New Journey, New Territory: My Support Story

Good morning other supporters!

I wanted to take some time to post on here a collective of what has been happening to me this last month. And let me be the first to say that it is a doozy, which I think that many of you will understand. This has been weighing on my heart lately, and I feel that I need to get connected with others who can help me to understand what is happening and perhaps offer advice from success.

This all started a month ago, when deep issues within my relationship with my boyfriend came to light. We had just cleared the hurtle of committing to each other and creating our 'life plan', aka engagement, marriage, kids, the works, etc. We have lived together for the last almost year-ish, with my little 5 year old son. We had a good foundation going on with the plan, and things were clear. But then the first issue that came along was when my boyfriend brought up a pre-nup, and how he wanted one. I will be the first to very strongly say, when I get married, I will not have a pre-nup. And here is my reasoning, I was married before, and it was an abusive relationship. We were together for a total of 10 year (5 dating/5 married), had a child, and things were not good. But I escaped my situation with him, and I learned from it. I learned that when you get together with a partner, there are MANY aspects that should match to create a strong foundation that can be build upon. And I felt that after my boyfriend and I have talked time and time again, and agreed on these different topics, that we were golden! I understand the notion of a pre-nup, but to me it is setting up for divorce, and not having each partner give their full support and commitment to the relationship, and to each other. This was the starting point to where many other issues came up, after discussion on the topic, it came to light that my boyfriend has abandonment issues and relationship security issues. He also confessed that he had a porn/masturbation addiction, where it consumed him 4-6 times everyday. This led to him being displeased with our sex life. While I agree that we could always try something new, and that it would be fun to be more adventurous, he was asking for the fantasy that he desired from watching porn, which is not real. It also confused his body, where he admitted that his mind and heart thought I was pretty/beautiful, but his body did not respond to me in that way, he was not sexually attracted to me. That was my lowest day throughout this whole ordeal, to feel undesired, betrayed, and untrusted, and I was shattered. But at that lowest moment, it brought both of us to Jesus, which I am thankful for.

My situation now is tough, and I continually pray 80% of everyday to find strength to get through this. I pray that my boyfriend has strength against the temptation, and that his heart will be healed. Because just the other day, when he was 6 days into the path of freeing himself from porn and masturbation, he is getting hit very hard. He confessed that part of him resents me, that he has a hard time loving me, and that he feels he is just going through the motions, and it is hard enough to just get himself going, let alone trying to give a partner what they need as well. I have done nothing but stand by him, support him, and search for anything that I can do (which we all know is not much in this situation), only to come out bearing his negative association to everything.

So I need to ask, and I hope I get responses that really help, but what do I do?

 

He wants the pre-nup so that's he financially secure "IF" (he slipped and said when a couple of times), we split up/divorce/I leave him. He's had 8 relationships where the girls all just "up and left for unknown reasons". And his parents had the worst divorce that got extremely ugly. So he has no ground to stand on with knowing what a healthy relationship is. I'm the first healthy relationship he's ever had, as far as a partner showing him how it should be.

As for his addiction, yes he's in recovery now. And by recovery, that means he's relying on his will power alone to get him through it. He's gone about a week now, but he had terrible symptoms. I also had a morning where I caught him looking at sexual images of a woman, at the time he said they weren't for that reason, but a couple days later he said he wanted porn, so instead he just did that (I know, doesn't make any sense at all). I've been the only one holding him accountable on anything, and it's tearing me to shreds,along my state worse, and pushing us apart at lightening speed. But he is so firm on not needing anyone. He's actually stepping into the role of the blame I mentioned above, and then making me the bad guy for not trusting him. I've been reading about gaslighting, and I really think he's doing that to me .

I'm on my last thread of a string right now, it's about to snap. My heart hurts and my body is tired. I've lost 15 pounds this last week just from the stress. I think I'm going to give up, and most of me is numb, there's just that shred that wants me to keep going.

 

I would have to agree that he is not truly in recovery. And I realize this, the hopeful part of me just wanted to see that as a step to it, but it's really not unless he keeps moving, and quickly.

As for your questions...
*Yes, he has used the term 'addiction,' but he's never really said addict.
*He has confided in a pastor that was counseling us for our relationship issues, his mother, and me. Otherwise I don't know of anyone else he relies on.
*I saw that he has the NoFap app, or something like it on his phone, but I don't think he has an account. And he really isn't educating himself at all, everything he knows is from what I told him. When he came out to me about the issue, I jumped right into researching it, because that's how I work. I like to be fully educated on something so that I am able to put my best foot forward and have the situation covered, but as I keep realizing, this doesn't mean anything to him.
*And he actually said last night that he didn't want any accountability partners, because he shouldn't have to be 'babysat' or watched with everything he does. Even when I basically begged him to find someone, so that I can be free from that role, he said no.
*And as for him, he's lost some weight, but his life has stayed the same except for the crazy hormones/mood swings, brain fog, distant, not affectionate, etc.

I really thank you for all of your advice. I can to the solution last night and this morning that I need to help myself and heal myself right now. I'm drowning in a problem that I'm not even in control of, and it's not good for me. I decided that I'm going to move out of his place, and focus on my child, myself, and my schooling right now. It's just hurting me more and more to be in this environment and see that he has no desire to change completely, that he is only working surface level. I haven't decided if I'm going to maintain the relationship after moving out, which that is also on him, but it would depend on if he can actually work on this or not.

 

Thank you so much for adding, this really is helping me so much. This time is just confusing and hurtful, and at one point I'm numb, then I'm a mess, phew!

He definitely has all of the signs that you described with being an addict and hiding it. But the worst part is it coming off at me. I was blamed for not exciting his body, our relationship was blamed for his moods and stress, and just everything else is my fault. And the psubs are justified to him! He tried to make me feel bad that he was looking at another woman in a sexual manner (after lying about it too) and then being all "What's that mean!?! I can't look at any other woman without being questioned!?!". And I just wanted to scream at him "YES! You have NO RIGHT to look at another woman when you are in a committed relationship! Even more so when you're a porn addict!!!", but I held my tongue at this moment, of course.

I'm not staying here with him for it to stay the same, or get worse. As I posted above, I decided that I needed to move out and get myself situated first. It is not ok for me to be in this situation and try to deal with this, when it is not me. We're only dating, I'm not married to him, and he obviously doesn't have the commitment or respect to me. As for the relationship after I move out, that's on him.

 

Lol, I figured there was something wrong, but there were no red flags. And, to be honest, he chose some very bad girlfriends in the past. The last one, for example, used him for money, cheated on him, gave him STDs (curable thankfully), and was just a terrible person! I know this because I met her, and I had to deal with her trying to win him back when we first started dating (wasn't admitted until later). But he has this HUGE issue with relationship security, he always need to have a 'plan b' in case something happens. I found out earlier this month, when all this stuff happened, that he was very suggestively talking to the same ex that I mentioned before, ugh! And then he tried to blame that on his 'issues' that he's working on, but he needs 'time' for it. It was just exhausting.

He has definitely dropped the ball on being a good partner to me. And I have tried to get him to read things, watch things, have open communication on how a healthy relationship works, and he just continues to be self-centered. Or at most there will be a couple days of 'progress' and 'change', which I titled appeasement-days, and then it's back to the same thing as before. All of this, plus the gaslighting, I was getting blamed for not being happy with how great a man he was, and the other things that he did do for me. Which while he did do new things, they weren't the things that I needed from him.

I hope this moving out thing works. I just want him to understand that he needs to grow and figure himself out before we can continue. Moving in together was a mistake, I gave him my whole life, and he took it for granted. So either this will make him realize he needs to step up to the plate and win me back, or we just continue on.

 

Thank you for that. I just received messages from him asking for forgiveness from what happened the other day. Which I am finding that it's not on me anymore, not with me moving out. It doesn't bother me when it's on him to actually make a stand and change. It's more than just the porn addiction, while I do think that touches into a lot of the different aspects and issues that we have been having. He needs to address the porn as well as the relationship insecurities, otherwise it won't work.

The part of me that longs to be with him still is worried that he will take me moving out very badly. But I have to keep reassuring myself that it's for the best, no matter what sweet words he may say.

 

Huh, that's worth discussing. I always assumed that once these issues started coming up, and we were getting on Rocky ground, that's why he reached out to the x. Since she was so into him, and wanted him, she was easily available to him. So once we broke up in his mind, he would then have her to fall back on. But perhaps it's the other way around like you're saying?

 

I guess I should mention this also goes hand-in-hand with the prenup that he wants. because that way then, he says if slash when I leave him, he then will be financially secure doesn't have to worry about anything. That's where the relationship insecurities come in, with all these different aspects to it.

 

That's fair. I could see it being the 'fantasy' instead of reality and such. He's looking for that perfect porn story life, apparently?

One of my conditions for us to continue to be together is that he gets an accountability partner through our church. We were actually recommended a guy who has been through all of this, and won the battle. I was hoping that the boyfriend would connect with him and get actual help. That way he could try to get him to realize that he not only needs to work on the PA but also our relationship and how he treats me. I was thinking about encouraging him to go to a recovery group there too, but I would leave that up to the discretion of the AP to recommend.

Fingers crossed it works. I was thinking about laying the foundation for the talk tonight, and then tomorrow having the in-person talk once he's back from his work trip. It's odd because since I've never been in this situation, I'm just kind of going by the seat of my pants, haha.

 

That's actually the program that I was thinking about, our church has one. But it goes back to the point of him desiring to and making a genuine effort.