56 year old married fellow

[dave]

Thought this forum needed a start.
I have been P and M free for 96 days today.
Although I am 'clean' I still have considerable struggles - In 12 step terminology I have quit but my sobriety / recovery is quite thin yet.
I have used P cupulsively over past 5 or 6 years. It never escalated much but it sure became a nasty daily habit that I can't live with any more. My wife confronted me about my stash and that got me out of denial
I appreciate talking to older forum members. Sometimes I worry that my being a relatively happily married and having a sex life may be a bit of a burden to young guys just starting out. It's not that I am any better, just that my journey is different.
Despite the fact that my wife and I have sex I almost always want more - it is a physical thing that I can resist but it is a burden. I had hoped these urges would have lessened by now. I don't pressure - her just endure.
My wife and I are having struggles. We love each other and are committed for the long haul but I am still quite emotionally unstable. I have meltdown where I cry and she has a block about this. My tears keep her away. A PA who shares too many emotions - now there is a twist I haven't read too often
She has initiated contact with a counsellor who was a great help years back when my P habit was hidden and quite limited.

So that's a little about me.

[Ksmith]

I am a 43yr old may who has been married for a while with a p/m problem for 30 yrs. I told my wife once and got no support from her in recovery.

My advice to you is to look to unravel your addiction causes and how it helps you cope with life. My p/m addiction has been as frequent as a dozen times a day and spent many years struggling to make a week of sobriety. Marriage did not cure the problem. In fact I preferred p/m to wife. I was unable to really make any progress with my problem until I started to unravel my problems through the help of a talk I heard on the subject (see link below) which is so good it has become my text book for recovery. I have discovered through this talk as I try to follow it that recovery is so much more than just measuring days of sobriety. Good luck and I hope you will watch the talk!

Kyle

http://byubwmv.byu.edu/edweek/2005/RReid05.wmv

[Daniel]

Figured I'd make it official as far as being in TTF and averaging older than most and younger than some... 40.

TTF has been an excellent tool. The comraderie is amazing, very edifying. I have never experienced anything like it.

I am just realizing that the struggles are very different (and were for me too) when you're a teenager vs. twenty-something vs. recently married vs. been-married-awhile.

None of the stages are easy in dealing with, trying to keep sexually pure...

But it seems if you choose (like I did) to let the feelings/thoughts/actions around PA ride without kicking them out, to not take the war seriously, then the consequences of failure will grow to towering heights.

See you guys around TTF...

Daniel

[brokensoul]

since we are all about the same age here and fight the seem battle
I have one question
I've been p free for over 60 days
i've started to have thoughts about old partners and my wife and how i treated them and things we did
Is this my inner self tring to find where i went wrong?

[dave]

After about 5 months clean of P/M I have been having periods of sadness when recalling the past. It is not as bad as the tearful days of a few months ago or the depression stretches.
I suppose it is a form of grieving.

Sometimes I miss P/M - not in a craving way but in a sense that an old friend is gone. I fully realize the old friend was no good for me but there is still some letting go of familiar ways of dealing with life.

I am starting to feel natural in my new ways of living but it has been a slow process.

Another aspect is that the longer I am clean the clearer I can see things. As I reflect on the ups and downs of our marriage I realize that not all the problems were driven by me and my PA. In a sense my PA arose as I tried to cope with the realities of marriage. I DON"T mean to duck out on responsibility but there are roots to my problem. It is not something my SO did to make me go to P. She was just being herself and like me she has problems too.

I chose to feed my P habit but in a sense I didn't know any other way. When I was living in the P bubble of denial it was hard to see any other option.

Thank god for all the tough events that broke my denial and helped me on this recovery journey.

Dave

[brokensoul]

it is good to hear this from someone
i thought that maybe it was my dark side trying to return due to my not viewing p
in my heart i could feel that these were things that had been eating at me and needed to find thier way out
thanks
now that i know i'm not alone in this i feel better

[AirKeep]

Dave, thanks for the reminder that for those of us in relationships, that means there are two people in it. As you state, P was not triggered and is not our SO's fault, and by no means does it help or should be considered acceptable, but.
We are two people, PA's are not the monsters that they can be made out to be, and SO's are not perfect angels. Seems like the best recovery comes when both sides take responsibility for their own parts, and not focus so much on the other.
The last few words I have from my SO are that everything is my fault. Maybe her thinking has changed in the past year, but maybe not, but that's what I was left with, it's all my fault. I know I need to think of myself more than that, and I know as PA's that's one of the triggers that doesn't help, continuing to be bashed for our behaviour, instead of boundaries and consequences being set, but not beat down further.
Thanks for the post.

[dave]

One way to see it is that you are in recovery but she is not?
So she is still trapped in her own bubble of anger and blame. It is a natural reaction to living with a PA but not a very pleasant state for either of you.
Whether you split as a couple or stay together BOTH of you need recovery.

Just like in our former years of acting out we couldn't see a way past it, perhaps your SO can't see a way past her anger and blame?

In a strange way you are further in recovery than she is. All you can do is your best and give her a "new you" to react to. It is an old trick but when someone wants to push you and you don't push back they often loose their pushyness.

This all sounds easy but perhaps it will help.

Stay clean Airkeep

Dave

[brokensoul]

everything i read and what i know is to open up to my SO
i have done this
but i am getting the cold shoulder
she tells me to stop feeling sorry for myself
i know what i did hurt her
i have just been trying
to show her that i'm on the way back
i'm clean no issues
what can i do?
her reactions to me
are starting to hurt me
i will not fall off the path
i can take the hurt
but i feel so low right now
i have work early
good night alll
stay strong

[dave]

Getting the cold shoulder hurts when we are trying so hard to stay on a new path.
Sometimes it feels like my SO is naiive in how hard it is for me to take on this new path. When she tosses out seeming casual comments that are insensitive to the struggles I am having it is really tough.
I guess time will tell where all this will go. In the L O N G run I don't want to live in a relationship where the caring is not mutual but for the short run I willhold the course. I have worshipped the P god so long that I need to give things real time to recover.
I trust there will be a time to find a better balance in our relationship but for now I will deliberately focus on my efforts toward recovery.

Besides there is always the very real possibility that I am misreading the facts. PA has a way of twisting reality.
I keep on praying and living a clean life, hope you can too....
Dave