Look – Too often after d-day we think that we can control our spouse back to health. Like that you monitoring his presence and social media etc will hold him on the straight and narrow.
This.
And in your situation it’s a catch 22.
After dday I agree that transparency is paramount from the ws. But they need to be self motivated and grow that trust organically. My husband had access to my stuff, and he could check what he wanted. He did it a few times and maybe even times I didn’t know about. There was nothing for him to find, so it wasn’t a point of focus for me. Truthfully outside of the period of time of my affair he knew how to get into my stuff, things were just an open book.
But when there is solid trust there isn’t any checking and when you aren’t hiding something there isn’t any concern.
The problem here is you checked and there was cause for concern. So that put you into hyper vigilance, because in some ways what just happened looks like a relapse. He feels that what you found is his private thoughts. He feels he is doing the work and these private thoughts are an improvement over what he was doing before.
But in reality, it’s not an improvement, it’s a curtailing of behavior. It’s holding a small flame that set the wildfire to begin with. Your husband was willing to see that the wildfire was out of control, but he wants the freedom to hold onto something here.
And it’s complicated to a certain degree. He has given up porn, but what he wrote was porn. He is fighting a battle to do the curtailing, rather than extinguishing the source. However, that source is connected to a part of life that should have healthy outlets because our sexuality is a gift when it’s not dysfunctional.
And then add his obsessive compulsive tendencies- and this is like adding locks to the doors he is trying to walk out of because the problem there is the more you try and restrict the thinking the more obsessive it actually becomes.
What he needs is to be able to quell that component, and find healthy sexual outlets to replace the ones he has grown a dependency to. The pressure he feels to just make it all stop is compounded both by his current inability and being watched. I am certain those components make this occupy his head most of the days every day and it’s eclipsing his ability to appreciate other things in his life that could be just his own- like healthy hobbies, personal accomplishments, etc.
And as for you, it leaves you holding the bag of trying to protect yourself while he mounts heaps of additional worry and pain.
Your husband is in a battle with his demons and you are in a battle with his demons. This is not leaving much room for either of you to have healthy, positive things in your lives. it is understandable that would feel restrictive to both of you.
So back to the catch 22- he is trying to limit his impulsive behaviors, and you are trying to trust him. But until he can get his OCD under control, and you can start feeling like there is appreciable change then this is a boot on both your necks.
I am not sure really how this paradigm moves forward. If he can get past the OCD, he still has a lot of issues with his executive functioning and the challenges of ADHD, which also contributes to poor impulse control. In order for him to have things that are just his, he is going to have to develop other habits that replace what he is currently doing. So I think you are right he is grieving, but it’s because he isn’t filling the absence of his old habits and he is trying so hard to white-knuckle in the mean time because he doesn’t want to lose the attachment he has to you.
[This message edited by hikingout at 4:57 PM, Saturday, April 6th]
