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Carmen, DO NOT listen to anything he says. He may go to therapy. He may work things out. He may not. You cannot listen to him or worry about working out his problems or God forbid “work on the marriage”. His therapy ( if he choses it and it’s serious) will involve everything but you. The only thing those idiot therapists do to involve you is to blame you and try to con you into going to COSA meetings and work on your part. Do not get caught up in that.
Until he has been thru a long period of good therapy you cannot listen to anything that comes out of his mouth. Don’t ever forget that.
Turn all your energy and resources into helping yourself.
Carmen,
Don’t worry about us being shocked and disgusted and YOU being humiliated. We have seen a lot here, and the humiliation is NOT yours. Not by any stretch. He owns it. You just keep telling yourself that because normally we do start out feeling ashamed and humiliated.
The intrusive images are part of the trauma. So is wondering who else knows. I still have a hard time going out in public for this reason 17 months after dday. What you are experiencing is a normal reaction to trauma.
Keep posting and reading. This place really is the Cliff Notes and a lifesaver.
My emotions are all over the place, one minute im crying and vomiting and the next I’m thinking how nice it would be to believe him, that he’s done doing this stuff, he’ll get therapy and all of this will go away. That doesnt mean what has happened disappears, its not like he felt ANY remorse until I confronted him. He even tried telling me someone else must have created those online accounts and used his picture. He only admitted things when the proof i had was such he couldnt lie about it anymore like pictures of him in the act. You know one of the pictures was in our bed, he had a threesome in our house in our bed. who does that?!?! Do these men recover? Can they learn to get there “thrills” another way? its too early for me to even think seriously about what im going to do but I’m curious, do you all know of men actually getting better?
I don’t.
It sounds like its a deeply entrenched part of his identity. From what I’ve understood, the longer they’ve been doing this crap, the less likely it is to see real change. Also, I think the breadth of penis activities may be an indicator of entrenchment as well.
I know Karen’s husband brought whore to her bed too. Really stinks to high heaven.As far as what he says—-the lying is also completely entrenched. The saying goes–how do you know if an SA is lying—-their lips are moving. The base foundation for his life is successful deception. Its where he retreats. Then it moves to blaming and gaslighting you.
Please look after yourself first. What do YOU need in order to feel safe so that you can begin to heal? Do you need him to leave? Do you need to leave? I found I couldn’t think straight in the same house with him even sleeping in separate rooms. He had defiled my home. Nothing I looked at it was what I thought it was. I got him out first, and then I sold it and started out in my own little townhouse where I was in control and safe from him and his lies and his penis activities.
IMO.
D.You cannot bank your own recovery on his. You have to recover whether he does or not. Can they get better? Sure they can but I would not bet my emotional and mental health on it.
Your healing should begin whether he gets help or not.
If it is possible, he really needs to leave the house ( or you can). You cannot think with him there with you. Go to the PoSARC site ( linked from this site) and read. It is very informative. It helps explain things somewhat…
Carmen, Bev is right that you need physical space away from him, because our heads can’t clear when they’re around. We’ve been drawn into their pattern for too long, and I think it’s impossible to see until we’re on our own. You need to take especially good care of yourself right now, physically and mentally, and with him around, it’s just not possible. We’re all here for you, and we understand how weird everything feels for you. xoxo
Carmen you asked “Do these men recover? Can they learn to get there “thrills” another way? its too early for me to even think seriously about what im going to do but I’m curious, do you all know of men actually getting better?”
A big fucking NO to all of the above. IMHO.
Every second of energy we put into worrying about their ability to get better or not is a second wasted. It does not matter if they can, if they are, if they aren’t, if they are faking, if they are honest, if they are …etc. What matters is healing your self so that you can make rational decisions about your life. It cannot be based upon his actions ( or lack of actions) any more. We all tried basing our lives around the actions of our husbands….look how that turned out.
Focus on you. Make him leave or whatever but focus on you. You cannot depend on him for anything any more. It’s a hard reality but it’s the truth.
Oh Carmen – the emotional roller coaster is so difficult. The major swings of emotion lessen somewhat as time goes on but I still go through varying emotions every single day.
Karen – thank you for reminding me how absolutely horrific of an experience that must have been to find a dead girl. Yet, I knew nothing about it until a year later. I don’t mean to hijack your thread, Carmen, but I’ll explain what happened…he revealed this to me during our second DDay in November, after a virtual “outpouring” of revelations…most, of course, brought on b/c I had uncovered things like the $1000 check written to a defense attorney, that forced him to admit to the solicitation charge and that there was “another” girl in Fall of 2011, Courtney. She was a prostitute and a drug addict & she was the one he spent the day with. I guess he felt this need to try to help her or something and he paid for her to get a script for Xanax or something (don’t remember which actual drug). Well Courtney was also doing hard drugs and about a week after they spent the day together, he wasn’t hearing back from her and tracked her down at a spot where he had dropped her off before. He saw her van, got out and opened the door and she was in there, dead for probably a few days, from the mix of the anti-anxiety drug and whatever illegal drugs she took. Then, according to him, a huge black guy showed up and he got scared and got back into his car and drove off. He said he called the police and voluntarily went in to tell them what he knew. He said this really messed him up…which makes sense b/c in the 10 months that followed, that’s when his behavior & the money spent escalated.
So to Penny’s point, they have to be emotionally dead to have these experiences and just go on about their usual activities. And that does not bode well for ever having a healthy relationship again. I just need to be reminded that these experiences are not normal…it’s like I gaslight myself into minimizing this stuff. Again, it is NOT normal! (I should put that on a pillow quote and read it to myself every night!).
Carmen, I hope you are doing okay. You have some tough times ahead to say the least, but we are here for you. I reread your original post. You want to know if this ever includes love. This never, ever includes love IMO. Sexual addiction happens in a complete vacuum of emotion, in an emotionally dead person’s body. I don’t think they are seeking thrills, so much as they are seeking some feeling of something like an emotion. If they start this when they’ve hit midlife, they may want to feel young again by being with young women. If they start this when they are very young, they may have had childhood trauma. Surveys have shown Type A personalities are more prone to this. I saw this in my husband. He worked so damn hard and was bullied around at work so much, he lost himself and his emotional/spriritual life in that mess of type A crap. Many of these men are crazy successful, so damn busy with their success they haven’t taken time for their spirit/soul/ and emotions for years.
If you want to help your husband, help him initially by finding him the best addiction counselor in town. Hopefully the person will have a PhD either in psychology or psychiatry. Talk with the person on the phone and figure out if you think he’s (I strongly suggest a he) got all his marbles in the right place. Encourage your husband to go, then walk away and start taking care of yourself exclusively. You are so worthy of health and happiness. Move toward health and happiness. Don’t allow stress to destroy your health. Get on an anti-depressant if the stress gets to great. Love to you Carmen.
Carmen, also, people who involve themselves in extra-marital affairs are often dead inside too. They are not in love, except with themselves (narcissism). IMO, they have all experienced some unresolved trauma, either in adulthood or in childhood. The energy from that unresolved trauma is now on us as we experience the trauma of our lifetime. Don’t allow your trauma to go unresolved. Heal yourself, release that horrible energy over time.
When these pigs bring home some whore and screw them in YOUR bed, it’s done, DONE. That shows ZERO respect for you, for the marriage. That’s what my SA did also. Also, he refused all normal consensual sex with me. Always. But his pothead self drugged me at least three times and RAPED me while I was unconcious. Sick, sick, sick. How do I know he did not photograph me and post it online? I have no way to know. This is not a human being this is an amoral animal. There is no hope for a monster like this.
Carmen – I cannot emphasize enough being very careful about the therapist that you find for yourself – absolutely we all recommend (I think that is what I consistently see here), someone who is very familiar with trauma – please get Barbara Steffens book – there is a link to it on this site.
The nature of these discoveries is so horrendous that all previous understanding of your world and its axis is shattered…so remember when you are feeling off kilter it is because everything is off kilter – you are not to blame and you are not crazy – this is crazy making and you must be committed to creating your own stability, emotionally, physically, sexually, and psychologically.
The shock is protracted and because it is so repetitive will rupture any healthy expression of grief for sometime. I think that the access to truly mourning what we have lost doesn’t happen for sometime, even though we cry, I believe they are not tears of resolution or acceptance, until there is resolution.
I know I will get through this because I have found a way to heal my heart through much in my life – I have always been a women who rather than regrets finds a way to reconstruct – don’t do an autopsy on yourself it will require you to be dead if you are not going to feel the pain of every incision – everyone has trauma in their lives and it does not justify inflicting pain on people we say we love…the saddest part of this repeat behavior is that they don’t stop it without discovery, so they don’t negotiate with themselves over the damage they are inflicting.
Listen I believe people CAN change it doesn’t necessarily mean they will or do – love yourself, gradually and faithfully, and you will change what is possible in your own life – so sad your are here and glad that if you must be you have found the wonderful wisdom of the sisters – Meg
Carmens story is why I think it is not a good idea to go through all their stuff, once you have seen it it has burned a lasting imprint on your brain and it can never be erased. I had external hard drives of my sa, I could have had them forensically analyzed, in the end I just dumped them, I knew I could never forget what I would have seen of course this will not work for everyone, especially for those with minor children with custody issues. My son is turning 16 soon so this does not affect me. My goodness, the hell these bastards put us through we do not deserve, may they burn in hell.
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