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Sisters,
As some of you know, I’ve been here since February trying to work through this sordid mess with my H who is working at recovery. I haven’t posted a lot about our journey, but I have been on here reading and learning from you all regarding the pitfalls of disclosures, the failings in recovery, and some of the works-in-progress successes (even though there aren’t many). My SA is walking the walk. He is seeing a therapist and has been quite transparent in every area. There have been days when the old gut feeling that he is in trouble again is there, and I have to wonder if it’s just the PTSD in me flaring up, or if it’s a red flag. Nothing has shown up to tell me otherwise, so I have to believe he is genuine in his attempts. In fact when I actively search out any possible scenarios…I don’t find anything, and believe-you-me, I’ve gotten very good at checking things out.Personally I’ve taken some pretty big steps for myself as far as finding the me again, and getting back ‘out there’ with family and friends. Nowhere where I used to be, but getting closer all the time. I still feel pretty vulnerable some days. I find myself still angry and bitter and hating where I’ve landed in life, and often really hating my husband for putting me here.
Okay, to the point of this post. For the last month or so SAH and I have been talking about what I know about his acting out, and I told him I would like a full disclosure from him as another step in moving past the ugliness of what has happened. I already know a lot of what he has done, I don’t think there is much more that can surprise me. I laid out a kind-of a sort-of outline of what I needed to know in order to move forward.
I’m one of those people who needs to see the whole picture in order to ‘get’ the story…I guess it is a fill-in-the-gaps thing for me so I can lay it to rest and move on. I find that my imagination is sometimes worse than the truth…and I confess I’m one of those people who reads the final chapter of a book before I start chapter one, just so I know at the beginning where it’s going.
Anyway, initially H said he would like some time to get his thoughts together. He says he has a tendancy to forget (or stuff it) the things he’s done because he finds it hard to talk with me about it (of course) and he’s ashamed (of course), and hates to relive those moments.
So anyway, getting to my point, AGAIN…we have set a day early next week where he says he is going to spill it all, answer all my questions and fill in those gaps.
So my question I guess, after all my ramblings is…should I really pursue this?…is it wise?…has anyone been at this point where it has set you back and not allowed the forward momentum to continue? Even though I think I really need/want to know, do I really?
Lindy
I don’t have any personal experience on this topic, because once I discovered what I DID, I didnt want or need to find out anything else. Yuk. I chose to end the relationship with no chance of reconciliation. But that was me and my situation.
If I was trying to work it out, I think I would want to know! I admit though, my only reason for wanting to know would be so I would know what to look for – for future reference! And, I guess I would interested in knowing in what ways I was naive and what ways he chose to sneak around me. Also, for safety purposes, I would be interested in knowing it ALL.
Sigh… No matter what, it’s bound to be unpleasant and I wish you the best. Since you, yourself, said you think you want/need to know….I think you just answered your own question!
Love ya, Lindy!
My SA would claim to have disclosed everything, appear to be walking the walk, being transparent–but there would be this little voice in my head telling me he wasn’t telling me everything. He took me to Puerto Rico for my b-day the first year, about three months after d-day, and I begged him to tell me what he was still hiding. He swore he’d revealed all. That July, we went to the beach in Florida, same thing. We’d take these long walks, and I’d start feeling hopeful, but the voice would still be there, telling me he wasn’t being completely truthful. Sure enough, there was more, and it was the worst of it, and it didn’t come until talk of the polygraph. I was traumatized all over again, and any progress I’d made toward trusting vanished. I don’t think it’s as important to know the details as it is to know the SA is willing to lay it all out, be completely honest, give up the lies. Before the last polygraph, he admitted that he still fantasizes about his “assistant.” He’d told me he never thinks about her unless “you bring her up.” Ha, putting it back on me, as always. He’d said any memory of her brought him shame, not pleasure. Well, not so, it turns out. Had he talked to me about this? Had he mentioned (as he did to the examiner) that he had lingered too long on inappropriate TV shows? No, in spite of all my pleading to talk to me when he was having issues, to keep me informed about his progress or lack of. Ha–and he failed the exam anyway, so no telling what else…
Hey Lindy,
I thought I knew everything, but I was WAY out in my estimation. I insisted I read the full disclosure and the full extent of it had me reeling. I was completely gobsmacked when I read it all.I really dont know what is worse? I always thought I had an overly active imagination and one that could catastrophise beyond a joke – my daughter is late by 10 minutes and I have gone through a full murder trial and imagined not having grandchildren…
But even my catastrophising couldnt dream up the stuff I read in my husbands full disclosure to his sponsor.
As for is that good or bad? I dont know. If I had any romantic notions of being able to forgive, forget move on with his promise of working the programmme… that was blown out of hte water when I looked at all the evidence of his lying and cheating and decieving.
Perhaps you could give yourself a get out. If you think you can live without full disclosure, then try it. Explain to your SAH that right now you think you are OK without knowing hte full details, but you may at some point need to know and he needs to be prepared to disclose at that point.
Ultimately, this is about you. If he is working a programme, his sponsor should be getting him to disclose for his benefit. Only you know what you need for your benefit.
If you fear though that you may have been exposed to STDs, I would get this checked out anyway.
Oh honey, this just sucks balls… because its damned if you do, damned if you don’t. There’s MORE that he hasn’t ALREADY told you? oh my…
Please let me tell you this one thing. You will NEVER know everything. never. why? for the same reasons that he did what he did, in the first place. As you know I’ve been on both sides of this coin and rolling along on its side too…
You don’t want to know, because it will kill you; honey, it will kill your soul.
At the very least, its a masochistic exercise, if ever there was one.
What do you hope to accomplish by knowing more information that is only going to add to your current hurt? How is it going to help you to heal? Its not. Its only going to rip open the wound, anew and almost assuredly go in ever deeper– and that wound, may just never ever close up.
Once its outta the bag, you can’t stuff it back in…
I really, really don’t recommend going there, unless you wish to divorce him and use it against him.
I don’t like this. not you. him. I don’t like that he hasn’t already come clean if he is supposedly in “recovery?”
But that’s just it. Oh shut me up. (we can only pray?) Its just that I’m not convinced that its possible. I’m just not.
Someone show me someone (not Patrick Carnes creepy A-hole) who’s been in solid recovery for at least 10 years. Someone show me. Where is this magnificent creature?
Do you know what I think? I think the emperor if BUTT NEKKED! That’s what I think.
ugh… psychopaths.
so believable.
sorry, honey to be such a downer… I know too much; I ate that God damned apple that slimy snake fed me… I so wish I hadn’t, but I did… and my eyes were opened to something so unbelievably dark and ugly, that in all of my years, could not imagine existed, except in the movies and that such cretinous characters were a bit “off”, a bit “strange”, high foreheads– dead looking?
butno, psychos are ADORABLE and HANDSOME AND REALLY, REALLY NICE GUYS.
In my dating days, I’ll never forget…This one dude sent me a few photographs– totally G-rated… One was alone… nice looking, normal guy… and one with a girl— same thing… but the third one he had shot, pointing the camera into a mirror…
This was a completely different man.
This man had no soul.
I could see it in his eyes…
and unfortunately, I felt an attraction to THAT.
I’m aware. now. working. on. it.
I will never ever let some predatory sicko lay one finger on me— ever again.
In closing. Honey, I am concerned for you. I am concerned because sometimes you see “red flags”, and then you go, oh its just *me* triggering again… its nothing… phew… everything’s fine. silly me.
wrong. not silly. smart. intuitive.
But scared shitless… oh, I know, I know…
I don’t think that you are imagining things. These guys are as cunning as lionesses who haven’t eaten in a week, stalking their prey. They are patient, and methodical, but ever so clever at catching what it is that they seek.
probably didn’t make you feel better… although, if you’re like me, the only idiot who can truly make me feel badly is the fucktard who put a ring on my finger 23 years ago… A ring that is, apparently, PERMANENTLY there, as I took the physical ring off, nearly 3 months ago, and there is still a ring THERE! I’ve been “branded?”
how very, very sad.
(((hugs))) ~ L
Lyndy,
I struggle with this myself. I’m still not sure I have the answers yet. When Ella was on here, she told me that full disclosure with a polygraph was the only way to go (or otherwise it was a joke and you still wouldn’t know what you were getting.) In any case, one thing that I have read/heard over and over again is to have disclosure in a safe environment, ie, in the presence of one or both of your therapists. So I haven’t gotten to that point yet myself, but at the very least, that seems to be the way to go. I too struggle with opening that can of worms and torturing myself further. I hope we hear some more replies from those who’ve been there/done that.Sending you love and strength,
JulieHi Lindy,
Big question.
I think the “right” answer depends on you. Full disclosure means you may hear things that you will never get out of your head. It means you may discover that, while you think you can forgive, you will not be able to rebuild the relationship. But as you can imagine, you can’t rebuild any relationship without the truth being set underneath it.So, just because you think you want to work on this rebuilding now, does not mean you will feel the same after a disclosure. We HAVE NO IDEA what we will be told. It might be manageable, but it might not. So it’s always a risk. And we always have to accept that what he hear we may never be able to erase.
Once my SA sabotaged our disclosure plan, and I gave up on reconciliation, I didn’t want to know anything more at all. But then he used our agreed upon plan of telling our sons about his addiction as the opportunity to traumatize us all with details and things I knew nothing about. 80% of what he told them, I didn’t know myself. So the disclosure can also be used as a weapon, a means of controlling a situation by traumatizing you in it.
I agree with the others who you need to plan to have support and witnesses. So insist on doing it in YOUR therapist’s office.
I think Jos’s words are really wise. You can’t have a romantic idea of forgiveness and rebuilding. You may be able to forgive and rebuild, but not necessarily both, or either. Once we discover who they were the whole time they were in a marriage with us, we often see that the marriage was never a marriage. So disclosure is a serious piece of where you go next.
I just wish I didn’t have any of his stuff in my head at all. It makes me very very sad. But we are all different, Lindy. YOu need to know yourself, what you need and what you can handle. We will our best to support you through it.
lots of love,
diane.Thanks everyone. Some really good food for thought. At first I asked if we should do this with my therapist, he said it was up to me. Then I wondered and thought because I think a already know most of what’s happened I thought I could handle it.
Now after hearing what some of you have said about learning about things you hadn’t dreamed of…I’m not so sure I want to do this at all.
I think I will just ask him firstly just how much there is that I don’t know and if it is any worse than what I already know. Maybe that will be the deciding factor. I like the place I’m in right now vs where I was before, ’cause that was hellish. So maybe this isn’t the best thing, and maybe it is masochistic. I thought maybe after knowing all I could finally put the goblins where they belong.
Thanks sisters for your thoughts. I am going to give this some much more serious thought in the next few days. I sure do love you all for caring.
LindyHi Lindy,
You have a bunch of very good answers.
For me, which i never got, i requested a written story basically of his life from young to now of the sexualizing, porn, affairs (he cheated on both of his long term GF’s), the story about the principle at his past job who had been chasing him down because she loved him…he said he did nothing and said this was the reason he had to move…(LOL), the hooker call card in his wallet (SA still maintains all he did was porn about 5 minutes a day..yeah right). I wanted all of it in writing, his story per say. One reason was to have a written format which he signed saying this is the truth, this is my story, up to this point in our loves…and he could never say…oh i told you that…but if it was in writing i had proof of what was told.For me i also wanted to know what all had been done, because i really doubted his entire character. And if i was to accept him back into my life, i had to know the full story, and then i could decide yes continue on or no i want out.
Sadly he never had time to write this story. Never admitted to anything more, never did the lie detector test…had lame ass excuses for everything…including the hooker call card.
Its up to you and what you need. What do you feel that you need to move forward and re-build trust. Many say that the lie detector is the best way to do this.
I know that you appear to have no doubts that he is on the sttraight and narrow…how ever it took be 8 years to discover my h, and would not have discovered his slip of viewing porn in front of our daughter if it not were for monitoring software, because he still carried on as normal.
This addiction is not easy in anyway to detect especially if you are married to a very good liar. And i was (well soon hope to not be legally married anymore).
Good luck lindy,
Love
FloraHi Lindy,
BTW Excellent question! I am new to this whole SA illness crap and I may not have as much input or experience on the topics discussed here. But I wanted to share with you my feeling on this one.
All I can say is I was like you I needed to know everything before I thought I could move forward. Before his disclosure I believed we could work at his SA and move forward together. When we had our talk (yea right full disclosure no polygraph) I can not stop thinking about all the lies he told and things he did throughout our (sham) marriage. I feel worse now then before knowing, and I don’t think I could ever forgive him and now I am not willing to make our marriage work.
Like Lexie said once it out of the bag you can not shove it back in if its too much to handle.
Really think about how important is it to you to know everything. You can not change the past what was done was done, but you sure can change the future. You are willing to make it work knowing what you know now, does it really matter what he did in the past? What’s really important is what he is doing now and in the future.
{{{hugs}}}Jac aka Dazed
Thanks Flora, I agree that writing out the story would be a much better way to do this. Sadly, SA is not capable of doing anything like that for any length of time. He is ADD, and that would be just too much and he could never focus on it long enough to finish it or give it depth or meaning. And, Jac what you said: “What’s really important is what he is doing now and in the future.” is quite true. As I said I have to really ponder this.
I so appreciate your input, thank you.
LindyI can understand why some may be saying they don’t want to know the full story as they may be mortified and not be albe to move past it.
However this is your husband. You should be proud to be married to them, cherish them, love them and be supportive of who they are. If you have to deny reality of what they have done, to stay in a relationship with them< i would have to question the motive for staying? To deny the truth in order to stay married, is not living in reality. Putting your head in the sand is differnet than saying i accept you warts and all… For me i wanted to know what he had done in the past, so i would know what he could possibley do in the future. Past behavior is the best predictor for future behavior. Just my thoughts.
Love,
FloraExcellent points, Flora,
I just wanted to say that my cautions were all about realizing what know the truth might mean. But I cannot imagine a relationship going forward without knowing the truth. If you stay with an SA, I think you need to have all the information in order to make that a “real” decision. Staying without knowing what the truth is, means the truth will always be a threat. That’s not good.
D.I agree with Diane. I am one who has to know the entire truth, but who knows if we ever get it, anyway. Especially with the diagnosis of Avoident Attachment isorder/Reactive Attachment Disorder such as Steve has. (See Forum topic).
Dear Sharron/Diane/Flora:
I think it takes real bravery to want full disclosure from our SA’s. I would agree, for as long as we are in the dark on important things they’ve done, the truth can be a threat.
But what if what they tell us hurts us more? Traumatizes us all over again? I think in my case it would. I know his behavior was treacherous. I know he needs help. I know that in order for me to be around I need to feel safe. I don’t think any more disclosures would help me with that. Does it matter that they betrayed us, lied, had sex with someone else, 100 times? or do we really need to know that is was 102 times. I mean don’t we have enough information to make a decison already? At least that’s where I am at. But I truly respect the need and demand to hear it all. It is brave.
Hi Pam C,
Yes i agree with you as well that the diff between 100 and 102 example.This is how it think it needs to be for example.
If your h acted out with hookers every week, you should know that he slept with a hooker every week. You don;t need to know where or how or with which one; but i think you do need to know the severity. For instance if a spouse admitted to porn, but neglected to say the online affairs or real life relationships…visits to prostitutes…she needs to know. I agree that it is further damaging to know the place and time and what she looked like and how much he paid.But i think she does need to know the basic details and amount of time or times.
Some of these guys i think its truely safe to beleive yes he did all those things and he did the worst i can imagine??!?! Can i get over that? And still live with that…and live through a relapse of that (whatever that may be).
Just my opinion.
FloraI’m sorry.
I don’t get it.
I don’t want to know.
I don’t care.
He’s a sick fuck.
He’s brought me down to his low level.
He’s brought nothing but misery to me.
I already know too much.
I don’t get it.
You will NEVER have full disclosure.
you will never hear the REAL deal breakers, and if you did…
you would spit in his face.
walk out the door.
and never return.
its that bad.
i was there.
i was inside the belly of the beast.
pleeeeease do not go there.
its not the answer for healing…
leaving is.
there is no choice but to leave.
there, i said it.
however, you don’t HAVE to leave.
you can stay in your sick marriages with your sick men.
but just know that they are sick and unfixable.
there, i said it– again.
knowing the heinous acts that they’ve done… the times they took you out for lunch for your birthday and then slept with someone else… or whatever they did… when you were sick, out of town… getting your hair done, taking care of your children… earning a living, thinking up ways to surprise him with a special gift, a special meal, a sexy dress…
and what the hell did he do for you?
hmmmm???
my husband has reduced me to a blithering, crazy, crazy, sad, sack of jelly… and by damn… he’s not going to get away with it!!!
ITS DISGUSTING!!!!!!!
WHY ARE YOU PUTTING UP WITH IT?????????
you don’t have to agree with me.
you don’t have to like what I’m saying.
but its the truth.
it does not matter what they DID. not at this point.
it matters what they are NOW doing.
if they are pulling out all of the stops and you are seeing significant changes, then great.
if you have nagging feelings, then please, for the love of God… listen to them.
I am not a negative person. I am one to see the best in others… almost to a fault.
but if it is not there, it is not there!!!
There is evil in this world. and evil doesn’t always look ugly.
evil is beautiful on the outside and putrid on the inside.
but once you’ve eaten from that forbidden apple– it will never be the same.
please, don’t go there… there is just too, too much pain… and its enough, now.
fuck him
fuck his addiction
fuck his porn
fuck his whores
fuck his confidantes who don’t care if he can’t support his family, and seduce him into oblivion, so that he doesn’t even care if his family doesn’t have enough to eat or is warm in the winter…
FUCK HIM!!!!!!!!!!!
fuck them all!
fuck his little I-DON’T-HAVE-TO-TELL-YOU-MY-DEEP-DARK-SECRETS-OF-HOW-I-FUCKED-YOU-OVER!!!!!!!!
WHO FUCKING CARES??????????
you need a therapist there???
are you listening to what you’re saying???
have we ALL gone mad???????????
have you noticed i’ve gone off the deep end???
calm down???
okay… sure… i’ll calm down.
i’ll calm down when we stop talking about sociopaths who don’t give a rat’s ass about anyone BUT THEIR FUCKTARD SELVES!!!!!!!
DISCLOSURE???
Absolutely! but not from him.
For YOU!!!
Disclose YOURSELF to you.
That is the only disclosure you need to know.
Who are you and what are you going to do with the rest of your beautiful life? what do YOU want? what are YOUR dreams? How can we make THEM happen for you?
they are dead.
stop trying to revive something that isn’t even a living breathing human being, in the first place. its just not worth it.
Dear Miss Lindy,
Oh Boy. I look at this issue for you from a couple of different angles DEPENDING on what you are hoping to acheive for your life? I understand that your husband is in recovery and both of you are trying to move forward in your marriage. No doubt, your relationship has been forever altered by this and you can never go back to the way you were before? It sounds like you are saying you have moved away from the pain enough, that you do not want to go back to it. I certainly understand that but here’s the thing though. What kind of a marriage do YOU want now? Are you happy with the way things are or do you want more intimacy? If you simply want to maintain the status quo, are reasonably happy and can live with him this way…..a full disclosure can threaten your progress and take you back to the beginning. Disclosures ALWAYS seem to include much more, not much less??
Now, if your goal is a REAL marriage and not a conveniant arrangement, then I think the full disclosure is crucial. Most of the programs say disclosure is necessary to get the secrets out, to keep the addict honest and to allow the partner to be fully informed about what she is signing on for by staying with him. The fact that you are considering this, that you still attend this group and knowing you are a last chapter kind of girl….well, I think you know in your heart you want a clean slate? Of course you are afraid of the truth and the potential for more trauma.
I don’t know how seriously you considered leaving your husband when you found all this out. Many of us make a lot of noise, make a lot of threats but ultimately KNOW we are never going anywhere. That is ok, if you reach that decision because you decide it is just too hard to leave for a whole variety of reasons. If that is your situation, then I don’t know if I would go borrowing pain. And there will be pain because what they DO NOT tell you is where the hard stuff lies.
If, however, you truly need and want an honest marriage with real intimacy and trust…I think you have to go for it and I would include a polygraph or at least the threat of one. They say sex addicts often save secrets so they can continue to engage in the behaviors undetected. They feed you enough for you to think you have the truth and cover the rest. Sometimes they shield the things they KNOW will kill the marriage? I remember once reading on Recovery Nation or somewhere that a recovering SA said he would tell his wife anything EXCEPT the fact that he didn’t find her sexually attractive. I thought that was the saddest thing I ever heard and I also thought that the one thing he was keeping from her, may just be the thing she needed to know the most?? 🙁
For me, I had to find out a great deal on my own, BEFORE I ever got a disclosure from my husband in Singapore. I found out crucial aspects I would NEVER have known if I had not put 2 and 2 together myself. Though I found out many sexual details…it wasn’t the sexual details that told the real story…it was the timing. When I was able to connect the dates from the security records to what my husband was doing… 14 days after my son almost died on an operating table having heart surgery….well, let’s just say I learned alot more about the man I married than the sexual details could have told me? I learned that instead of being sick with worry about his son he decided this would be a good time to drag a new hooker/girlfriend home and to spend his time f–king her rather than being concerned with his son recuperating under my care in Canada. That is how I discovered my husband of 25yrs didn’t have a soul and it was the LAST thing he ever expected me to find out??
The moral…be careful of going after what you wish for in case you get it?? On the other hand…..do you want to live as the wife of a man you do not know? Only YOU can answer these questions, dear girl. Good Luck! Karen xxLexie, how I wish I could click my fingers and get you into a beautiful villa on the side of an Italian hillside with a glass of Pinot grigio and some Parma ham, bread, olives and cheese… With a warm sun setting into the hills, catching the last rays of sun on the sea, sparkling red and pink…
At the point of discovery maybe we have to say the future is forever changed and the past is also forever tarnished. I wish this had never happened to me but one thing is for sure it’s making me sit up and realise that I am now responsible for me and my happiness. I clearly never knew the man I married. He was clearly capable of lying to me at every turn. It is absolutely true that disclosure pulls stuff out of the box that will never goback away as a neat tidy package.
Just please value yourself and understand that no one deserves to live in a state of anxiety and lies. Just know that this progressive disease does not make for a happy marriage.
Hi Ms Lindy,
This has been a great forum and discussion. I agree, this is a very difficult decision to make. I can see both sides of it and to me neither of them sound very good. As we all know, mine couldn’t Even get sober so I never reached this point. What I did know, was very painful ready and what he was still doing while working his “recovery” was sickening because I understood and saw how he lied and manipulated.I wish you all the best in whatever decision youake and so happy to hear you are working on your life again.
Love , nap
Lexie told the Truth.
It was coming to this forum and seeing the same story over and over, which was the same story as mine–even down to the things they say– “I want to grow old with you…I want to still be making love to you when you’re 80”–(Do they have a handbook?), that made me wake up and see how many lives, how much time is being wasted on the monsters in man-suits. I finally understood that my husband was the same as all of yours, and that when I was screaming to you in my head, “Run!”, it was myself I was really talking to. We’re here crying and lamenting and dissecting and analyzing, comparing stories (when they’re all the same?), while the SA’s are rocking on. It’s easy for them to keep us around, because we’re obsessed with making the unworkable work. They might have to pull a few nice phrases out, and they know us well enough to figure out what those are–they’ve had us figured out all along…How have I helped my kids by staying? What was I thinking? Would I ever want my daughters to stay in a marriage like this? Never! Thanks, Lexie, for finally just saying it.
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