Advice - what can I do to help my partner heal after my betrayal?

Please have a look at my answer in this thread. It may help.
https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/need-some-understanding-on-my-partner.262851/#post-2381644

 

Lying typically is used to keep the peace and to hide from shame. To allow healing from betrayal, you don't get to lie to keep the peace anymore, you need to confront and deal with issues from the minor to the major. And, you have to let go of your shame. Forgive yourself for the past and make a new future. Shame exists to change our behavior to something we know is a better path. Your fetish is your fetish, your porn habits are your porn habits, your quirks are your quirks. You had your reasons for what you were doing and it's ok to forgive yourself.

If you have started walking that better path, you just set that burden of shame down so you can walk faster! Good luck.

Oh, and the final thing is that you need to encourage your wife to take the lead on her healing. You lead the fixing of your addiction, she leads the fixing of her betrayal. She can't fix you, you can't fix her.

 

You know.... it feels weird to relate to this because I've mostly until this relationship been a pretty sexually open sort of person, I've had dozens of random sex partners male and female and had no problem having sex just casually, until I was with my current partner. I tried it out when we first started being intimate and had no problem letting go of my other sex partner, then over a year later he showed signs of jealousy which really made me uncomfortable and I tried once more having casual sex outside that relationship, and basically confirmed my disinterest in keeping the relationship unofficial.

Now, years later, its still the only form of betrayal I have committed but I have paid thousands of times over by feeling completely rejected, used, replaced and unable to match his fantasy women, which are the same ethnic group that outpopulates me in the city we live in. Literally he could go to the grocery store and meet five women that he gets off to. I hate feeling like a possessive lover, its never been my style, never! I just feel so ugly these days I can't imagine having a one night stand that doesn't end in tears or disrupted by body image fears.

 

Forgot to mention that I was comingb from a place of not confusing love with sex, but now I find sex so vulnerable that it would definitely only be something I could do with a person I love and hopefully trust. Right now I don't trust anyone so I've decided to stop having sex recently because my so has not gotten serious about recovery and appears to put more effort into deceiving or usingb me so I can't enjoy it wit hout terrible thoughts running through my head. Also seems to have warped my mind in other ways that border on disturbing when it comes to my own sexual fantasies. It's almost like spreading illness.

 

Omg you are me.

 

Yes, my own sexual fantasies and my mind! It is spreading an illness...

 

Sounds like we may need a discussion on the topic....but I have not gotten my thoughts on it organized enough nor have I yet completely accepted / gotten used to this new way of coping with pain.