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LoginI married my husband because he was kind, sensitive, caring, smart and gentle. He was a unique man, not afraid of showing his feelings. He had his faults, like everyone, I was proud of him and very happy to have found him. I suspected my husband was having an affair while we were on vacation with our three-month-old baby boy. I was up nursing the baby and a text came in, it was 1:00 am. I checked his cell, which I never do. It was a message from a woman asking him if he was still in town. I woke him up, he denied knowing who the woman was who sent the text. We’d been married less than two years. A couple days after we came home from vacation I woke up at 3am and hacked into his laptop. I did a search with the woman’s name that sent the text. So this was to become the day of discovery. Dozen of emails came up spanning over two years. I got him out of bed and we ended up breaking his laptop b/c he was crying telling me not to read. The emails were like an atomic bomb but they were vague, carefully ambiguous when talking about the details of their relationship. I didn’t have proof it was anything more than an emotional affair. But a lot didn’t make sense, and I could feel there was more. He disclosed that it was a sexual affair, not an emotional affair (as it appeared to be in the emails) three months after initial discovery. Since it was clear to me that his previous story wasn’t adding up I constantly was dissecting it, he eventually cracked under my constant questioning and told me he’d had sex with her once, while I was pregnant. I knew that wasn’t everything. I kept pushing, and said I wouldn’t even consider staying in the marriage without a polygraph test. And so I learned over the next 30 days confession via the “installment plan”. It helped that at the same time I was pulling his story to pieces he was reading articles on the importance of disclosure from the Recovery Library. Week after week bits and pieces of the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, trickled out. We started reading and listening to the audio clips in the Recovery Library about sexual addiction and he also admitted he’d been addicted to porn for 10 years and that he’d had several sexual encounters with his affair partner and that he also was having sex with her online. The final piece was that it wasn’t only her; he also had a short online affair with an ex-girlfriend. After he confessed what he claimed was everything he also tried to explain that it was not emotional ever but a combination of sexual addiction and black mail. Both women pursued him, he said felt pressured into it from the start. After it started he feared if he stopped they would tell me and I’d leave him. I did read some blackmail in the emails between him and the main affair partner so I believed him a little, I wasn’t sure that it mattered, I was destroyed because it happened, period. The trickle out of information is a killer. It makes it impossible to get your feet on solid ground and start digesting your “new” reality and rebuild trust. “Who are you?” I asked this question over and over. And what do you want from me? At this point he took the initiative to confirm with a polygraph test that this was everything and there was no one else and nothing else. Life was upside down, and I had a baby in the middle keeping me with one foot in the door while the other foot was out.
Once it was all out I was quickly going mad with intrusive thoughts, they were coming at me day and night. I broke every picture of us in the house and tore up our wedding album and every piece of memorabilia we had. I would wake up from nightmares, shaking. This wasn’t my life. He kept telling me he cried every time he was unfaithful and that he always loved me but he couldn’t just stop the affairs once they started and he couldn’t stop the porn, he felt trapped in a hell he couldn’t escape. He said he felt dead and numb because of what he was doing to me, to our baby, to himself. My struggle was caring? How could I care after what he’d done? Did the details really change anything? I felt so angry thinking of all the time he spent with them, I kept asking myself why he married me if he didn’t really want to be with me? I struggled with believing his sincerity now. Who was this man in front of me? I was so confused what to believe. My self-esteem and pride were destroyed. I didn’t recognize myself. It was like I became every bad trait I’d ever had. In my head I kept thinking, “divorce him, you’re a smart, attractive, competent woman, you have a wonderful career and you don’t need to be with someone who cheated on you”. I couldn’t cry for months. Numb. Shock. Anger. Everything was surreal. It was all a lie I kept thinking. My marriage. Our relationship. And I’m a fool for staying a second longer. Hopelessness. I struggled with hopelessness. My struggle was also that the more time passed and I calmed down the more I felt staying was the right choice. But my pride was bucking like a wild horse. My husband was persistent with his story once it was all out and the polygraph test was over, and he never for a second wanted a divorce. In fact he went to great lengths to prove he did in fact love me, for starters putting up with my total insanity month after month after disclosure. And his commitment to recovery; the more time we spent in recovery (EMS Online and the Recovery Library) the better he became at showing empathy, not being defensive, self-centered or feeling sorry for himself. So it was this nagging voice in my head that said, “maybe he’s telling the truth, it’s horrible either way, but maybe you could forgive him, heal, save your family and your marriage” Deep down I still loved him. I had a hard time with feeling like an idiot for staying, how could anyone respect me for staying with someone who put me through such hell? But he continued to tell me he always loved me, he continued to love our baby and step in there I was lacking because of the depression, he continued with his recovery. He faced my family, my closest friends. I struggled asking myself how I could possibility find empathy and forgiveness for my husband while at the same time mend my broken heart.
I started searching online like a mad maniac sure there had to be some kind of help for those in my “specialized” situation. I also wanted to learn as much as possible about affairs, infidelity so that I could make informed choices about my marriage and its future. I found Affair Recovery and took their Affair Analyzer. Shortly after I enrolled in the following courses: EMS Online: This really made me to confront my pain with my spouse. I wanted to shut him out. It forced me to listen to him, what he had to say to me. It taught my spouse how to show me empathy, and how to really feel the impact of his affairs. Harboring Hope: Harboring Hope forced me not to isolate. I wanted to isolate. Harboring Hope gave me a safe place to vent every insane thought in my head. It gave me something I didn’t know would help: companionship with others in my same situation. It gave me perspective; some of the women in my group were suffering in ways I was not. It helped get my focus off my own pain and shift my energy to helping others. Recovery Library: This gave me 24/7 support because I could be up at 3am and search for the topic I was struggling with. It also helped as a couple because we could investigate topics together so it wasn’t subjective. I could find information on my own and make decisions, I trusted this information because it was from professionals who also had lived through and recovered from infidelity. Double credibility in my book. When I first found out about the affairs, I felt like I literally lost my sanity, I felt like my reality was not real, like I was living my life through a fog, I saw people through a glass window, I was on the outside, looking in. I couldn’t sleep; I had nightmares about him and his affair partners. Depressed, severe anxiety, I didn’t know what do to…my first reaction was to divorce him, but we had a baby, that put doubt in my mind, which made living even more unbearable. I wanted to do what was right for my family, not just me. But I didn’t want to have to figure out what to do. I just didn’t want to live; I wanted to escape my life. I felt I was in limbo or hell, a switch off between the two.
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Comments
sexual addiction
So, you survived it. Good for you! So did I...but it has never been the same again. I went through the same feelings as you describe. And, I survived. We are still married, but it's never been the same for me since. I'm not miserable like I was. But, I don't feel like we're a couple in love anymore either. I mean...I know he loves me...like family loves family. But, I can't quite feel loved...like a lover? Ahhh well, I feel like that's the cost of sexual addiction. Too many betrayals to ever feel like I once felt. Did you manage to feel like you're loved?
Sexual Addiction
I feel EXACTLY the same. It will never be the same, the trust will never be 100% and I don't feel loved anymore. We have a platonic relationship b/c of health reasons, and I resent it very much, feeling that all the other women got more of him than I ever did. Sexual addiction is a hole in the soul that only the addict can repair. In the meantime, the wake of pain that I live in made me realize that I don't have to be a victim, and living a great life was not impossible. I'm happier than I thought possible, but have no delusions about being in love again.
Anonymous
The same
i feel the exact same as you do anonymous
The Same
I feel the same. I realize two things are in my way. The first is fear. I fear if I fall in love with him again, my heart will be crushed again. The second is that sick, almost repulsive feeling I get when I think of him with her. He didn't love me then; he loved her, and he made love to her, not me. So even 4 years later although he acts like he loves me and tells me so, I don't feel loved.
I feel like this could be
I feel like this could be written by me....... I am also 4 years out and I think I am too afraid to love him too much or to feel loved. I still am guarding myself from the awful crushing pain that I experienced,
the same
wow .. .I am 7 years post discovery. and feel the same as many of the comments above. Lack of true intimacy, lack of complete trust, it is a sad cost of betrayal that seems so hard to rebuild.
Been there, too....
I have walked this path, too. The pain and hurt of this betrayal is more than words can ever explain. Unless a person has walked this journey, they have no clue! I will have to say though...my outcome is different. I am almost two years out and I do again feel love from my spouse. He has done all the right things to help heal our relationship and still is. He tries very hard daily to earn my trust and love back. He thanks me everyday for staying another day. He has taken responsibility for his behavior, he doesn't lay blame, and shows compassion for my broken heart. I believe these steps help to heal the relationship. We are at a different place in our relationship and I can honestly say it is better than it was before. I would never want to do this again to get to this place...but it is better for us. Intimacy and making love is different and better, though it never was bad! We have now been through cancer with my husband and life has changed course again. I am thankful that we have made it and that we are still together. My heart hurts for those who are still suffering in this journey years later.
BAN Coordinator
Beginning of my healing...
I am at the end of a marriage and the beginning of a divorce. I share two wonderful children with my now ex husband and our marriage was torn apart in exactly the same way. It took me six years to recognise that the problem was that he had a sex addiction. The moment I realised that, I lost so much hope. It's one thing to have made a mistake or a wrong decision...it's another thing to be dealing with an addiction. I left the marriage because taking him back so many times seemed to allow him to continue doing it again and again as he thought I would never leave.
I left.
So now I'm at the beginning of my healing process...It's discouraging to read that years later many women, even with the marriages salvaged, have never been able to regain what they initially had prior to the heartbreak. I am encouraged to read the above post by BAN Coordinator.
Whether I one day remarry or my ex husband can overcome his addiction and we reconcile, I am believing God to both heal me and restore everything I lost...because he is the God of restoration too.
Although I am still in a lot of pain, I look forward to being in love again...and feeling whole again.
In Faith,