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I thought of this after reading the tiger woods thread and I just wondered how many of you believe that you husbands either enjoyed acting out or suffered acting out? We always talk about these poor men being trapped in their disease…struggling to control their urges and a victim of their addiction. So based on that…how many of you think your partners enjoyed their assorted sexual activities and how many of you think they took no pleasure from the activities or people they were with…because MANY husbands tell you it was the latter. They did it but they didn’t enjoy it. What do you believe. I will go first. Did he have a good time with those firm, pretty bodies? ABSOLUTELY.
Well Karen, their not all firm, pretty bodies especially at 1 am when you need a fix. Sure, some of them are, likely the ones they can ‘shop’ for when they have the cash. I saw some of the pictures of the random hookups my h had on the Internet. BOW WOW, LASSIE COME HOME (Timmy fell in the well, again).
It’s well known it’s the planning, the anticipation, the ritual, and I’m sure they enjoy it however it’s afterwards when the shame hits or they hit a new low, younger girl, maybe add a guy, sheep, whatever. If it was to great all the time these guys wouldn’t be self destructing, adding drugs, losing jobs, losing loving wives. There’s no fun in that, it’s all goes downhill. Ask any addict.
Love, Nap
I think my H enjoyed it in the moment but I don’t think it lasted. I don’t think there was any sort of “poor him” having to live with the guilt either. Guilt wasn’t part of the equation. I think there was a constant “crash” afterwards because his actions didn’t have the desired effect for long at all… making him think he needed something more or different. Basically… aside from an in the moment happiness, I think he was in a perpetual state of unhappiness and lived in constant frustration trying to figure out what he was doing wrong or what he was missing.
I am tired of starting sentences with the words “I think.” For ONCE I’d like to KNOW.
I think they enjoy the ritual and the acting out the same way an addict likes the high or an alcoholic likes getting drunk. It feels good, it numbs, it makes the pain of real life go away. And then real life is back, along with the guilt and shame of having used and being out of control.
kmf – my SA enjoyed the euphoric high he got from the d/s porn, but afterwords he was full of guilt and shawe, vowing never to do it again. That is why he quite porn 4 or 5x’s before he gave it up.
Same with the objectifying of women, but I don’t think he felt shame and guilt from that as much as the porn. His mindset was “All men do it” kind of mentality. After he got out of the denial phase, he began to realize how much he was hurting me and started in recovery. He still has a long ways to go.
The past two weeks, he has been the perfect husband. Really think he might just be trying to get back in the bedroom.Oh My…and here in lies the reasons we give these animals the time of day. I am sorry ladies but I have to vehemently disagree with you.Though I do not believe that any lasting emotional connections can be made in anonymous hook ups, I think we as wives vehemently refuse to accept the power of the skirt. I don’t know who your husbands were with, but mine was NEVER with anyone over 35 and predominantly with women 20-30. To say he wasn’t enjoying himself would be complete denial on my part. If they didn’t have a 9 for a face they had a 9 for a body and visa versa. Asia is not Craigslist at 1 am and I am mystified why you intelligent, educated women cannot grasp that in a man with no integrity or substance…youth, firmness, enthusiasm and beauty trump older wife, EVERYTIME. I mean are you thinking they want to discuss world affairs with a hard on at 1 am?? I wish I was technical…I would send you a picture of the bowsers my husband had to choose from. 🙁 I know he didn’t want to make then into life partners, but he was certainly willing to risk anything he had with me for a night of making them into one night partners…over and over again. Yes Kim…I can certainly see why you would like to know instead of think…but he is never going to let you do that if he can help it. Because then he risks you knowing in the way I know and there is no coming back from that.
At what point can partners stop thinking about what is going on in the SAs heads and why and start focusing on what feels right for the partner? I am not suggesting that understanding and compassion are not important, but, and especially after multiple discoveries, is it ever just okay to be selfish and ask “is this what I want for my life?” Regardless of the why, what, who and where of the actions of the SA.
Ellen,
I know just what you are saying. I think it’s because with long histories and kids in the picture, it’s not so simple. If I were the only one here, hell yeah, bring on selfish. But at least for me (not wanting to speak for everyone), it’s trying to make sense of what to do for your whole family that keeps your head spinning round and round.zumbagirl
I didn’t mean to sound critical and hope I didn’t. It is just that I am so very tired about it being all about him and his pain and his past and his reasons and I am just tired. I know it is not simple. It is very sad. I stayed with him for a long time because of our history and the kids and it didn’t stop him from acting out and my head is still spinning. I hope it stops soon.Ellen,
I’m so sorry…I do hear you. Especially when my SA says “he needs to recover for himself and not for me. And HE needs to do this, and do that…” Ugh. Really?I hate this for all of us.
Love you!!
Hi kmf, I posed your question to my H. I asked if he enjoyed acting out or suffered acting out. He simply said both. He said he craved the high and the high gave him pleasure, but during the acting out he would ask himself why he was doing it and then felt the shame, and felt sick.
i believe with all my heart that he enjoyed it. i had for along time been the acting out part as well as partner to-for him. do i believe he felt guilty or remorse,not at all. since all of this came to a head 18 months ago he feels guilt, but he still can not face how things were. i will ask him about how could he use me and he will respond it was not all the time. i in turn tell him you can not use me one time and not another. how are you able to split me like that. he will just look at me totally confused. i have told him time and time again when he does his thing to me i am nothing its not the who i am but the what i am. those times i have no value to him. many of the things that he has done show that. i like to give him a similar situation and most of the time he is able to see himself in that. so i asked him if we were out and every time i hugged him i would be drinking in the guy next to him how would you fell he looked at me and said probely like you were more interrested in the other guy, then i saw that look in his eyes he got it.
I’m sorry but this thread is kinda sick. Talking about the pleasure our hs may or may not get from acting out. Who really gives two shits. I don’t think we should be putting ‘our’ energy into figuring out how much pleasure their getting. I don’t give a rats ass!
Perhaps you are right Nap. Perhaps I worded the topic wrong… I wasn’t trying to get a comparison of perversion thread going. What I was trying to speak to is the fact that we are told by the experts that they feel so badly about what they do and that they do not enjoy what they do…it is simply a compulsion or addiction? The current model speaks alot about their shame and how bad they feel, but partners often tell a different reality. Most partners talk about the lack of remorse and the lack of empathy they received from both their SA and the SA’s therapist. What I was really trying to get at is the fact that it is possible that they do enjoy what they do, they don’t feel that bad about it and they would like to do it again….if they could without any flack. I was really struck when Lynn’s husband said he would not have sought any help if she hadn’t caught him. I wanted to know how partners here would feel if the whole shame thing was removed from the equation. For me, I just never felt my husband was sorry for what his actions did to my life. I believed he was sorry for the consequences I brought to bear, but I never “felt” the kind of remorse that would have been necessary for me to drop my guard ever again. For him…I didn’t see that whole cycle play out. Perhaps I see something different in my husband? Who knows…maybe I am in the wrong forum? 😉
I think it’s a pretty legitimate and interesting question in general, as far as the subject of SA goes. And we are as close to experts as it gets. Information is power. If we can stand back and try to get the bigger picture, exploring the pleasure/pain issue can help us determine if what we’re dealing with really does parallel other addictions (and from what I’ve seen, it does). Drug addicts lie and steal from their families (one client stole hundreds of thousands from his father), trade their bodies for drugs, blah blah blah. They’ll do ANYTHING to ensure their supply.
I’m going to take a huge risk here and say: Karen and NAP, I really value your wisdom and strength. You say such smart, true things. But sometimes, when you make things so cut and dry, I remember that one of you didn’t have a choice to stay or go–your h made it for you. And the other of you is still with your h, but you live on different sides of the planet. You can’t really know what you’d do if your SA’s were right there, in your face, claiming to love you, begging you to give them a chance, with your kids watching iCarly in the next room. Let’s be fair.
Dear March,
You are dead on. It just so happened that after a LONG time of not being where I am my husband was here when my Mom died. He is the one I sent back in the room after I found her…to actually confirm my fear as she was turned on her side away from me. I was afraid to tough her. In that period of turmoil after …he was wonderful and he helped my Dad do all the paperwork and go see all those pension people ect. he even went to identify her body at the funeral home…which spared all of us. I hadn’t spent time with him for a longtime. It was so hard to reconcile this kind, helpful man with the things I know he did, so I do understand what you are saying. And he does want to reconcile…but I am too angry and too everything…mostly terrified of that sort of pain again. 🙁
ok what i do not understand is a sex addict uses his addiction to deal with emotions. many started very early in life. if these addicts are not dealing with normal emotions how can they feel guilt, remorse anything. they have never allowed themselves to fully develop them. they have no idea what or how to. so when they the experts say they feel guilt and such i believe they know right from wrong and that is way different then guilt and such. the lies are more about them not getting caught then about their guilt. these addicts do not have the level of maturity to do much else then protect what they want.
For me it is my unease with our source of information about what “they do”, what “they think”, what “they feel” ? This is Patrick Carne’s baby, even though I know there are plenty of others on the bandwagon. But he also seems to be the driving force behind the co-addict thing and most of us think that is bogus. I don’t trust this man and he is the one who decided they have this cycle and it is the same cycle a chemical addict has. He is the one saying shame drives them and they feel so much remorse. But we, as the partners living with them are not really seeing all this shame and remorse. We are seeing arrogance and excuses and blaming. So I guess for me…I’m just not convinced they are doing all this internal suffering…just as I am not convinced it is an addiction and not a character flaw. I have read ALL his books but I’m just not feeling it. Therefore, I question if we really know anything at all about their feelings and I also question if they even have any feelings…shame or otherwise? I guess once you have walked away it is moot because they become someone else’s problem. But while you are still with them…why they do what they do has a great deal to do with what you do…I think? Karen xx
or maybe Nap is right. Maybe it is all just ‘talk” to avoid our own lives…our own motivations…our own insanity…as the COSAS suggest.
i have always had this curiosity as to why things are. i have lived my life this way. i would have to say it intrigues me that someone can do this to another human. before all this shit entered my life i took people at face value i never was one to judge a book by its cover. maybe for me if i can understand him it would be easier for me to just accept what he did and move past it. i hope im not trying to avoid myself i dont feel that i am,but i need to think about that. maybe i just need a answer to forgive him because i really hate the way its changed me, the way i look at life. maybe if i knew for sure he made a conscious decision to do what he did i would feel better about the hate and anger i feel, because this is not me. i have always been able to find the good in the bad life has thrown me. but not this time………..
I think some of this curiosity and questioning is all part of the stages of grieving that we go through. Different women make the journey toward healing, no matter what that may look like, along many different paths.
Some need ALL the answers, some can’t bear to hear any disclosure. Some rehash those awful mental images for months and months, others are able to brush them away or choose to bury them deep within their psyche.
Some come quickly to their decisions, some take many years. Some choose to stay even if the situation is unhealthy for various reasons and some choose to leave even if their husbands or partners are doing well in recovery.
I think that many of us need to discuss what the SA does, thinks, feels and experiences as a part of our healing process. And, I also think that those of us who have moved on past that process, or maybe never had to go through it, should try to be a little more understanding of why some Sisters need to do this for their own reasons.
Yes, that is Patrick Carne’s realm, but, when it affects us and our understanding of what happened on OUR life, then it is our realm.
To give my answer to your question that started this topic. Larry said the sex was ‘fabulous’. The intensity of the act is increased by the activities and rituals leading up to the final acting out.
These guys work themselves up into a sexual frenzy that we just cannot understand. And yes, the acting out is more pleasurably intense than what normal people ever experience.
That’s why it is so addictive. That’s why they stop having normal sex with us–it’s just too fuckin’ boring–or, they cannot even get aroused without all that ritual fantasy to fuel them up.
The lows come after the actual acting out. It’s exactly like coming off of a drug, and Larry said it did not happen every time. He said sometimes he could go on for months without feeling that low (I can only assume this was the case because he was actin out so frequently that when the low started to hit he was back looking for another fix).
But, he did say that he knew he was in a downward spiral and tried to quit over and over, but it was just easier to give in to it.
Again, I think part of this extremely complex issue, for whatever reason, is poor coping skills, lack of insight and no problem solving abilities.
Looking back on this thread, it seems to me to that the underlying question is whether my husband is sick (addict), or whether he is simply a selfish asshole. I think March is dead on, and at least for me this is the crux of the issue. When my husband claims to love me, cries and says he has a “problem” I feel and respond one way. When Mr. Hyde makes his appearance and he is callous, lacking empathy, blaming etc. I feel and respond another way. I think my feelings and responses in both situations are appropriate, but it feels crazy–it IS crazy. Because it keeps shifting, and I keep wondering, who he is “really” Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde?
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