me that he has a sleepy fetish. Umm, ok, that’s kinda weird, but hey! Why the heck not? So, he would buy me wine and we would drink and I would pass out (not really, but he thought I was). He would pick up my hand and drop it to make sure I was passed out and not going to wake up (again, not once in all those years was I ever actually passed out). It was fun because I realized it was the only time he could get it up without enhancement drugs, and it felt good to have sex without him needing that. Turns out, all those years he was using me to relive raping this poor stripper. How sick is that?!

So, back to last night. I am leading bible study and prayer because he is no longer allowed to spiritually lead our family as he is actively lying and keeping secrets. It gets to be my 3-year-Old son’s turn to pray, and I ask D if our son is still awake. HE LIFTS HIS HAND AND DROPS IT. That’s right. The test he used to ensure that poor stripper was in fact passed out cold, and the test he used on me for years as he used my body to relive that rape over and over again, he did to my son last night. I looked right at him and I said, “that right there? Big time trigger for me. Don’t ever do it again.”

Woke up this morning with panic and tightness in my chest. I know this marriage is over. It’s hard because I know as long as D lives, I can never remarry. God forbids it, and that’s ok I suppose. I mean, what are the chances I’d ever be able to find a man on this earth that wouldn’t do the exact same things? I did realize after watching Out of the Doghouse by Robert Weiss that D has much more than a pornography addiction. It is full on sex addiction. My goals at this point are to 1) Realize that I am the bride of Christ and He is enough to meet my every need. I am not what my husband has done to me. I am a child of God. 2) get this house in condition to sell by next spring so that we can move to a more affordable state and I can support my seven children alone if need be. 3) remain calm and collected. I cannot let him see me break. I’m reminded of this quote this morning.

 

**TRIGGER WARNING**

So frustrated. I keep going back and forth with these feelings of him being dishonest again. Every conversation involves him immediately being defensive and making excuses. Then I see he was looking up “Ipod classic” and “Ipod 160 gb” on eBay to buy. For real? That’s not going to trigger me after the last time he was caught it was on an old iPhone 1 that he claimed he was just using to listen to music? “There’s not even a browser on the iPhone” he would say. Except he found a way to access a browser on it. For four freaking years!

This man’s heart, mind, and penis have never been mine. He’s never given me any of it. Now, he knows my love language is Acts of Service. He knows I’m overwhelmed with having to bring in almost as much money every month in supplemental income as him while homeschooling our children, maintaining the household, and tying up all the loose ends before winter settles in. We are planning to put our house on the market to buy a cheaper house closer to civilization to make things a little easier. I have a list. So why on earth do I have to nag him to do his part? Then, when he does do it, it’s completely wrong! Replacing the porch railing that was rotten, he puts it on out of line leaving gaping holes in the column, not lined up. Replacing light bulbs in the office where I sell used clothing online to supplement income; he buys the wrong bulbs. Making new doors for the laundry room cabinets; huge hole in the wood that I have to putty. Am I overreacting, or is he using again and sabotaging me so I can’t be in a more comfortable position to leave?

Oh yeah, and then there’s the fact that he can rarely get a full erection (though it’s an improvement over the complete lack of erection he had before) and the last time we were intimate he completely lost it and blamed it on me catching him off guard because I didn’t want him to perform oral sex on me. He’s always hated performing it on me, which has made me extremely self-conscious about it. I’m not comfortable with him doing that to me because he has made it clear for 16 years that he does not enjoy it. Why is it that when he was using porn all he had to do was not use that day and he could get and maintain an erection, but now, after allegedly being porn and fap free for over six months, he can’t? Seriously, any insight as to what is going on?