Decline in Intimacy and Sex

I've also had issues with ED and DE due to my P use. To begin with things were great and we had sex regularly as both our libidos were high. As I fell deeper into PA my libido dropped. I stopped initiating. I stopped acting like I was attracted to her.

In my head I thought things were going well between us. We did still spend a lot of time talking, we were on the surface still very close. She knew things were wrong though, even though I was hiding my P use from her. I wasn't fully committed to her, I was choosing P over her. Over time I slowly eroded her confidence and self worth. She stopped trying to initiate because she felt like when we did have sex all I was doing was using her as a sleeve and that our relationship was a sham. In addition, when we did have sex it often did hurt her in part due to how long it had been (she has vaginismus, which is an involuntary tightening of the vagina upon penetration and I think this is partly a psychological response).

My advice would be to truly analyse your relationship from an outside perspective. Are you truly committed to your partner or are you just going through the motions? Are you doing everything you can to make her feel loved and wanted?

When you say you've talked to her about it, how did the conversation go? What do you mean by saying she understands?

You've also got to look at it from her perspective. She's in a relationship with a PA. She hasn't done anything wrong, yet she is still expected to forgive you and be intimate with you?

My final point is that you cannot let your relationship issues dictate your journey to get clean of P. You have to do this for yourself. If your partner isn't interested that doesn't give you any excuse to go backward. If she left you what would you do, you wouldn't be getting any sex, would you just fall back into using P? Be committed, get yourself clean and work on being a better person. I wish you the best of luck with enough time and effort your relationship might recover.

 

Did she know about your PA before? Has she always known about your addiction?
Is she suffering from betrayal trauma because of your actions? Did she get to a point where she gave up because its really, really hurtful to a woman to feel like she cant satisfy her man? To know that other women on a screen do it for him but she does not? It hurts her deeply. My advise would be to get clean, actively recover, prove to her in other ways how much she means to you as well. Forget the sex as priority, choose romance and intimacy instead and hopefully in time the sex will come. But to be honest, a dry period for a full reboot will probably benefit you anyway. The fact that she is still by your side now, still loving you, without the committed, active, fulfilling sex life that she has deserved right from the start of the relationship tells me she wants it to work.
If she is hurting, has she thought about therapy for herself?

 

This here James is your crytonite! The fact you have realised this for yourself, this is the bit so many PA's seem to fail to see. Usually because they are still so wrapped up in their addiction they are still so self absorbed.
My partner for example struggled for a long time with understanding that for 16 years I had stuck by him through all of his ups and downs libido wise through his addiction, his acting out in the bedroom with me, his lack of attention out of the bedroom etc. Yet expected it all to go back to "normal" immediately, and the fact that I was struggling and needed more intimate connection (I did not want to be just a fuck toy anymore), to him meant I did not love him. He failed to remember that if I did not love him, I would not have still been there trying to help him after being treated so badly. I would have left a long time ago. Because even though I did not know about the PA until 7 months ago, I had known for 10 years + it was not normal.
And your right, we haven't done anything wrong. And didn't deserve the treatment we have had. But all we really want is for our men to get better, because we really do love them. And when we push you away, its not because we don't love you. Its because we do. Because if we didn't, we wouldn't be hurting would we?

 

You definitely seem to understand what needs to be done, which is half the challenge. I know it is difficult to put these things into practice and it's something I am still very much having to work on. Try to initiate small bits of physical contact like a hug or a gentle touch on the shoulder. Offer to give her a massage. Give her a sincere compliment about her looks. Show her how much she means to you and be the man she fell in love with. Its going to take a long time and it's not going to be easy but if she means that much to you it will definitely be worth it.

 

Hi bms, thanks for the support. I only realised a lot of this after several very long and emotional conversations with my wife. One of the things that keeps me going, as I'm dealing with the struggles of going PMO free is knowing that she has already been dealing with this. She had to deal with the celibacy and lack of intimacy with no outlet and she didn't even have a choice in the matter.

When I was hiding my addiction and still using P, it was very easy for me to ignore the consequences of my actions. I was incredibly selfish and it's only now that I'm starting to fully come to terms with that. I think reading not just the stories of other addicts but the stories of SO's is incredibly important in the recovery process.

It was definitely difficult feeling the hate from my wife when I told her about my PA. I know that the intensity of that feeling is mainly due to the intensity of the love that she once felt for me. If that had never been there in the first place then I don't think she would even have considered trying to help me through this or giving me a chance to get better. I know it's going to take an awful lot of time to make things anywhere close to being right again.

Good luck to you and your husband! I hope he is treating you better