Who Among us is Staying?

When I first started on this journey I have a lot of stories to tell on my journey some are funny, I am not kidding you I can be a stand up comic over the stuff I have been through because of this addiction, the stupidity of it can take you to a place of insanity yes but man I can do a good full year of Stand up comedy over it. I used to have severe depression and shock standards where I thought I was going to stay at a mental institution. I used to have so much anger I was going to end up on MSNBC LOCK UP with gang tatoos all over me..I used to feel so numb you could burn me and feel nothing. Its a process and a slow process for me but I am a better person because of it lots of 12 steps for myself , lots of therapy for myself lots of selcare , empowerment, I stopped feeling sorry for myself ( at times it can creep up) I am so much better then before I have lots of love from this lots of beautiful memories with horrible ones. I have my own story I cant tell anyone what to do at all but I can be asked questions. I stopped giving advice what I found was to tell my story and to listen this pain this hurt has to be heard that is where the healing starts…being heard Denial can kill someone and not listening is not helping !!!! I am glad I am starting to write I have joined this group and was just sitting around and felt stuck to write someting I started a blog with my photos to show my feelings and my love for myself I call what my husband has an addiction which it is I dont say the word Sex addiction this blog is for my pain but also for the beautiufl part of my life….

http://leefreeme.tumblr.com/

I miss Lexie… sigh….

Hi Deb,

I too am in the wait and see mode too, but what am I waiting to see? To see if he can fuck a whore in the parking lot again? I so respect you for hanging in there. I want everyone’s marriage to work. I feel like I’m waiting and seeing because I don’t think I have other options and it’s coming from a place of fear and not hope for the future. Also, all the women who have found happiness since they left, have any of them said they regret it? It seems if we stay we have to make lots of sacrifices but I guess if we leave we make different kinds of sacrifices. There is no easy answer. We can only support eachother no matter what our decisions may be.

I’m staying— for now. I’ve got ME back, and he appears to be really serious about sobriety. Do I think he’s going to stay in recovery forever? Nope; but I do think he’s been to the edge of the abyss and looked down, and the weak kneed feeling of imminent splatter has caused him to rethink his behavior.

I think our odds are pretty good, because I’m strong, have excellent boundaries, am assertive, and have great instincts. I am successful in distancing myself, being objective, and I take very good care of myself.

He’s in residential treatment since June 26, and will stay at least until mid-October. They’ll work him over pretty good. Then there’s weekly therapy and groups, and a sponsor here. He needs to continue to embrace this process.

But after the worst of the shitstorm, he may decide he can’t live without the self-soothing of his addiction. After all, it’s assuaged his terrible pain for virtually all his life. If he fails to return to recovery, then that’s my cue to find the exit. Most of what we have has already been put in my name, and I move more money every time he’s paid. Divorce papers are being drawn up as we speak, so they can be put into action effortlessly.

It’s his behavior and sobriety that will determine the end of the story. He cannot tell me; he has to show me.

Hey Lisa.. IF you go to Rio , I have a great friend there. He is married and an attorney/chef/photographer.. He would gladly show you the Rio ropes and help you in any way. He is married to a wonderful woman and they have 2 kids… Just let me know..

I see that this thread began 7 months ago, and just picked up recent steam 9 hours ago. 🙂 Any thread with 86 posts is a hot topic. Makes me wonder if we should be splitting into 2 groups: Stayers and Go-ers (versus Show-ers & Growers!) Stayers need different support than Go-ers and yet, Stayers may become Go-ers and Go-ers remember when they were Stayers. IMHO, staying is a stage toward going. Of course we all stayed, at first…because that’s why they targeted us, because we’re stayers, in general. Forgivers. 7 x 70 Forgivers. For me there were 3 reasons to stay: Emotional (Can I trust him?) Sexual (Can I have safe/enjoyable sex with him?) and Financial (Can I trust him with my half of the money?) When I got to the polygraph point…and realized I had to spend $400 every 6 months polygraphing my husband, that was a breaking point for me. I wouldn’t choose a roommate I had to polygraph. If you have to polygraph your husband, the marriage is over. When I got to the point that I had to do a yearly STD/HIV because I was in a high risk category married to a sex addict, I realized, I was single again. When I looked into our finances and saw what a mess he made, I realized it wasn’t safe to stay for money reasons either. I’m a go-er.

I WAS a stayer. I wish… what, I don’t know what to wish – That I had evidence to override the reasons I will list that I cannot justify staying? Nope. That I didn’t know what I know? Nope. That this was all a really bad nightmare and I might wake up and it be all gone? Yeah, that would do it.

I don’t judge anyone who determines it’s best to stay. Frequently my response to posts say how I would handle an issue, or how I did. That certainly doesn’t mean I think I have ALL the answers. I am happy if I have an answer once in a long, long while that results in a decent outcome.

I am a devoted, compassionate, empathetic person, who really did love my husband. And wanted to be able to keep my family together, and say we could handle this together. I was not giving up, when I said for better or worse. And how would that be a good model for the children, to bale when things got ugly?

But, there came the point of no return. I had the same feelings HR lists about continuing on with someone who had to be polygraphed, and having STD tests every six months, and the stigma my family was enduring. This was a perversion of a marriage. I was hard pressed to find any reason to hope, save to keep from tearing my son away from the man he loved as daddy.

I think I read about 20 books on SA, went to all the websites and read them. Hoping to find hope. I learned that this is a progressive compulsion. My H had, to my knowledge only three steps left: men, pain, and children.

Then I learned that there was only one step left. And that was that. I will NOT be in the company of someone who fakes recovery (online with the best video programs available, 5 states away, in a hotel room alone despite SA accountability partners offering him rooms with their familyes to try to keep him out of harm and relapses way) whose only remaining step in their descent into hell is sexually exploiting children.

My H has defended absolutely every single disclosed and discovered action he has done in his entire history of SA, that I know, with ‘I’m sorry, I did not know that was wrong, but I am learning it is, NOW.” Each and every incident he swears he did not know was wrong at the time he did it.

The 125 photos of mutiliated women H saved on the phone, to be sure they were available to masturbate to if the situation was such that he couldn’t get to the home computer when he felt the urge?!? He swears he would never, and has never, hurt anyone. Especially not me because H doesn’t want me disfigured. Jesus in Heaven!
Absolutely swears he has never hurt anyone before, especially a woman. Screamed and cried when I told him he needs to face reality that these women suffered EXACTLY BECAUSE OF HIM. Paying for that stuff (and these were paid downloads) is making sure the studios who do this make money hand over fist from those bleeding, necrotic women’s bodies. “YOU HURT THEM JUST AS SURE AS YOU SLICED HER UP YOURSELF! Just because they’re women. What makes me, or your daughter, or my daughter any different from them?”

He refuses to accept that. He says they’d do it whether or not he personally purchased the downloads and pics. Is there any hope there to recover? No. Complete denial.

So, when H gets jaded with the blood and pain, and starts looking at children for the next step down. Then it’s acting out time (he’s done it to every other escalation) and H starts looking at my children, and I’m not there, who is going to tell him it’s wrong to use them to feed his addiction? Or will I hear “I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was wrong”, and then have to kill him?

I can’t risk that.

But I tried to stay. And would have, probably, just thank GOD for that misplaced SD card. I never would have known and THEN what could have happened to my 16yo daughter or 11yo son? The counselors all assured me H was a mild SA case working dilligently on recovery and making huge strides. MY ASS!!! None of them knew about the hard, torture, stuff. He never tells them. Probably because he knows counseling session notes are admissable in court.

And polygraph is a joke. H lied and passed. I found the evidence after the test.

Anyone who is not at this point, who thinks they can work it out and stay, more power to them. But, sincerely, how can they ever be sure their SA is not at this point? Really?

Lynn,

You are able to express yourself so eloquently. I think you should write a book.

Lynng2 you made me laugh and smile just now

Ms-Lindy, thank you for starting this topic and thanks to all who have posted here. I am the newest of the newbies – I’m 5 days past finding out what I HOPE is the worst about my H, that in addition to the porn and a past affair, he’s now going to strip clubs and screwing a stripper (how wrong and twisted that I’m hoping it’s “just” one). And yet… He clearly feels terrible shame and guilt. He left the house immediately when I asked him to. He called our kids to tell them we needed to be apart for awhile and that it was all his fault. He has not put any blame on me. Yes, he has lied to me and done terrible things and destroyed my sense of self worth and trust but I honestly don’t believe he intended any of that. Those things are the consequences of his addiction which I truly believe is a disease. I know I am new to dealing with all of this and I am very grateful that I have this group to come to for advice and support. I keep trying to catch my breath and think rational thoughts but it is so hard. My world is just newly turned upside down.

Right this minute I’m thinking I want my H to come home. I miss him and I’m a little scared that he feels such self loathing that he might harm himself. No, he is not threatening suicide or even mentioning it – just my reading between the lines from his talk of how hopeless he feels. There will have to be boundaries of course. I have figured out that much from all my reading here and on POSARC. No sex – with me or anyone else – especially with anyone else. I couldn’t be sexual with him if I tried. I feel as far from sexual as it is possible to be. He will have to keep his phone and his computer and all those flash drives where I can access them. He will have to keep his word to call a therapist and make an appointment. He will have to be tested for STDs and I probably will too. Maybe there are some other things that I’m not thinking of yet. I’m sort of rambling here, sorry. My youngest leaves for her freshman year in college in 12 days. I want to spend her last few days at home with her famly intact. Maybe it won’t stay that way but hearing Ms-Lindy’s story and some of the other stayers gives me hope that just maybe it will.

My thanks to any of my new sisters who take the time to read this for letting me ramble on. I would like your advice but please be gentle with me. I’m still trying to get my feet under me.

If you get an order for child support and alimony, that 6 month away wife can’t touch that. I know, I was duped into being a 6 month wife. (SHE thought they were going to get together again, they were in marriage counseling when he and I stared dating having met at an expensive dating sight. That still creeps. Me out. Especially now that WE are separated and living five states apart. Is he telling someone heinous lies about ME tonight while he tells her he is so glad SHE actually understands him?) Living on negative dollars because of 1st wife and children’s support. Which SAH lied and said were half what they actually are. It’s just that he was only PAYING half, and eventually, yep that caught up with him and he had to liquidate his retirement. And give it to 1st wife.

You have all the power.

Thanks Bev. We decided that he would stay where he is for now – at our cabin in the middle of the woods which means no high speed internet only the slowest imaginable dial-up and cell service only if your phone is sitting on the top shelf of one particular kitchen cabinet. We’re taking it day by day.