Exactly. When a wife cheated on her husband, she should never tell him. That would ruin their relationship.The less you share with your SO, the better.
Exactly. When a wife cheated on her husband, she should never tell him. That would ruin their relationship.The less you share with your SO, the better.
Is she seeing a therapist as well? Does she have support? I’m 5 years into my husband working recovery, I still get angry. Because this is worse than if you died. If you died she could grieve, remember good times fondly. Believe she was deeply wanted and loved. With this, you grieve the loss but you honestly feel like everything was a lie- every happy moment, every “I love you, or you’re beautiful” has now become a lie. You no longer feel like you even mattered. So, the longer you lied, the harder it is. Get Worthy of Her trust, and Helping Her Heal. Both are great to go through with her! It gets easier if you are honest, but it takes a lot of work and time.
It is too early. It takes a lot of time to heal. Few weeks is too little.She does have a therapist and we're in a program but it's slow going and it seems really light on help for traumatized spouses in the early going. The focus right now is on me doing a full disclosure. Meanwhile, she's pain shopping and hyper-fixating with disclosure still over 2 weeks away. I have completely owned that this is my fault she is going through this pain. I wish it was just about me getting sober and using strategies but she needs support too. But she's very reluctant to talk to other people and only sees her therapist every 2 weeks.
Exactly. When a wife cheated on her husband, she should never tell him. That would ruin their relationship.
I wish it was just about me getting sober and using strategies but she needs support too.
What do you mean by everything? Some people on this site are overly broad with how they define "porn addiction". To me porn means recorded videos and images. Other people seem to conflate "porn" as including happy ending massage parlours, hookup sites, prostitutes, and affairs.... It's crazy. I just read a post from another dude and I assumed he was struggling with porn when it turns out he's married (to a woman) and having anonymous sex with men!Everything came out about a month ago
How did that happen? Why didn't you discuss porn use before marriage? If porn use is important to you why did you marry someone who can be traumatized if you watch porn?I seriously traumatized my wife with this
How did you determine you are an "addict". Again this term is too broadly used in my opinion.addictive actions
Funny, I use a boat analogy as well. Only it’s you both get married and your boat is the marriage, you both row towards destinations. You see other couples rowing and they are getting to their destinations, but you keep floundering.Water gets in the boat from life’s storms which you both expected but you both bail it out. Except the water keeps filling faster than you can bail and the wife doesn’t know why. Until one day she looks over and sees her husband drilling holes in the bottom of the boat instead of bailing. That’s the betrayal. While she has been trying to keep the boat ( marriage) afloat and moving forward, he has been actively destroying it ( drilling holes).I know you’re being sarcastic, but I stand by the advice I and other commenters have given out of experience.
Think of it like this. You’re in a boat with a leak in it (your marriage). You know where the leak is (your addiction). Some water (feelings of betrayal) has already gotten in the boat. You can either spend your time removing the water or fixing the leak. Which is the logical thing to focus on?
Of course you are going to fix the leak first.
I think it’s great you guys are getting counseling. Keep doing that. If you do not address your addiction NOW, you will keep on betraying her and making these problems worse. On this site I believe you can find what you need to handle that IF you’re serious. But she’s right. It will take time. I wish you well!
Really great post. Disclosure really should not be trickled out, but also the addict needs some sobriety before he disclosed all as well, but the partner is terrified of what’s happening and needs to know now! It’s all a mess. It’s also why, if the addict can get some sobriety, then disclose or confess rather than be discovered the relationship does better. Rarely happens that way, most get “ caught” repeatedly until the partner is just done. Great point too about the financial infidelity/abuse. I’ve always felt if my husband had spent money on this, I wouldn’t just divorce him, I’d be sure everyone knew why. I worked hard to be financially well off. That would’ve been another knife to my heart.@NWRebooter,
@True-Self makes a good point and one I was trying to decide if I should say anything or not. And it's something I think could make this guided disclosure a lot worse off rather than better.
If you have done anything other than watch P videos, I wouldn't wait to tell her. (I'm assuming the p video part is very much in the light by now). Tell her ASAP, I think it just makes things worse if there continues to be more things like that which surface over a drawn out period. Try and get ahead of it and don't wait for it to be brought up in a session.
I think this also applies to things like chatrooms or if you spent money on sites. Spending money, on something like OF adds another layer to the betrayal because it adds a form of financial infidelity which is damaging all on its own. Chatting with a real person I think does too because it's a more connected form of P interacting with a real person.
I also think coming out on things like this outside the session will be good for her if it's something that's needed. Otherwise she'll get to the point (maybe already is) where she thinks what's the next thing I'm going to find out every time you walk into therapy together.
I've been roasted on this site before about suggesting someone wait 90 days before adding in how you feel. Like if you are struggling with attraction towards your wife. But i think it's worth noting when it comes to your feelings, like the reasons why you used P, stress, anxiety whatever it may be. I think you will be able to articulate that much better after 90 days. You will have a better grip on things once you've taken that time. I know this because I experienced it myself. By then you have such a better grasp of your specific addictive patterns and cycles. An example could be... the only reason I use P is because she doesn't want sex enough. It's hard to extrapolate out the real feeling (that you desire more intimacy) with the addiction of compulsively acting out with P. I promise you'll feel much different about it after 90 days than you will today. So in my opinion take time to work through that stuff before bringing it up.
Another aspect of this is that there really is no excuse your wife is going to accept. And often when you try and express a feeling it comes off as an excuse. I've listened a lot recently to a podcast on BTR.org (Betrayal Trauma Recovery) that talks about this period where a betrayed spouse just needs to protect themselves from more emotional damage. I think that is a natural bodily response and a reasonable one. When you bring up your reasons for using, she's not likely going to be in a place where she's able to receive it. And that causes not only damage for her but also for you. These are times where her hurling insults at you can do a lot of damage to the relationship. So my opinion is, do a lot of introspection during this part of your recovery. It's probably the most important thing you can do.
The disclosure to me is more about facts, what you did specifically. The longer and more drawn out that process is I think the worse off things will be in the short term.
And often when you try and express a feeling it comes off as an excuse.
I know you’re being sarcastic, but I stand by the advice I and other commenters have given out of experience.
Yes, it was sarcasticHow can you know that?
@NWRebooter,
@True-Self makes a good point and one I was trying to decide if I should say anything or not. And it's something I think could make this guided disclosure a lot worse off rather than better.
If you have done anything other than watch P videos, I wouldn't wait to tell her. (I'm assuming the p video part is very much in the light by now). Tell her ASAP, I think it just makes things worse if there continues to be more things like that which surface over a drawn out period. Try and get ahead of it and don't wait for it to be brought up in a session.
I think this also applies to things like chatrooms or if you spent money on sites. Spending money, on something like OF adds another layer to the betrayal because it adds a form of financial infidelity which is damaging all on its own. Chatting with a real person I think does too because it's a more connected form of P interacting with a real person.
I also think coming out on things like this outside the session will be good for her if it's something that's needed. Otherwise she'll get to the point (maybe already is) where she thinks what's the next thing I'm going to find out every time you walk into therapy together.
I've been roasted on this site before about suggesting someone wait 90 days before adding in how you feel. Like if you are struggling with attraction towards your wife. But i think it's worth noting when it comes to your feelings, like the reasons why you used P, stress, anxiety whatever it may be. I think you will be able to articulate that much better after 90 days. You will have a better grip on things once you've taken that time. I know this because I experienced it myself. By then you have such a better grasp of your specific addictive patterns and cycles. An example could be... the only reason I use P is because she doesn't want sex enough. It's hard to extrapolate out the real feeling (that you desire more intimacy) with the addiction of compulsively acting out with P. I promise you'll feel much different about it after 90 days than you will today. So in my opinion take time to work through that stuff before bringing it up.
Another aspect of this is that there really is no excuse your wife is going to accept. And often when you try and express a feeling it comes off as an excuse. I've listened a lot recently to a podcast on BTR.org (Betrayal Trauma Recovery) that talks about this period where a betrayed spouse just needs to protect themselves from more emotional damage. I think that is a natural bodily response and a reasonable one. When you bring up your reasons for using, she's not likely going to be in a place where she's able to receive it. And that causes not only damage for her but also for you. These are times where her hurling insults at you can do a lot of damage to the relationship. So my opinion is, do a lot of introspection during this part of your recovery. It's probably the most important thing you can do.
The disclosure to me is more about facts, what you did specifically. The longer and more drawn out that process is I think the worse off things will be.
Yes, it was sarcastic![]()
That the trouble with the internet - you can't tell if someone is being serious or not. I actually thought you were being serious and that it was a bit weird you would think that. Then I thought maybe you were trolling.
What does the therapist say about her hitting you?
I forgot to bring it up. I can't imagine he would have supported that.I'd like to know the answer to this too, I totally missed this point on the first read
Has she ever hit you before? Did she apologize? Betrayal trauma damages the brain and makes it hard to regulate emotions. If this has been something she has done in the past it would probably be better if you both separated until she can work through the trauma and learn to ground herself and regulateI forgot to bring it up. I can't imagine he would have supported that.
It probably would have been a bad move to bring it up at that point in time because she would have felt like I was "telling" on her and it would have pitted her against the therapist and I. We were kind of in a better place going in there and I didn't want to mess with that. If it becomes a pattern (the hitting) then I will definitely be bringing it up.
So she became violent after discovery/disclosure? You understand why? Betrayal trauma causes brain damage. She needs help to mitigate it in the same way you need help with your addiction. She is basically responding from her amygdala and cannot regulate until she learns how( this is why she won’t just “ get better” with time). It doesn’t make what she did ok, but if you don’t understand she needs help it will continue.Once before since this all began about 2 months ago. She did apologize.