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OK girls….here’s something to ponder.
If we caught our SAs putting their dicks in a hole in the wall (or a tree outside) and we found out that they put their dicks in a lot of holes over the years (at night or in secret places) and that they dream about putting their dicks in holes in walls all the time – what would we do?
That’s right. We’d send them to a mental hospital. We’d find out if their “hole in the wall” obsession had a chance in hell of being fixed to decide whether or not to stay with them.
But…..we wouldn’t be angry or pissed off, cry or sit on the patio.
So – from now on, I’m going to imagine that my hubby kept putting his dick in holes in the wall. And treat him like a seriously mentally ill person.
I honestly think that the “betrayal” aspect of it and the fact that the hole was a woman (young, old, fat, skinny, blonde, a friend, free, expensive) complicates it all. It hurts us emotionally. I can’t and won’t compare myself to an old hole in the wall.
My husband is one sick fuck. And I don’t think that 12 step meetings alone is going to do the job. He needs some serious help. But…if we say that, then we are fucking “co-dependents” trying to control them. If they were sticking their dicks in holes all over the place and we insisted that they get help, would they label us as controlling and tell us to “get on our side of the hole?”
Deb
Ok, now I have a visual of all these pathetic men with their dicks in various holes. Hilarious! Yeah, they would be deranged. And it they spent hours on the internet looking for new holes and took pictures of the holes they had put their dicks in and put those on the internet- well, they’d be locked up forever. I wonder if you can catch anything from a hole? Gono-tree-a?
Yes, Deb.
your creative way of saying it still made the point.The penis behaviours are just the tip of the iceberg. For most of these dudes a PD or two is also in play, as well as originating traumas. That’s why the 12 step alone, as you suggest, cannot do the whole job. And that is why “getting sober” doesn’t seem to fix the relationship either. Sometimes it even makes it worse because their narcissism and pain is not being medicated. So they treat us even worse.
I learned something new today, Cindy. The wikipedia entry is too funny:
“Numerous motivations can be ascribed to the use and eroticism of glory holes. For some, the sheer anonymity is itself arousing. For others, it can serve as a way to have intimacy without a prolonged relationship, or to ensure sexual compatibility before further pursuing a relationship. Utilizing a gloryhole is also an easy way to mitigate any perceived physical shortcomings like being overweight or somehow less physically attractive.”
See how helpful glory holes are! Where would we be without them!?
Deb,
In my opinion, it doesnt matter what kind of hole it is. For me it’s all the same. I think the reality is what they choose to do is unacceptable in a marriage. If they need help, they go get it like a responsible adult. If they don’t get help, well there’s your answer. Nothing will change so expect more of the same. What you choose to do is really much the same philosophy. If we stay with someone who choses not to get help and be responsible, then we live what we tolerate.That doesn’t work for me as an analogy. Because it requires that we thoroughly objectify the persons attached to the holes our SA’s use. While I find it difficult to sympathize with my sa’s assistant at work, whom he fucked for 7 years, I do know that she is a broken person, herself, and that he gave her the impression that she meant more to him than she did. She was a living, breathing human being. So were the pathetic men who posted the ads on Craigslist that he responded to. And so were the grannies your h fucked, Deb. Real people they used for their pleasure, at our expense. Minimize it if you want. I don’t think it serves you, though.
March, I often think about the prostitutes in this way too. Likely victims of childhood sexual abuse, further abused by my husband. Analogies don’t usually or necessarily work all the way around, but analogies can still have their useful value despite not being 100% full proof. I think the one hour or less sex industry stuff is like a man masturbating inside a woman’s vagina, so I see Deb’s point. Where the analogy falls apart for me is when the men get emotionally involved, spend the night, take them to a romantic meal, listen to music with them, smoke pot with them, go on a “date” with them. That’s not just a hole in the wall anymore. That’s even sicker.
But, again, even with prostitutes, even an hour or less: real woman (or man), being used. Bought and paid for. Not a hole in the wall. Not his own hand. THIS IS THE VERY THING THAT MAKES SEX ADDICTION SO VILE–the fact that they are able to objectify human beings, that they are able to compartmentalize doing that so that they can then live their pretend lives that require that they USE US and our children in the process. Like I told my SA, if you’d gone out and fucked everyone and everything you could squeeze your dick into without living the secret life of lies and betrayal of everyone who mattered in your world, I would feel afraid FOR you but not OF you. As it was, of course, I feared for my life.
Deb- Self Preservation. Everybody looks at things differently. If those thoughts help you then kudos. For me what you are saying is It’s Not Me. I didn’t cause it. You didn’t cause it. And yes for some men it’s any hole anywhere. They are mentally ill very sick. If we get stuck in our rage and bitterness we are not focusing on the main issue. I liked your analogy.
I’m going to say one last thing before I bow out of this particular conversation: My posts above do not come out of rage and bitterness. They come from an impulse to stop the minimizing of what we’re dealing with. Deb identifies as a co-dependent. I think minimizing is a codependent tendency. You, Kat, are living with a man who lies to you incessantly. Where is YOUR rage? He plays you 24/7. I wish you’d do something about it, do something different, protect yourself. I am still in the muck of SA. I had a terrible day yesterday, dealing with his pathetic shit, and we don’t even live together. So I have lots to learn and many more changes to make. But small steps I am taking. Take a step, Kat.
March,
What happened yesterday? If you feel like sharing? Your steps are massive compared to mine. I admire the changes you have already made. You have cleared so much of the jungle path and in doing so have helped many of us to forge a path as well.
March, I think analogies are helpful in that they can help clarify why they do and don’t work. The hole in the wall doesn’t work for me for the reason you state. It also doesn’t work for me because if my STBX was really “just” mentally ill and doing something weird but relatively harmless behavior, I would get him checked in somewhere. It wouldn’t be nearly as devastating if he was who I always thought he was but had some weird compulsion.
This isn’t anything like that. SA is harmful to us- our health, our finances, our children. The people they are choosing to screw are also a risk- they can come back and stalk us or otherwise hurt us. It is harmful to our reputation in the community. And it overlooks that the SA, despite being an addict, does have free agency. They know they are doing something wrong and bad, and they do not get help. And then there’s Diane’s point about the PD.
Sorry to hear you were dealing with more shit yesterday, March.
I am sorry that you are dealing with his pathetic shit. I have taken many steps March for many years. You don’t know my husband. You know your husband. You know what you have read from other woman. Not every guy with a sex addiction is a cold hearted son of a bitch from hell that does these things on purpose. My husband is not lying to me 24/7 and he is not playing me. Yes he has lied to me and like you I find that to be the hardest hurdle. Lies and Betrayal. He has lied to cover his addiction. Like an alcoholic hiding his booze in the closet. He doesn’t lie to me because he is out to get me. He lies because some part of him knows he’s doing something wrong, knows that I’m not going to like it. But the compulsion is there. Like anyone I go through the process disbelief, anger, denial, sadness. I can not hide behind those feelings for long it does nothing to help me. I write my words to help myself and maybe somebody else. It serves Deb if she thinks it and shares. Doesn’t mean I or you agree with every word but I choose to let her know the parts I agree with. You don’t get to direct comments at me that are hurtful and bow out.
This is my opinion. Deb is very cerebral in analyzing her h SA and/or cheating. This is part of the process, maybe a stage we go through to process ‘all this stuff’ for lack of a better word. It could also be viewed as bargaining; rationalizing what you hope not to be true. For example, if it’s x then maybe x can get fixed but I know y can’t. As readers, we will interpet based on many factors. These factors may include where we are in our own journey, our own personal experiences, our own opinions, etc….everyones perspective and interpretation may be different.
All that said, my previous post is pretty much my response to Debs post. In my case, I’m totally done with my Saxh. Divorced, and have no desire to be with him in any capacity because mine IS a intentionally cruel, yet presents otherwise. Therefore, my barebones response to Debs post. Its not right or wrong, just my opinion based on me. I think we learn from Deb, March, Cindy, Kat, everyone because we read it through the writers eyes. IMO.
Love, NapNAP, the ‘bargaining’ makes sense. I hadn’t looked at it that way, but when I think back to reading everything I could get my hands on about ‘sex addiction,’ in retrospect it was a type of bargaining. If I could be clinical about it, then it took the focus off my shock and grief. Reading your post made me remember how after my mom died, I read everything I could get my hands on about afterlife signs from loved ones. The mechanics of that feel really similar to what I did after discovery of the SA. It did provide relief in the moment in both cases, so I think you’re right that it must be an example of the bargaining stage of grief that they talk about, when things are so painful to look at head-on that we have to deflect away a bit for a while. xoxo
Dear Kat,
I just want to comment on something you said “Not every guy with a sex addiction is a cold hearted son of a bitch from hell that does these things on purpose.”
I agree with you. My husband was sick and still is–he didnt hurt me on purpose. At some level he hated himself and didnt want to be an addict. He lied to himself as much as he did to me. But whether it was his intention or not to hurt me, is beside the point, or at least to me it SHOULD be beside the point. Because the fact is that he DID hurt me. The fact is that he was cold hearted enough to be able to put me completely out of his mind every time he acted out. Who cares if he felt bad about it ten minutes later, he didnt have the capacity to care for or look out for me. (And actually, towards the end he did become a truly cruel asshole, but even then I think it was because he couldnt live with himself.)
Im not sure if this was Marchs point, but I would say that we put ourselves in harms way sometimes with all of our “understanding”. I think that even if these guys arent “a cold hearted son of a bitch from hell that does these things on purpose.”, they ARE capable of inflicting great pain and harm, due to their lack of self-control, empathy and compassion among other things. Whether they mean to be or not, they have the potential to be very dangerous to us. Most of us spend and have spent a huge amount of effort and energy trying to figure out why, and trying to help them. It seldom seems we stay focussed on how all this is effecting us and what we need. I know that I didnt pay enough attention to me and I paid the price for that.
Hugs,
~BonnieThanks Kat and Annie I thinks so too. It very well could be barganing which is a component of grieving such as your examples. I know I did a lot of it until I was thrown out so mine got cut short.
Also, another way one could view it is if I focus on him, I avoid myself. Now myself, that’s the BIGGIE. It’s always easier to focus on others than to address ourselves. So therefore another interpetation coulld be : avoidance, especially of self.
Great post, Bonnie. It’s like we have to temporarily step out of our hearts in order to protect ourselves. Almost take a page out of their book and go a little robotic so we can look at their disorders from a distance. If they haven’t acted like ‘cold-hearted sons of bitches’ to us in our life with them, the conflicting pangs can be so overwhelming. Sometimes I get caught up in a weird kind of loving pity for him, as if he’s my child. And I have to depersonalize it, by trying to remember that there’s most likely a personality disorder underneath that is going to keep hurting me.. and angering me at the same time.. if I let my guard down. xoxo
I agree with NAP that seeing everyone’s interpretation is helpful. Annie, bargaining never would have occurred to me, that is really an interesting idea. And, NAP, since they are the problem, I think it is natural to want to fix them to protect ourselves. So we have to come to realization that we cannot fix them. It’s like living on a volcano, you can’t control when it will erupt and it could happen at any time. The only thing you can control is you.
And I don’t think any of these guys hurt us “on purpose”. They are all just too sick to get what they are doing. They know it’s wrong but somehow they are able to not think about the consequences to us. They seem to maybe just worry about the consequences to themselves if they get caught? They are just too selfish to see beyond their own dicks.
Hmmmm hurt us on purpose? During my divorce my xh hurt me on purpose. Teri I think your stbxh is hurting you on purpose too. These guys hurt us intermittently to keep us where they want us and then may throw us a few crumbs. IMO a lot of what they do is on purpose. They are just master manipulators and very discrete in how they go about it.
I would agree with the divorce stuff, NAP. But that’s a whole different ball game. Even so, my STBX could not comprehend that I was so upset with him that I could not sit in a coparenting session with him (it was when I was working on my witness lists and had been finding all his prostitutes and child molester friends). He didn’t see how I could be upset with him. So it’s possible that he still doesn’t see this as hurting me but rather as protecting himself. He’s really sick- does a sociopathic killer really understand what he is putting his victim through?
I think for sure when he was leading his double life, he didn’t think he was hurting anyone. He should have known better. It doesn’t excuse him at all. I think it is part of the lack of empathy of being a narcissist or being an addict. I say this even thought I have a hard time actually believing it because they all seem to say it…like children who are incapable of understanding that what they are doing impacts others. Which again is not meant to mean that they are off the hook.
I just think many of them, maybe all of them, have something very wrong with them that turns off their conscience if they even have one.
Teri, I think you’re right. Mine said that the only way he’d viewed that what he did could be ok was if I never found out. Which doesn’t exactly resound of a conscience in there. But on the flip side he can also now break down sobbing in shame and his lack of integrity. Which often then leads to him cloaking back up the next day. It’s a crazy-making cycle, and I guess all part of the narcissism or whatever it is. Like their ego only has two extremes. xoxo
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