Have you decided to stay or leave?

Hi stillstanding – I am currently back living with my husband after 2 separations. We are in the process of moving to the
country. I had decided to stay.
Things appeared to be improving, (How many times have I said this) and his therapist agreed he was doing better.
This past week, there was another trigger and lieing. My SA’s temper flared and he projected all of his anger onto me.
The continual trauma and heartbreak is devestating.
I have told my husband there will be no intimacy or sex as long as his behavior continues. I cannot relate to him emotionally as long as the deception continues. I don’t know if it will ever change!
This may end up being a marriage of convenience, as I am no longer tolerant of his behavior. I feel lieing is a conscious choice, and he has continually made that decision to do it.
So, yes, I made the decision to stay, but on what terms living with him will encompass, I can’t say. Staying in a relationship like this is very difficult, and you are right about the recovery rate being very low.
Hope you have better luck than I have.

Hi Stillstanding,
Last year i was in the wait and see boat. I put together my boundaries and made a few simple requests of the SA to build trust. Simple requests were transparancy, which included giving over bank statement, pay stubs, keeping a log of unaccounted for time, and so on. My SA basically did not one of my requests. He said he would “try” and never did a thing, but i think record a few days….however never gave it to me.

My SA is not what i would say was cooperative in most any of this. He faked a recovery, and when to therapy, just for me to catch him viewing porn while caring for our daughter. For me that was the ulitmate betrayal, and at this phase he should have been dosclosing any slips, and did not. My tracking software caught him.

My story includes more than the porn. He also did not contribute financially with may years where he only made $5000, to boot he did not help out around the house…while i worked full time paid the bill and then came home and cleaned the house and cleaned up the baby. My h was supposedly waiting for his massage therapy business to grow ( i know ewe sex addict massage therapist); however i think he viewed porn all day…hence no reason towork. And then when he stayed home with our daughter it continued. Makes me cringe how i think back to all those days where i would come home and nothing..not one thing was done and the hosue was a disaster. Thank god nothing ever happened to the baby.

Anyway, our marriage was alreayd on the way out. The sex addiction put it over the top. I was tired of trying to get a little boy to be a man. Things you wish you new when you married them, would have saved me alot of time.

Anway i kne wit was over. I tried to make it work for some time, and the h made virutally no effort. In my case there is really nothing to work with. I am almost divorced, and its tought to have share a duaghter with someone who is a slef centered ass and you worry about the care she will get.

It takes time to decide and eventually you will get the sign or sign to know when its time to go or stay. You will know. the inbetween time is tough.

Flora – You have certainly been through hell and back. My heart still goes out to you. I know what you mean by making a few simple requests to honor boundaries – Steve is so angry this week – got mad yesterday and was going to throw a soda can against the wall, but crushed it instead and through it in the trash. Says he is mad at himself because of his behavior, but I think it goes further than that! He is back to resenting boundaries. I made it very clear to him that the boundaries are not in place to police him, but to keep me from repeatedly feeling trauma and being put in the position of feeling it when he is acting out and lieing.
Last week, we discussed his daughter coming to visit this next week. We had agreed we would go out and do pick-up food so as not to have to go out to restaurants because he is stressed and in active addiction.
This morning, it was brought up, and he replied, “Yes Maam”! Sounds like a turnabout to me, and the anger comes out again. Fuck Him!!
His daughter knows about the addiction – somewhat. That it is objectifying women, but obviously not to the degree to which it entails. This might get ugly, because I am in the frame of mind to enlighten her if he bullshits his way through this.
Hugs everyone.

Hi sisters,
just a quick pop in while I have internet…

Still-standing, I’m one who is leaving and grieving. My SA, now that he is sober, has revealed more of his underlying dysfunction. HIs PD’s or whatever they are, make it his sobriety mean little to our relationship. He is still unable to view me as a real person. He has installed his therapist as his new mother and I am once again, the third person in this marriage. Sometimes that’s what you get when they get sober—but who’s to say what you might find. It could be a much more positive result.

NAP, I agree with your remarks to Sharron. I want very much to support you Sharron, but I am constrained by the nonsense you tell yourself about Steve and your relationship with him. These are your decisions, of course, but it’s hard to forget everything we’ve heard before. I hope you will have some professional and qualified therapeutic support in your life as you embark on this next step of your journey. I wish you well, but it’s hard to imagine how it can be well, given all the flags. Please don’t present as a victim for the choices you freely make. And I hope you remain safe, having made choices that I cannot help but perceive as unwise. And yes, that’s just my opinion, but it’s not about being right, Sharron, it’s about you being well and whole. Like Nap, that is what i want most.

But Still-standing this is really your thread about your question and I hope you will forgive this digression. The stay or leave thing is complex. My marriage was a thirty year thing, and leaving has entailed great grieving—two steps forward and one step back, but it’s still a clear direction, not a circle.

good luck,
D.

Diane – Thanks for your’e opinion. As I told NAP, I know you are both right-no argument there. I guess I have been on the merry-go-round too long. Haven’t been able to get off. Obviously, I am very deficient and weak and there is definitely something lacking upstairs. Any healthy woman would have been long gone. I do have some thoughts about that, as I had quite a revealing dream about two weeks ago which I will discuss with my therapist on Wednesday.
Again, thank you Diane. I have gotten to the point where I am almost too embarrassed to post here anymore.

I’m sorry… you probably feel like we’re all ganging up on you… its because we care. xo ~ L

Lexie-I’m confused to, and I confuse myself! This new attempt started after Steve quit his therapist and went to one who does EMDR therapy, and was recommended by my therapist. The new one has been very positive. In fact we met with him twice together. I think that is what threw me a curve.
Now, lo and behold Steve’s behavior is exacerbating once again, which he blames on stress of selling and buying a house, and ONCE AGAIN, I get the brunt of his anger, acting out, and lieing. I really thought after the change of therapist’s I was seeing a recovering man. Obviously, this is his pattern, and he cannot sustain sobriety for any length of time.
The thing I am faced with is relapse, (Actually not-he has never recovered) and then with more upcoming EMDR, I am told the SA can act out more frequently until issues are resolved. Well, to me, this is bullshit. I am not going through (what is suggested) a year or two of therapy with continual acting out. How can it get worse. I guess never say never!! Lexie and zumbagirl – I know you are right. There has never been a doubt about that. I just can’t understand why I can’t break this cycle of insanity. As I said, a dream I recently had about my childhood may shed some light on it. Will talk to my therapist Wednesday. Don’t want to waste time revealing it. Would take to long to describe it.
Love to you both, and I know your’e posts are always out of love. I really never take offense at it, but like I said, it is embarassing to say the same thing month after month with no change on my part or Steve’s. My best girlfriend cussed me out and hung up on me when she found out I was back with Psycho Dude. She told me she can no longer be my friend or support me because she told me not to “marry the asshole in the first place.”

Hi Sharron,
I hope i didn’t hurt your feelings. Please dont be embarassed to post here because you need us and we really care about you. I apologize if what i said made you feel badly because I know what its like to have people jump ship on you. It hurts…..I said what I said because its the truth and I know we see it so much clearer than you do. Sometimes the truth is harsh however I wouldn’t want to lie to you. I think we all get “humble pie” in our lives and looking back I understand others frustrations. Its because they care so much (but the ones that totally ditch arent friends or family).

Please know I/we care about you very much Sharron and I mean that sincerely….love Nap.

PS I did not see your post to me.

Sharron, I want you to know, that I might feel disappointed or even frustrated sometimes, but I would never cuss you out or no longer be your friend or not support you, no matter what. So, I’m sorry that your friend did that to you. That is not a very good friend, IMO. But, perhaps the situation touched something in her, that was very uncomfortable. I will NEVER say. “I told you so”, either.

Why? Because I, could very well be you. I am the queen of being STUCK on a person or an idea or evening the score or whatever. So, I get it— completely and of course, you can stay with Steve, but to expect him to recover is what is the issue!

ain’t gonna happen. sad. yes. but true. And quite frankly, I think that Steve was a lot happier when he was a sex addict than he is as a dry drunk. That’s how it appears, at least.

When I was going on and on about predator…and totally unable to leave a hideous, deeply hurtful situation until it reached a critical mass… I saw the look of GRAVE concern in my shrinks eyes and she said to me.

“Lexie, If you don’t stop all of this, I am going to think that you are a masochist.”

That made me feel like a piece of shit, but I knew that she was right. I think in our minds, when we get involved with these dudes, there is a lot of fantasy surrounding who they really are and it happens VERY early on. After that, it is difficult to break free from that early vision of who we believe them to be. Then, when they start to present with this other being (who in retrospect was there, all along, but now its much more obvious), we are trying diligently to get HIM back. The HIM we NEED him to be. But, its impossible.

And yes, I believe it most likely stems from early childhood stuff. I spent half of my childhood in a dissociative fantasy world… That was how I coped with the uncertainty and bizarre crazy that at any moment some evil creature would jump out from behind a door (this did happen to me once) and beat the crap outta me.

When I got involved with predator, I was in so much friggin emotional pain from just about every avenue one can imagine. And even though intellectually, I got it, in my heart and soul, I was totally fucked up. I had no business getting involved with ANYONE, because the only person i could possibly choose would be someone who would hurt me. A dangerous man. how much fun! 🙁

tough to admit, but true.

now, that I’ve come out, the other end… what does that look like? Its a bit scary, but over-all, life is good now; its much, much better. Not many soaring highs, but also very few bone crushing lows.

I like it better this way. 🙂

As for the therapist. Let’s not forget that first of all, this person makes a LIVING doing what they do, and if they dismiss Steve, they will lose necessary income. AND, he’s a man. Not that there aren’t good male therapists, but not for this. They’re great for adolescent boys and for other afflictions, perhaps, like tourettes and schizophrenia, depression, but something that is so basic to the core of a man treating another male with a sexual disorder (that is still very controversial in the medical community) is just too suspect.

In addition, as we know, Steve is a master con artist and puts on a great show. Remember the time you guys went to that therapist who was supposed to have put him in a hypnotic trance? This whole recovery thing is a tremendous farce. His emotions are fake, his love his fake, his recovery is fake. Oh, it might feel real, sometimes. I know… it does… but it isn’t and YES, he cannot sustain any of it which is why there are the eruptions and the drama.

This is not going to change.

Every time, I see that he’s said “yes, m’am'” I want to smack his smug mug straight across the room. That is when he’s just “yessing” you to shut you up. It is not recovery.

Stress from buying and selling a house? awwwwww, poor baby. life’s so tough. At least he HAS a fucking house to sell!!!

I think I hate him now. I really do. I hate him for what he does to people. How he uses them, like asswipes–especially you.

Please don’t feel embarrassed. We are all sisters here… and we are all struggling in some way.

much love,

Lexie

Marie,
You are wise and wonderful. One thing that I think is so important about this site is feeling free to be vulnerable and be ourselves. (One thing that I struggled with on the S-Anon online meetings were all the rules about sharing. At a time when I felt so raw, I just wasn’t up for all of those constraints, although I’m sure there’s a valid philosophy for all of that. But I digress…) It can be SO hard to be honest, and Sharron you put it all out there. I admire that quality; it’s not something that comes easily at all to me.
love and hugs, ZG

Lexie – you are always so right on! Boy, it really takes one who has been there to feel what we feel.
Remember, it was I who did the so-called regression therapy on him, and yes I do believed he conned his way out of that one.
I agree with you in that it has also crossed my mind he is happier living with his addiction than without it. It is common for SA’s to hold onto it since it is a life-long process of maladaptive coping skills. Obviously not being able to sustain the abscence of addiction, coupled with the fact he doesn’t have many places he can trigger – but he always finds a way.
I love you for being you and the great love and support you send everyone’s way.
I DID come close to smacking him this week with his too many “yes m’am’s. I also told him, “poor baby – under stress? Gee, I am too. Grow up and be a big boy.

I didn’t realize a man should not be treating a man for SA.
Where did you get your’e info? This therapist seems to think he will cure Steve with EMDR therapy. Ya, RIGHT!

Love to you, Lexie. You always bring me tears after reading your’e responses, and I mean that in a good way.

Hi all,
In my opinion, we can talk about “these guys” until the cows come home….the only person we have control over is ourselves, otherwise, we are just giving our power away to someone (active SA) who is just going to abuse it and us.
Love, Nap