When to reunite sexually?

About a month ago I found out that my husband of 7 years I’ve been addicted to porn and chat room sex, the whole duration of our marriage and the several years of our dating— prior to marriage.

Needless to say this rocked my world. Also strange was that he posed as a woman for his chatting fantasies. I had previously asked him what he did in his office every night and if he was addicted to porn and he lied. The only reason I found out was because I found chat windows open on his computer and pornagraphic images of a woman saved in his documents.

He seems relieved to have been found out, applogetic and intent on recovery. He’s on his second book on the topic and has done corresponding exercises for the addiction. He’s going without any sexual release. However he has showed resistance to therapy, poly graph test, and especially joining groups for recovery. Despite a lot of debate he acts as though he will do whatever (despite reluctance.)


We are already seeing a lot more intimacy in our relationship though I am hesitant to fully trust due to the break of trust. I would like to do therapy but the more I look into it I think it may not be feasible for our budget. What do you think good recovery looks like? When should we have sex again?

 

Thank you very much for the time you put into your detailed responses. I appreciate the link on brain chemistry you provided.

I have set boundaries including accountability software on his phone and computer that he was agreeable to. We both listened to “breaking the cycle” by Andrew Adleman. He wrote a letter to his parents (undelivered) addressing the original wound causing him to sexually act our perpetually like his fourteen year old self.

Regarding some of the other exercises the book prescribed, he’s told me about doing them. (They aren’t all tangible.) We talk pretty thoroughly every couple of days and he has helped looked for counselors but says our insurance doesn’t really cover the kind of SA therapist I’m wanting.

Are you a CSAT? I’m curious of your experiences with polygraph. I know they aren’t trusted for courts of law but I have heard them mentioned by several professional sources.

What do you think about the notion of full disclosure in a therapeutic process? Supposedly I know everything but again I only found out when I literally caught him. He even lied in writing in a marriage journal. I remind myself I knew in my gut something was going on in his office. I just hope my gut is correct about it not bleeding into real life affairs. And that he’s not hiding anything else even more devious.

 

I got a reporter accountability software. So whenever I’m sending him links about sex addiction recovery, I get almost immediate text updates that he’s looking at questionable things. Kind of amusing.

The letter my husband wrote was just an exercise for himself. He has no intention of sending it. He’s already mortified of the close family and friends I’ve shared my discovery with. The only person in his world I told was his mother. She and I have been close and we have shared our relationship struggles with each other in the past. (His dad is the most closed off person I’ve ever met so some of his intimacy issues comes from that behavior modeled and neglect, no doubt.) If my husband and I split up it’s important for me that my mother in law knows what has been going on because she’s a big part of my kids’ life and I value her as an ally. In the past he has shared with her parts of our arguments such as a previous ultimatum I gave him without including the whole story. (I now think most of the whole story of his poor treatment towards me is a side affect of his addiction.) But no, I don’t have any intention of getting into any nitty gritty blame game towards his parents. It’s just helpful that they know what’s going on, honestly, from me so my husband doesn’t paint me as a crazy person. So much gaslighting....

And honestly in the immediate aftermath I considered some people in our life knowing what was going on to be greatly therapeutic for me and a consequence to him. Feeling too close to the situation and numb I was desperately reaching out for more objective ideas about what to do. He had already neglected me for so long, I wasn’t about to stay quarantined during this shitstorm of emotion for his benefit. The timing was that I found out about a week before a big trip with my family and I was intent on still going. So I told him that they knew what was happening to model transparency and also see if he still even wanted to go. (Really been questioning if he even loves me through this ordeal, or if he’s a covert narcissist/sociopath.) The fact that he still wanted to come and was very helpful was somewhat impressive. Side note: parents have been a lot more calmly receptive to the news and more open to accepting his gestures of recovery than I expected.

Thanks for your thoughts on the polygraph and disclosure. I’ve learned a lot about disclosure but didn’t really consider being able to fully do so without a therapist.

The night I confronted my husband about the activity he immediately opened up (weirdly calmly) and told me he was doing chatroom/porn since he was 14 and he answered all the questions I had at the time. Since then I have again asked if there was anything else he could think of to tell me. He said there was another fetish site he briefly created a phony female profile on. He assured me he never met up with anyone, despite the weirdness of him including our actual state in his screen name. Since he was posing as a woman I guess he could have only creeped on someone in person rather than authentically engaged anyway. Not sure if there’s anything else I should suspect or inquire... or what is the likelihood of there still being more to learn. Any thoughts?