Bad bad day, where is the trust?

[StollenHeart]

Okay so my day sucks. Just when I think I am okay and holding things together something comes up and bites me.

I found a pair of socks in our couch that are not mine, nor my friends, or the kids I babysit (daycare). Seems really cliche but it freaks me out. Not that my hubby has time to cheat but is it possible? This all stems from these questions I have for everyone here;

Is it possible that having a P addiction is the only lie and secret my hubby has? He swears it is, but this is also coming from someone who is scared i will me angry and leave him. Which I dont intend to, we are in this together and I constantly tell him that and I love him to peices! I just dont trsut him at all because he has had this addiction MANY years and I found out weeks ago by accident and he says he had no intension of ever telling me about it. He wanted to try and get rid of it on his own. BUT I have been doing all the work organizing therapy for us and he keeps side stepping and complaining its too expensive and work interferes with schedules to go etc...

I am curious if there is a patern of lies that comes along, and what should I expect? I am literally going crazy-whats wrong with me??

[JenMac]

Hi Stollenheart!
Welcome to TTF!
I am sorry you are having a bad day! Unfortunately the ups and downs continue on for quite some time! I have been here for 11 months and I still experience them though not as often or as extreme.
Is this the only lie your H is telling? Hmm, I really can't tell you if that is the case but I can caution you that you are likely to find out more in the weeks that follow. I know in our case, the information did not come out all at once. There was some damage control that was happening in the beginning, because like your H, my H was afraid I was leaving him.
You are doing all the work to gather resources for recovery. Well that is often the case in the beginning I believe. I found myself searching out information for us as well. I found this site as well and my H followed me here. It took a few months for us to get on a positive path to recovery. It took some time for my H to do the things that I expected of him in regards to setting up counselling etc. But he did do it. Also he was the one who suggested counselling and filters, as a way to show me his seriousness, but it still took him a little time to follow through. Nervous? Thinking I may not require it? Embarassed? Ashamed? All of the above quite likely. But he did do these things and he has been Pfree since the day of discovery.
We are coming up to a year since that dreadful day last March and it has been quite a journey. But I can tell you that we are closer, wiser, happier than we have perhaps ever been. It takes work and committment ongoing, but we are happy to be here one year later in a much better place.
I wish the same for you Stollenheart!
TTF is a blessing! I am glad you are here!
Jenn

[TooSensitive]

SH, I hate to say this, but most of them lie about everything, unfortunately. That doesn’t mean things won’t improve; but how much they improve as far as the lies will depend upon your h and how much of the real recovery work he himself does. Realize no matter what he does from here, you can heal yourself, with or without him being on board too, with or without his help, and independent of him.

As you heal, you will get back in touch with yourself again. I know I shut myself down in nearly all ways; I didn’t know which end was up; I could no longer tell truth from lies, nor what was reality and what wasn’t. But as I healed, “I” improved; and I began to trust myself again; and once I did, I knew when h was lying, b/c my gut and my instincts would let me know. You will get to that point too, as you learn how to believe in yourself again; it just takes a bit of time.

If your h gets into real recovery, he will eventually stop his denial; he will eventually start to open up to you. If he is really recovering, he will be excited about the changes he is making; he will want you to know about his successes and hopefully his struggles as well. When they learn how to open up and share with us along the way, that can give us a level of safety and reassurance. The ones who are in real recovery work towards letting us back in again.

But if he is resistant and remains secretive about things, refusing to answer your questions, for instance, then that will probably tell you he still has much to hide. As time goes on, the details become less important. B/c we get to a point where we don’t need to necessarily know the details of what they’ve been up to; it becomes more a matter of principle that they are lying to begin with, irrelevant of what they are lying about. We know when they are lying – we just know, once we learn how to trust and believe in ourselves again.

Some of them escalate to having real live affairs; some of them don’t. If your h gets into serious recovery and does the real work, he will get to a point where he will know how important it will be to disclose all things to you about his past behaviors and a/o. Doing so will be a part of his recovery work; and doing so will more than likely be necessary to heal your relationship, too (unless you determine you don’t want to know).

With my h, the more questions I asked and the more I asked for disclosure, the more he became distant and shutdown and did whatever he could to keep me out of “his business”. I still don’t know all of what he did, including whether or not he had an affair. I feel strongly that he did, b/c I met her once, and I could tell by the way the two of them were behaving that day, and in the days that followed. I don’t know the details, as in, I don’t know if they actually crossed the line and had s*x; it may have been kept to an “emotional” affair. I just know that there was something going on between them, even though he always adamantly claimed there was not.

My h still lies at times. And he resorts to lying about anything he feels he needs to lie about to “protect” himself. He will even lie about a stupid little broken knick knack, if he thinks he will be in trouble over that. He also went through a phase where he was shoplifting of all things. As far as I know, he has at least stopped doing that, b/c I had a good, long, serious talk with him about it. I had to tell him don’t you dare ever do that when I am with you again, nor if my son is with him or with us, b/c if he gets caught, we will all end up going to jail over it. I reminded him that he would also lose his job if he ever got caught. But when I first confronted him, he denied it, and he lied to my face about the shoplifting, too.

With the SA stuff, I could rarely get him to admit to anything on the spot. The few times he actually confessed anything to me was almost always done months or even years after the fact. I told him that at some point, he had to let the truth catch up to the present, so that there would be no more lies. We’ve never gotten to that point.

Not to give you false hope, but there is hope. There are many recovering addicts here who are doing the work and have or will be coming clean to their partners. They want to become better people, and so they shall. You will know in time in which direction your h is headed.

I am so sorry you are going through this and you find yourself here. This is the single most devastating thing I have ever gone through in my entire life. But I am healing. You will too. Just be kind and gentle on yourself. Find those things which make you feel better about you. Coming here and getting into counseling is a great start. I know you feel like you’re going crazy right now; I did too for awhile. But as you heal yourself, the fog will start to lift, you will be able to manage your thoughts and your emotions, and you will begin to see things as they really are.

[rosie]

Sorry to hear this :(

I thought mine only lied about porn. Wrong. He basically did everything you can (in terms of sex addiction) - and lied about it, for years. Brute force doesn't work to extract the info - by the way. They have to want to tell you as part of their recovery in my opinion.

Pa's in my experience put self preservation above all else - so don't expect a straight answer unless he has hit rock bottom and is serious about recovery.

Sorry :(

Take care. x

[Broken Spirit]

The lack of trust makes everything harder on us, StollenHeart. I am in that position, too. It hurts to second guess every little thing in our lives now. :(

There is nothing wrong with you. From what I have been reading, it is a process to go through to get through this fire in our lives. It is normal for you to feel the way you do. Healing will come. It just takes time.>:D<

[StollenHeart]

Thanks everyone for the kind words and support. Since my bad day, my h and I sat in a quiet room away from distraction and had a long talk. He knows my trust is not there, and he says he is going to try and be open and brutaly honest with me. He says he hasnt looked in a couple of weeks (i put a block on our computer weeks ago) so hopefully he is telling the truth. He also told me how often, when and where he would look.
I did feel a little better after the talk. When he saw how lost I was dealing with this he did shoe me this site-he signed up in October but hasnt posted anything yet.
I am very grateful for this site and for all of you! That we can get through this together.

God bless and THANK YOU!>:D<