I Don’t Want to Talk to my Wife About This

Firstly, just wanted to check, are you actually 73? Not that it matters but I'm coming at it from the perspective of someone in their mid 20's.

I was in the same situation with my wife in terms of losing interest. She too knew about my problem and was under the impression that I was clean. She knew something was wrong and directly accused me of having relapsed multiple times and I lied and gaslit her. I spent a long time trying to quit without telling her and was completely unsuccessful. I kept telling myself if I just got clean it wouldnt matter if I told her or not, but on my own I couldn't do it.

You are saying that telling her would hurt her but in reality what you are doing now is hurting her and betraying her trust in you. All that not telling her does is allow you to lie to yourself that you are protecting her but in reality you are just protecting yourself.

It took me a long time for me to accept that and I think it's definitely something I think you should think about. This addiction thrives on secrecy and by keeping your recovery secret you are much more likely to fail.

Also by telling her you are showing her that you respect her. The trust is damaged in my relationship but she already knew I was lying about something. What I've gained is a really strong source of accountability and after being clean for nearly a year my relationship is almost back to where it was when we first got together.

Best of luck on your journey!

 

Do you understand why the lying is worse than the porn? Because she knows that you are lying, but she wants so badly to believe you, that she betrays her gut feelings, her truth. You betray her not just with porn but with trust. You steal her ability to trust herself. This causes trauma on a daily basis. It doesn’t seem like it, but the body knows. You now have her lying to herself because she believes you, trusts you, loves you, and wants so badly for this to not be part of her life. If you doubt this, read the so journals. Read how they know something is wrong but don’t have proof or know what, until they accidentally stumble on something. That is far, far worse than a man who confesses and strives for recovery.

 

wow, lucky to get those two replies! just want to point out that your thread managed to hit the jackpot as far as quality wisdom from both perspectives. james and psalm, both of whom have seen the full range of the reality of this addiction and the attainability of recovery in a relationship. not only that, but you have a large span of generations between them, so you really are getting a solid piece of key clarity here.

 

If you read anything in the SO section, time and time again lying is the #1 thing that SOs say is most difficult to get over. Keeping it secret is a lie, using it is a secret—you see the downward spiral that happens.

Don’t avoid intimacy—it will only fuel your desire to PMO. Lack of connection is a major cause of addiction. And her putting on a little weight should deter you from connecting. You married the woman: mind soul and body.

 

I was caught once looking at porn by my wife, but in my case, I was in a chatroom discussing her and a fantasy of watching her with other men. She initially thought I was chatting with a woman and having an affair. I decided to come clean and tell her about this fantasy. Not that I thought she would say "let's go find a guy" but I did think maybe we could fantasize together. That went over like a ton of bricks and she was sure I was showing pictures of her to men. (For the record, never once did I do that) I promised her I would never do it again and after a few weeks of trying, I went back to my chatrooms. That was about two years ago or so. Two weeks ago, I met someone who introduced me to this site and I must say it has helped me tremendously and, so far, those urges to go to any porn site have waned. Have I told my wife? No. Do I plan on it? In my case, no. Is that right? maybe yes, maybe no, but I do feel as if I'm in a last straw scenario and I don't want anything to screw that up. I'm dedicated to beating this.

I do relate to what you are saying about your wife and your attraction to her. I love my wife - adore her - but she has put on a great deal of weight and shows little interest to take it off. Combine it with a low sex drive and it makes it very difficult at times. I take very good care of myself personally and eat healthy as well so it can be hard. I will say, however, that I used her low sex drive as justification for using porn. That led to more porn, and then more porn.

What I have worked on understanding is that as my addiction increased, how I looked at my wife changed as well. I became resentful that she wasn't sex crazed or into various fetishes. I'd become more distant to her because of this, and then become upset that she wasn't attracted to me.

While I do feel her sex drive is low, and while she has put on that weight, I realized I need to take the responsibility of what I have done to our relationship. I guess what my point is, if you haven't already, try to look at what has changed for the negative in you that you can work on. In (almost) two weeks I've noticed some changes in myself that I did not expect and I look forward to more. Be confident. You can do this.

 

It's also quite possible that the cause of her weight gain and low drive is your infidelity with porn. For some SOs betrayal trauma can really mess with eating - either overindulging to soothe or to the point of starving themselves to try to look better. Assuming I've gotten to the bottom of truth with my husband, he's barely done anything compared to others and yet I'm destroyed - struggling to get through the days, struggling to care for our kids at the level I used to. I probably would have starved myself to nothing but I ended up pregnant and had to suck it up and cope for my child. Second, through all of our attempts to get better, my husband has come to the realization that because he was not sharing with me, was not coming to me emotionally, was withholding himself from me in every way but the physical, *he* created in me what appeared to be a low drive. I had no idea how much he was keeping back from me and now much it was affecting me. I just knew that I was having hardly any urge to be with him to the point that I wondered if I even maybe was more attracted to women than to men. But we've noticed in the past year that even when we have a discussion about something horrible, that hurts me so badly, but where we are talking and he's finally pouring out his heart to me, I all of a sudden want to be with him with a drive I have never had in all our years together.

I'm not saying any of this to be mean, just to straight talk in case it is helpful. I could see myself being very depressed and resentful of a spouse who could create all this time to take care of himself AND treat himself to porn all the time to the point that it might screw with the ability to take care of myself. I would just suggest to take the time to really step back and see how your actions could be related to causing or contributing to two things she probably feels very badly about.

 

I completely agree that it is the fault of the user, not the partner. There is no doubt in this and it is really affirming to read it from someone trying to recover/recovered.

My husband and I still have a lot of healing to do. A lot. We've at least made some major realizations into some of the reasons why his choices created loops that made him really damage me and our marriage. And he's been horrified each time he realizes that he caused most of the "problems" he was having me that he then used to justify doing things. I still don't know how I'm going to heal from it all even with him doing what he is.

 

I'm not at all trying to take away the impact of my behavior on my wife. I know that for years I put the blame solely on her shoulders but it has really been recently that I've learned to accept my part. I was just trying to state my experiences and how I've started to look at them in a fresh light. I greatly appreciate your insight and don't think you're being mean at all!

 

Amazing how much damage this inflicts on the spouse. In my case the damage literally started in our honeymoon, didn’t discover the problem for 5 years and even then there just wasn’t any knowledge or help at that time for this addiction. Just talking to my csat yesterday that some of the fracture to attachment can never be fully healed. She said this realization is not what most betrayed wives want to hear. They want to be assured that it can be healed. However, most times this is not the case. Your relationship can be better, it can survive. I, for one, will never completely 100% trust my husband like I did when we first married. However, I now 100% trust myself! After 28 years of marriage, I know how to believe completely in my gut. Honestly, that feels pretty damn good. I also think, that because I can trust myself, I feel safe in my relationship with my husband. He’s doing the work to stay clean, but more importantly, I have done the work to make myself safe. I couldn’t have done it if I still didn’t know what the problem was. His last relapse really cemented how accurate my gut is.

 

Good, I was worried as I typed that it was going to read as critical in a mean way instead of in the spirit of being helpful. I just really want partners to hear how damaging this can be, and how damaging in a way that might not be easily seen at first, or that we see the initial trauma but then don't realize that the SO is still dealing with it. Even with all the progress we've made, we had a night about a month ago where I got triggered by something, then the kids and their chaos made it even worse and I started not coping. And then I flipped out seeing my husband be fine in the moment while I was breaking down, I flipped out so badly that I started crying and screaming that it wasn't fair that he was fine and I was a shell of a person and I slapped him (something I think I've only done a handful of times and I am not pleased that I did). All it took was a small trigger plus some extra kindling from life and I was back in trauma mode to the core. So we are continuing to work through me understanding all his reasons and it means going through some really dark and hurtful things.

 

Have you tried EMDR? Hugely successful in dealing with trauma! Highly recommend it

 

You definitely should tell. You will never have a full life until you can express yourself fully. It just isn't possible. Having tried both ways, the truth must be told. But you may want to seek professional help. Oftentimes the disclosure can be as or more painful than the content.

 

I think we all need to remember that even the "perfect" relationships are far from a fairytale. I always try to remember that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. It's when we stop carrying about our relationships that we truly have a problem.