vintageturtle's journal

[Charly22]

I still have a hard time reconciling my image of myself with this situation. I can't believe I'm a woman married to a man who would do those things. I can't believe I'm being intimate with someone who has done what he has. That's a really judgmental attitude, but there it is.

I understand this....I understand not wanting to be connected to it in any way. Not wanting to have any part of it. And to realize you are in love with a man who is so compelled to it, it's mind bending. But I think it is a true testament to the effect it has on us as SO's, how it repells our love, while all we want to do is give our love, our intimacy, but because of IT, we cannot, we find it locked up. Boy, do I understand that.

I don't see it as judging him. I see it as a reflection of how it affects you, and how you know that it does not mix, it does not fit with the love and intimacy that you have to offer. You know this. I know this. I believe your husband now knows this.

I hope the insights keep coming, for you, for your husband. For all of us!

[vintageturtle]

But I think it is a true testament to the effect it has on us as SO's, how it repells our love, while all we want to do is give our love, our intimacy, but because of IT, we cannot, we find it locked up. Boy, do I understand that.

You know, I don't know if I've looked at it that way before -- that our (we SOs) love and intimacy is locked up. I always feel like I'm withdrawing, like I don't want to reach out and feel loving toward him, but at the same time, it is painful to feel that way. And I even tell my H that it's not like it's a choice I'm making; it just is. I think you've explained it better, though. You can't reach out with love in this situation. Not that kind of love, anyway. I still want to help him, to be there for him, but it changes our relationship.

And I see over and over PAs who don't want that relationship to change. Some who hide their addiction from their SO. Others who wonder when things will get back to normal, or who don't understand why we don't get that it's not about us. But the change didn't come from the SO. My relationship is with my whole H, not just the parts of who he is that he thinks are good enough to share with me.

When my H first disclosed to me, he said that he could accept that his addiction would affect things -- he could accept losing everything else in his life, but he couldn't even consider me leaving him. (I want to clarify here -- it was a "the thought of you leaving me is too devastating," not "there is no way I can let you leave me" thing.) I felt really manipulated by that at the time. Now I'm wondering how it makes sense for him that his addiction would affect every other part of his life except for his relationship with me. He didn't use P at work, but if he had, he would have understood why they fired him, even if, say, he only ever did it on his break and where no one else could see what he was viewing. It would affect that part of his life. He hasn't told anyone else because he knows it would affect his relationship with them. Why wouldn't it affect our relationship?

I mean, I do think he knew it would affect me -- that's why it took him so long to tell me. He says he kept it a secret for so long because he saw it as his problem to get over, but he's perfectly open with any other problems he's working on getting over. He knows this is different.

I wonder if I see things too much in black and white. That is something I have noticed in myself over the last few years. I'm learning to see grey more, but it's not my default. I do feel for my H. I know this is tough for him and I know he is trying to do the right thing. It is hard to reconcile that with how betrayed I feel and how hurt I am when he fails. (I kind of feel like I'm not supposed to label a relapse as a failure, but that's how it feels right now.) Either he is putting this addiction before me, or he loves me and would never do anything to hurt me. Black and white. It's hard for me to see the grey. It's hard for me to have compassion for him when he fails, when I feel like his failures must be more hurtful to me than they are to him.

I don't think I ever realized that before, but I think part of me feels that way. I mean, he started in on this addiction in the first place because it was something he liked, not something he hated, and when he relapses, it's doing something he enjoys. And it is a betrayal of our relationship. So why shouldn't it hurt me more than it hurts him? Why should I be the one who has to be strong, to comfort him, so he doesn't feel worse about what he's done and spiral down?

If I try to see the grey, though, I can see that even if P use started out as something exciting and intriguing, it's not necessarily something he enjoys now. That's definitely something I've learned from the PAs here. I don't get the impression that it's something they enjoy and are just trying to quit for no good reason. I get the impression that it's something they're struggling to break free of, but it has a terrible hold on them. In theory, I get that. In practice, it's still really, really hard to feel like H is the one who is suffering, or that we are both suffering. It feels like there are just the two of us, and one is doing the hurting and the other is receiving the hurt; one is doing the betraying and the other is betrayed. It was a comfort at first to see the addiction as the enemy, but over time, it has been harder and harder for me to frame it that way. I'm starting to think, though, that it might be the only way for me to reconcile the feelings I mentioned earlier -- how can I be married to someone who does this?

[Disillusioned]

Hi VT,
Just stopped by to say hello, and found you in distress. I am so sorry you are dealing with so many issues regarding your h while you are expecting and have two little ones already to deal with. I can’t imagine walking in your shoes.

One thing that strikes me, and I may be dead wrong about it, but I think he needs to hear how his leaving the group on top of his mb relapse has left you feeling that he is not being serious about his recovery. It truly sounds like this to me, anyway, but you are the one who must ultimately decide what to do and how to approach this. Have you considered writing a letter to him, holding it for a day or two and then giving it to him when you are satisfied that it says what you intended to say. There is nothing wrong with your reaction to his faltering. You are entitled to expect him to maintain his fidelity, and mb, especially when accompanied by looking or thinking about others, is not being faithful. I know you want to support him and help him along the way, but his actions have disappointed and hurt you. I think you are allowed to say, hey, where are you headed here. First the MB, and then dropping the group for a general addiction group in which no one has to admit what their problem is. It sounds like more fumbling around in the dark and not really getting to the heart of the problem, to me. I believe you need to be controlled and as calm as possible, but express your feelings that in order for you to feel safe, valued, somewhat secure in this marriage, he needs to do x, y, and z without fail.
I think you need to stick to your boundaries on this, VT. He also needs to look over his recovery plan and see what happened, what stressed him ( I suspect something related to the increased stress at work) and find something safe and sane to do when this comes up again, which it will. It is something our fellows have to keep up front for the rest of their lives.

Everytime, I let up on my expectations or do not express my need to see where my h is in his recovery or that he isn’t reading here or keeping his journal, I find him slipping back, slowly, but surely. It has been such a long-ingrained habit to use this and to look at other women in a s-x-al way, and as assorted body parts, instead of a whole human being with feelings and rights as strong and legitimate as his own, that I truly feel, we are never going to be over it. It’s just too easy to slide back. I don’t want this in my life. I want it over and gone, but the truth is, we will still have to deal with it tomorrow, etc. for the rest of our lives. In time, I have found I am not as sensitive to the things that used to trigger me, but there are some days I still hurt in the worst way, and some days that I feel anger for all the time and pain that this brought into our lifes.

Our lives are too short to have this cast a sad color over even one day, let alone the years we have been dealing with this. Support him, yes, but deny yourself the right to be hurt of distressed when he fails…no way. He must recognize that this is his problem to deal with, but his failures affect you. If there is a failure, he must go back, examine what went wrong, and intensify his efforts, not transfer to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” kind of addiction group.

. This other stuff about being in control, about not leaving for work with enough time so that he doesn’t get a ticket, about losing his insurance when you have a baby coming, shows a great deal of immaturity and irresponsibility. I think he needs called on about this as well. This is no way to be head of a household, VT. Someone else wrote in their journal, that it is time to man up. That would be good advice for your fellow as well.

This is just my opinion, VT. Whatever you decide to do or not do is right, as it is your life and you know what you need to do better than I. Take care of yourself, no matter what else you do, for your sake and for the sake of the child that you will soon bring into the world.
I also strongly identify with your sentiment of how can I be married to someone who does that? It is even more so after you have explained how strongly this hurts and makes you feel bad about yourself, and they look at you and say, it has nothing to do with you. It doesn't have anything to do with me, or us as SOs. It is about our husbands and their need to react to other women in a s-xu-l way, and it just feels awful.

disillusioned

[vintageturtle]

Sorry to have gone so long without responding, Disillusioned. Thanks for all of your thoughts. You put it well about his failures affecting me. I think I'm still struggling to figure out where my boundaries are, and how to be supportive of him and positive -- which I do think he needs, he needs to see hope for the future -- while still having my own feelings.

As for the insurance and bus stuff, he's sorted all that out, and he has been getting up on time for the bus. I think things just got bad all at once there. He has been steadily working on a couple of renovation projects, and I think that's been really good for him. I know he's frustrated that our house isn't how he wants it and that it's taking time since he's doing the work on his own, but I think it's actually a great thing for him. He has to take it slowly and wait for the results. He has always been really good at school and work, but those things were easy for him, and he could put a lot off until the last minute and then put in a crazy amount of work in a short time and still do a great job. That just doesn't work with renovations, and he's frustrated with himself for not being able to work faster and do everything perfectly the first time he tries it. But he's mellowing out about it and stuff is getting done and he can see it working.

I haven't told him how I feel about him leaving the SA group. I have asked him to start going back to it, and he said he wants to try this other group. Well, there was one problem after another -- he couldn't find where they meet, or he had to take the kids somewhere that night -- and he finally called the group leader. Apparently, people stopped coming around the holidays, and they won't be starting up again until January.

I kind of feel like I'm just waiting around for it to happen again. I ran across something on facebook, it was part of a series of funny pictures, and it was about someone you wouldn't expect running a P website. As part of the picture, they had taken an actual website page and blacked out the bits that would get the picture kicked off facebook. Anyway, I don't run across P often, and I tend to forget how degrading it is. It was like a cheesy flashy ad for sx, treating women like a consumer good. Just so... degrading is the word that keeps coming to mind. And I know a lot of blame is put on the P industry for packaging and marketing sx this way, but it's a free marketplace; they're just providing what sells. This is what people actually want. And I find it so hard to believe, to grasp, that my H was one of those, and still struggles with it. My experience with P is very old school -- mainstream magazines, when I was a snoopy kid -- and that's what I think of when I think of P. But that's not what's out on the internet now. I know my H has said that he was turned off by hard core stuff, and that he tended to back off for a while when the tamer stuff started leading him to that. But still, it's just crazy. I'm still reeling when I let myself think about him going to video chat rooms. Those were real women really showing off and trying to entice the real guys on the other end of the line. He said he never went past the kind of intro area (like I said, I don't know much about all this), but that's still pretty real. I realized yesterday that I just can't imagine having so little respect for our relationship that I could do something like that.

But I know he didn't end up there all at once, and I'm trying to be understanding. But this is so difficult. I know that time helps with healing, and it's definitely not as raw now, but I'm also realizing that it really will never be the same. I will never forget. I can forgive him and I keep working to forgive more and more fully, but things will never be the same. It's like an injury that gets better but can never fully heal; when things are good, you can probably ignore it, but there will be times when the pain comes back and you just have to get through it again.

[vintageturtle]

I had a difficult day a few weeks ago that I meant to come and write about. Better late than never.

My H has always claimed that he finds me attractive, he loves me, that P isn't really about him wanting those women, etc. And I know that I've seen a lot of writing about P addiction that says the same thing; it's about lust, not about the women or about being unsatisfied or unattracted to your wife. I was in the shower recently and just suddenly felt so frumpy and flabby and unattractive. I'm getting older and I've had a handful of kids. I've never had large breasts and a narrow waist and curvy hips. And time isn't helping any of those things. Nobody makes P about women who look like me. (Well, I can't say that for sure. Somebody probably does. Somebody probably makes P about everything, though.) The vast majority of P features fit (or unnaturally slim), flawless women. That's what my H sought out to fuel his lust. That's what he spent hours searching for; that's what he gave up his sleep for; that's what he hid from me; that's what he risked our marriage and his church membership for. Not for frumpy, flabby housewives who don't have time to put on makeup. Not for women who look like me.

It's not that I want him to lust after me or be addicted to me, but the lust and addiction started somewhere, with something small. With something that excited him and he wanted to see more of. It turned into something he put a lot of energy and effort into. And I find it hard to believe that he could find me attractive and exciting if he was seeking out P-style women.

Anyway, that ended up being a rough day. I cried for a long time; I haven't cried over this in a while. When we're together, I feel like my H is attracted to me. The way he smiles at me makes me think so. But I feel like his past disagrees. The fact that he's still struggling disagrees. And it's not even like I think he shouldn't ever be able to find another woman attractive just because he's married to me or if he were married to anyone else. I still notice guys who I find attractive. That part of you doesn't just completely vanish when you get married or are in a serious relationship. The difference is, I just notice, and move on. It's not something I spend hours pursuing and then covering up. It's just a momentary thing, like noticing anything that I find visually appealing. I don't have a relationship with these guys. My H would totally balk at calling P a relationship, but he spent time on it and invested in it emotionally; that's why it's so hard for him to let go.

Obviously, it's a relationship he wanted to end. But he still occasionally expresses frustration at not being able to view P. And I guess I can understand that; it was a stress release, he relied on it as a coping mechanism, it was a habit. Of course he's going to miss having an outlet like that. But it still hurts to know that he misses it. I guess I thought maybe once the habit was broken, once he went for long enough without it, he would only be relieved. He would feel free and no longer want to go back to P. I know some people are like that with smoking; once they get past the withdrawal, they feel free and the thought of smoking is gross to them. And others, even if they're glad to be rid of the bad parts of the habit, still miss the things they enjoyed about it. I guess I hoped that my H would find P so repulsive, especially after seeing how much it hurt me, that he would just be glad to be free and never want to go back. Instead, I'm left feeling like anything could be too much for him and he would be back at it.

Reading over this, I realize there is another side to this. I distrust his attraction to me. It's not just that I think he finds other women more attractive; it's that when he is acting genuinely attracted to and turned on by me, I feel like it's nothing special. Sometimes I feel like I'm just another means to the same end. When he's being really affectionate and it's clear that he's attracted to me, instead of feeling like I'm attractive to him, like he loves me and is trying to show it, I feel like it's about how he feels. He feels turned on and I'm his wife so he's coming to me. I don't think he's doing anything that justifies me feeling this way; I just find it hard to believe that he's genuinely attracted to me after knowing what he sought out.

[widowgirl]

Hi Vintageturtle

Love that name!

I've been there too, many many times. I thought I was alone until I came here and found so many women going through the same. When my late h would tell me I was sexy or come on to me, all I could think was "Stop patronizing me!" It would be kind of hard not to think that after discovering a partner's PA. I suspect this is one aspect of the problem that doesn't heal quickly, and pray that it gets better for you, given time and trust.

[Disillusioned]

This was the hardest part for me too, VT and WG. How could I possibly be attractive to you when I am almost 60 (age at D day) and you are looking at 18-20+ year olds? I didn't even look as good as they do when I was their age. I don't understand it and it makes me feel sick and want to cover-up when we are intimate. I have found myself shaking in embarrassment at how I must look in comparison to all he has seen and fantasized about, and I have felt ugly and not able to be wanted at all because of this. I'll do better for a while and then it's back. It is an ongoing struggle, but even though I have recently found that my h is not as recovered as he seems to think, and he is dragging his feet in taking precautions to make sure his p use was a thing of the past,it is becoming a little less personal to me. He has looked at these beautiful women as body parts, and not given them the respect inherent with the fact that they are human beings, just as he is. I just hate that they let their eyes and minds go there to begin with, and go often enough to get addicted. It does hurt, but sometimes it does get less painful. Still, we are forever changed by this. I really hate this, because I used to go to him with such carefree happiness and abandon. His choices have been able to make me feel less than, when all I have ever wanted to do was love him and show him how very wonderful he is to me.
disillusioned

[SOHope]

Wow, this strikes a cord with me as well though my PA can't say that he is even attracted to me:(
It's a tough situation when you forever wonder what they are thinking about while trying to show love. Is the love really lust in their minds, is that how they actually get through it?
Currently, we are on day 12 of a 90 day celibacy contract which makes me go back and forth with how I feel. Will he 'reboot' himself enough to be able to look at me with love and attractiveness so we can have a successful s*x life or will he always need the fantasy in order to be with me?
I feel for him and I know he wants it to be different though I also need to keep my feelings in check and know that I am not nor do I want to be p material.
S*x has always been too important for me as a love connection so this drains me of that. It's actually a good exercise as this will show me that I can be loved even without s*x.
We can all say that this isn't personal and we all know that to ultimately be true though we are allowed to feel the way we do. It's making sure we look in mirror each day and know we are just as we are meant to be, right here, right now.

[vintageturtle]

widowgirl wrote: " It would be kind of hard not to think that after discovering a partner's PA."

I know, right? It seems so obvious to me, but my H really doesn't seem to get it. Maybe it's part of the compartmentalizing thing that both men and addicts are supposed to be better at. He really seems to think that it should make total sense that he could be addicted to P and still completely attracted to me, and he seems baffled that my ability to be intimate should still be impacted by it.

Disillusioned, that's a good point you make, about taking it less personally as you realize that he was treating them like body parts, not people. I think it's a hard thing to realize, though, because I do see them as people. And they *are* people. This is the kind of thing I still go round and round with, trying to sort out.

SOHope, I hope your contract goes well and helps you guys out. I think that's what H and I should have done in the beginning; it was all really confusing and he was so relieved to have told me and to be able to get support from me that he was feeling especially affectionate. I wasn't, but I knew it was a delicate time in our marriage and I didn't want him to feel rejected or discouraged and give up. But it was really difficult. When things got difficult for him again around a year later, he suggested that we abstain for a while, but we never really discussed it or figured out any details, and then things were kind of the same with him feeling vulnerable and needing support. And he feels that it would just be another thing coming between us in our marriage. I don't feel strongly one way or the other at this point, but if I knew back then what I know now, I would have set different boundaries in our physical relationship for a while.

[vintageturtle]

I wanted to post something positive here that I thought of while reading elsewhere; I've been pretty negative lately and I think it would be good to remind myself of something my H is doing well.

All through this, from the very beginning, he has been understanding of and receptive to my need for reassurance that he's not acting out. I am often hesitant to ask him, because I don't want him to feel accused or untrustworthy, but when something has seemed off to me, or he was up late, or anything like that, I want to ask him if things are going well, or is there anything he needs to tell me? (He's supposed to tell me if he acts out, but he has a couple of days to do so.) He never acts offended or hurt by it. If I were in his shoes, I think I would be discouraged if I were doing well and someone was questioning it. He says he appreciates knowing that I'm looking out for him and concerned about his recovery.

He is also very open to me "nagging" him about sticking with his plans to avoid triggers, etc. Again, I would feel like a little kid being chided by a parent if someone were reminding me to get to bed on time and read my scriptures and go to a meeting and all those things that H is using to help him in his recovery. But he is never bothered by it, and he seems to be happy that I am thinking of him and supporting him.