Confused and hurt

This is my 1st post here so I’ll try and explain without writing a novel!!! I’ve been married to my husband 22 years (our anniversary is this Friday) and we have been together 24 years. Throughout our whole marriage our sex drives have been at opposite ends of the scale. I have a high Sex drive and he (or so I believed) had a very low Sex drive. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve cried myself to sleep feeling unwanted and unloved. The same cycle would happen. Months would go by with no intimacy and I would end up having a breakdown and then my husband would promise to try harder and on some
Occasions would have sex
With me. However it always felt like he was doing it as I had a breakdown and to try and placate me for a few months. Throughout our marriage I have suppressed my sex drive and although deeply upset and depressed about this I decided that I loved my husband and wanted to stay with him so sacrificed my feelings and sexual wants for the sake of our marriage. This cycle has continued throughout. The longest period being over 2 years without any intimacy. I always felt there was something not quite right but my husband insisted there was nothing wrong he loved me but just didn’t have much of a sex drive. I even went to the lengths of paying for a private test to check his testosterone which came back as normal which upset me further as if his testosterone was ok then the lack of sex must of been my fault. D-Day was 19th December 2018! I was cleaning up and found and old phone but thought it was weird that it was charged. So I looked into it and found pages and pages of porn with the majority of it being shemale porn! I thought I was going to pass out, my whole life upended and I felt the blood rush and pain. I called him home from work and we calmly talked about my discovery. He then admitted he had been using porn and masturbation as a form of escape from
Daily life and that shemale porn was his preference but said he was definitely not gay or bisexual. All of this just floored me and I cried and cried. I was choking trying to get my breath it was like my whole marriage was a lie and all those nights he knew I was crying feeling unloved and all the time he lied to my face saying he just had a low Sex drive but all these years he has been watching porn and masturbating instead of wanting to have Sex with a willing and waiting wife. I just can’t get my head around it. But at this point I told him I would love and support him through his recovery. I went with him to our gp who put him on antidepressants and he joined the waiting list for therapy. After getting over the initial shock I was feeling hopeful that we could sort this and our marriage out. In february he started a 6 week course of counselling. He mainly
Worked on his upbringing. He’s always said that his life hasn’t bothered him but I knew it had as he is an extremely closed person. He was adopted and then his adoptive parents divorced and his mum wasn’t a loving parent. We then found his birth mother who welcomed him with open arms and then within that year moved to a different country and didn’t even tell him. So I know and he now knows he has a lot of issues about abandonment and loving and caring relationships. Anyways so his therapy really only touched on all of this. I asked him to have more sessions as I don’t believe you can unpick almost 50 years in 6 weeks. But he was adamant he was ok and that he was healing and that he was completely clean. I wanted to believe this, I really did but I had this nagging feeling in my gut as although he had attended 6 weeks of counselling nothing at all had changed with us as a couple in fact he was more distant than usual. Fast forward to the end of April. The phone I originally found (and had put in the lounge) had suddenly appeared in the bedroom again. So naturally I looked and I found loads more porn sites but even worse he had gone onto live web cams and personal escorts. All shemales and all in our town!!!! This hit me more than D-Day. So I sat with this while he was at work and when he came home I immediately confronted him with this. He denied looking at all of this and insisted that these searches were from before D-Day. I didn’t believe him and stayed at a friends over night. The next 2 days he sent me loads of texts promising me with all his heart and soul that he hadn’t accessed these and that all I had discovered was from before D-Day. He kept saying since D-Day he’s been totally clean and has not even had the urge to use porn or masturbate. He said he loved me more than anything and seeing me so heartbroken and destroyed in December he had done anything and everything to stop his addiction and remain clean. I still couldn’t trust him as I was sure the sites I found on D-Day did not contain local shemale escort sites or live cams. The following day I googled how to search history’s but with the dates. So while he was in the shower I took his phone and searched. As I had feared all the latest sites had been accessed the previous week. I really kicked off at him. I had the phone in front of his face with the evidence and dates. He first denied it and said he couldn’t understand why it was showing these sites had been accessed the previous week as he hadn’t done anything since December, he then said he must have accessed them but didn’t realise he was doing it!!! Then the last excuse was that he did access these sites but he was doing it to test if he was cured! I didn’t accept that excuse and yelled at him if he was just checking he was cured they why the hell did he access numerous pages and shemales every single day??!!!!! Again I walked out and spent the night at a friends. The next following days were a bit of a blur I have never been so hurt and betrayed in my whole life. How could he do all this after seeing the state I was in December and then lie lie lie to my face.
Since all of this we are still together. I am in counselling and he has been attending Sex addicts anonymous. However his commitment has wavered he makes excuses to not go to the meetings and as usual he doesn’t speak to me or open up about anything. He constantly insists he is clean and doesn’t even think about porn anymore! I cannot get past this. My gut (like before) is telling me not to trust or believe him but at the same time I want our marriage to work. I’ve checked his phone a couple of times but can’t find anything but although neither of us are really tech savvy, like I found out how to search he can just as easily find how to delete and hide history. So just because I haven’t got any evidence I still don’t believe he is clean. So we are at check mate. He says he’s clean and I don’t believe him. I need hard evidence for him to admit he’s still using as he will constantly
Deny he’s using porn. Nothing has changed in our relationship we are still as distant there has still been no sex (almost 3 years now) and although I can’t imagine life without him I am so ill because of this. I’ve had my bipolar meds doubled, my hair is falling out, I’ve lost over 2 stone in weight and this week alone I’ve had 2 nights of absolutely no sleep. Like I’ve said we’ve been together 24 years we have a 21 year old daughter (who lives with her boyfriend) and a 16 year old son who has autism, Tourette’s and adhd, so our lives are not simple and calm in any sense but I can’t keep living like this but at the same time can’t imagine life without him. I desperately need advice and help........ please. X

 

Thank you for your reply. Even my counsellor has told me to trust my gut and it was certainly right between D-Day In December and D-Day 2 in April. And now it’s telling me
Hub is still using. I checked his phone again today and still found nothing even tho my gut and his actions tell me otherwise. Like I said when he said he has reached rock bottom in April he agreed to be totally accountable to me. I told him even if he relapsed he has to tell me. As in all of this like many other partners it’s the lies and betrayal that hurts the most. I don’t think I’ll ever believe him and I don’t think he would ever admit to not being clean. So I’m kinda in a catch 22. I want our marriage to work but I don’t believe or trust him. And I don’t know really what he can do to show he has quit. Some partners say that the porn addict will be much more affectionate, intimate and show more Interest in the relationship as a whole. I haven’t had sex with my husband for almost 3 years and I’m not sure especially at the moment I could bring myself to be that intimate with him. So I can’t use that to indicate if he is clean or not. When I hugged and kissed (a little peck) him In July he was on the verge of tears that I had actually got close and touched him. (I was going away for a few days to sort some family issues out) and since then we have pecked goodnight and when he goes to work and returns home. I’m surprised with myself in that I don’t really feel anything, certainly not a spark or even a warm feeling. I just feel kinda numb. So because of this fact I wonder if I will ever feel comfortable in our relationship. It’s just so hard not being able to connect with him. And he’s not really invested any time into the marriage or family
Life. So I’m just so confused and deeply hurt that even if he is telling the truth and is clean will I ever get through this.