Update and doubts

I will say this

 

Try to be nice man. You act like her agent. Are you? Very funny. Read my posts a second time and let it sink in so you can get it better what I am referring to.

 

8

i appreciate your efforts. Penelope I am sorry if I offended you. I am trying to relate to something deeper. I relate what I describe to my own life and experience but that does not sink in. I wish you the best solution that works best for you. You must have conquered the heart of the guys here. They fight hard for you. Congratulations.

 

As an SO whose partner has over 6 months of sobriety under his belt, I can say that it took some time before he stopped being defensive and could be accessible and responsive to me when I was trying to save our relationship, hoping and praying he'd come around to empathy, understanding, and recovery, for his own sake, if not for ours. It also took outside, professional help, and even with that, it took a couple of years before he really got honest, even with his SA group and CSAT therapist. There were many ups and downs for both of us. It was difficult, extremely difficult. I will say it's been worth the effort for both of us. You can check out his journal (@RunningFree) to see how far he's come in the last 6 months. He doesn't post super frequently here, though, as this is only one of his recovery tools. His weekly group therapy has proven to be the most helpful thing for him. I digress a bit... Please PM me, @Penelope, if I can be of any help.

 

You are not being selfish at all, not even a little bit. Your expectations are that you do not want to be lied to, and you want a normal sex life, not by any means unreasonable. And the fact alone that you are staying with this man shows that you are not selfish, and how unconditional your love is. It’s normal to doubt yourself or try to blame yourself. Afterall that’s what society does when a man does not want to have sex with his partner. “Did she gain weight?” “Maybe she nags him too much?” “She must make more money than him, that makes him feel insecure.” “She needs to be more feminine.” “She needs to wear sexy lingerie?” In the context of PMO addiction, many of us SOs myself included have heard these times of things from trained medical professionals! We get it from family members, from priests or ministers, so sure we are going to blame ourselves. DO NOT DO THAT. The people saying that to you on here are addicts, and that is their addicted mind talking, and it makes no sense. They think it makes sense, so I try to understand that, they will argue and argue with you until the cows come home about how valid their point is and how you need to see it, but it’s not. What I will say though is that maybe some of these addicts reactions are a window into how your partner feels and thinks, so try to look at it like that. They simply do not see how much pain their PMO addiction causes their SO, because they don’t want to. Their addicted brain won’t allow them to see that, because they need a means to justify continuing in their addiction. So they do things like compare a PMO addiction and lying to you not being supportive enough, or something else you did wrong, when it is far from him, like really really far, we are talking a scale of 1000000 to 1.

 

Exactly, @GG2002. Part of what I was trying to convey was to take into account whether anyone giving advice could still be under the influence of the imbalanced chemicals that acting out causes. I can only speak from my experience with my partner, but when he was in his early days after his last relapse, he was extremely defensive with some blame-shifting -- not at all fun to try to reason with him. It took time without his brain being awash in addiction chemicals, and it happened gradually, not all at once. It's like I'm talking to a different person when we talk about his recovery now.

 

I think I'll chime in, as reading all of this has brought up some stuff. My SO @Torn has given a good summary of our situation and of my path to recovery. One reason that NoFap is only one of my recovery tools is because of some of the responses on this site, similar to @Phoenix234. While a lot of people on this site are looking for and/or offering support, advice or a way to journal their recovery, (from either side the addict or the SO) there are others that jump on here for some weird ulterior motive, maybe to get a rise, maybe to get people upset. It's unfortunate, to say the least. I think that some of the responses come from people who do not understand PA. NoFap is a good community to offer help, it is not a substitute for real recovery work and accountability that is achieved with an actual real life person, i.e. a sponsor, therapist, spiritual leader, or a group, where you cannot hide and deceive. It's much harder in person when your facial expression and body language can be seen.

I know that once I committed 100% to recovery and used all the tools necessary, group, CSAT, recovery workbooks, PA related books, and couples therapy, things became very clear. The hurt and betrayal I caused, the lies and deceit that I used. The broken trust caused by lack of honesty. The lack of empathy. Yes, something that I should have had, yet I did not. The lack of integrity I had, I was such a hypocrite. Also, I learned I could not do this myself. No one can beat addiction by themselves. The very nature of addiction is isolation. To think you can do it alone is a lie, no matter the intention. Please read Carnes or any other expert on PA, and this message is very clear.

It's good and positive to see the support here for @Penelope. It's a difficult situation to be in, unfortunately one I put my SO through. Keep to your boundaries and I hope that your husband comes around and realizes and recognizes and admits what is truly going on.

A few parting thoughts. Connection is the opposite of addiction. And do or do not, there is no trying.

 

Penelope and community. I apologize to you. I admit I did not read the other posts and did not get familiar with the whole picture. I should have done this. My critics and reactions were to the one post and isolated statements.
I regret that I steered up that much.

I tried to get important points across and I come from a place of much work reflection and work on this subject and subjects in general. I tried to trigger a challenge of the mind and tried to catapult the theme into different dimension that can open up a wider perspective and the base for a deeper approach. I understand your frustration what you go through and what a great sacrifice you give and that indeed it’s hard to deal with addiction. Again I apologize for having offended you.

 

I am provokative in nature. Very much. But I am very interested in people and have a lot of care. I do not have the motive to just steer up but to care and open change for the better. I usually bring up a lot. Upset reactions too of course. But I care and I bring in dynamic for new views and most of the time progress. I usually have at the end good outcomes. I have a terrific SO and without her help andsupport I could not have developed. The interaction among the two of us is deep and very fruitful. We both had much realizations along the way.

I also take care of a mentally unstable family member. It needs endless love and care understanding and patience. If I do t have these I don’t support but can be cause for complications myself. I am not saying you don’t have this. I am just very sensitive and aware of the many aspects that all play into the situation and the many opportunities there are when opening up and allowing reflection.

Your partner for sure is very lucky to having you and you are very brave of going through what you are going through.

 

I like your attitude a lot! I am married I have a beautiful very good wife. It’s due to her that I could emerge to a far extend. I feel I am at the verge to breaking free from the addiction and have this situation solved. I went through a lot. It needed many many small steps. Small realizations. My wife was majorly majorly important and helpful by staying with me believing in me and continuing with me.
She carried a big load. Because she did I could continue to develop. I nevertheless carry a lot of her things too. I think two people meeting loving are able if determined enough to overcome anything.
So if your guy does effort be assured that you help him tremendously. But I guess you don’t know if he does enough effort and is determined enough.

 

Thank you. Have a nice day

 

@Penelope, he is very lucky to have a loving partner like you. I hope you don't suffer in silence. It's been really helpful to me to talk about the trauma and not bottle it up inside. Of course, it's important to share only with someone you trust and with whom you feel emotionally safe. Have you talked with your counselor about this?

 

God! Reading that i felt like it was me and my husband. We are not talking about a month because i just realized he was still doing that. He does understand that i do not need to see him do that, just know. HONESTY is the secret.