Mood: Left Wanting.

Nothing very drastic. This may be more about me and my discontent than lapses on his part. I guess that's a shift in the right direction.

He's sleeping. He's been going to bed pretty early lately. Around 10:30. I mean he does work all day, but this is not normal for us. Maybe flatline?

He does not like FANOS. About a week or so ago he expressed disinterest. "If you want to talk, let's talk. I don't like being forced to say specific things." I told him fine, but he has to initiate. He doesn't though. I tried to talk some tonight. Maybe bad timing on my part because he was already shutting down for the night. Eyes closed. He was pretty agitated. Maybe because he was tired. Or because he has intimacy anorexia. Or is hiding something.

But I want more. The last week or so has been alright. No major discoveries. No major gaslighting. Although I could tell if I pressed for much more tonight that it might get dramatic. I let sleeping dogs lie.

Last night I was somewhat bored/lonely so I stayed up late. Perused his phone. Found where (over the past years) he's searched for various girls on facebook. I'm assuming a few are girls he was corresponding with in Girl Chat (under his guise of being a lesbian.) It's interesting but I don't know that it has much value other than me desperately trying to find something. Some connection. Some insight. There were some girls that he seemed to search for periodically, reoccurring. This may support that his claim that all the chats being "one night stands" was a lie. Not sure. I may not have the emotional fortitude (or time to waste) playing detective on this one. Maybe later. Maybe we'll talk. But then he will just learn a new way to hide tracks. Hmm. Either way, all of this is old info- prior to discovery day. So I'm not sure it's worth a fuss.

But I'm bored and lonely. I've also begun trying to be more productive and return to my design/art projects lately. It's very hard while also accommodating tiny people (twin babies and toddler). So that puts me on edge. Constant interruptions. Seems like as soon as I get into any sort of groove someone starts crying. It kind of reminds me of how grumpy my husband was (in retrospect) in his evenings when something disrupted his sacred PMO ritual.

Maybe I'm a workaholic who had been sober (creatively) for so long that I lost my edge. And it's back. Hello edge. Stop cutting me. Cutting me with dissatisfaction of incomplete projects. I've started seeking out lots of word games to occupy and calm myself. A friend started playing Wordblitz with me and that's by far my favorite so far. Probably has to do with the time limit and competition. But I could see how the "you can't have enough of what won't satisfy you" could apply even to these mere word games. Seems like a pretty good analagy to sex addiction-- just a different payoff.

My scope has really been changed by the last few months. In a mere five days we will have reached the end of three months past discovery. My husband claims to be clean of PMO for that whole duration. It could be true. I'll never know. Lately I've been kind of battling a bit with how important reality is versus perceived reality. Is ignorance bliss? I guess so long as he treats me right and I don't suspect, it could be. If I'm happy.

He hasn't been very sexual lately. When asked about this, he says he's come to terms with sex = bad when it comes to him. Part of this is playing the victim with a pity party. Part of this is frustration which I could understand. So around christmas we will be near family so we have babysitting and a hotel reserved. He wants it to be special. I have mixed emotions. Partly because if he continues to be dormant with emotional intimacy, I don't see this going very spectacularly. He's sabotaged getaways with gaslighting before if things don't go perfectly.

He's intent on taking some sex pills. I'm on the fence about this. He thinks that a lot of the problem is confidence so testing them out and having a good experience should set the stage for more confidence going forward. He also said something along the lines of "his body, his choice." Which I thought was kind of trite considering the only time he uses it will (hopefully) be with ME. So it's not ALL about him. And as far as confidence goes, it doesn't give me a tremendous amount of confidence to require a shortcut. He's only 32.

Oh another weird thing. So I'm in a super irritable mood. Tonight my husband actually volunteered to sleep elsewhere. Okay trust me I'm not cussing anyone out or being offensive, I'm just very on edge and he picks up on that. But for him to volunteer to sleep elsewhere... that seems strange. That seems to fit the pattern of when he feels he's in trouble. I told him that made him seem guilty and it was unusual for him to suggest such a thing. He said he's just trying a different approach to make things better? I did not take him up on that. (But here I am, typing up a storm in my office because I'm not satisfied with his unconsciousness in the bedroom.)

Earlier today I was triggered a bit by him asking if it was okay for him to take a female coworker home. She bikes and it rained today. I reluctantly said okay. Working on trust. Granted I've never known my husband to act out in any way in reality. So I think it was okay... and it was respectful of him to run it by me. But it does stir up insecurities and trust issues.

Aside from this stuff, things have been going on fairly normally. No P-Subs that I am aware of. He likes reading sexual articles on Psychology today. One was about what your fantasies tell about you. The most recent was about open relationships. Not sure if I should be somewhat concerned about that. But it's somewhat normal for him to read relationship/sex articles from Psychology today. For better or worse I suppose. Would that be p-sub? I don't know, I think I'm okay with it.

The fact that there hasn't been any big gaslighting outbursts in a while seems like a good sign. I feel a little guilty because I pretty much just report on sticky situations here-- I'm not really one to waste a lot of time on fluff pieces. If you don't hear from me for a while it's indicative of smooth sailing. I'm just a little concerned about going on autopilot completely. My husband is not proactive in any traditional recovery steps. His approach is to just cut out his compulsion and life is busy I guess.

So thanks for reading if you made it this far. Feel free to drop any ideas or camaraderie. Like I said- I'm bored and lonely. I have a picture from my sketchbook I will share from my phone shortly-- but I figured I would indulge in typing an entry from my computer. Brain dump journal doodling tonight was interesting too. Trying to turn inward and decode my brain rather than wasting too much time on the word puzzles.

 

Behold the brain dump. Trying to feel the feelings. Get them out so I can rest.

 

Very astute. Cheers!

 

What do you mean? So as you get away from porn addiction, how did that affect sexual anorexia? Is the ideal to balance between sexual compulsion and sexual deprivation? I find that my husband acting out with chat rooms and porn was a cop-out of working to achieve genuine intimacy with me.