Betraying My Wife

I would not stay if he is ever physical with anyone. I happen to like sex, I will not risk getting hpv or a myriad of other diseases and once you go outside the marriage you are always at risk. I also will not stay if he relapses. I’m done living with an active addict. He is an unhappy miserable person when he is using and I won’t live that way ever agsin.

 

Appreciate your comments makes me aware of the pain of a spouse. I have did porn and chat with the intention of never physically cheating on wife. I didn’t either. I rationalized doing it by saying I’m not physically cheating . I know it still is wrong , been clear of both for over a couple of months. Wife was sexually un attentive , but regardless no excuse . Our relationship has been better since I stopped. I haven’t divulged my indescretions to her! Your anger and pain helps think of what the behavior does thank you! May your life take a good turn. Peace . People like us need to hear your side and how our behavior affects others

 

Here’s the thing sex addicts don’t get, your addiction touches everything in your life. I didn’t get that either, until my husband started recovery. I’ve never met an addict that didn’t start looking and masturbating before they met their partner ( male or female). So, one thing this does is camouflage( think a 60 yr old has the same libido as a 17 yr old?) or artificially create an unnaturally high libido. You truly believe you have a higher libido than “ other” people. But in reality, you do not know. If you are filling your head with fantasy and porn you drive your lust, which then creates an unrealistic expectation of how much sex/orgasm you “ need”. This in turn makes you focus on sex. You are not kind, attentive, nurturing, loving, helpful. You are demanding, moody, depressed, unhappy, entitled, and disconnected. This will make your partner desire sex less. If you have children and the burden of their care falls on her, it will affect her sex life. If you aren’t good in bed ( ie pied, de, pe) it will affect her and possibly kill all desire she has. If she has any mental illnesses, or physical pain, or was abused it will affect her. That’s why open communication about sex needs to be part of the relationship. In general, when the relationship is good ( barring physical pain, previous trauma, abuse, or mental illness) the sexual relationship is good. A good relationship requires honesty, trust, faithfulness, communication and respect..most, if not all, of those things are missing when a person is in active addiction. For 26 years my husband thought we had a great marriage. Happily married, blessed even. lol. I couldn’t wait to divorce him. I was literally counting the months until my youngest graduated, then I could leave. Now, 4 years later, we actually do have a happy marriage. He’s my best friend. Like most porn addicts, my husband thought he had a high libido, turns out that without porn and fantasy, his natural libido is about once a week, not multiple times a day. Took him years of recovery to figure this out. Journaling helped him differentiate between a natural desire for sex or a desire to escape through sexual activity. Many times what he thought was being horny was really stress and desire to escape it, boredom and desire to escape it, habit of letting his mind wander to fantasy and then desiring pmo. Having daily check ins with accountability partners was key in him learning to understand himself.

 

Thanks for exposing one of the many lies of porn. Porn deceives users; especially in the very area of sexuality.

I think no one can know all the blessings (such as exposing the deception you mentioned) of deliverance from the undesirable effects from porn or other damaging dynamics like, self centeredness, on going depression, religion, eating disorders etc... until time builds after victory. Once there is significant victory, the temptation is to revisit a lot of past special moments that were damaged by them. Sometimes reliving feelings of regret, anger, depression etc.

Our focus as a couple tries to be on the future and expressing thankfulness to God as He continues to heal us both sexuality and in other places. Like many, we have had to deal with painful issues that effected us from sexuality to parent relationships, spiritual abuse and more. It seems like we are peeling away issues like the skin of an onion and more and more enjoying a relationship with one another and God.

We see now more and more that commitment for better or worse has helped us enjoy more and more the blessings of a romantic, sexual marriage as God has helped us through the Bible. We also found those resources along the way mature and effective information.

We really like a book like, "Your Brain on Porn" because it added help with factual biological effects of pornography (and some on other addictions) without all the "if you really loved Jesus and our your spouse you would or would not...." pat answers.

Sadly, we lost precious time on healing from dealing with multiple issues to waiting to find mature trusted sources. We were let down constantly by family, spiritual leaders and or mentors. The major weakness they all had in common was approaching sexual health with shame based actions and or answers. Once you got the courage to open up (which often is heralded as the magic bullet), you just invited in shame based solutions that made it worse.

We saw sexual counselling where outrage was encouraged from the spouse that wasn't having an addition issue. They help pit the couple against one another. The offending spouse was totally open to anything and everything suggested, but it took too long and there was very little appreciation for how that particular addiction worked biologically. That marriage ended.

 

Very good painful insights , I would say fits me pretty close! Keep speaking your mind ! But most of all , love your success story , and God willing may it last till death do you part,With a happy ending.