Worried my wife will leave me

I am away for the weekend and just had a conversation via text messages with my wife that did not end well. In it I asked whether she wanted to be involved more in my journey giving up porn and to hear my experiences, how progress is going and why i think I struggled to quit P on previous attempts. I have been making great progress keeping away from P and not Ming, but I have been struggling with guilt and shame around my thoughts and fantasies about women other than my wife. I have downplayed the involvement of that being part of the appeal of P in the past, lying to both myself and my wife. Now that I have given up P and noblonger compartmentalise P use, the sexual appeal of women other than my wife is something I have continued to notice, and is something I have been feeling guilt and shame about.

I chose to share the above struggle and set it out to my wife in a series of these text messages. I was hoping that my honesty would be seen as a positive, I would feel a bit lighter having been able to share, and that she would perhaps reassure me that while she has not indulged in pmo or similar level fantasy, that she too has sexual thoughts about people other than me.

This is not what happened. She said that I have confirmed what she expected, which is that I want to have sex with other people and the reason I don't is that I don't want tobjeapordise our relationship. She has also made it clear that she feels completely betrayed. I do NOT want to have sex with other people, but also do not want to be dishonest and deny that there is not a part of my brain that wants that.

I am now terrified that what I am attempting to do in order to improve my self and my relationship (to be totally honest) is going to be far more destructive than the pmo that has led me here. I am trying to have faith that doing the right thing and being honest is going to be the best for us both, but it is looking unlikely atthe moment.

My wife feels utterly betrayed, angry and disgusted with me. I feel like an absolute sack of shit, sick and achey, in genuine physical pain at the prospect of losing my wife, and the fear that I may have already lost her trust, her respect and her love.

She has ended the conversation, let me know her phone is off and gone to bed with a banging headache. One that I have probably caused.

I feel like I have been selfish in assuming that what is best is for me to vent my current troubles and difficulties in my journey, and that I have underestimated how badly my pmo has affected her.

This is going to be a long night. I hope I did the right thing by being honest, but I worry that my approach was way off. Could any SO's suggest what I could do to reassure my wife of my love and commitment to her? Was I right to share my feelings of guilt over fantasising about other women? Was I wrong to? Should I attempt to convince her of the difference between 'wanting' to have sex with other women (which i dont) and finding the idea arousing? Would I be betterboff focusing on ridding myself of such an outlook? Am I putting too much expectation on my wife for support?

Help.

 

Thanks for your response Anna. I guess I communicated this by text because now that we are apart (just until tomorrow) I was feeling more down, more keen to connect and be open, and by text I can check my wording, and be brave in a single moment to hit send. On the other hand all of the other elements of communication, my ability to gague her response etc etc was all absent. In person we are having such a great time (we have been) that I am worried to do or say anything that, despite meaning progress in my recovery, could also ruin our day. In retrospect I could totally have picked a better time and method of communicating my worries. I feel like such an idiot and a selfish prick. It is almost like I am self-sabotaging our relationship, sinilar to what I was doing with my pmo, in my attempts to remain pmo free and to understand aspects of my sexuality that cause me shame, guilt and pain.

 

I hope that you are right. Italmost felt like I had not had enough of a negative conscequence since being caught a few months back. Hopefully this will help her to process her pain, help me to understand it and help us to mave forward in a way that allows for honesty without any further pain being caused.

 

Quick update: we have talked in person today and expressed our feelings, addressed some painful issues and concerns and moved through it. Enjoying our evening together now. Thanks for the words of support.

 

I'm not sure of the relevance of this question to the thread, but we do communicate often both in person and via text, which includes what you could call flirting: compliments, touches etc etc to express our love, desire, attraction and so on. The crisis that prompted the original post was a specific issue that my porn use brought up, and a boundary that I have been crossing in my previous behaviour. I have admitted to myself and my wife that my MO sometimes involved fantasy involving me and other women, including people I or we know. That was a heavy hit to her emotionally and was not communicated via the most appropriate medium or in the most sensitive way, but it was an important disclosure to make for both of us to move forward. Communicating this to her made itunavoidable for me tonrecognise and appreciate how hurtful that behaviour could be to her, and how it needs to change (it has since my counter was started, in fact a month or so before then). I also felt I needed to communicate the guilt and shame I am feeling about the sexual thoughts that occur in an automatic and involuntary fashion when I seebattractive women. Ibam in conflict between my biological/phsychological understanding that suggests that this is normal and to be expected, and my desire to meet my wife's emotional needs and be faithful to her in every way, including mentally and with respect to fantasy. I am struggling to believe that I can achieve what I am aiming for, and I am struggling with my self-image, because a potentially innate aspect of my self is repulsive and hurtful to my wife. We agreed that such discussions are better suited to having with an accountabilty partner who is not emotionally invested in the relationship in the same way, so these issues can be resolved while not causing unnecessary pain. I guess I should start looking for an AP.

Long answer to a simple question. Mostly for me to get my thoughts in line. I hope you don't mind.