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for those who have SAs in recovery or at least going to meeting.
do you feel comfortable with the meeting they attend?
are they men only or mixed both men and woman?
how is that working for you and him?
do they discuss the meeting with you?
if your partner is not in meeting how do you feel with mixed meeting vs men only?H goes to Celebrate Recovery meetings. I have been twice, as they have spouses meetings at the same time. It is not specific to SA, though that one has mostly SAs attending.
I am uncomfortable with that group because instead of the usual, “Hello, I’m XXXX and I’m an addict” they start with “Hello, I’m XXXX and I’m a believer in Christ”. Not that I’m against Christians, but my H left seminary because of severe doubts and I think just that alone is building a recovery on sand. If it’s all about a relationship with a God he doubts, how can it be real? He’s playing a part, again. And the real H is simmering underneath, waiting to remind him that it’s all a load of bull and he KNOWS what he can count on, in the end. The addiction.That is part of why I quit going, because I can’t sit smiling and discuss how God is working in my life in a soft meek voice like they do. It was God’s work that I am here, and I don’t trust him any more than I do my SAH, now. Plus, when the second attempt at disclosure was such a fail, I told H he’s just ticking off mileage in this recovery thing so that he can say he tried everything, but his heart was never in it. I didn’t feel like being part of his cover story and so I wouldn’t sit smiling beside him at these recovery meetings like we’re a couple or something.
It is men and women, but the women go into a separate room after an opening session, so that’s ok with me.
H says it helps him a lot and he likes that he now has phone numbers from the guys there to call when he’s struggling. I have talked with the facilitator twice, and he’s a strong Christian man with a sincere heart. That makes me wonder, though, about his understanding of what he’s actually dealing with.
H does not discuss the meetings with me. Back when I was more invested in his recovery, that bothered me. I even wondered if he went at all, or just used the time to sit in his car looking at porn on his DROID, or worse, to meet women. It is 45 mins from our house, and a 2 hr meeting, so that’s 4 free hours he can say he’s in recovery and NOT BE. When I did ask H the first two times what he thought about the sessions, he said that what is discussed in recovery is supposed to be confidential to those who are there, “but it’s good to feel that I’m not alone and they give me ideas about what to do when I’m tempted.”
I wrote a piece on that on the married site. Larry has gone to meetings for over 7 1/2 years. Most of the meetings were mixed, but very few women ever came and even fewer continued to come.
I can understand that, I mean, would you feel comfortable?
I feel that mixed meetings are like holding AA meetings at the local bar. It’s just wrong.
Larry said that the meetings really don’t accomplish much except that in the beginning he felt less alone. As for helping him recover they had no influence whatsoever. Most of the men continue to act out and continue to come to meetings, some for decades.
Larry would always discuss the meetings with me, and, in one case where a very attractive woman came every week just to literally brag about all the stuff she was doing, I told him I didn’t feel comfortable with that and he quit going to that meeting.
Fortunately in St. Louis there were multiple meetings almost every day, so he had a lot of choices.
Opps, I guess I should sign out as JoAnn2–I was using that to test the problem I had with the New Post.
Okay, the real JoAnn is back đ
Just an FYI for anyone whose husband is going to mixed meetings, they all share their phone numbers on a list that is passed out to everyone.
How convenient!
My h went to meetings for a while and 2 things happened that made me tell him to stop. 1. a girl sex addict was there, and my h like to tell me about her struggles – no one else’s. his eyes would have that glassy crazy look and I could feel his ….anticipation? when he spoke of her. gut feeling I used to ignore.
2. he shared too much about our kids!!!
I have 4 beautiful daughters (and a son) 16 – 24. he told them we were on Chambers island all summer and he would come up weekends. Also that he travels a lot. I said does he ever think of protecting us? He also said things like my daughters work at festival foods! several of these guys just got out of jail. It pissed me off. He told me I was paranoid they weren’t going to do anything!!!! I felt like he was hiding behind his family and not even dealing with himself.thats also what he did on the craigs list ads. Told them everything on the 2nd contact email. where he worked, that he has a place to party on chambers island, that he has 5 kids, where he lives……like it was a job interview or something!!
or yeah and he finished the email with I’d like to bring out the tiger in you! She advertised as an 19 year old.I told him he was talking sexy to a 500lb hairy naked dude who was hoping to get your credit card.
sorry I am rambling ….again.
but you know what one of the guys said to him in their circle? I can’t believe you have done all that and your wife still allows you in the house.
I think the perfect sa intensive would be for all of us on here to meet with our sa’s and have the women in one room and each sa sit down individually in front of us. We could all tell them how it is. Maybe they would listen then?
I would love to give all of you access to my h!! He couldn’t fool any of you!
My H attends two meetings a week. I love one, hate the other. The one I hate, he uses more as step work. It is a support group. He said itâs a bunch of guys who come every week to talk about what particular thing they did to âslipâ this week. The one I love is a SA study group. They take the AA big book line by line and discuss it. They do not âtalkâ about their personal stories or their personal lives. Itâs not a support group, simply a group that is focused on studying the steps. He doesnât even know why anyone is there (how they act out) with the exception of his own sponsor and the guys he sponsors. This particular group believes that sitting around discussing details of things concerning sex addiction can be triggering. The also do not use the SAA big book because they believe the personal stories in it are also triggering. The SAA big is identical as the AA book with the exception of the personal stories and it says alcoholic instead of sex addiction. The replace the word alcoholic with sex addiction when they read.. replace the word alcohol is acting out⌠etc.
His is open to woman but there are none. There was one woman and he immediately told me the first night she was there. She didnât last long. Being the sole woman in a group of 20 guys on this topic, I donât think Iâd last long either.
As I said, I love the one meeting and so does he. I think he gets a lot out of it. He likes the group of guys that attend regularly and a good number of them have been in recovery a long time. I like that because I feel like they know what they are doing.
In the beginning my H talked about the meetings a lot. To the point where I wanted to pull my hair out. But in an effort to be patient and supporting, Iâve kept my mouth shut. It gets better. In the big book there is a section called âTo the wivesâ and it says theyâll do this. Now he only talks about them if he feels he really got something new from that meeting and is excited about it. He still talks about something from the book almost daily in normal conversation. Itâs usually when he comes across a situation that day that he has read something he believes applies.
Sometimes something happens that reminds him of something he read and heâll say⌠oh⌠thatâs on page 66. So I have no doubt that he is participating in meetings.
I never ask for details about meetings. I listen to what he cares to share and leave it at that. Itâs his recovery and sobriety. I donât care how he gets there (sobriety), I just want him there.
i just can not wrap my head around mixed meeting. how can they justify have both sexes attend the same meeting. if they have not embraced recovery to the fullest. even then with the relapse rate what better place to find a hook up. they will already know how to pull one another down. i really see no reason to mix them. also i would think that the story telling of slips and such would hinder a new person.
Thats why the meetings with no talking of your own situation is great. I’ve also read that you should only join a group that has people in it that are well into recovery.
As for the woman thing. I really don’t think there are ENOUGH woman, except perhaps in highly populated areas, to form a woman’s only meeting. They do have men only meeting though so that route can be taken if need be.
Honestly, I feel awful for the husbands of these woman. There is absolutely no support system for them to be found anywhere except COSA, where they will still be nearly the only man.
kim you said you should only join a group that has people in it that are well into recovery. i would think that is a hard to find group since these men are such great pretenders. i would think that since there is very little that can be done to prove recovery with out a partners input or a lie detector test.
I’m just reciting what I read. lol
I wonder if SA’s can sniff out other SA’s lies? Maybe they don’t lie to one another to the extent they lie to us? They aren’t jaded like us either. Their trust hasn’t been shattered by an acting out addict as ours has.
The 12 steps is a faith based treatment for addicts. For those that claim it worked for them… it took a leap of faith. So maybe they take that same leap of faith with the other men in the group? I’d think those in actual long term recovery would have a sense of humility that can be detected,
All just shot in the dark guesses! I should ask my H what makes him “believe” those who say they are in recovery,
Hi all,
My exSAH had never been to a meeting of course, but I can guarantee you that if he ever went, he would lie his ass off to the group as well, his sponser, any women in the group (and he would try to pick them up, no doubt)…. I’m not saying that ALL men would do that – I’m just saying that MY ex would. He lied about everything. He lied about stupid shit. He lied about stuff that was unnecessary to lie about. He even believed his own lies (a FACT)…. so I definitely think that plenty of those dudes are in there lying to each other…. especially if they are there because they got “caught”…. and that is usually (not always) the case. Sigh…..kim i think they trust nobody except themselves. also many tend to be narc so they would put on a show of i am perfect and the best at recovery, because we know they are perfect. ya right……… what you read would be great if we lived in a perfect world, thats right their world is perfect if life was a fantasy. i know that a few do achieve recovery in some shape or form not sure how many have true recovery. i wonder if there are any statistics say for 5 years, 10years. sure would like to know. i do know quire a few people who have stopped drinking for many many years, but if you go to aa drunk someone will know hard to lie about that.
One more thing…. Heidi – regarding that guy who was surprised you let your (asshole) husband in the house???”:
When I finally made up my mind, once and for all, that I was going to file for a divorce and I needed to put my support team together (besides my wonderful sisters of course), I gathered up all my evidence… and we all remember my foot and a half stack of evidence that I lugged around…and took it over to my trusted older brother to spill the beans. It took 4 hours to tell him everything I had to say and to show him examples of what I was talking about! Although he was aware of my SA’S shadiness in the past, he was stilled stunned by my latest discoveries and of course, validated that I needed to get out and fast! But he said something else too….. I think it was when I told him that it had reached the point where I was actually feeling sorry for the women my SA was “preying” on… and he stopped me in my tracks. He looked me straight in the eye and asked me if I realized how horrific this whole thing was?? He was not so pleasantly amazed by how calm I appeared. He was floored by the emails, texts, pictures, etc. (all incriminating, of course). He asked how I could be sympathetic toward the “victims”, when I was the biggest victim of all? He wanted to seriously HURT SA (and hurt is putting it mildly). He then put it like this – Patty, if Lauri (his wife) found just one little shred of evidence from any ONE SINGLE THING, in the large pile before us, she would have (4) lesbian lawyers all over me so fast and I would have been in some shitty apartment somewhere IMMEDIATELY after she found out what I did.
Now, my brother is the bread winner (and he does it WELL)and his wife is a stay at home Mom to three teenagers. Still….. he insisted that she would have him OUT immediately and as meagerly as possible… and the crime only had to be one little crumb from my mile high stack. Just ONE thing. Wow. That really help put things in perspective for me. I had gotten so accustomed to SA and so much SA bullshit – that I didnt realize how absolutely ridiculous it was that I was being forced to accept the unacceptable of SA standards. I thought about it and came to the conclusion…. HE’S RIGHT!! (Or, she would be right to get him OUT OF THERE if he had been doing any ONE thing on my long list…..
I think we lose focus on what is tolerable and intolerable at times in this world of SA. It takes someone else to point out how absurd the whole thing is.
And, if we really stop and consider it – how fucked up IS it??? Our lives as partners of SA’s….. the cruelty, the blatant disrespect, the lies, the deceit, the narcissism, the grief, the tragedy, the unfairness, the list goes on…..
Why in the world did it take another person to point out the obvious to ME?? How little did I value myself that I was unwilling to come up with clarity on my own – just by the sheer nature of the situation?? It gives me something valuable to think about going forward at least – what I will and will not accept in a relationship, how much I need to devote toward self love and self respect, and how I needed to demand respect from everyone because I’m worth it.
Just a little food for thought, ladies…..
So true sl. When you run this craziness by outsiders, it is completely incomprehensible. My last straw was finding the eharmony app. My h still saying it was no big deal, I was just looking, I stopped because I knew it was wrong.
I told him this alone would be a deal breaker for most marriages! He continues to blow me off for thinking it mattered. Wow. He will never admit he is wrong about anything.Dear Silver,
GOD BLESS YOUR BROTHER. He is 100% correct on every point. A large part of the reason we don’t tell anyone is because once they get over the shock of what a monster he is their VERY next thought is going to be “Why are you trying to have any kind of relationship with this sicko?” If you start talking about sex addiction and recovery you can tell they think you have really lost it! All healthy people hear is how abusive they are….they are NOT interested in convoluted theories on how you get the psycho healthy. Anyone who cares about you ONLY wants you to get away as soon as possible. So we keep our secrets and they keep theirs and in that respect we are the same as them. Though I feel bombshelled and I certainly don’t regard myself as any kind of example to follow…blowing my husbands cover to the VERY top of his VERY big company was one of the most liberating things I had done in 4 years and out least propelled me into an enviroment where I no longer have to be the patsy in his sick activities. These men are abusers and they wear us down in the exact same way that a batterer wears down his victim. He pushes her boundaries back bit by bit until she starts saying ridiculous things like “Well, it was only a slap and I was nagging him.” As far as I am concerned the only difference between us and them is we say “Well, it was only email…he didn’t actually have sex with anyone.” GAWD!!!!!!!! This is the topic we should be analyzing and obsessing about. We should be asking ourselves over and over…why am I accepting ANY of this horseshit. Brilliant post Silver.
Katt,
I asked him. I was so curious about his answer I couldn’t resist. His answer was two-fold.1. He said if he hears anything from someone that sounds like himself talking, itâs a good sign they arenât in recovery.
2. You ask them what they did to change themselves, you start doing it, it works and you believe them.Then he said that there is nothing to lose by trying the SAA thing. That if you sincerly want to change then you are 100% positive that whatever youâre doing doesnât work so you have nothing to lose. Youâre already at a 0% success rate.
Then he rambled on for an hour and I regretted asking. lol I have no idea about what because I tuned him out. My H is no different then anyone elses. He can explain anything on the fly.
Karen!!
Talk about a brilliant post. You said it sister!! (and I agree with you, completely!) It amazes me that you have the effing clarity of someone (a partner) who is LONG GONE, yet…. Here you are? I will remain stumped on that until you get the hell out. You can’t even PRETEND to be naive, unaware, uninformed, etc. You remind me of Lexie sometimes! Prior to her even KNOWING that her husband was an SA, she had all kinds of [very smart and perceptive] advice! She really “got it”. But once she had a D day of her own- look the fuck out! She fell apart, well, you know….you were here! She eventually got it together, but man oh man, it took her a minute to regroup! It’s a perfect example of how easy it is to see someone else’s situation and just KNOW what they need to do (and right NOW), but when we look in our own backyard….well, it’s not so black and white. Sigh!
But still….Oh SL, it is so very true.
When it all lands in YOUR lap, you lose your mind, your heart is broken, and your soul devastated. What is obvious becomes cloudy with grief and false hope. We go into some form of denial as a way of self-preservation. Some stay there a long time. There are children to raise, bills to pay, and no obvious options out. We cry all day and all night. Then you start reading and you begin to hope that it can be fixed, and a counsellor tells you that you are also sick, more sick than the SA, and now need to spend your life confessing what it isn’t true about you, in order to fix him, and become the marriage warden and sherriff and mommy and leave your own needs behind. Confusion settles in. Clarity is gone. PTSD arrives in all its fullness. And then its Mastercard or VISA, please.
This is why they don’t want us to have any disclosure for a year. They don’t want us to know what would be valid reasons to walk away and start over. Also, they need a year of brainwashing us into the co-dependency that will keep the “ka-ching” ringing in their ears.
No one in their right mind would put up with it, unless they are buying time to figure out a financial option that eludes them at present.
That ANY of us ever see clearly enough to not accept this horseshit is a miracle. And once you’re out, the utter insanity of the entire thing is so obvious, it makes you crazy thinking about how hard it was to get out alive.
The women on this site are strong, loving and wise. But we are just barely out ourselves, or still in the throws of the wrangling about for a safe place to grieve, to re-group, to survive the programs, to figure out the money, to deal with the family, the church, and find some hope for our lives that these bastards ran over the cliff.
but hey, I’m just saying…
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