any older married guys out there ?

[Coyote Toast]

Hey Dave -- I'm 58 myself and married, though the marriage is in very bad shape at the moment. I've told my story elsewhere (it can be found in the journal section, though I haven't been keeping it up and it's probably buried) so I won't go into the whole thing again here. I've used P off and on my adult life, primarily as an emotion management tool. I've been married for 15 years and over the last few years of our marriage things have gotten more stressful and I have turned more often to P. During most of my life I never really looked at P as a problem, though I had a lot of shame about it and kept it quite secret for the most part. But then anything sexual provokes shame in me. A few months ago I decided it was important to be truthful with my wife so I confessed to her and started looking for help. She blew up and told me to move out. It's a long story, but today I'm living separately still and don't want to move back, although I miss our children. My wife and I have been doing couples counseling but she continues to rage at me and I continue to wall her out. It's pretty grim.

I think you're fortunate to have a partner who is tolerant of you. I don't know what you can do to heal all the wounding, though. I feel like I have delivered a mortal blow to my marriage by the P use. Knowing my wife, she will never forgive me (I'm not saying this lightly, believe me) and given that, I see no future for our relationship. I don't know if I have any useful advice for you. You sound pretty resourceful, anyway, and probably don't need advice. The only thing that occurs to me is to ask if your wife can tell you what she would need to see to regain trust on an incremental basis. It might also be worth looking at family therapy, given that there is a clear trail of addiction in the family.

Dave, even if I don't have anything marvelous to say, I want you to know that I'm rooting for you. Even if it doesn't help your relationship, getting clean and sober will help YOU. It's worth doing, I truly believe that. I think one of the unique perspectives on this addiction that comes with being older is the despair of looking back on a life of making the same mistake over and over. It's really unnerving. Some days I get into the zone of wondering what there really is to live for. I can feel permanently soiled and hopeless. So far those kind of thoughts haven't taken over, but they are there. They are definitely there.

I'm glad you're in therapy. I don't know what I'd do without therapy, or this website, or the books of Patrick Carnes. One thing, though, I've told a trusted friend about my whole experience with P, and having someone know who can hold that knowledge and still be my friend is worth its weight in gold. We hang out here and there but he also calls just to see how I'm doing. If you think your friend can handle your story, it's probably worth risking the telling.

Best of luck to you.