Third attempt to post...

[uncertainground]

Hi, I'm new and this is the third time I'm trying to post, and my last because re-writing my story over and over isn't helping the cause.

I'm the wife of a self-proclaimed PA and although I am hesitant to agree that this is a real diagnosis I'm keeping an open mind.

The short version:

He began watching more and more P as our wedding date approached. Eventually he cheated on me, trying to make me join in as well (yuck). Then he slept with a stripper (which he denies, but I mean, I was the one to take off the condom and clean his arse up so I think I know the deal...), we got married (I was in shock and hate all pictures from the wedding because they only remind me of him breaking my trust), and he continued excessive use of porn (I am good at finding hiddne/deleted files when I want to be) and cheated again. I was leaving the relationship (3 months married), and found out I was preggo. I don't know WHY I was having sex with him at the time, I think I was just trying to get us through the holidays before making any drastic changes.... We did marriage counseling, made progress, I halted it because I wasn't ready to move on from the "communication/working together/respecting eachother part)" to the "rebuilding the sex life part" of therapy. I was 5 months pregnant, I think that's understandably a lot to deal with at the time.

Things were going well, even with NO sex life, but I figured that once we had the baby and I was leveled out we could continue our previous counseling and it would just... level off once the infidelity and subestquent hurt/loss I felt was dealt with.

WRONG. He decides to tell his 8 and 1/2 months pregnant wife of less than a year that he has a porn addiction, feels bad about it, and I should give him "material" so he can masturbate only to me and won' t have to feel guilty.

Talk about bad timing. I feel like that may have been a nail in the coffin for our sex life ever being normal again, and I feel like he picked the worst most insensitive time to want MY support on it.

I feel selfish but I absolutely cannot be his support right now. He is getting help from someone from our church, and is working on it, but I just wish I could un-know what I know because it is, bluntly, too much. I have NO support from him for my own emotional needs (pregnant, dealing with his infidelity, my own issues, etc...) and I absolutely have NOTHING LEFT inside of me to help him and I just don't want to. At least not right now.

So that's my story. I'm working on some stuff and trying to figure out what in GOD's name I'm going to do... but right now I just want one thing. I want to enjoy the last two weeks of my pregnancy and I want to be happy, all day, on the day my son is born. I've lost so much to his mistakes and his issues... self-esteem, my health, emotional well-being, it's affected my career... and by God if this sucks the joy out of the experience of having my first child I may never be able to move forward towards saving this marriage.

Thanks for reading.

[Crisodian]

uncertain,

First, welcome to TTF. I'm sorry you are having trouble posting. There are 2 simple fixes to handle the "vanishing post" issue: 1.) check the "keep me logged in" checkbox when you sign in or 2.) make sure you copy and paste your post into a wordprocessor before hitting submit. That way you are sure to have a copy incase your connection times out while you are typing.

Second, Whew. You have a lot of patience and tollerance. I am not sure I know many women who would have married their current spouse after his behavior before your wedding. I am the SO (wife) of a PA in recovery for almost a year now.

On to the free advice.....

The first suggestion I have for you is deal with your pregnancy and have a healthy, happy baby. Take care of yourself. There is NOTHING more important right now. Do WHATEVER that is for yourself. No matter what.

Second suggestion is learn what you can about PA to understand the addiction. I recommend the Recovery Journals section here at TTF. They will give you a glimpse into the world of PA. By no means is this an excuse for your husband's behavior. NONE. Knowledge is power for you.

Third, start a journal in the Partner's Forum. Use it to journal your way through the healing process. Because, no matter what you do, you will need to heal for you. You need to be the best mom you can be for your little one on the way and living in stress and anger brought on by PA is no way to be.

Fourth, find solace in knowing you are not alone. Our stories are not all the same, but we SOs all share the hurt of being an SO impacted by PA.

Find a path to peace,
~C~

[JenMac]

Hey UncertainGround!
Welcome to TTF! You are at the right place at the right time! By connecting with others here, I hope you will find some comfort from knowing that you are not alone and that there are others here who are experiencing the same things you are. I know myself that it was very difficult in the beginning because of how alone I felt. I felt I had noone to turn to in my time of need.
You are in a very difficult situation! It is important for you to take care of your own needs and your baby's needs first and foremost at this time. Your H's needs have to come 2nd, or 3rd at this time.
You hope to feel joy on the day your baby is born. I hope that for you as well! Nothing should take that away from you. It can be very difficult but sometimes we can manage to manage our feelings to an extent. We can put them away for a time. Not easy, but I have come to realize that it is possible. I hope for you that you can manage to do that at this time.
Stress and volatility is not something you should be feeling right now. Hopefully your H can accept and understand that. You should be doing things for yourself right now that are soothing and nurturing. Do you have anyone you can call on to assist you with that?
Remember that this is his addiction! You didn't cause it, you can't control it and you can't cure it! But you can learn to cope! And right now this addiction is not the most important thing! You and your baby are! Look after you first!!
Jenn

[uncertainground]

C- thanks for the welcome. I figured it out... my private browser was on and it screws with the settings on here for some reason. I am not reading PA's journals or posts right now because I couldn't honestly do so with any sort of compassion. I eventually will but right now I just can't seperate one feeling from another and everything anyone says gets warped into something else in my mind, so it probably would be more harm than good. That said, I do journal, I'll put some of my poems up here when I get a chance later. The thing that scares me most about taking care of myself is that once I get into thinking about what I, and I alone (with baby), need I am afraid that (a) I'll end up with that anger that I fought so hard to deal with again, and (b) I will end the marriage because in all honesty, enough is enough. I can be a bit of a doormat but when I say it's enough, I tend to go drastic but I desperately want our marriage to work. So many other things in our marraige are right... we communicate better (on most things) and more respectfully, we got out of serious serious debt by working our arses off, as have a great place to live, he is extremely doting (most of the time) and will be an amazing father, we have a great church community now... I would hate to throw it away. But it's hard to find the strength without the anger.

JenMac - Oh I totally get that this is his problem, not mine. He's quite a smooth talker and for YEARS I thought that problems like this were me, but they aren't. I'm not incredibly vain but I will say I'm easy on the eyes, great in bed, keep a clean house, an extremely respectful wife, respect that our issues are private and don't blab to every friend with an eardrum, intelligent, self-sufficient, and I am very fair and sometimes too giving. This is NOT my fault. But that doesn't mean it doesn't unfortunately affect me too... he pretty much single handedly destroyed our intimate life (sex and emotional). I'm considering telling him that he isn't allowed to talk about it around me, or anything about anything else that happened around me, unless I bring it up first. I feel like right now, that would be fair.

city fool - I just want to make sure I put this out there, he is ABSOLUTELY NOT DANGEROUS. He might break my heart and tear my world into tiny little pieces, but he would never physically or intentionally hurt me. That's probably why it's so hard to figure out what to do because although this is his fault, he didn't set out specifically to hurt me, so it's like where does my irish temper end and my ridiculously open heart begin? I haven't talked to a lot of people in my life lately because once people hear the whole (unabbreviated story) they flat out tell me to leave. But I already made the decision that I'm willing to give it one more try. No more excuses. The person I really want to talk to, is, of all people him. I married him even after his HUGE mistakes in part because I was in shock, but also because he is my best friend and I wanted to save that.

Sigh... I guess if it was only the PA I could deal better with it, but it's just soooo much back to back for me and it's like I hadn't even totally gotten over the infidelity completely and this is just insult to injury. I wish I could just take out a giant eraser and get rid of it all.