My journal - stories from The Wife of a porn addict

I agree with so much you have stated here. And from my discussions with him, so does my husband. We both know that it stops now. He has not watched porn in almost a month now. He is on the road to recovery and is not looking back. He knows that me and the kids are on the line. He will lose everything if he continues with this addiction. We know that there is a distance between us and we're working on closing that gap. You hit the nail on the head when you said this takes him away from reality and numbs him. He has hidden from life into a fake world. He chose to avoid reality.

One area that I am unclear on is masterbation. I have done quite a bit of reading and am not sure on this. He has only M'd once, when he was on a business trip and he was thinking of a great night that we had together. He was not thinking of porn. He was remembering a real interaction with me. Will this interfere with his recovery? I wonder if this would set off a dopamine release in he same manner as porn? He has avoided M at all other times, and will continue to. He knows that it was not good and he knows that I would not accept it if he did this again.

I have never thought of M as a form of immaturity. I really haven't thought about it much to be honest. I think I need to do some more reflection on this.

Now, the distance I have given lot of thought. I consider what has happened between us as if he had an affair, just with porn instead of another woman. He put my needs second and chose the images on the screen. To fix our marriage will take more than just stopping the porn. There is my hurt to consider, there are communication issues to work on and all the trust between us needs to be rebuilt. It will take effort. It will also take time.

Thanks for giving me some other areas to think about. I really do appreciate others perspectives.

 

I wish I could take credit for the hugging idea. I stole it from @TheFiancée. I think it is brilliant. It seems to be working a treat for us.

 

You make some good points here DireMerl. I haven't really given it much thought and I guess I need to. My initial response is that it is okay in certain circumstances but there is a line. It should not be done if you have a willing partner waiting for you. Your partner should come first. On the other hand, if your partner is unavailable, then on the rare occasion, I do not see an issue. My concern with it at the moment is, does this affect his recovery, as in, will it affect his dopamine levels in the same way as porn?

 

Here is the article. http://yourbrainonporn.com/the-lazy-way-to-stay-in-love
It is very interesting. There is going to be a lot more kissing and cuddling in this household from now on.

 

Thank you @Toven, @wildwood and @ichabodcr.

We have discussed it and you are all right. It is a slippery slope. M is off limits.

He has only done it that once when he was away for the week and he used it as a release to get to sleep at 4am. We are counting it as a reset and it won't be happening again.

We spoke about it and it is wrong to direct our sexual energy to places to don't benefit our marriage.

 

I am up and down like a brides nightey. Good days and some awful ones. I am just taking it one day at a time.

Yesterday was dreadful. I brought up something that happened 8 years ago. It was a lie he told me. If he had told me the truth, I would have left him on the spot. In hindsight this was the addiction showing itself for the first time. He lied and I swept it under the rug even though it felt like there was more. And we stayed married, continued on with our lives and had some really amazing years together. We had many years where the addiction was dormant, and these were amazing times.

Yesterday I asked him about it. He told me the truth. It not what he did that hurts as it was such a long time ago and it feels like several lives ago. What hurts the most is that he looked me in the eye and lied. Then he carried this secret for 8 years. He also manipulated me through the lie so I wouldn't leave. How do I get past the fact that he is capable of lying to my face? How do I trust him again? How do I know he isn't lying now? There are no answers here.

We talked for many exhausting hours. We both discussed that we want no secrets in our marriage and that it needs to be based on honesty. So here we are, back to the start in our marriage. We need to rebuild it. It is going to be incredibly hard. I just hope there is not too much hurt that we cannot get past it.

I have also given us a time limit to turn this around. If we are not showing improvement by January then it is best we part ways. I have taken off my wedding rings and I hope that one day soon I'll feel good enough to put them back on.

I realise that I have been handling my husband and controlling what I say to him. I have been so careful to not upset him, and have been sanitizing my feeling to protect him. I just need to let it out. The full force of what this is doing to me. He needs to feel how much he has hurt me. I have been scared he will relapse and thought it would be better to not give him a reason to turn to porn. But the fact is that he could turn to porn no matter what I do or say. I cannot control it. I cannot control him. I have to be honest with myself and with our marriage. So I am being open about how crap I really feel and I will continue to be. It will be hard to be on the receiving end of but I figure these are the consequences for his actions. So he will have to suck it up!

There have been some good moments too amongst the gloom. We are having fun and laughing together. The cuddles are fabulous. And the cheeky moments, like when he slaps my butt when he walks past, that we have not had for a long time. We still have an energy together.

So here we are, a demolition site, everything revealed, ready to start from scratch. We're going to both look at what we want in a marriage, what we need to bring and what our boundaries are. We're going to make the blueprint and then over time we'll build the house.

TW

 

Thank you @Buddha Punk Robot Monk. I am not sure that I can trust much this week. I don't even trust myself right now. I am a bit shaken with all that was revealed this week. I know that I have to take a leep of faith and trust him to support his recovery, but I need to get myself together first. This week he needs to support me.

I have made it abundantly clear how I feel. In fact I may have been a bit too harsh and lashed out in anger the other day. It is okay though, it needed to be said and he understands I am hurt and angry. I have been very clear since this started on what my boundaries are. He knows the boundaries and he is aware of what the consequences will be. I hope that is enough. He has been very forward in terms of accepting he has a problem and has been taking a lot of steps to address it. He is continuing with his therapist each week. He has not watched porn in over a month. I do see improvements in his attitude. I hope we continue to go in the right direction.

 

Today is another day. I feel okay today. My head is not going to explode. I have good things in my life. I have my health, I have my kids and I have lots of other things I am thankful for.

Yesterday was a good day. Husband had another appointment with the therapist and we talked, for many hours. We're still talking everyday and working through it all. We discuss feelings, which we haven't done in a long time. We always talked but it was usually a coordination of the family and everyday life. We became more like good room mates. We've always had laughs and it wasn't all bad. It just lacked the connection on other levels, wink wink nudge nudge, know what I mean?

I was angry at myself the other day. I was wondering why I hadn't confronted him before about the issue many years ago, and more recently about what I could see happening to us. I think that previously, subconsciously I was afraid to hear the answers. I knew if I had any self respect I would need to leave him. I also feel that I was not strong enough back then with all that had happened in our relationship (lots of trauma at the time and I was weak). I do think he was completely wrong how he handled it, he lashed out in anger, during our problems at that time (clarification: he has never laid a hand on me and I don't think that any of it was to intentionally hurt me) and as self preservation I buried the lie. My husband is a gentle giant, but if you hurt him his first instinct is to lash out with words. He is intelligent and his words can hurt, a lot. We have discussed how he reacts to things that hurt him and he recognizes he does this.

More recently, it seems that I just didn't have anything concrete or big enough to trigger that confrontation. Porn addiction is hard to confirm. Something was out of sorts but I didn't know what or how to really discuss it without evidence. I did bring up some small things but I was brushed aside, for example, my husband has slept on the couch most nights for the past year. I invite him upstairs, I demand he comes to bed, but he always had an excuse, such as I fell asleep watching golf, and continued to do it. I think that the addiction was escalating and I made the right choice to confront him when I had the information available to me.

Whilst it is good to analyze all of this, I have also decided I am going to be like Elsa and "let it go". There are a million reasons why we make the choices that we do and being angry or upset about it is not going to help. I am going to be kind to myself. What has happened is in the past and I did the best I could.

I do not regret being with my husband, I wouldn't change where I am now for anything, except the addiction, and maybe if I could win the lottery, but these are out of my control.

Our relationship in the last 7 years has changed quite considerably. We moved countries to husbands home country, we travelled the world for more than a year and a half, we bought a house and did major renovations ourselves, and we had the mini people. We spent many years without Internet access and therefore no porn. We have grown up, so to speak. Prior to all this I had a immature mindset about many things, even though I was in my 30's. I liked to party, I was an 'in the moment' type mindset, I never really thought about planning for the future. Now that I am approaching 4 0 <gasp> I do feel like I have a very different approach to life. I still have fun, but it is tempered with being responsible.

We don't fight at all. Never have. We have disagreements but we don't ever yell at each other. We communicate pretty well on difficult things. If it is something emotionally charged I will write him a letter so that he can read it and digest it, then we discuss it together once we have both had time to reflect and calm down a bit. We have done this for a number of years now and I never recognized how well it works for us before. When we do talk and disagree, we do it really well. The problem is that I tend to dismiss small problems, I am working on just addressing things as they happen now and not letting anything build up.

I am realistic about my relationship. Marriage is not all sunshine and roses. It is hard. It takes work. I know it is not like it is in the movies, and happily ever after is a line in a fairy tale. I know that I am happy here with what I have. I have a comfortable life and everyday
brings joy, fun, laughter and achievements in various forms. By achievements I mean we finish goals together, big ones like the house renovations, and small such as getting through the day with everyone in our family alive, fed, bathed and with a minimum of tears.

For the next few days I am just going to try to be kind to myself. No expectations. I'll take each hour as it comes. I am having a hard week and so it is husbands turn to support me.

Tonight I was bathing The Dude, who is now 8 months old, and he discovered for the first time he has a penis. He grab it and wouldn't let go. I offered bath toys, a cup, a shiny ball, but no, he wanted none of that, he just wanted to pull on his little diddle. And so continues the circle of life....