Who has stayed?

Dcyne
I’m one of the stayers, for now. To answer your question, my husband paid prostitutes he initially was in to compulsive masterbation, then porn, then phone sex and finally hookers i do not have all the details, as much snooping as i did he has prepared me that I don’t know it all, and we have a disclosure meeting set for june 8th we were to do it in in january and then he lost his job, blah blah blah, now set for 6/8.
We have two small kids almost 5 and 9, and if not for them I would have already kicked him out. And Not because he is not sincere in his recovery, he is. He’s remorseful, understanding, supportive, loving, engaged with our kids, w his life, and has what appears to be a good grasp on what the discovery of his addiction has done to me. In addition he goes to a 12 step mtg and group therapy w a csat He is transparent, has no access to any phone, laptop etc that I cannot monitor. He has truly changed and wants to save our marriage, and if we did not have kids, none of that would matter. I would leave. I would leave because I cannot wrap my mind around someone who broke the law and paid a hooker for sex. I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that he justified it by thinking he was doing what was best for our marriage because I did not ever want as much sex as he.
But we do have two precious kids who we considered when purchasing our home in a great educational district that I cannot afford on my own and I do not want them to be uprooted as I was a child leAving the community and friends they’ve grown to love when the sob is sincere in his recovery
I feel like I suddenly don’t have the right to leave him be he’s working on everything that all the sudden I will be the bad guy for leaving when he was the one who fucked hookers
So I stay, and we will have disclosure. And we will have disclosure once. If he holds something back like they all do and he decides to unload his shit on me a second time, I will divorce him. If there are no ‘deal breakers’ in disclosure and we set our ‘boundaries/bottom line/consequences and he lapses. I will divorce him. Disease or not, I’m not living a life with someone who cannot keep himself from porn and hookers nor will I subject myself to him being an asshole to his family while he is ‘whiteknuckling’ b c he can’t act out

So I guess what I am saying to you is, yes it is early in discovery, and the process does throw you for a loop. You don’t know which end is up in the beginning and we all go through it at different speeds. Take care of yourself, and kudos to you that he is already out, do not let him back in unless you want to. And don’t spend one moment of your precious time with him if YOU don’t want to.
Finally, I can tell from your post you have a relationship similar to mine, you were more mothering to him, you had little respect for him as a man b c he was not being a man and did not earn it, and this discovery certainly isn’t going to help w that.
It is shattering to learn that the man you were married to is not the man you thought, and to mend that breach of trust is nearly impossible. And to do so requires I believe a deep amount of love for that person or determination. If you do not have the children in the house and had doubts from the beginning, if I were you I would continue having him out of the house and I would divorce and never look back.
It is just my opinion, but is what I would do
However, I agree w the others who say it is early and you should take time to make a decision. It is your decision and only yours to make. Only you know what you can handle and what you cannot
Wishing you all the best on your journey
Stacy

Hi Dcyne,

My SAH, like yours, was taking out ATM cash every week. It got up to $300 a week and when I asked him, he said it was for “coffee”. (that’s a lot of java!) My SAH also said that he got “attached” to a hooker and that some “other guy” bought her a car (I suspect he did) and that she didn’t charge him every time (oh god) – the one that he thought he “loved”. He even brought his first hooker flowers and candy.

Like you, I’ve been his “mom” (he’s also ADD and has epilepsy which adds to the “mother” thing. He is also arrested mentally (from a childhood trauma). This is pretty typical. In fact, I was lamenting with my new therapist today about a bizarre marriage therapy session last week and she pointed out that he was being a 5 year old having a tantrum. Made perfect sense. When I tried to do an intervention with him for an intensive back in Dec. he reverted to a 5 year old which was very freaky.

At any rate – sounds like you have kids which does complicate things. How old are they?

And it’s harder when they are nice. Underneath my husband’s “nice” for 23 years was resentment and rage (for his mother) which built up and propelled him into his “secret life”. After the first disclosure I started to see his rage and resentment seep out, so be on alert for that – particularly once his childhood trauma starts to come out.

Your anger is good – shows that you are healthy. I know it’s a pain – but I do think that giving it a year is the best advice. There are so many unknowns and things to process before making the big decision. Time will tell.

My women’s group therapist wrote a good book called “Contemplating Divorce”….might be a good read for you.

Deb