SOs feelings and thoughts through their partners Addiction/Recovery

I’m surprised she didn’t touch on abortion. The only reason my husband has children is because I don’t believe in abortion. However, I did not want children. I believe it’s incredibly unfair that had I wished, I could’ve aborted our baby and he would have zero say. All because it’s my body that grows the child.

 

This is a really good example of how it's dependent on your partner too. I dont want to hear this from my husband. At all. It squicks me out when he says these exact things.
I would rather hear "I know it does/they are and I'm sorry". Any fakeness just destroys my brain all over again and I can't deal with it.

 

I’m with you. I don’t want the lie. I know it’s a lie because his actions did not align with his words. It’s the action that shows the truth, not the words. For instance my husband didn’t have an affair in real life because of his IA and extreme fear and anxiety over sex. Not because he loved me. Honestly, faithfulness in a marriage should be the barest minimum action to show not only love, but respect and honor. Not just to your spouse but to yourself and the relationship.

 

Your description of your wife sounded much like my husband describes me, except swap out cribbage for chess and I’m not the jealous type at all. My firm belief was if you can take him then you deserve him. I think most ranch women dress inexpensive and modest, silver looks great on my horse

 

I respect this as truth. I don't and probably can't really fully know you or your husband or your relationship dynamic despite your heartfelt descriptions. But, I accept it. I have a somewhat different experience. I talked with my therapist about my porn use early on in my therapy, long before I acknowledged being a PA. (FWIW my therapist is a woman.) She asked what appealed to me in the porn that I watched. By far, my biggest hook was the actress looking directly at the camera. In my mind's fantasy, she was looking at me. I was seen. And, I was desired.

I was neglected from toddler-hood onward. And, I was in deep, deep Denial of my trauma until the last two years (and I am 66 y.o. now.) Although I had said I had a rough childhood, I never thought that I was traumatized by it. (Denial, Denial Denial, this was my survival skill.) My biggest fear is abandonment. And my biggest trigger is being ignored. Now, I am not blaming my wife for my addiction. I would have become an addict no matter who I married. I am sure that I was an addict before we started dating. It was not problematic at that time. (?) (So, was I a nascent addict - doesn't matter, ancient history. I could not be any thing other than an addict.) But, my wife often will not respond to my direct questions and ignores me. It happened last night. I have only recently learned how to control my reaction. Previously, this infuriated me. I could control my actions but, not how I felt: total rejection which instantly transformed inside me to anger. This has always occurred within me in response to emotional injury. I have only begun to de-link these and feel the pain of the injury rather than instant anger. So it was last night. With a bit of time, I could cool down and talk about this, and did so in a calm fashion this morning. She doesn't even remember this occurring last night (and said "she had one too many" glasses of wine last night. But, this occurs even if she has not been drinking.) There are other related factors. One includes our sexual activity when it occurs (extremely rarely.) She does not look at me even in the most intimate moments. She has her eyes closed. In hindsight, I realize this also felt to me like she was not making love with me. She has since said that she needs to concentrate on her own body in order to get/stay stimulated. I now accept that as truth. But, though the rational mind acknowledges and this mitigates the pain somewhat, I still feel unseen, unacknowledged.

My wife has also said more than once, that she has no desire. I now accept this. (Even though she first seduced me early in our relationship.) This cuts me to the core. And, she has not initiated sex in many years. When she accepts my invitations, it is generally with "Okay". (No indication of enthusiasm.)

In my ACA recovery, I've learned that I probably picked her because she fulfilled my sick abandonment need: recapitulating/reliving my childhood, trying desperately to fix it but, destined to be unable to do so. All this subconscious activity, I was oblivious and terrifically confused.

This is where I am going with all this background: I can honestly say to my wife, "I never compared the porn models physical beauty to you." But, I did make another comparison: those women saw me, and desired me (in my sick brain.) And, that is what I still crave, and still do not receive.

 

I'm glad you shared on this.
During this journey of letting go of the magical pornographic woman and learning about and embracing the real woman. I'm reminded of something as you share about the dynamic between you, your wife, and her ex.
And I want to bring it up.

What about the idea that her ex is the Alpha?
And you are the beta?

Alpha Fucks
Beta Bucks

She makes rules for you.
She breaks rules for her ex.

 

Let me explain. This will be a long one.
I agree with both of you. I know it is a lie.
But at the same time, he truly believes it to be true.
Well, Im a woman, and I desperately want it to be true. I know that it is possible that a man feels like that about his wife. My father says that about his wife, my mother, and when he says that, there is no doubt that it is true. Although, objectively speaking, or speaking about her looks, she is obviously not the most beautiful woman in the world, but he sees her as a whole, her looks, her personality, all their experiences, their friendship, closeness, love and all that she is. What he sees in her, no other woman in the world has.
Maybe it is more about what I want to be true. Or maybe about my love languages or something. When he says that, I hear more of a "I love you and you are special to me" or maybe something like "I want to see you as the most beautiful girl in the world. I am attracted to them, but I dont want to be. I only want you." Which he in fact told me.
But, objectively speaking, I know, in the past, his actions proved, I definitely wasnt the most attractive woman for him. In the present, his actions say, that my attractiveness in his eyes increased radically. He gets excited during sex, which was not there before.
And I know I am the most beautiful girl he sees....until the addiction strikes again...or until any young girl appears on a street. What I mean, he really wants me to be the one he is attracted to the most, and I believe him this part. I even believe he thinks I am the most beautiful girl for him (right now, when I think he doesnt watch porn, definitely not in the past while in active addiction). But since he is a porn addict, he is addicted to beautiful women, he is physically attracted to them far more then to me. And always will be. There is no way I could compete with them. Especially with few children and being about 20 years older then they are and still aging (while they are not).
For the record, everytime he says this, I disagree. Tell him that it is just not true. If it was, he couldnt have been watching porn our entire relationship and marriage. Actually, I saw his reaction, when a porn image appeared on a screen (he said it was by accident.. and I hope it was true, because it was during a day and our children were in the room, fortunately didnt notice). He was looking at it for like two or three seconds, which for me, was incredibly long time, until he closed it and looked at me if I saw it too. In two seconds, he was aroused more than I ever saw him in my life before. That was about six years into our marriage. Up until that moment, I never saw him aroused. Never. Never heard him breathe like that. I thought he could just control himself so well. Nope. I just wasnt attractive enough. She could do in two seconds, what I couldnt in years. I could literally stand naked in front of him and no reaction at all. But he still insisted that I attracted him much more. Well...would you believe it?
I saw it. But you dont have to see it to know. When someone watches porn and masturbates to it, he is physically attracted to what/who he sees. One doesnt masturbate to something that doesnt arouse him. And hardly anyone watches porn without the intent to get aroused. For example, just and only to learn something new and use it with your partner, who is by far the most attractive in the world. No way.
My husband told me after Dday, that although he is watching sexual content and even though he masturbates to it, it is not sexual. Definitely not primarily sexual. That it was more about coping with stress and anxiety. Well, ok. Maybe it is coping mechanism. But a sexual coping mechanism. One more thing...even if had nothing to do with sex, which obviously is not true, there is still the thing with him having a problem, whatever it is and not telling me. Leaving me out entirely. Out of his life, I dont know what is going on. Solving his problems without me, robbing me of the opportunity to help him, care for him or just know him. This alone would be enough for a marriage crisis. But him solving his problems by searching for a sexual satisfaction from another women is quite a bomb...
He said, it has nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with our relationship. Nothing to do with our sex. Ok, lets have a look at it. How am I supposed to not take it personally, when we have sex lets say 4 times a month and now I find out, you watch porn and masturbate almost every night? That the reason you caress me to sleep is just to be sure I am sleeping and you can go fucking yourself with all your whores on the screen without fear of me finding out? Is that also because I am the most beautiful girl in the world? I guess so. I guess, your anger outbursts every day that are caused by the addiction, and make me afraid to say anything, make me afraid when will you shout at my little children again, because they just want your attention, that has also nothing to do with our relationship. And our sex...yes, the porn addiction messes also with that, a lot. I didnt see it then, now I can compare, its night and day.
And, I want to add, my husband now sees it too. It is cheating, it messes with our relationship, tears us apart, makes him anxious and angry. He knows he is much better overall without it. And he knows he definitely didnt act like I was the most attractive girl.

 

Unless I learn to condition my eyes and mind, one woman will never be enough. If I let my eyes and mind wander wherever they please, this addict inside me will always want more. It doesn't matter how beautiful my wife is, her looks nor my love will never be enough to satisfy my addictive cravings to always want more, not prettier, more.

Addicts struggle with the question, Why did you choose porn over me?
At the time, I wasn't thinking I had to choose one over another. I thought I could have it all! That I could do porn, aaaaannnd have my wife too. Such a messed up way to think. In my backwards fantasy world, monogamy was misery; settling for a life of deprivation. It took me a long time to learn that the exact opposite is true.

So I learn to condition my eyes and mind. To not give myself permission to look at or think about another woman. Making a deliberate effort to rule out all others so that I don't lose attraction towards my wife and thus leading both of us to more misery.

 

I thought I would jump into this conversation...

Throughout my whole adult life I have taken PM as something completly normal. You just assume that everyone else is at it as well. I have never had anyone warn me about the dangers of it (from PE to PIED to dysfunctional relationships). I have seen so many heartbreaking stories on this forum that the dangers of P are now very clear to me. Would I have behaved differently had I known?

The women in P attract me differently than the way my partner attracts me. I am triggered visually, and I think most men are wired this way. So when I see a woman in P I get instantly triggered. It's like the excitement of seeing your partner naked for the first time.

What has been my fascination with P? The INSTANT dopamine release. What can I say, dopamine feels good and P is an instant hit of it. I can put P on and instantly forget all of my troubles in life and get that hit. On demand, whenever I want it. I don't care for the women in P, I find my partner way more attractive than them but P is an instant visual trigger that dispenses dopamine and I have gone my whole life enjoying dopamine. P is nothing more than a visual trigger for dopamine release.

I see my partner naked and while attractive and very pleasant to me I have seen her naked hundreds of times and it doesn't give me that instant hit that P gives me. P triggers your brain to keep looking for dopamine. Let's assume that I want sex. It takes effort. I got to get her in the mood but with P I can get there a lot quicker, and when the goal is dopamine, quicker is easier and lazy. Ultimately ejaculation is the off switch for a man and once the switch is off I am no longer interested in sex.

From my partner's point of view she used to think that I wasn't into her and she was probably right. I loved her, found her attractive but I was wiped out by the PMO.

Having quit PMO seeing my partner naked is nearly like the first time every time. I am incredibly lucky that this hasn't ruined our relationship. Life is so much better. The intimacy and love is way better than any other drug.

P is the devil's work. It ruins lives and while in the past this has been a mostly male addiction, this is now affecting women and in a few years we will see many more women journalling about quitting PMO.

God help us all.

 

My husband is like just barely an introvert, he can extrovert well. I, on the other hand, am a complete introvert. He still sometimes forgets that I am not ready to be chatty until I've had my espresso. Had it by myself with zero chatter. Then I'm good. It is completely not personal.

I would not put that on introversion. I normally find that to actually be the opposite. I get very frustrated when people don't look me in the eyes when they talk to me. I also find it very distracting when their eyes dart all over, makes it harder to ready what people actually feel when they don't let you see their eyes. And it feels like they aren't really paying attention. When dh and I speak unless we are doing something at the same time, we are looking at each other. Personally I think this points more to her having trouble communicating, having a wall up. I don't think you are off base for desiring more connection while communicating.

Part of entering recovery is being able to sit with the emotions that before would drive you to act out, to escape, to numb with a dopamine high. All the pain you had before didn't go away, processing all of the things you pushed away is a necessary step. It also gives you the opportunity to look back at painful things with a new view. You may develop new pain over seeing what your wife may have gone through, but you might also be able to process and release some of the pain that trapped you before as you develop more tools and understanding.