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SA and I talked a bit this evening, I asked him “if you today asked at your group “ how many of you feel you are in a successful recovery - marriage wise” how many would feel positive? He sat for a bit, thinking, and he said about 80 percent.

I go to group with some wives of his SA group, some not, and I said to him, “I don’t know a single spouse that feels they are recovering successfully in their marriage”

He was shocked.

I was with him once, one of the guys from his group was talking about vow renewal, how happy he was. I’d had lunch with his wife that day, she told me “I don’t know how much more I can take, I think I need to leave”.

I don’t know why I bring this up- I’m on pain meds and can’t sleep.

This whole SA thing - it’s just so awful

My husband and I had two "fights" about this very thing yesterday.

It's the leftover part of the selfishness that they just can't seem to get over. At least, mine can't.

My husband "feels great." He's working his sobriety...getting more out of working the steps and going to meetings.

Therefore, shouldn't we all be happy. Things are going great!

I told my husband it doesn't work like that. Until my husband can think about the consequences of his choices and pick the one that does the least amount of damage to me, I don't consider him interested in healing the marriage.

I ask him how much longer he expects me to wait for him to get it?

I mean, FFS, I had to spell out to him that it was BAD to stop foreplay to text a mom that triggers me.

Seriously his response was "But I'm not attracted to her! I don't fantasize about her!"

I was like dude, all I saw was you STOPPING SEX with me to immediately respond to one of the hot moms that you know triggers me. That's what you fucking need to fix.

"But I wanted to respond to her right away so we could have sex at our leisure."

I asked "Did she give a time frame? Respond in the next 10 minutes or DD1 isn't allowed to come over?"

His response "Well no."

Seriously, the text could have sat for 10 freaking minutes. We have 4 kids, three of whom were awake..including a 2 year old. My husband now also lasts less than 3 minutes. His leisure sex argument was not valid.

He had a moment, where he could have chosen me (even sex with me) over jumping at the hot mom..

I tried to point out that, yes, checking up on me when I feel like ass is nice, but it doesn't repair the specific damange of choosing other women to get high with over staying in a marriage with me.

And that again, he had a moment, and threw it away because he couldn't think about how I might feel about it and make choices based on how I felt, to make me feel loved and secure.

He's still so fucking selfish.

I really thought after DDay1, that it would be the actual getting high behaviors that would drive me away.

It turns out that the smallest stuff...lying about a once or twice a years slip, and the selfishness...that's what's going to do our marriage in.

Well, I've been having weird feelings for a bit. It turns out it is because he is having a relationship with a co-worker. He walked out on me and the kids, they were all screaming and pleading with him. It's so sad. Our lives just got infinitely harder. I'm pretty numb. Disordered thinking is so hard to cope with. My poor babies lives just got so hard. I tried to do everything I could to make their lives ok. Sorry to everyone here. Hopefully, I can have some peace someday. My life has been crazy so far.

I am so sorry, Ifeelalone. One of the many very fucked up things about finding out that you've married one of these guys is that you have been living as if marriage meant something and made plans based around it, like kids or where to live or what kind of debt to accumulate, etc. All along our spouses are under some kind of other impression, I guess.

My heart hurts for your kids too. What an awful thing for a father to do. They deserved better too.

Ifeelalone - I am so, so sorry. My unsolicited advice is to get to an attorney as soon as you can so he/she can help protect the family's financial assets.

Sending you my virtual embrace,

ashestophoenix

(((Ifeelalone))) my heart breaks for you and your kids. What an awful man to do something so destructive. I too hope you start getting the peace you deserve. You are a beautiful mama!

((Ifeelaone)) sorry he just up and left. You will find your inner warrior and be able to do it without him.

My WS had a slip down the suggestive social media path again the other week when things got more real for him that I wasn't coping well. He couldn't have been more upfront about it though which is what hurts. He had to wait until he was a few days clean again and spoke to his IC before telling me. I also had to ask if he had looked up her stuff too. Yup he did. Fantastic that things look hard and his immediate reaction is to see what AP was doing. The relapse hurts, the fact he tried to see her stuff cuts deep. I'm only surviving now as I have detached. I love him but I will not put him above myself and our child anymore.

Hello. I’m new here. I had a big DDay on 7/15/19, but it was actually the 3rd or 4th one? I basically brushed things under the rug when we were engaged and then early in our marriage. I did a real good job of ignoring SA behavior for most of our 16 years of marriage.

He’s been attending SA meetings since DDay. I’ve been attending S-anon. Both of us in IC. Me, weekly. Him, 1-2 times per month.

He’s been “celebrating” sobriety since DDay.

And last night I found porn on his phone.

I haven’t confronted him yet. I’m sick in bed with a fever. Last night I knew I didn’t have the physical energy to handle the emotional discussion. So, I found this site. This thread. And have been reading a lot.

My husband is 54 and admits to compulsive masturbation and pornography for nearly 40 years. He’s never admitted all of his behaviors until this summer. I am his second wife. He has also solicited and paid for sex, although he says it was usually masturbation and only intercourse one time.

I hate it that I’m here, but glad this place exists.

Nelle, so sorry you find yourself here.

If you go into the I Can Relate forum there are also still the Spouses/Partners of Sex Addicts - 19 and 18 which have a lot more back and forth discussion as well.

For easy reference

18: https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=620141

19: https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=635206

I too rugswept my XH's SA stuff before we got engaged and married. Well, I addressed it, even told him I thought he was a sex addict, but he disagreed, and never went to any kind of therapy, CSAT or 12 step. I worked on it as much as I could just me and him.

My SAXH also would go through stretches of "celebrating," wanted all sorts of recognition for how well he was doing, and then BAM, I would find something else again.

I totally understand why you would wait to confront, especially if you are sick. Are you able to have a session with your IC before you talk to your H? Maybe even get a call in to someone from your S-Anon group? It might be helpful to get some IRL advice on how to handle this.

Glad you found us. Some of us are still with their SA spouses, working towards healing. There are a few in limbo. And some of us have left. You'll hear viewpoints from a variety of backgrounds, but all of us know what it's like to be in a relationship with a sex addict. It is far more intense than just regular old infidelity, and that's really saying something, since infidelity is a beast of a trauma all on its own.

We seem to be welcoming new members pretty frequently in the SA thread. It has been a bit slow in terms of discussion lately, but I know at least for me the holidays are a busy, and also difficult time. Tell us more of your story if you'd like. Or just look around, read. For the longest time, I thought I was living in an alternate reality, and that nobody else had to go through what I did, boy was I wrong. I know it sucks to be here, but I promise it helps to know you're not alone in dealing with this.

hugs to you, and feel better!

I have been lurking for awhile. It has amen me some time to comprehend that my husband is a SA. I knew but didn’t know exactly what I’ve had to deal with all these years.

We are currently separated, since early spring. Our story is long but not so different from yours. So here I am trying my very best to cope, grieve, let go. I don’t know exactly where I fit.

I know the trauma of it all is sucking the life out of me. It seems the older I get and with each discovery I become less and less capable of forgiveness. I know we all have stayed or leave for our own reasons... for now I sit and wait for him to file for divorce. He has started working with a counselor, attends SA, but I’ve recently come upon social media that leads me to believe he is still involved with the most recent affair partner.

The trickle truth us unbearable. I no longer confront him with discoveries as he is unwilling to be honest. I need to learn to detach, this far I am grossly unsuccessful. I hope it is ok I’ve joined the group.

The trickle truth us unbearable.

It sure is, Small wonders. We all are done when we are done and knowing you need to detach is probably the first step - I feel like I'm close to being through it at long last.

What's helped the most is doing the 180 and having as close to NC (no contact) as possible. When we do talk, it's not about feelings or what happened - just the facts. I never respond to anything immediately and most of his communications to me are totally ignored.

I have also been religious about not looking at his social media. I ignore it all. I do hear from friends occasionally about something they see and I've reminded them all that I don't want to know about his latest happy posts. It doesn't help me one bit.

The less contact and the less info I have the better I feel. I'm still sad and angry a lot, but now moments of acceptance and hope for the future are mixed in too. That's definitely progress.

A new discovery would be super painful and set me back so I'm choosing to not look anymore. I'm assuming he's cheating and lying. Every time I feel my heart softening, I remind myself he's still cheating and lying. Even though I have no evidence he is, I also have no evidence he's changed one iota - so I'm going to err on the side of caution and not let him set me up for more trauma.

[This message edited by skeetermooch at 10:06 AM, December 21st (Saturday)]

I am going on six years post D-day. I'm one who has stayed with my husband, and he is doing a lot "right". He's in 12-step and goes to weekly meetings; he's been in group therapy; he's in individual therapy (his trauma therapist is actually very helpful); he's in a men's group; he's in a meditation group; we're in MC. And, he needs all of that. And it is clear to me he really wants to make this marriage work. I think it's co-dependency and not love, but I don't know for sure.

While I think he is much, much more sober, I don't believe he is completely over the addiction. He still has a hard time being totally present. But worse than the addiction, is the complete lack of relational and emotional intimacy skills. And my husband's ability to communicate declined over the years. Really, he is such a mess of a human being. Deeply immature, delusional, isolated, insecure, co-dependent...

Over these six years I am much, much better. I'm still in my marriage, but really, it's a business proposition. I don't love my husband and I'm working on respecting him. My goal was to see if we could be supportive friends. That might happen. It will take a long time though.

What really helped me, at first, was to focus on my happiness and well being, and to begin to detach. I started with doing small things each day that made me feel better. It might have been playing with my dogs for ten minutes. Some days I wasn't successful at all. But as I found more and more activities and time for myself, I got better. And that helped with the detachment. The more I detached, the better I felt. As I detached, I rediscovered me, which was great! I was less hurt and set better boundaries. And I saw my husband much more clearly. I do believe that detachment improved my life but hastened the death of my affection for my husband. But, to me, that was my reality...I hadn't loved him for so long since he was so awful to me and I kept hoping things would get better, or that this was some kind of phase, or gosh knows what. I no longer do that.

I think I read every book written on sex addiction and partner healing. That both helped and hurt. It helped since I learned alot and I wasn't alone. It hurt to be immersed in this world. I spent some time feeling the need to cleanse myself of my husband's world of objectified sexuality. Ugh. That took a while.

The most important thing I did for myself was find a very good trauma therapist. That has been critical for my feeling better.

I want to share with those of you that are new here that you will feel better. It takes a while and it is a hard road. At first I had to take baby steps on everything. But I had to celebrate those baby steps. It was critical that I was gentle with myself.

It sucks, there is no way around it. Grief is now the hardest emotion for me and I will always have it. The losses of being married to an SA are so enormous. And I've been married 35 years. It's tragic. Whether we stay or go, forgive or not, reconcile or not, we can feel better and rediscover joy and peace.

ashestophoenix

[This message edited by ashestophoenix at 8:21 AM, December 22nd (Sunday)]

@skeetersmooch @ashestophoenix thank you for your posts. I have gained clarity in what I see happening and am learning ... an education of sorts I wish I had many years ago.

So I get a notification on my phone if sawh has an active convo on facebook. I checked to see what it was and yesterday he messaged some marriage page asking for help because his marriage is headed for divorce. In the same day he also viewed inappropriate material on facebook, griped at me about a mess the second he walked in the door after I had been wrapping PRESENTS all day. Complete sobriety and respectfulness are apparently too much, he wants a quick fix. I checked out the marriage page he was messaging and the two most recent posts are about sexless marriages. Im just sitting here a little dumbfounded. I dont know why I would expect anything different. The blatant ignorance of one person sometimes boggles the mind honestly.

Hey all. Been a while, so I’m checking back in.

I think my last post here was when we had a big blowup because SAWH refused to go on a trip with me to visit my parents. Well, I went on that trip alone. And a following trip alone.

We both came to an agreement in MC that things had gotten to a point where it was so toxic. We both had given up on the relationship.

So, he moved out on Halloween and stayed with friends for a bit. He found a new apartment, and “officially” moved out Dec 1.

We haven’t spoken beyond logistics and finances. I kept the house we were renting - and I just started a new job Dec 2 that is actually paying me well! So I can afford the house myself. Which if you remember, was a huge concern for me. I have my own bank accounts, and all utilities, insurance, etc in my name. Oh, and I kept the cat too. That one, I wasn’t budging on!!

It was heartbreaking to not get to spend Christmas with his family. But I still mailed presents (with permission) to his/our nieces and nephews, and received pictures and thank you’s from their parents.

It feels so weird to be in the house alone. I never realized how many things really take two people to do - even simple stuff, like I ordered a new kitchen cart and then STRUGGLED to drag it into the house and put it together myself. But I’ll take those struggles over the old ones any day!!

Ultimately, I don’t know how things will turn out. Divorce may be inevitable eventually. Or maybe we’ll revisit in a few months and see how we feel about things. I don’t know.

Don't be surprised if you find such relief not dealing with all that drama that you start to wake up happy. I know what you mean with doing everything yourself, but I would rather do things alone than be in a toxic marriage ever again.

Hey all, I've been lurking on this thread for a couple weeks. I am pretty new into this. DD started about a month ago and have been dealing with trick truth since.

WH is pretty likely SA. I've started doing some reading on it. He has started IC (I don't think specialized in SA though), went to a 12 step meeting this week and joined an online group.

I'm working up to getting my story updated on here, but as far as I know, he has been PA since adolescence. He watches it daily (work, home, in car, etc). He had a 4 yr online EA, he was in chat rooms and had short term online hookups and EAs with 10+ people. He has met men for sex at least 15 times, He has been to massage parlors at least 3 times.

I feel like he is starting a path to recovery and there is all sorts of things out there to help him.

I am completely lost. I've gone to IC once (before I found out about SA) and said I was coping well and to just make some friends and do things for me. I can't find groups where I am, most of the books I have read are all on what trauma is and SA... nothing on how BS moves forward. I have minimal support here. My family lives in another country. I have acquaintances, but no close friends.

I understand I need to take care of myself, but I can't seem to figure out what to do. Nothing feels like it's for me, but more it's just filling time. I don't know what makes me happy.

How have others taken the first baby steps forward? Hoping that learning from others might inspire more in me.

Olwen1- Welcome to SI and to this forum. I'm so sorry you are going through this. I don't post here very often but I read all the time. It’s very good for me, it makes me feel normal.

I just read your story, I’m so sorry you’re so far away from your friends and family. That’s really hard. Is there anyone local that you can confide in? I do know that this is a very lonely disease, because you really can't share it with many people. I confided in my family to help me get through it. I think it's hard to do but I didn't really have any other support.

My D-day was almost 19 months ago, and I've been going to major counseling ever since (please read my story). This has helped me tremendously. Is there a reason you've only been to one IC session? Hopefully you can do more. The other thing that has really helped me is that I found a women's group for spouses of SA's. This was hard to find but well worth it if you can. I can talk to them about anything and all of them understand because they have been through it. I tried S-Anon and Cosa also but found my women's group better for me. I would recommend one of these too. I also started exercising more to help with my health. Maybe you can join a gym or if you already do, try to go more often.

The other thing that has helped me is time and that my SAWH has been doing the hard work to figure out why he is a SA. I'm not an expert but it sounds to me like your WS is a SA. I would recommend that he get into counseling with a CSAT. They are hard to find but they are way more knowledgeable than your regular IC. My SAWH did lots of therapy before we found a CSAT in our area.

Please keep visiting this forum, as we understand what you're going through.

veryhurt2018: Thank you for responding! I am reading a lot on here too and it is helpful. Sometimes it makes me so sad, but most of the time it makes me feel like I’m not alone. I read your story and there are some definite similarities that I see. I'm so sorry for all you've gone through and I'm glad to see you've found some strategies to help to heal.

I don’t know if I can confide in anyone locally. I have a few friends, they just aren’t that close and I’ve never talked about anything serious with them. Closest friends are mutual. His friends first who I am now closer too and I don’t know if I want to go down that road. I guess I just don’t know anyone well enough to feel safe to talk to them and I am petrified of it going badly if I do.

I think mostly the one session is because of the holidays and just the counselor’s availability. She only does sessions once a week in my area, so they fill quickly. I’m not sure she’s a good fit anyways though. I’m going on the 15th and will need to decide. I don’t know if she has a background in SA. I did look to see if there were people with expertise on Partners of SA’s and there is really very few that I’ve found so far. Really frustrating. How did you find the women’s group that you joined?

I have though of trying S-Anon, but I worry about the co-addiction/co-dependency aspect that I keep hearing there. I should look for other groups, thanks for the suggestion. I am trying to work out more, journal and restructure my life so it isn’t revolving around him so much. I never realized how much it had been.

WH has started going to two groups for SA (one in person, on online) He is seeing his counselor this week and she isn’t aware of the possible SA. He hasn’t actually revealed a lot of it and he said he would be doing that. I think he was finding her to be a good fit, so I know he’s anxious about needing someone with SA background, I’m not pushing either way, but hoping he’ll make good decisions.

I’m so glad this group exists. This weekend was a rough one. I drank and got really angry at WH. Drinking is probably something I should avoid for a while. But honestly it felt good to yell at him. I actually haven’t raised my voice once since this has happened. How messed up is that?

[This message edited by Olwen1 at 7:58 AM, January 6th (Monday)]

WS is going to therapy today... first time since discovery of potential SA. He has been working on Disclosure and said it at about 25 pages

I've asked him to be truthful to the therapist, ask questions to make sure she is qualified and if not, ask for a referral.

I am so nervous for tonight. I've asked him not to show me the disclosure, but I know how to access it. I haven't read it all, but I scanned for a fact I know and he doesn't know that I know. It's not there.

The number of emotions going on for me.. is like all of them at the same time.

Been thinking about 180 and I don't even know what to do. I feel like I don't care about anything. I feel like anything I do as a 180 is more because people suggested it and not because I don't want it.

Sorry, not really asking questions... just a little vent. This SUCKS.

Two years , two months , four days , six therapists combined and I still don't have a disclosure

It has been in the works for the last eight months

Nothing....