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Somber

Thank you, I feel the need to yell at myself, in Hope of motivate me to get out.

While my husband was cheating, he did the same that your did. He would take me on trips (it is their shame), then those trips quickly turned into resentment aka "guilt trips"...he started getting worse about finances. He would take me dancing and bitch about the money spent. He essentially deflected his guilt and shame. This pattern is pretty common with cheaters, in general...from what I have read.

What little sex there was, became different. The only time he could get it up (sorry TMI time) was when I was pretty inebriated and from behind. It was always rough and I recall almost feeling violated....never foreplay. It just didnt happen. He believed a couple of sloppy kisses (if any) made him a lover, I suppose. He treated me like one of his prostitutes. By doing it from behind, he didnt have to look at me, so he could fantasize about blow up dolls.

I do believe they are all narcs, there are studies that support that. Dr. Todd Grande (youtube) goes into great detail on the subject. He specified that studies reflect that if one patient is diagnosed with narcissism, then there almost always is a level of sex addiction, he said the same, if it were reversed. They go hand-in-hand.

Like anything else, some may be higher on those spectrums, while others may be better at manipulating others, to get what they want. There is always a "push-pull" paradox (love bombing etc), while exploiting their victims.

It isnt "love" in the sense of how we see it and want to experience. They see people as pawns and exploit all that come into their paths. They believe love/happiness is something to be purchased and everything has a price tag. Power, money and control. Love is expressed in gifts, trips and empty words. Never a spiritual connection, they haven't the understanding of what that even means. That intimacy is something to run from.

The thing with them is that their idea of love is on their terms, how it better serves them. If you get upset with them (for not adulting), they seek revenge...that could come in the form of sceaming , followedby the silent treatment, breaking or hiding items...right down to trolling the porn and prostitutes.

They are stunted at preteen, when the abusive childhood took place. With coverts (my lovely narc), they are NEVER honest with their feelings, but they expect you to be mind readers and serve them. If you dont do what is silently expected of you, they seek revenge....They are about taking, never giving. Shady assholes.

They have a very low self esteem, but they expect the best of others, while believing they deserve better. Society dictates "better" for these characters. The porn says it all. They lead a very envious life, where the grass is always greener, while chasing rainbows.

[This message edited by DashboardMadonna at 3:28 PM, August 30th (Friday)]

Lionne

I dont blame you. I found out just shy of our 20th...I just didnt care, from that moment foward.

It was up until DD that I thought I wanted to somehow connect (not reconnect...he never connected?) .... we never had a real wedding and I use to wish for that on some level.

They are stunted at preteen, when the abusive childhood took place. With coverts (my lovely narc), they are NEVER honest with their feelings, but they expect you to be mind readers and serve them. If you dont do what is silently expected of you, they seek revenge....They are about taking, never giving. Shady asshole.

Nothing but the truth. This is basically what my XWH told me, that he resented me for things for years. Paying more attention to my kids, not knowing magically what he needed at any given time, etc. I had no idea whatsoever. He was passive-aggressive as hell and I didn't see it because I was the rational one in the marriage. "Are you okay?" "Yeah, just tired." So I assume "just tired" and carry on with my day. I was apparently supposed to poke and prod at this and baby him until he told me what was really bothering him. Games games games.

DevastatedDee

Exactly the same! My husband would get jealous about the relationship I had with me son...claiming it was inappropriate etc... lol do they crank them out of a machine?

He use to complain about his father giving him the silent treatment, while slamming doors, etc.... hes the same fucking creep! What a ding dong.

They act like a bunch or wimpy bitches...cowardly.

Ashes, thanks for sharing some insight from your experience. . I like your therapists idea to think of it as an experiment. At the same time, I feel I have been experimenting our whole marriage while gambling my heart and it hasn’t been working out. At this point, I expect failure as it is always how things have ended in this addictive cycle.

Lionne, thanks for the explanation.

watch and wait, observe their actions over time. And detach yourself from any challenges they have. YOU aren't responsible for his good/bad mood/behavior, you'll pretend to be an observer of behavior and not react emotionally to his hell

. Okay I am doing this or trying too. It helps with the day to day stuff for sure.

DashboardMadonna,

Wow you have done a lot of research into this. Thanks for sharing...it’s scary stuff!!! I have a hard time accepting it all not because I don’t think it’s true but because I don’t want it to be.

It isnt "love" in the sense of how we see it and want to experience

. So true and so sad. It may be linked to power, gifts, control, etc. I do not feel a spiritual connection but rather a desire to have me love him, adore him again and not leave.

Aside from that, I think you will gain motivation with an exit plan, IC, SI, support from friends/family....build yourself up instead and you will have the strength to choose what is best for you.

30 year and 40 year anniversaries mentioned.... my goodness, how long has it been since you have been struggling with the SA stuff?? I am celebrating (not really the right term as I don’t see what we are celebrating in our marriage) 10 years this week...I always knew something was off but the gaslighting distorted my reality. April 2018 is when I started to monitor and seek truths and it’s been one hell of a year for discoveries that’s for sure.

Somber, one of the first things my therapist said to me was "do you really want to do X with your husband." I'm at about year six post D-day (hard for me to figure out how long given the multiple D-days and how painful the early years were). About a year post D-day, I realized I didn't want to do much of anything with my husband. I stopped eating meals with him. I wouldn't walk around the block with him. I literally did next to nothing with him. I remember when spending an hour with him felt like all I could do for a period of time. I literally spent little time with him for about three years. During that time I was able to detach and focus on me.

Now, spending time with him is an experiment. It doesn't commit me to anything but the time I spent. I could not have done this without all those years of not spending time with him.

For now, there is no way I would take a plane trip with him. Anywhere. He was such a raging asshole when he traveled since he couldn't handle stress and was an entitled brat. And, airports/planes were big acting out areas for him. So even now, I wouldn't go on a plane trip with him. I don't do what I don't want. I have other boundaries: I won't go to the beach with him in the summer (and I live in an ocean resort community), I won't go to the grocery store with him (big acting out place), I won't see R-rated movies with him.

I feel so much better with these boundaries in place. Sure it's weird, but it works for me. Only after years of making boundaries and not putting his wants first was I able to experiment with doing things with him.

ashestophoenix

[This message edited by ashestophoenix at 8:34 AM, August 31st (Saturday)]

I wanted to share a story of my healing.

This week I went to lunch with a man I work with who is a friend. He wanted me to meet his 14 year old daughter. We had a wonderful lunch. His daughter was a delight. Good food, good conversation, fun, friendly, easy. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, felt like myself, and didn't feel the shame I have carried these past few years being married to an SA.

It sounds ridiculous to me when I think how hard it's been to achieve this kind of happiness. Honestly, before D-day I wouldn't have had a problem going to a lunch like this and having fun. But post D-day.... What a mess. Now, there was no way I would let my husband join me. He fantasized about teenage girls. So, he can't be with them and me. He says he's recovered, but who knows. My belief is the way for him to make amends is to stay away from teenage girls. And the way to make amends to me is to stay away from them. So for a long time I would feel shame and feel protective of girls and that would distract me from being me. I don't have that anymore. I can be fully present knowing that leaving my husband home was all I needed to do.

It's weird, of course, to have such an absent husband and for me to say so little about him. It's awkward. I think it was Marji who said, now we have to carry secrets. That's uncomfortable, but if I was divorced, or widowed, or married as I am now, SA had infected my life. I can't change that. But it took a while to feel dis-infected. To feel, clean. I do now. That took years for me to get here.

I want more lunches like this. I like getting me back. I like being with healthy people. It's great to finally feel like I'm on the road back.

ashestophoenix

[This message edited by ashestophoenix at 8:41 AM, August 31st (Saturday)]

Ashes,

I am so impressed with your boundaries! I imagine it took time to establish them all. Did they become easier to do after that length of time detaching? Did you have young children at that time? I feel our children, especially over the summer, force us to do things all the time as a family (camping, beach days, sports, etc). So even if I wanted to not do some of these things with him, he is still there.

However, this trip next week is different but I didn’t have a say in it as he booked it as a surprise. Kind gesture or controlling?? Not sure...I was shocked at first because I found it presumptuous to assume I would want to vacation with him. I don’t, especially where numerous women in bikinis will be. I really don’t. However, he arranged family to watch our kids and set everything up. I deserve a trip and a break. So this is one of those experiments so to say. I crave the respite from him so would rather do it alone. I want the break but again prefer it alone. So I am gonna go, read, snorkel, relax and imagine when he pushes closeness will be the times the vacation will suck. I hope to find time to relax and take a break from it all and tell him to back off when I need him too. Wish me luck though because the other lurking concern, aside from all the exposed women and temptations, is the alcohol. He has already commented that he may have one pina colada. He is a recovering alcoholic for only 3 months. So he has chosen to take us away for a romantic gesture and be surrounded by women and booze...this may end badly I’m afraid. I really have to work on boundary making! Thanks for sharing yours, they give me some good ideas.

Also thanks for sharing your experience with your lunch. Those boundaries have allowed you to socialize without him at times and enjoy yourself again. I love hearing that! It does suck to keep their secret and not include them in much of the conversations. But you are enjoying yourself again at times so that is a win.

Thanks, Somber. I didn't have young children at home so that made it easier. We do share the dogs, though!

One of the first things I learned was to have a backup plan. So if I were you, I'd be sure to know how I could leave if I had to. Or go to another hotel. Something where you can get away if you need to. The next thing I did, and gosh this sounds so....ridiculous...is I learned to block him out as much as possible when I had to be with him. I wouldn't look at him; I learned not to listen; I'd walk ahead of him. It gave me just enough room to get away from him when I needed to. I know how weird and awful this sounds, but it is what I needed to do to feel safe and sane in the first few years.

I'd be scared of this trip as well. He hasn't been sober long enough from the alcohol. He isn't sober from the SA. It's very risky. He was also manipulative in planning this without you. And playing the good guy to boot. I'd be anxious as well. So I'd have a back up plan to escape. Just having the plan makes it easier even if you don't use it. I would be upfront now about the drinking. He really can't have a drink. There are probably 12 step meetings where you are going. You could make a boundary he has to attend one every day. Or, you can say you'll leave if he has one drink. It's your right.

ashestophoenix

[This message edited by ashestophoenix at 12:01 PM, August 31st (Saturday)]

Today marks the first Dday , which was nothing more than a glimpse of things to come. On this day 5 years ago, I learned about my husband's porn use...almost laughable to me on some level now since I recall feeling devastated. If I only knew what was to come , including him bringing his chat room cam girl whore to the USA to accompany him on a business trip less than a month after that discovery.

Next week will mark another traumatic milestone.

The more work we do to recover from all of this, the more I feel like the last 24 years of my life were nothing but a lie

The more work we do to recover from all of this, the more I feel like the last 24 years of my life were nothing but a lie

whoami I think so many of us get that feeling. I had it strongly in the early stage of discovery--four years ago now. And surely a lot of it was a lie--not of my telling but then of my experiencing. At some point I came to realize I had been raped for over ten years--no drugs, no physical force, no threat of career damage--not the usual forms of nonconsensual sex but surely amounting to the same thing since had I known what was going on during his work day I would not have been having relations.

Indeed had I known what was going on, I would not have been holding hands while we walked; I would not have been going out of my way to make nice dinners, to do special things for birthdays and holidays; would not have been living the life I was living. I would not have been watching old movies with him almost every day. Lots of things I would not have been doing and which I do not do now.

So a lot of that life was all a lie. In the beginning looking at photos of us together gave me the creeps. Every otherwise good memory was now dirtied beyond repair. He had brought crap into our home, my home, our life, my life.

But whomami our lives were more than they. Our lives were richer than theirs, healthier than theirs--in important ways our lives were much better than theirs and the good parts, the other parts, the other people, relatives, friends, special days, special times, moments apart from them, or inspite of them--that was all very real.

Maybe the work you are doing to recover is bringing more information, more insight into what your H was doing and what your relationship involved. They kept us in the dark; they were living a double life--so learning the truth is traumatic-it's shocking--but hopefully as you continue to do the healing work you will come to a better place of peace; you'll find your joy again. It really does take time and lots of work and more time but you recover. Im sure I've said this before but if you can find a good IRL group that can be an enormous help-the larger your support team the faster the recovery;

I am taking a betrayal trauma class and surprisingly I think I've done enough work about my SAWH and what's coming up for me is trauma both sexual and otherwise from my childhood.

I'm understanding that even though I truly had no idea what my H was doing all of those years before Dday #2, the treatment I excused and accepted by him was ok because of the treatment of me that was excused by others (mostly my mom), and I learned to accept when I was a child. I have known that it caused my codependency, but this realization seems worse?

I have always thought that my brother got the worst of it in our childhood, but I am now realizing that my trauma was just as bad as his. I didn't deserve to witness what I witnessed and I didn't deserve my needs to be neglected. When I married I believed that I had hit the jackpot, out of dysfunction and into my dreams, so I accepted and excused...... I felt that I didn't deserve to be in his family, so any bad treatment was ok? I am just stunned this morning. I guess my holiday weekend will be spent processing this realization.

Today it feels like I'm inching my way to healing.

[This message edited by delilah2016 at 7:52 AM, September 1st (Sunday)]

Hi guys,

You can read my bio for the full story, but basically I'm devastated. Yesterday, I found a social media account my husband created and it included naked photos of me. He created it as a "curious couple" without my knowledge and asked for DMs and photos of other women. Said he was willing to share fully naked pics of me and him.

We had a wonderful sex addiction therapist, but I was the one who pushed for it, I made the appointments, etc. And every time we got into a fight, he would say he's "done" with therapy. Eventually, after about five or six months of treatment, he decided he had enough and didn't need further information or help. Knowing what I had learned at the time about sex addiction, I thought this was a horrible idea. He had not fully admitted he has a problem and hence here we are today.

I'm taking a step back and trying to care for myself now. D Day #1 and his diagnosis was all about him and how I could help. I was as supportive as I could be. Now, I feel like I've been run over with a truck. The last 16 years of my life have been one big fat lie!! I don't want to cry anymore. I have shed enough tears to create a lake. I feel like such a failure. I failed myself mostly. I am setting up an appointment with our MC, who is also the sex addict therapist and the one who diagnosed him. I think it's time we separate-at least temporarily until he admits he has a problem and gets help.

I feel like I'm all alone, but reading other stories makes me realize I'm not.

Writersblock You are definitely not alone; there are many of us here on SI dealing with the awful reality of our H's awful choices; dealing with the trauma of discovery; dealing with feelings of confusion --of that feeling it was "all a lie."

So welcome to SI and to this particular section. There is another in the ICR forum that is also relevant-the EI group-for those of us betrayed by our spouses form of emotionless infidelity.

Writer's it's great that you have found your way here; it's been a huge help to me for four years now; but I also find great help from my IRL S-ANON group and if you do not already have a RL group you may want to try and find one. The larger our support team, the more company we have the fast the healing.

Good that you are now focusing on yourself. That is the best way to go. And no, you need not be going it alone.

It sounds ridiculous to me when I think how hard it's been to achieve this kind of happiness. Honestly, before D-day I wouldn't have had a problem going to a lunch like this and having fun. But post D-day.... What a mess. Now, there was no way I would let my husband join me. He fantasized about teenage girls. So, he can't be with them and me. He says he's recovered, but who knows. My belief is the way for him to make amends is to stay away from teenage girls. And the way to make amends to me is to stay away from them. So for a long time I would feel shame and feel protective of girls and that would distract me from being me. I don't have that anymore. I can be fully present knowing that leaving my husband home was all I needed to do.

Ashestophoenix, this terrifies me to read and it breaks my heart into a million pieces. You are married to a man whom you don't trust with teenage girls. This is so not normal or okay and screw him for bringing this filth into your life. I am glad that you've got a life that doesn't involve him. It's still scary, though. That aspect of it is just...my lord.

Writersblock, your post shocked me too. Honestly, this man has zero respect for you as a human being. This is shocking behavior. I am just about done with this whole "let's act like this is expected behavior because he's a sex addict" crap from those who treat them. This is NOT normal and it is NOT okay. It's like "well, of course the serial killer cut the body into 150 pieces, I mean, that's what they do sometimes. Let's get him into some therapy." Anything is normal to some subgroup of people. The problem comes when your expectations become so lowered because you've been surrounded by depravity for so long that you actually question for a moment whether or not it is kinda normal for your spouse to do these things. Your own perspective on life winds up twisted and skewed because you're with someone who would do things like this and shrug it off.

It is every bit as horrible as that sane part of you is telling you it is. This is dealbreaker leave the man stuff here. This is "safer to live alone in a tent than with a man like this" level stuff.

I mean, look. My XWH wound up becoming a crack addict. To stay with him, I'd have had to consider it "normal" to hide my car keys, hide my money and bankcards, discover that things had been stolen from me and sold for drug money, worried about drug dealers showing up because he owed them, expected financial devastation because of his drug habit, etc.

Yeah, no. Had the infidelity never happened, the drug addiction was a dealbreaker because THAT STUFF IS NOT ACCEPTABLE in my life. It is not. Do you know how many people I met in Nar-Anon and Al-Anon for which this stuff was just "normal"? Lots and lots and lots. This stuff was a way of life for so many of these very kind and beautiful people. It didn't have to be, though. You never have to accept it. People showed up to learn how to live with these things. I say that you do not have to learn to live with these things. You don't. You get away from these things because they are a cancer upon your own soul. You get away from these things in the same way in which you leave a burning house and for the same reasons.

My XWH cried a lot of tears and threatened a lot of suicide to try and prevent me ending the marriage, but none of those things are going to make it okay for me to live in hell. It's not enough. Nothing is enough.

[This message edited by DevastatedDee at 4:24 PM, September 3rd (Tuesday)]

I'm sorry, everyone. It's just that you all deserved so so much better. You're all awesome and you didn't need this crap in your life.

I have a question. Given that the sexual behavior of SAs tends to escalate, do you think it is safe for them to be around children?

My WH is a sex addict and serial cheater. His primary fetishes seem to be impregnation (probably why he had unprotected sex and had plans to start a secret family ) and incest. The incest fetish seems to primarily be sibling/sibling and daddy/daughter. We have two daughters, third on the way is a boy. After going through his disgusting material, I’ve found out that it seems aimed at young teenagers to young adults, so thankfully not the ages of our children currently. But given his ability to successfully lie to me and therapists and how SA acting out tends to escalate, I’m concerned for the safety of the children.

What are your thoughts?

I kicked him out last night, so he is not presently in the house.

Arfaj, I don't know the answer about whether your children are safe or not. But asking the question is so painful. I know women who were victims of incest and the perpetrators weren't sex addicts. So, I don't know. But I would be worried as well.

ashestophoenix