Struggeling with myself when is the best time to tell my wife about my addiction

At the moment I am absolutely not ready to open my porn addiction to my wife. She sees all the problems between us thinking that I have Asperger. (The reality is that I seem to be at the border to Asperger.)

Because my wife is worried about almost everything (does this mean she has an anxiety disorder?) I can't really make up my mind and tell her that I was a porn addict until one month ago. It just seems to be so surreal doing this. With no improvements on my credibility account I think this would simply end in a divorce. nd this would mean that I would be seperated from my two lovely children.

The temporary decision I made is to reach the 365 days no PMO mark to confess my past to her. (Next summer vacations and this llooks like ages away.) In the meantime I have to work hard on other aspects in our married life as well to improve our relationship. If all this doesn't work out I am probably at the end.

 

You might make it to next summer but you might not. I'm not talking about the no PMO for a year.
I am an extremely lucky man in that I got caught and she stayed by my side and is supporting my battle as she also heals from what I have done. You see, the truth is it's not so much the P or the M, though those are huge and they are being unfaithful, but it is what they have been going through all this time. Blaiming themselves as we pretended nothing was wrong. We let them suffer as we either ignored what we were doing, thought we could fix it ourselves on our own, didn't realize the extent of what we were doing or any number "reasons". We had it in the dark while they tried with all their soul to figure out what was wrong with them.
My eyes get wet whenever I think about how much I hurt her and how close it came to losing her.
I don't know you or what if any you have told her. But if you love her, think about how she must be feeling, really think about it.
Understand I am not trying to upset you, I want you to heal and I want your marriage to be healed and I want your wife to heal.
The choice is yours brother. Best wishes for you both and I'm proud of you that you came here to ask what we think.

 

I think the sooner the better.

You need outside help to really recover.
Putting up numbers is nice, but it’s not recovery.
I was M free 3 years before i told my wife.
She was mad, but not about that.
She was mad because i had been blaming all of our problems on her.
So, i realized i needed more to help our marriage than sobriety.

The sooner you can start real recovery and get outside help, the better.
Its the best chance you have of saving your marriage also.
Secrets only hurt it.

 

What moment did you choose for a confession? At bedtime in a relaxed moment? If I could I would have a few days alone with my wife somewhere, but with our children (5&8) this is not an option. (Sigh)

My problem is that the family of my wife found out only recently that her brother is a porn addict and this caused a lot of anger and dismay and desperateness in the family. When I open up right now this might simply overboil creating unneeded negative emotions. I feel a sort of trapped.

 

Yea it’s hard to know the right time.
I would say NOT in the middle of a fight

But seriously, probably when things are calm.
Still, expect her to be upset. You might need to give her time and space to process it.
She might say things she doesn’t mean and you will have to take it.
There are some good resources about how to disclose.

 

I am not upset about any advice because all I am trying to do here is to steer my life in a good direction from now on. I know as well that sooner or later this means to jump over my own shadow confessing what I had done. To be brave enough to do this I am glad for any supportive thoughts and comments which will help me to nurture the confidence that it will have a positive effect in the end.

BUT You said you were lucky, so I am asking myself, what will happen if I am not lucky?

The relationship with my wife has been from almost the beginning somehow entangled in mutual misunderstandings and all got now after 12 years of marriage numbed in a sort of mutual indifference about those misunderstandings and different perceptions.
Though, on a very deep level of my soul I love my wife for what she is doing for our family and our children. This means that in my situation I try to take her general negativeness not too much as personal insults against me. I feel that much of this is more anger against her own family and in particular against her own brother who was discovered to be a porn addict only recently. I often interpret it in a way that she needs me as a punch ball to release her emotional tensions.

All this makes it difficult for me to love her on a pure emotional level. This being said our sex life is pretty much at a zero level. (Part of the reason for my PMO habits.) But ultimately I want to have my wife back recovering an emotionally healthy relationship even if our sex life will be at a rather slow pace.

 

I just had a chance to re-read your last. I think in some cases there your cause and effect might be in reverse. If you think about it and what you have learned here what do you think?

 

It's good to ask yourself "what if I'm not lucky?". Not being lucky can happen now or it can happen next year or in five years.
I'll try this as a question since I don't know either of you, just to help you think things through. What happens if you manage to right yourself over this year and then tell her what you had done and that you are all better now? Will she accept ecerytheve you say then as being true? That you are all good now? Will she be beyond upset that you knew you had this problem for over a year and we're working on it solo, without her knowing about it while still possibly blaiming herself? Or that you let her keep thinking it is aspergers? That you let her keep suffering for another year so you could take care of yourself?
I will still say I don't know either of you but I do wonder if a large part of her worrying nature is not her nature but a product of what is happening. They tend to be far more in tune with the relationship than we are.
Once again, I want both of you to get through this and grow together. I am by no means an expert on anything, I just care.

 

I said: part of the reason. It's pretty complex and I don't blame my wife for anything.

You are right: I am guilty for my behavior and need finally take responsibility for it. if not I certainly wouldn't open threads on
Nofap.

It's just so desperate that I probably don't have a clear mind on what is related to what.

In the end, instead of blaming anyone else it is certainly better to clean up the mess little by little and find solutions for our future.

 

Thanks for your caring thoughts. Can't say anything right now, but you said a lot of things I need to think about very seriously.

 

Wishing you both the best. I know none of this is easy.

 

You mean that my porn addiction caused from the beginning the reactions of my wife? Hmmm, not really sure. I know from the personal history of my wife, which I don't want to discuss here, that pretty hefty things happened triggering certain behaviors.

From my perspective she saw in me someone to get over those things. The part where I failed is that I couldn't help her to the degree she would expect from her partner. So over the years certain reactions became stronger. Those interpersonal feelings are very hard to judge.

At the moment I know only that I am the one who must start changeing things.

 

Anna,

Good to hear a comment from a woman, I really appreciate your input.

Writing a letter might be an idea, but somehow I think things like this need to be said face to face. Doesn't it look a bit like a coward to put somewhere a letter and then leave my wife alone with her stirred up emotions after reading the letter?

 

I understand. It is the situation which is harsh. And if sex has the meaning of being spiritually connected to your partner the lack of sex is by no means an excuse to look for a substitute. It is the reverse, rare sexual encounters are triggered by loosing the connection to your partner and using porn is just destroying the connection at a higher speed.

Well I would say that the solid foundation in our marriage is having two lovely kids together. At least my wife sees me as a good father, spending time with our kids as much as I can.