Trying to understand

Can you afford to see a csat? If your husband really gets into recovery you will know it. It doesn’t matter what they say ( they lie) it matters what you see in their behaviors. There will be huge changes in your life, because that’s what it takes to get clean and in recovery. Just know, that statistics show this addiction has an abysmal long term recovery rate. Very few get into recovery. You have children, get the help you need to heal and make the best decisions for you and your family. Bloom for women is really good!

 

Certified sex addiction therapist, mines the best! Lol

 

What does he expect you to be doing when he's complaining that you're not trying? Trying to forgive/forget?

The fact is that his recovery is his responsibility. Not yours. It's not your job to hold him accountable or convince him to make changes or be his mom. The Covenant eyes thing seems like a good idea, but it turns you into his mother instead of a wife.

I will double the suggestion for him to seek therapy to find the underlying issues. Like with most addiction, pornography use is motivated by something deeper. I wold also suggest you find a separate therapist to deal with your emotions.

Lastly, I'm eternally grateful my wife gave me enough chances to make different decisions. Looking back I'm not sure I'd be as patient and forgiving as her. But the advice of setting firm boundaries, making them clear to everyone, and setting consequences, is important. You're a wife to him, not a sponsor. Your job is to protect yourself and your kids.

 

If your husband is anything like I am. He deeply regrets the damage he has caused by his actions. If he is a great man like you say he is, and he is committed he can change himself and be a better man, husband, and overall human being in the process. I am in his same boat. I feel for him and I also feel for you. I hate the fact that I let my problems get to the point of hurting my wife and consider everyday I have with her a blessing. I’m sure he feels the same way as well.

 

If I may ask and I know this is a very personal question, with all that is going on with him, why did you conceive a child? Please don't take offense. I just want to understand your mindset here.

 

That really sucks. I think that the prevailing thought here is to take care of you first so that's where I'd focus all of my time and energy. When are you due?

 

I come from a different perspective than most here, and you may feel it either has more weight or less than the others because of it, because I have never been a porn addict, and my wife has never experienced this particular type of trauma with me. However, I have learned some very important things about marriage relationships and about addictions in general that lead me to think from a different vantage point. From that point of view, I will comment on some of the things said in this discussion that caught my attention.

I cannot see how this will help either him or you unless he is deliberately and voluntarily choosing to do an extended abstinence from all sexual activity with the intent of resetting his brain dopamine addiction cycle (doing a "reboot" as folk call it here). For yourself, not having intimacy and sexual fulfillment may contribute to feelings of irritability, general dissatisfaction, and lack of motivation--especially disinterest in doing the mundane necessary chores that are a part of life. More than this, your mind will tend to hold your husband responsible for it all (not saying he isn't) which will be unhelpful to having a good and positive relationship.

Porn attacks where it hurts most--causing both the man and his wife and family to lose respect for him/himself. The thing the average man wants most from his wife, even more than love, is respect. When he knows that he has lost this, he loses respect for himself as well. The next addiction that will hit him is one of self-mortification and self-pity. When a man feels of himself that he is neither respected nor respectable, the shame and emptiness that follow may well lead him to accept any temporary medication for his misery. To put it bluntly, he will turn even more helplessly and hopelessly to his addiction(s).

In marriage, it is never wise to use sex as either a reward or a punishment. It is right to be moderate, and it is best if a wife does not encourage her husband's carnal nature via provocative words, actions, or apparel. But intimacy goes deeper, or at least it should, than mere sensual gratification. With it comes a sense of acceptance, togetherness, loyalty, and emotional satisfaction.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that by denying the marriage bed with him, it's almost like handing a wad of money to an alcoholic and locking him out in the street at night, to go wherever his feet may trend. It would be surprising, and very rare, if the addict did not immediately return to his addiction--in your husband's case, porn.

A good part of this is likely due to the betrayal trauma. However, it doesn't help that the natural emotional reaction from "loss of consortium" also trends that direction. When you are not sexually intimate and satisfied, it affects your entire outlook on life. Please know, however, that you are not responsible for his addiction and that you have no cause to feel as you do. It may be difficult, but you can choose to act with confidence in spite of not feeling it. If you continue to be the confident, talented, winsome person that you always were when your husband was first attracted to you, it will help him to be more motivated to turn his life around in order to keep you.

Now is not the time to nag, to say ugly things, nor to let yourself go, as in not paying attention to your own appearance or caring what you might feel or say. Only by acting as a true queen, with all the royal dignity you can muster, will you be able to influence him in a positive direction--making him want you, not for your outward beauty merely, but for your inner worth. When he sees all that he stands to lose, it may be the best possible means of bringing him to his senses. On the other hand, if you nag, get careless with your personal appearance, criticize him, shame him, etc., he may think it just as well to break things off and escape. No man wants to be around someone who is down on him all the time.

I think a large part of this is due to the general lack of wisdom with regard to relationships and what will best motivate a person--some of which I touched on above. A man who has lost hope that he will ever be respected has virtually no hope of recovery--from any addiction, not just porn. Porn just happens to be more stigmatized than most other addictions, and therefore holds the addict in a firmer grip of shame.

I agree that his recovery is his responsibility, for only he can make the necessary choices to break free. However, it must be understood that it would be a very rare man indeed who could recover entirely on his own and without the support of another human being. That other person who helps the man is a true friend; one who goes above and beyond the call of duty.

I also agree that it should not be the wife who is holding the man accountable. A man wants to love his wife, not be subservient to her. As soon as she begins to order him around, he knows he has lost the one thing he wants and needs most from her: respect. Her commands, therefore, can never hope to succeed beyond temporary compliance.

Of course he is hurting. Everyone hurts in this situation. But he will not be able to "work on his addiction" without outside help. That help should not be you, his wife. Someone else is needed. The best you can do as his wife is to be as sweet, loving, and attractive as you can be to make him see how rotten he has treated you by comparison and desire to change and give you more what you truly deserve.

Yes, and that regret will tend to drive him deeper into his addiction, where, while pleasuring himself, he can temporarily forget his own emotional pain and shame. Shame is not productive of good, and is a horrible motivator. It usually drives one to do the very thing(s) that brought the shame in the first place. This is why I advise the wife not to bring it up, not to rub it in, nor even to let it bring her down in any way--as hard as that may be. Her best chance at mending him, her, and the family is to demonstrate clearly what a gem she is, and what a lucky man he is to have her. Note that I do NOT say she must be physically attractive--though that would be an additional advantage. Real, genuine beauty is of the heart and character. As the old saying goes, and it's still true today, "Beauty is as beauty does."

 

While I do see your point that regret alone can lead back to a cycle of addiction. I feel that regret compounded with the realization of the affects of ones actions, spurs guilt and guilt in turn sparks the beginnings of change.

 

New Years baby?! Lol my sister was the first born New Years baby, got her Picture in the paper , lol.

 

Yeah that's all well and good in theory. The fact is there will be no shortage of hypocrites to cast the first stone. I will caution you on telling "anyone" because "anyone" does not bring any value to your or his situation nor do they have a need to know. There is no shortage of unintended consequences to who we disclose his addiction or our betrayal trauma to. His motivation is to avoid shame. Yours would be to avoid judgment. And I assure you they will most certainly shame him and judge you for it even though you had absolutely nothing to do with it. Nothing good will come of it.

While I do agree with the necessity to share it, I would very heavily scrutinize who I share it with. If you tell your siblings, parents, children if they are old enough, it will have lasting consequences on how they treat him and you as his wife. If you tell his family and or friends it could have devastating consequences for him. You don't get invited to gatherings anymore. You are mysteriously excluded on pertinent meetings and appointments. You become ghosted. Neither of these are good for your relationship. If he follows the guidelines of the 12 steps it states in Step 5:

"Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
it"

"Another human being" doesn't mean we tell "anyone". It means we are very selective about who we tell. It means we only need tell God, if you believe in that sort of thing, and "another human being". All 12 Step programs have accountability partners or sponsors available. Otherwise if you're going to air your dirty laundry, let's do it up right and post it on your wall on Facebook, put it up a billboard where everybody can see it, take out an ad in the local paper.

So no I wouldn't tell "anyone". If nothing else, this place is a good dumping ground. Just take what you read in this forum with a grain of salt. I forget who mentioned that sorta thing recently but I truly believe it.

 

There is a difference between keeping it secret for the purpose of perpetuating the addiction and keeping it secret because the people to share it with are not safe. My husband and I are rather introverted, happily so. He did not hesitate, upon my request, to go to confession and seek counsel of a priest. But we both have very complicated families and together, together, we are not comfortable with anyone at his work knowing what has gone on due to the culture there. If I were to tell my family, we'd both be crucified and the issued of favoritism between my siblings and I would be amplified. If he told his family, a patriarchal abusive one, I would be run over. Some people are not safe to tell. There is wisdom in finding a safe place - a priest, a support group, a friend, a therapist etc - to tell but often there is not a lot of safe places. I, personally, would encourage finding a place and then an active work at recovery, to look for progress and some way to overcome shame. Some of us don't have safe places to eliminate secrecy, so I would encourage looking for, to start, one place to overcome shame and have accountability.

 

Instead of trying to be accountable for PMO. Try to be accountable for positive habits , that’s going to empower him to easily quit PMO. Trust me I had my brother as an Accountability partner , but when I relapsed I felt that if I tell him I will hurt his feelings . More than than hurting feelings I felt ashamed of myself. I m assuming your husband is going through the same thing and didn’t tell you about his relapse.This is a sign that he deeply cares about you and doesn’t want to see you hurt.

He is having a tough time dealing with stress and is also seeking instant gratification. For these reason PMO has become a dependency for him. It’s not possible to make P*rn inaccessible. He definitely find a way to watch it.

To decrease dependency on PMO or any addiction , you need to replace PMO habits with habits that give you sufficient dopamine. Or habits that become your coping mechanism. And
There are tons of positive habits . If he decides to take up a positive habits as a life long habit . You should support him and be accountable for it maybe even join him doing the habit.

( Basically perform positive habits that is going to take away all the time needed to do negative habits. Because you only get 24 hours a day right ? )
Suggestion: I find habit of mindfulness meditation really helpful in dealing with my urges and anxiety.To get started there are tons of videos of guided mindfulness meditation online.


( My perspective can be wrong , Because I have not Married yet , there maybe more to your relationship that I don’t understand. But my approach is from the perspective of dealing with addiction, I m very ignorant about relationships .)

I hope this helps!