Affects on relationship when P was a secret

[WifeOfNewLifeMan]

This question is for PAs and SOs.

When PA was a secret in the relationship, where the SO didn't know, do you think PA affected your marriage?

For PAs- Can you detail how P affected your relationship and family life (if it did) when your SO was not aware or isn't aware of your PA? If your SO is aware, but doesn't know the full extent because you haven't given full disclosure, does this have an affect on your relationship?

For SOs- Looking back to when you didn't know about your PAs addiction, do you think there was any affect on your marriage?

I think this is an important thing to talk about for PAs and SOs. PAs may think that their PA doesn't affect anyone except themself. THey may think that their marriage is ideal, except for the PA. And SOs get bombarded with so many messages from everywhere that P is fine and we are abnormal for having a problem with it.

I am really curious to see what people have to say.

[rosie]

Well, yes of course.

I knew instinctually - always - that something was wrong. I could feel him withdrawing and I had no idea what I had done - what was wrong with me, but I never truly felt valued while he was using P.

It affected every aspect of our life. Because it wasn't just about p - it was about the objectification of women in general. Socially, I used to feel this extreme irritation within him, and it made me stop going anywhere with him as it was always negative. Now I know that this feeling was him ogling and 'mentally acting out' while with me. This really hurt!

Our whole relationship and life revolved around P. When he was using it, he neglected me, our family. When he wasn't he was in a horrible mood which affected me, our family.

He just wanted his P, nothing else. So, when I would invite him to go somewhere, i would end up going alone, while he sat at home with his P.

He would reject me for P instead - which means that my self esteem took a major battering. This has affected every aspect of my life.

He downloaded P at work and spent his day being triggered - this means financially that we have stagnated for years, because he is worth about 3 times what he earns, but because he hasn't used his work time to promote his abilities, we are financially impacted upon.

It has affected our children, because not only has he been lost in the P world, and the lost mindset that comes with it, but he has taken me with him. I had become so emotionally absent because of the constant trauma that my children have missed out.

To cut a long story short, PA/SA has affected every single aspect of our life. There is not one part of it that has not been negatively impacted.

[WifeOfNewLifeMan]

To answer my own question....

Before I knew, I really thought I had a good marriage. I thought other people would be lucky to have a marriage like mine since we didn't fight and got along well. Our public face was really good.

But...

I thought my husband didn't really like me.

We didn't have an emotional closeness, and neither of us tried to fix this.

My husband seemed uninterested in sx, although i was interested and cried sometimes and asked him why he didn't want me.

My husband had erectile problems which I blamed on his age and diabetes. These problems have disappeared now.

My husband would MB either after I left the bed, or even when I was asleep next to him (which woke me up), and he would do this more than we ever had sx. This really hurt my feelings.

My husband was unresponsive when we had sx. Except if I let him treat me like a whore and call me names.

He didn't seem interested in doing things with our kids. He was impatient and seemed bored a lot.

He seemed restless and bored in general. I was content and I thought he should get a hobby or do something to entertain himself. I felt anxious about how he acted, like I should be responsible for making him happy and not bored, but I didn't know how and didn't want to mother him.

He never made me feel desired or beautiful. He didn't compliment me.


So, although I didn't know about my husband's P and chatting, it affected our family life and marriage and intimacy greatly. I never knew what the source of the problems was, but there were many seemingly small problems that added up to a less than stellar marriage and I often thought, is this as good as it gets? We were parents and business partners, instead of friends and lovers.

Life is not perfect now, but we don't have any of the problems in the list above, because he is in recovery.

disclaimer: We do have one problem in the list above still... emotional closeness because I still have a problem wanting to be emotionally close.

[samski]

Here is what I can say P has done to my marriage, from the standpoint of a PA:

• I became distant
• I shut off from my wife
• I became short with the children
• Loss of intimacy
• Focus on sex rather than loving my wife/relationship
• Focus on my wife's faults (really transferring my faults onto my wife rather than seeing mine for what they were)
• Extreme insecurity

[2frustrated]

After using p, I could not feel close to my wife. This was because of my duplicity. How terrible it was to look her in the eye and talk to her genuinely, and tell her I love her, when all the while, in the back of my mind, I hear, "You looked at p! If only she knew you looked at p! You betrayed her! You false person! You are a charlatan!" So to be nice to her, or be intimate, made me feel like even more of a no-good traitor. It was thus more comfortable to not be close to her, to distance myself. If I distanced myself, at least I wouldn't feel the double guilt of acting like who I wasnt. I was a PA and to express love to my wife constituted a double betrayal.

[Beanhead]

In a way, this question is a hard one for me to respond to. For so many years, I deceived myself (or rationalized) that my P didn't affect my relationship(s). I felt that if she didn't know, it didn't affect us.

However, I remember well how often she'd say, "I feel that you are distancing yourself from me; why?" and I would just deny it or not even recognize it.

So I think the first thing P did to affect my relationship was that it caused me to be in such denial that I didn't even recognize what was happening to me/us.

I tried to be very careful to not let P affect our intimacy but I'm sure that this was affected. The distance that it created (as mentioned above) caused our intimacy to feel more physical and less emotional. Although I have to say that our intimacy was pretty great.

However, NOW that she knows about my PA, our intimacy has definitely been affected. We haven't stopped loving each other but we I know it hasn't been easy.

Finally, my PA caused me to lie, lie and lie! And its one of the things I'm so ashamed about. I'm so embarrassed to think of the lies I told to hide that addiction; I'm never doing that again.

[clm]

Looking back, I can see how much my husband's PA affected me and our marriage. As others have mentioned, he had become both distant and uncaring. He usually seemed uninterested in sex. I used to wonder "How did I find the one guy who doesnt care about sex?". I was usually the one that had initiate it. Then he developed ED. I used to cry and ask him what was wrong, why didnt he love me, or want me. He would just look away and refuse to answer. He had no empathy. I would be sobbing and he would not even try to console me.

Even though he has been P-free since October 2009, our marriage still has not rebounded fully. It is better, but I cant seem to forgive him for what he put me through. Not sure if I ever will.

[StollenHeart]

As an SO I would have to say yes there was an effect on our marriage before I found out. Just because our intimacy level was harmed and was cold and mechanical, and just certain days he would be really quiet and distant. I noticed this for years and even used to tell my good friend that I thought he was cheating on me or hiding some BIG secret. And when I finally caught him and he admitted to his addiction I felt stupid and thought I should of stuck to my gut feelings in the first palce.
Always follow your heart and instincts.

SH