I keep hurting my wife

A few weeks ago I was almost 480 days into my recovery, PM free, and had not any major slip ups. Then I managed to relapse by looking at NSFW images, engaging in deviant behaviour and lying about it. I told myself that I had let my guard down and that I couldn't let it happen again, only to do pretty much the exact same thing yesterday. No M was involved either time and the images were fairly softcore, not that it matters, but I think the worst part is the deception.

My wife was devastated when I first told her about how I had been using P behind her back for years and lying about it. She knew I had an addiction but had thought I was clean for years. She gave me a second chance providing I became an active member of nofap and was committed to my recovery. Things were going so well that we decided to start a family together and she's currently 5 months pregnant. She was actually starting to trust me again before I relapsed the first time and it really hurt her to have that trust damaged again. In the three weeks since then I'd provided her a lot of support with her pregnancy and we were seemingly back on track but then I went and ruined things again.

She's seriously considering her options right now and not sure why she should stay. I care a lot about her and want to be a good husband to her and a good father to my child. Yet I keep on managing to hurt her and I don't know what to do.

Things aren't ideal right now. We both have a lot of stress with work, my wife is pregnant and still dealing with the trauma from previous losses. We haven't been having sex for the duration of the pregnancy because my wife is worried about it hurting the baby. I admit I've found that frustrating at times but it's no excuse to relapse. I just know that I can't keep hurting her like this.

Does anyone have any advice on getting back on track with recovery after losing focus or advice on where we should go from here with our relationship?

 

Thank you for the reply. I'm aware of the science behind it and understand where you are coming from. However, my when my wife experienced her first loss it started a few hours after us having sex. She has a lot of associated trauma regarding that and the thought of it makes her deeply uncomfortable. She has recurring nightmares about us having sex and then losing the baby.

I feel like I can't really blame this for my relapses. I should be able to abstain from sexual contact without letting myself fall back into bad habits.

Up until my first relapse she was giving me handjobs semi-regularly. I struggled with this as I'd tried to shift the focus of sex away from O throughout the first part of my recovery and it felt like this was just a way to give me an O. I talked a lot about this to my wife but I was never fully convinced that it wasn't more than just about keeping me from getting grumpy. I feel overall it led me to having increasingly more sexual thoughts which I didn't keep in check and eventually led to the relapse.

I had multiple chances to catch myself and talk to my wife about it which I failed to do.

 

Thanks for the reply. My wife has set up some more blockers today but I know it's up to me to have the willpower to not need them. This was the first time that I actually hit the blockers that were in place and then tried to get around them.

I share a lot in my journal which I post everyday and I've built up a support network on here, though I've struggled as lots of people I've known have dropped away completely. I do feel like my commitment has dropped off so I think it would be good for me to throw myself back into things and engage with the community more.

 

Thanks for the reply.

In terms of steps I didn't take, I had multiple chances to talk to my wife about what I was doing/thinking and instead just kept on letting myself fall back deeper.

I think a lot of my rationalisation was based on curiosity. I know that this was a poor rationalisation and I should have known the moment that I started opening up incognito tabs that I was doing something wrong. I didn't stop to think about the consequences of my actions and just went with it. I didn't feel consciously aroused by what I was looking at but I know deep down I was getting a perverse high from it.

I got through my first streak having clearly defined rules and boundaries. I didn't ever open an incognito tab and I didn't ever test any of the blockers that were in place. I felt really mentally committed to my recovery and I've felt that slipping recently.

From march last year I've been working from home with my wife, which really helped keep me accountable. In September my wife found out she was pregnant, went back to work and we also haven't had sex since then. I'm certainly not blaming my wife but I do think that it all contributed to me getting to a mental state where I allowed myself to relapse.

 

I'm sorry but I completely disagree with your post. Being a strong man is not about hiding your weakness and deceiving your partner.

In my opinion it shows far more strength to admit my faults and be open with my wife. I could have just tried to ignore what had happened but if I did I wouldn't have been able to move forward with a clean conscience. I respect my wife and think she deserves to know the truth so she can make her own mind up about what kind of man I am.

 

Sorry to hear that you and your wife also experienced losses. My wife hasn't been on any kind of hormones for 6 years but she does have endometriosis. Her symptoms were a lot better in the months between her first and second miscarriages and this pregnancy, which is going well so far. We are both scientists and understand that it should be fine but emotions win in this case.

I feel very aroused by my wife a lot of the time and if I want to have sex with her. I'm not going to push for that though as I know who deep the trauma is for her. If we did have sex and something did then go wrong that would probably make everything so much worse.

In addition to the endometriosis she also has vaginismus both of which can make sex painful for her. It would most likely end up being very uncomfortable for her and she would be terrified throughout.

Anytime I even try to touch my wife downstairs she panics and her head is filled with fear. She's made it very clear that she doesn't want to have sex and I need to respect that. My actions over the last few weeks have hardly made her want to be intimate with me anyway so I need to commit to doing hard mode for the time being.

 

Thanks for the reply. My wife is currently having counselling for a few different reasons and I think it's helping. I hope things will get a lot easier after the end of the pregnancy.

Talking about intimacy is something I've always struggled with and over the past couple of days I've realised that it definitely played a role in my relapses and deception. I tend to internalise sexual thoughts rather than being open about them and this just leads to frustration and allows deviant thoughts to go mostly unchallenged.

I've been talking a lot with my wife and I think we have a better understanding of how things will be going forward.

 

Thanks Reverent, I appreciate the support and it's good to know someone gets it. It can be difficult finding people who properly understand what's going on at the moment.

Being authentic and genuine was a big reason why my wife liked me so much when we met. I messed that up by relapsing in my addiction and hiding it for years but I've actually started to realise how much more open I need to be with her to make good progress with my recovery and in our relationship.

 

It wasn't an issue before she got pregnant. The biggest trauma she's facing at the moment is from her miscarriages and she wants to do everything in her power to avoid that from happening in her current pregnancy. She has a lot of ptsd regarding what she went through and still experiences flashbacks and nightmares about it.

My wife was abused as a child, both by her parents and her sister. It was mostly emotional/physical but there were a few times that turned to borderline sexual abuse, particularly from her sister. We've talked a lot about all of this over the years and my wife has been very open about her experiences with me. It's part of the reason why she's having counselling at the moment.

There have been a few times during her pregnancy where we have been mutually intimate but my wife very much needed to feel comfortable and if she feels at all scared we stop.

I think the far bigger issues here are my lack of communication regarding my addiction and how I've dealt with the situation. Continuing down this road of thinking just feels like it will blame my wife for what's happened. Regardless of the situation there is always a choice in how to deal with it and falling back into my addiction was definitely the wrong one.