This is insane

Hell no. I wouldn’t stay, I don’t want to stay. The only reason I do is because kids are involved, and nobody understands when others leave like that, it’s all self blame and trauma and you have to choose between leaving and staying. It’s like an arrow in your chest, right, for you or me or anyone else. Is it shallow enough that we should pull it out? Is it deep enough that we should push it through? Should we just break off the shaft and let it stay there, until maybe later when we have the resources to deal with it properly? Who knows, I’m not an expert, you’re not, and we’re just sitting here bleeding and wondering what to do.

I said multiple times, you’re in your rights to leave. You probably should leave. It’s not that you don’t love the guy, it’s that the guy you loved doesn’t fully exist right now, and the odds that he ever will again are against you. I wish it wasn’t so. I wish people always got exactly what they deserved. But for better or worse, life isn’t fair and we have to make the hard choices.

 

They do that on purpose, because they are aware that keeping these ideas alive benefits them extremely.

Do you think it's a coincidence that they argue back with all the particles of their being, whenever the idea of us being visual is brought into the dialogue ?

They don't do it out of thin air, as the intensity they emanate during those debates indicates strong motives. They want to keep these ideas alive as long as they can, and certainly for self-centred reasons.

 

Ha! Our counselor calls it excuse du jour!

 

I just genuinely love the depths at which some of these addicts will gaslight us. They want to play the victim in all of this without an ounce of consideration that it is us who they have victimized. It truly speaks of the depth of their addiction and how much control it has over them. Even if they abstain from the PMO itself, they continue acting like a fucking addict. That's whiteknuckling.

Whatever. If we dare challenge them, they want to take what we said completely out of context, weaponize it, and use it against us. They often tell us what we think and feel. They will invalidate what we think and fell They will tell us how to think and feel. And then wonder why we get so pissed about it. Boys you don't fucking know anything about our thoughts emotions and feelings so please stop trying to tell us and listen to us what we are telling you.

If you want to do something worthwhile for your SO? Try validation. Try empathy. Try understanding. Try compassion. Take responsibility for your actions. Hold yourselves accountable. Own your shit instead of duping it in our lap. We have enough shit of our own no thanks to you.

Last would you please top insulting our intelligence as if we're just some dumb chicks that don't know WTF we're talking about. This ain't our first rodeo. We've done at least 10 times the research and put in 100 times the work and dealt with at least 1000 times the bullshit. Check your egos at the door. There's no room in our head space for it and quite honestly were tired of listing to it.

 

@Meshuga I don’t have time to write out everything I want to say but I want to thank you for what you’ve written here. I’m not a PA but I am an SO if one and so much of what you wrote I could almost hear him say.

Thanks again and I will respond more fully later as my day gets less hectic.

 

I hope, and I mean this sincerely, that you or any other SO on this board, never struggle with an addiction, or serious illness, or any other malady that requires patience, love and empathy. Everyone involved in an addiction CHOOSES to play the victim. In part, it's a natural course of healing. You are betrayed, we are injured. It's how long you choose to play those roles that determine your level of recovery.

Someday, when you are in a better place, I would hope you go back and read what you just wrote. Are you not doing the same thing you claim your PA does? Are you saying you know exactly what WE think and feel? Are you not weaponizing the words of a few of us brave souls who have come here to talk? It's ok, we all do it. We see things through our own filters. When you can remove your filter of betrayal and victimhood, you will see things a lot differently. I know I did once I stopped looking at things from the fog of addiction. I was selfish, I lied, I gaslit, I didn't think rationally, I didn't empathize with the damage I was doing. Now, years later, I am able to look and see those things for what they are. They are victimhood and in order to move forward, I had to cast off that victim's filter and see things clearly.

I would argue that needs to be the case in both roles. If you truly love each other, and that is a big IF for it takes two people completely committed to each other, you will work together, but you can't work together if you don't fix yourselves first. BOTH of you. My wife and I started our recovery journey together in 2019. Its been a long journey and it isn't even close to being over. It will NEVER be over. Addiction and betrayal don't go away on their own, or even with time. They have to be actively and violently rooted out and systematically replaced. We were both addicted to the same thing: Dopamine. My symptom was porn, hers resentment and anger. When I was able to stop looking at porn, but not really work on myself, I replaced porn with shame, sorrow and guilt. She replaced anger and resentment with hurt and victimhood, all produce dopamine. We kept working hard...all the time working hard. It wasn't until this year that I started finding the answer. The answer was a) changing your mindset and b) finding something bigger than yourself, a future, a future bigger than one you can imagine. If you can share that future with someone else, even better, if not that is ok too. The future my wife and I have is working together, but we could also accomplish that future apart. It has to be something big and something worthwhile. Something you want to get up for. Something that allows you to quiet that voice in your head, urging you to give up. Only then do the shackles of anger, victimhood, guilt, sorrow, and shame start to loosen.

And yet you are still here. arguing back and forth with the very people you claim are incapable of understanding and unworthy of your attention. Either you choose to be here because you like the pain, or you are stuck. Either way, only you can get yourself out.

 

If so, good for her

 

With all due respect to your otherwise interesting post, this part is at odds with the current understanding of neurotransmitters. Being hurt and traumatized doesn't necessarily produce a disturbed regulation of dopamine receptors. Dopamine controls movement and anticipation of reward. Your wife is hurt because you were being a d*ck to her. That's fine. I've also been a d*ck on occasion throughout my life, and that's quite a feat for an otherwise d*ckless female. But it's when we face our inner d*ck (look him straight in his only eye and wrestle him to the ground) wonderful change starts to occur. It's unfortunate to miss that opportunity.

A psychologist would say the above quote is a classic example of projection. Your wife is not an addict; you are. And she probably is a victim of what you did to her. I sense a certain discomfort with that fact, yet it's perfectly possible and often very fruitful to look at things soberly and objectively. As humans we are often in the wrong (surely she has been many times). What's so great is that we can take full responsibility for our own part and truly evolve our relationships and ourselves.

 

With all due respect, Psychology Today and Dr Rhonda Freeman disagree with you. (While this article is about abuse, a similar trauma bond is formed).

"We touched on the four main neurochemicals that are primary drivers underlying the trauma bond (i.e., dopamine, endogenous opioids, corticotropin releasing factor, and oxytocin). Often when a person is traumatized by a romantic partner or someone they love, these chemicals become significantly dysregulated.

In the presence of such an addiction, there will be intense craving, a heightened value attributed to the abuser, and a hyperfocus on the relationship and conflict resolution. The victim’s thoughts will often follow to make sense of these feelings. Her or his brain usually turns to self-deception and rationalizations to resolve the cognitive dissonance."

You are correct, Dopamine is a anticipation neurochemical. However during a trauma, the feeling of victimhood often leaves the one that feels victimized to have intense cravings to fix the person they are with, themselves, or both. Those intense cravings are caused by dopamine. You can literally become addicted to being a victim.

Oh and as far as what my wife thinks, I am sure she will be by shortly.


https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...1701/the-brain-can-work-against-abuse-victims

 

There are many who no longer support this. I personally would not put my faith in psychology today. They have many times had Dr.s Who support that porn use is not addictive or harmful

 

There are plenty others if you don't like that one...

 

Oh I know, lol. It’s that this one ( pyshc today) seems to keep popping up and is not trust worthy. Much like the disagreement on if porn addiction is and addiction or a disorder, the trauma bonding has those who support it and those who disagree with it.

 

I don't buy into the idea that victims choose freely to be hurt; that notion is just too convenient for the perpetrayer (but yeah, it is really clever! I'll use that line if I ever run someone over with a car). I don't believe it as a child to an abusive alcoholic, and I don't believe it as an MD.

As far as neurotransmitters go, their levels do quite little on their own. It's the plasticity of the brain over weeks and months that causes the problems, but also the solutions. With the knowledge of the trauma you caused your wife you also have incredible possibilities and power to aid in her healing. Unlike you, I really doubt she wanna be stuck in a prolonged state of distress. As far as "dopamine fixes" go, she would be better off going shopping.

We owe it to ourselves to take steps forward, and to do so we need to take a step back, just enough to see what our responsibility consists of. Where is our power? Our duty? That goes for the perpetrayer, and also the victim. What is often seen on this part of the forum are world champions in figuring out what their spouse should have done. "If she only wanted more sex...", "if she was slimmer/fatter/asian...", "if he had better parents/childhood". It's so SAD that we rob ourselves of the power of change by consistently blaming others.

 

Personally, if I ever discover that my partner like some sick and twisted categories of P, I wouldn't want to be near him anymore. I would never look at him the same way again. Even as a MO addict, I would never allow myself to cross some lines.

 

It's good that you worry about your kids, and since you bring that, I want to tell you that your daughter wouldn't be happy to know her father uses P. She would feel so insulted and denigrated by how P portrays her sex. That's another thing to keep in mind while pursuing recovery.

 

Well you responded a whole hell of a lot nicer than I would have. Projection is absolutely correct. I don't become angry until some fool patronizes me with this horseshit. And before they go off and criticize anger it is a perfectly normal heathy acceptable emotional response because it becomes accurate. You're right about dopamine BTW!

 

Psychology Today! SMFH! No there is a classic resource if there ever was one. Aren't they along the same lines of the National Inquirer? I put absolutely no faith in this damned periodical whatsoever.

 

It's not even that. If they weren't aware how betrayed their partner would feel because of their P use, then why they put so much effort into hiding it ?

To claim that you are unaware of how much your partner would be angered by your P use, and still persist in camouflaging it so meticulously is absolutely contradictory.

 

In their defense…. We can choose to leave, or detach. If your partner refuses to get help, truly change, then staying is on you. I chose to stay knowing he would not change. That was my decision. Oh, yeah, he promised, told me how much he loved me, yada yada yada…. But deep down I knew.