He says he had convinced himself our marriage had fizzled out, but realizes now that was just another false narrative he was telling himself.
I hate to be a buzz kill, but this is probably the only true thing he said in all that word salad (reasonable-sounding excuses).
Oftentimes, the WS convinces himself that the marriage is valueless and then gives himself permission to act outside of it. This does not necessarily mean that just because your WH was finally able to see his own mental gymnastics that he's somehow incapable of repeating them though. What needs to be repaired is his CHARACTER. The actual problem, if you ask me, is somewhere in the gap between a cheater's stated values and his actual deeds.
The cheater has an out-clause in his vow of Fidelity. He stood in front of God and witnesses and swore his oath to it, but he doesn't truly BELIEVE. He's got a "but..." in his core value of Fidelity. ie. "He believes in Fidelity, but... not if he makes a 'connection' on his airline flight."
You see how that works right? You and I don't have a "but..." in our value of Fidelity. We can't just chuck our integrity aside when it suits us. We've got more of a "so..." ie. "I believe in Fidelity, so... I don't look at other people as romantic/sexual possibilities". It's an organic boundary, circling our core value like a fence. We don't put a whole lot of thought into it. We simply protect what we value.
That he has a lot of the behaviors of a sex addict, especially around pornography. That he has had such an avoidant attachment style and has stuffed down his feelings for so long, that he had become completely emotionally disconnected from me, and more recently our family life.
None of that would have taken more than an hour to suss out online. Whether he did it himself, or it was provided to him by you or the therapist, none of it has anything to do with his character and why those boundaries weren't there. And I'll be honest, for me, any claim at "sex addiction" makes a cheater into a LESS desirable prospect in terms of R. What they're saying essentially is that they just can't help stabbing you in the back. It's beyond their control.
I mean, really think about it for a minute. The porn/sex/romance encounter hits the reward center of the brain, not terribly unlike what goes on with video games or chocolate. Add in some excitement and you've got a more potent biochemical cocktail, but still, as addictions go, there's no withdrawal to speak of. No one gets the DT's from refraining to text their mistress while they're watching TV on the couch with their wife. No one spends hours puking if they can't find a good enough excuse to get out of the house and screw their mistress. When we put it in context, yeah... we've all gone for that second piece of cake or another helping of dumplings when we KNEW we couldn't afford the calories. Some of us have even found ourselves communing with our game controllers at 4 am on a work night.
But those poor choices don't have nearly the same outcome, do they? We're not destroying our spouse's serenity and risking our children's security when we do those things.
My point is that these aren't good enough excuses when you tear them down. Your WH's "attachment style" didn't cause him to cheat. If it did, the vast majority of other people with that particular profile would also be cheaters. When you tear down the excuses, they don't hold water.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to crap all over your hopes of preserving your family dynamic. I'm in R myself so I do believe that change is possible. But you have to know what kind of change you're looking for so that you will know if your WH is making acceptable progress, right? He needs to own what he did. He needs to look in his mirror and not be able to tolerate for another second being the kind of asshole who would cheat on his wife and kids. He has to want that change more than anything else, even the marriage. Otherwise, he's just buffaloing you and I can't even begin to describe to you the alarming regularity in which former BS's return here with another incident of cheating because their WS had them fooled.
My best advice to you would be to read voraciously and hold your WH accountable, even if he balks. Get your ducks in a row so that you have a plan in your back pocket. See an attorney and get a post-nup to make sure he adheres to his promises. It's so tempting to believe them when they're saying what you want to hear, but in a post-adultery marriage, trust needs to be earned.
Anyway, I'm so sorry you needed to find us, but glad you did. Remember that you're going to be okay. We're all still here. It sucks and it's awful, but you'll be okay.
((big hugs))
[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:13 PM, Sunday, August 14th]