Dave42's Very Gay Journal of Recovery

[Crisodian]

Thanks dave! I love that quote. I think it sums up how we sometimes forget our words and actions impact our partner's more than we ever realize.

Be well!

~C~

[dave42]

Well, what a horrible weekend. Not p-related, but my relationship. My partner admitted that he was cheating on me...sigh...uh, I'm still kind of reeling...It took him like 5 f'ing chances (maybe more) to come clean--I had to beg him to tell the truth...At first he denied it, then he admitted to phone sex with anonymous guys, then admitted to phone sex with a particular guy, then he finally (?????????) admitted to a one month relationship with the guy that involved one sexual encounter.

I'm kind of stunned, you know? 4 years...I've not been honest with him about p and that's bad, but this is a different level I think. He was very remorseful and he wants to fix things....I just don't think he has completely come clean. I sense that he's been fooling around with other guys in the past. He is quite a liar, I mean, that sounds wrong, but I think what I'm trying to say is that he lies a lot, I think. I don't know. I don't know if I even want to know. Yes, I do want to know EVERYTHING, but how would I know if I were getting the whole story? I will never know. That's a big problem. I tried to come cleaner with him about my p addiction to show him that he isn't the only liar. I'd told him a lot, but not everything. I still haven't told him about things from before our relationship started (strip clubs and prostitutes)

I really don't need this right now. I feel like my life is kind of a mess, altho on the other hand I feel relatively together. I have the BIGGEST F'ING exam of my life, the culminating event of 3 years of study in, what?, 3 and a half weeks. Supposed to be studying really, really hard. Instead I'm kind of reeling.

[Daniel]

Sorry to hear the news Dave. That's a bummer.

Try to stay focused on the task(s) at hand (Your Sobriety, Your Exam, Your Well Being)...

Daniel

[Crisodian]

dave,
I'm so sorry to hear about your partner. You're comments sound a lot like mine when I was a SO discovering PA for the first time. That whole concept of "I don't know. I want to know. But I don't ...and it's eating me us inside." It's so challenging to deal with the uncertainty of a partner's honesty and just how deep the issues go. My heart goes out to you.

I know the challenges of being an addict AND a SO. I know your partner doesn't have PA, but it doesn't hurt any less or knock one for a loop any less when you learn about infidelity. In many ways, the emotions are the same.

Daniel's suggestions are sound. Keep your head up and focus on you and what you need right now. When you get to a place when you both are ready, it sounds like you and your partner need to have some long emotional conversations.

Best wishes,
~C~

[Rowlf]

Hey Dave,

That's a crap thing to get given, at any stage, not just now. Keep doing the next right thing. Hope it comes together and will be thinking of you.

[Athenon]

My hearth goes out to you Dave.
I agree with Daniel, although it may be hard, focusing on your exam, yourself and your recovery is the best thing you can do.
You can do it !

[dave42]

Thank you very much, Cristodian, Athenon, Daniel and Rowlf! All of your message have helped me a great deal. Here is my plan: study in a very concentrated way from now until my exam. Organize a meeting with a counselor. I will need to put emotional conversations on hold for about 2 and a half weeks. There might be some benefits to waiting, so maybe that is a good thing, after all.

I'm much better than when I first wrote about this a few days ago.

I guess the hard part is that, although we have had a couple of emotional conversations since I last wrote, I still don't feel that he is coming totally clean. sigh...okay, well, I haven't either, really. I still haven't told him everything about my past. So...I guess these secrets can wait another 2 or 3 weeks. Does anyone have an opinion on this:

Is total honesty something we should aim for in a relationship? It's a sincere question.

Should I tell him everything about my past: all the prostitutes and all of the anonymous sex in video arcades, Craig's List, and so on?

Also: he says that the best he can describe why he did it is that I wasn't emotionally available sometimes. That's probably related to my addiction to p. Also all my lying. He says that sometimes he could feel my annoyance with him radiating through walls! I DO get annoyed with him. I do. It's true. But I don't know what to do about it. I love him, and the annoyance is just---I don't know. I guess I'm easily irritated. I'm so sorry that I get annoyed and then he feels unwanted. What do you do? I mean: should I try to focus on not being so easily annoyed? I hate to hurt him and push him away. I don't know if this is something I can fix. It probably is. It's just that I'm an easily annoyed guy, I guess. I don't know...I have an easy-going side of me too, so it's hard to say. Also, he is somewhat difficult: a bit compulsive about housekeeping. He is a great guy, and I want to make it work.

[Crisodian]

Is total honesty something we should aim for in a relationship? It's a sincere question.

Should I tell him everything about my past: all the prostitutes and all of the anonymous sex in video arcades, Craig's List, and so on?

dave,
IMO, yes. You should be totally honest with your SO.

However, that being said, I would suggest you ask yourself the question of "why" you don't feel like you should share everything? What is holding you back from being completely honest?

Eveyone's journey is their own and only you can decide what is right or wrong for your relationship.

IMO, I think as an SO, one of the things we fear the most is waiting for the "other shoe to drop". As an SO, I still find myself constantly battling with the nagging demon of "is there more I don't know about?" in the back of my mind. I find myself waiting to see if there IS more I didn't learn about, even though my PA insits he has told me everything. Did he really? He wasn't honest with me our entire relationship. Can I really believe he has been totally honest with me now? It's so hard to build trust back into a relationship when those nagging voices wont stop.

That's why I feel it is so important to come completely clean. Because, in essence, you do have another "shoe to drop" on your SO. And, if nothing else, you should have the peace of mind that you have told your partner everything.

And for you, in your situation, you also know the feelings of what I describe from the SO side. It's scary. And hard. And it hurts.

But only you can look inside and figure out what is keeping you from being totally open and honest.

(In my case, I kept things from my PA because I feared I would be judged on who I was "then", not who I am now.)

Hope this helps,
~C~

[dave42]

Yes, it does help a lot. This is very wise. I'm flirting with dangerous ideas these days: that our relationship can somehow function in a way that is caring but not built on total trust. It's just that my partner seems very unwilling to "come clean" and my (immature) reaction is to say, "Hmmmm...well, maybe it can still work. If he is a little lacking in truth then I can be, too. We'll stay together, but the relationship will be based on some sort of understood but unstated truthfulness compromise. He'll continue to philander and I can go back to the strip club." This is dangerous, because I really WANT to go back to the strip club. In this case theh strip club refers to an actual club but it also refers I'm sure to PA in general. I want to think it doesn't refer to PA in general, but it does. How would I, for example, go to a strip club once a month on the sly and NOT get totally sucked back into the PA life? It's stupid to even flirt with these ideas.

The problem is that my partner's inability to come clean is permission. It's permission for ME not to come clean. It's no good though. If I decide to stay in this relationship, I will have to do it knowing that he might not be telling the truth about many things. That he is loving and caring and sweet, but that he might be fooling around behind my back. I think that that might be a basic part of who he is. I'm not sure, but I think that that might be the case. However, if I make that decision, then I can't do it this immature way: "He is fooling around, so I will fool around." That won't work.

Meanwhile, studying like crazy and feeling stressed out by the upcoming exam. So, there is a kind of agreement in our relationship that we won't talk about things in a deep way until after the exam. So, to some extent, things have stabilized for the short-term. But I'm still pretty shaken up.

Good luck, everyone. This is a great example of why your sobriety, your recovery, the logic of your commitment to overcoming PA cannot really be based on your relationship. If you do that, and then your partner disappoints you, you might want to turn your PA into a way of "getting back" or of "coping" as I have considered. This is a fruitless, fruitless path.

The path of recovery probably needs much more focus on being honest with yourself, and, as many have said here, on constantly asking yourself, "Good morning, Dave. It's November 27, 2009. Why do you want to stay clean today? Why recovery? Why not indulge in a little p today?"

And then the answer in the best case, perhaps, should come from a deep place--a deep commitment to yourself, and to your sense of being honest with yourself. It's not that "I want to stay clean for my partner" or "I want to stay clean for the sake of my relationship" isn't a great reason, but it isn't enough. It just isn't enough, I think.

It's got to be a commitment to being clean for the sake of being clean, I think. I don't know, but I think I'm on a more fruitful path if I orient my travels toward the goals of taking care of myself. Seems a bit individualistic, huh? But right now, sad to say, I can't guarantee I'll be with my partner a year from now.

It's not, "You can't trust anyone." That would be an awful way to live. It's more a Buddhist sense of "Hey, the only thing you really have is the breath of air you just breathed in, and, oops, you just exhaled, so even that's gone. Breathe, David, breathe. You are alive. You are okay. Even mountains crumble eventually, so don't put your faith in mountains. Just breathe."

[Athenon]

Dave that is an incredible post.

This is a great example of honesty. You are showing great skills in dealing with your current situation. Recognizing your PA disguised as rationalization is in my opinion very important to maintaining recovery and you do that well. You are able to see things clearly and be honnest with yourself. This is a crucial skill. Again great example.

I don't think focusing on your recovery is anything close to selfishness or individualistic because you can't care well for others when you're into addiction. So focusing on you and your recovery is rather a gesture of love and caring for others.

Keep on your great work my friend.