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I almost hate the ask this, because I’m afraid of the responses, but has anyone here been successful at working through this nightmare with the marriage intact? He’s doing his work, therapy, groups…..there is a lot of positive in our marriage. We also are an older couple, he is 65, I’m 58. It matters in terms of starting over.
Hi Wren. That’s a difficult question to answer because Sisters tend to stop posting when they are in a place of healing either with or without their H’s. I can think of one Sister, Penny, who’s H seemed to be on a really good path to healing but she hasn’t posted for awhile so I don’t know if that lasted or not. All or most of us started this journey hoping the same thing you are hoping but few of us have had it work out that way. A lot of us are older as well ((‘m 51) in long term marriages with children.
I wish I had a more positive answer for you but it’s important that we are honest here since there is so much dishonestly with our H’s.
Daisy
Wren,
My STBX (he is called dr. evil, Daisy gave him that nickname) faked recovery for 6 years before I found out a kicked him out and filed for divorce. Then he faked it for another year trying to improve his chances for joint custody. I was able to prove that was fake as well. His therapists have always sworn up and down he has been in recovery, he goes to tons of meetings, intensives, even 5 weeks of inpatient therapy…and goes right on with his penis activities. I have spyware conversations where he talks about going to his 12 step meeting and planning an orgy with no self-awareness of how ludicrous he is.That’s my experience. I am 47, homeschooling a son who has special needs, and have never worked. Starting over is scary. doc e is doing his best to leave me with nothing. I am sorry that you are in this position at your stage of life, so close to retirement. You should be looking forward to spending time together and enjoying the coming years. It sucks.
Hi Wren, it’s nice to see that you jumped right in with a question.
Except for less than a handful of women who have been on this site, and on the married site, virtually every woman wants to save the relationship.
Most of these men have many good qualities. That’s why we married them. No one is 100% bad, that’s why it’s so difficult to wrap our heads around all of this.
Only you can decide if the balance between the good and the bad is good enough to stay.
We have so many stories here of the hard work that we as women do for the men we love.
I have been married to my husband, we now call him (who?) for over nine years. He is 65, I am 69. I found out about his prostitute activities just three months after we got married. We were separated for almost four years.
During that time he really did a lot of hard work and proved to me that he had stopped seeing hookers so we moved back in together. I was convinced that we were one of the lucky ones.
But, even though we had a fairy tale lifestyle it still didn’t work. Even though he was not seeing prostitutes his real personality (not the fake one he showed before) came forward. He was just not a man I wanted to spend my life with.
The Sisters are all waiting for that one story of success. There must be some out there…?
I think anyone in a relationship owes it to themselves to try everything they know how to make things work. Unfortunately if the other person will not or can not make the necessary changes then it is time to wake up and get out.
Each of us has to decide how much they can live with and how much they can live without.
The stories of our Sisters are so similar, yet so very different. Each of our lives have different complexities.
What is important is that we go forward with the truth. If we decide to stay it must be with a complete picture of exactly what we are dealing with, we must know all that they have done (not just what we have found out), and we need to know what they are capable of changing and what we will have to live with for the rest of our lives.
So, to answer your question, many, many marriages here are still intact; but none are without deep wounds, compromises that we never thought we would make and a lack of safety and trust that probably will never be restored.
Many of us are okay with that. There are so many reasons why we stay, but as long as we have considered all the facts, know all the truths and make an informed decision and know that we can change our mind at any time then we are okay. ~ JoAnn
I am still with my H Wren. My DDay was in February of 2012. I have been married for 20 years and have 2 kids. My H went to Minwalla’s intensive, saw a CSAT for 6 months, switched to a FOO therapist ( at his CSAT’s advice), has a sponsor, and attends about 3 meetings per week. I can say that he is a different person.
I cannot say that it will last for sure and I cannot say that I am okay with any of it.
I am in a much better place now and I realize that I won’t die either way. I take it one day at a time. I have gotten to the place that if he cheats on me again then I know my heart will not shatter and I will be okay.
I want to add that I am a HUGE advocate of polygraphs IF you are staying in the marriage and you are emotionally vested in the outcome. IF you are considering throwing yourself back into the relationship heart and soul then for heaven’s sake get those polygraphs.
It’s okay to be uncertain of how you feel in the beginning. Don’t rush yourself to make any decisions if you are not ready. Minwalla was the biggest help IMO.
Hi Wren,
I’m 57, my ex is 62 in Nov. I divorced him a year and half ago, after trying very hard to work with him and his recovery. Unfortunately, he was deeply damaged and unable to relate to me without one of his ugly personality disorders serving up abuse. His compulsive sexual activity was how he medicated himself to keep those behaviours under control. He also got into the whole 12 step program and that was a nightmare for me, as it turned out to be coed and he was in charge of welcoming and screening a woman sex addict. He also went to the Meadows as spent thousands of dollars that we didnt’ have on bullshit programs that produced an even sicker version of himself.
I wish I had known about Minwalla so we might have given that a try (if we were going to lose thousands of dollars). I wish a lot of things. It’s just very very sad. But perhaps you will have different outcomes with these new treatment options. You have to do what you have to do. I couldn’t walk away at first. I had to try, and I did. So go ahead and try Wren, we will be your cheerleaders and truly wish the best for you. And when your falter, we’ll be there too. But if you want out now, we will support your decision as well. It’s really about you doing what you have to do in order to feel like yourself, and having the courage to know when enough is enough. Somebody has to be on the right end of the stats—it might as well be you. And if it isn’t, you are in a safe place to face that moment.Diane
i know/knew some women in posa and cosa groups who are working it out. i would say of the 20 or 30 women in these groups i have met who are working it out one actually seems happy. the rest seem broken, damaged and are living a life of compromise and they seem to often be questioning if they should leave, or feeling like someday it will get better for them. even after years of trying.
it is possible, perhaps…
Wren, I believe there are couples who can and do make this work. I don’t know exactly know what distinguishes them from the rest- maybe the degree of their h’s underlying pathology, maybe the length and severity of their acting out behavior, maybe the quality and effectiveness of their treatment, maybe the partner’s tolerance? I think there are some who even report that their marriages (and they themselves) were strengthened by this challenge/truama.
I am 61, my husband is 58. We have been married 32 years. It’s a long story, but the short version is that I discovered his sa 7 years ago, and he had a fake recovery which I discovered about 3 months ago. I see now a lot of things I didn’t see before. I’ve been told now a lot of things I wasn’t told before. I see deeper underlying pathology than I realized and I now see where his treatment program was inadequate for treating that. He is working on those things now, or is trying to, and after a polygraph (which he passed), I am giving him 6 months to show me something that will help me decide what my next step is. We are in an in-house separation, with him living on one side of the house and me on the other. It is not an ideal situation, but it is the one I want right now, because it helps me to see his daily behavior to keep it real for me. On the other hand, I get to see his daily behavior. :/
Everyone’s situation is different, every person is different. It’s a hornet’s nest to figure out what you need, want, and what is possible.wren, it took a while for me to know what i wanted to do. about a year and half after d day i was certain, without a doubt, that i couldn’t stay with him, because like diane says, the PDs were too much to bear and i deserve a life without fear and manipulation.
but we each need to take the journey on our own.
one thing i know FOR SURE… the most important part of all of this, is self care. put yourself first. practice that every day, every minute, to the degree that you are able. get better at it each day.
clarity about you and him will come. but it isn’t as important as seeing yourself clearly, and learning to completely love and care for yourself.
and starting over is terrifying!! staying is scary!! whatever you decide – baby steps will take you there… xo
For the sake of honesty and calling a spade a spade I have to add that I would NEVER have given any thought to staying around for any change/help/recovery if I did not have kids. I am not trying to be the martyr here. I have children and that is just a fact. I want to do what is best for them and myself. I felt it best to leave them out of this until I was 100% certain about what I was going to do. If I did not have kids then I would have walked away without a backward glance. I would have still been devastated and hurt and angry but I would have dealt with that on my own and forgotten about him completely.
My H has not shown any signs of PD’s and anger or any signs of telling me to “just get over it”. He may be evolving into a decent person or he may be scared shitless that I will walk out and he will lose. It may be a combination? For now, I am just doing what works for me.
Diane, I like what you said to Wren in your second paragraph. Wren for me, I tried and my xh tried (?), and he wouldn’t stop. He’d been doing it his whole life and even before we were married. I found out at yr 24 of our marriage about his secret life.
Thanks to everyone who responded. My heart hurts for every single one of you….and my heart will never fully heal or fully love him again. Thank you for continuing to help me take off the blinders, I continue to berate myself to the tune of “How could I be so stupid not to see the signs”. Eight years of the marriage with no intimacy, I was angry but put up with it. Well, we all know why there was no sex, he was having sex with videos, chat rooms and on the phone. D day was 4 years ago with a recent relapse. Since I am a recovering alcoholic, AA asks that you don’t make any life changes for a year. I told him I’d give him and the marriage that one year. Thank you for being here and your total acceptance……
Wren, I’m 57 and completely understand what you mean by age being a factor as far as starting over. My situation is a little odd, because my SA is currently away at vet school, so I’m on my own anyway. I think God intervened with the timing of discovery, because I can’t imagine living with him right now, and it’s been two years since discovery. I still do one day at a time, and put major decisions about him on the back burner.
In the beginning I thought maybe things could work out. But at that time I didn’t understand about personality disorders usually underlying this SA stuff. Those characteristics..detachment, fakeness, self-absorption.. seem really glaring to me now in the face of finding out that he had a secret life on top of all those things. So I don’t know if we’re going to make it. But I wish for you whatever you hope will be the outcome for your relationship. xoxoHmmmm, it’s so relative. I’m reasonably young (just turned 38), so I don’t have that complication of trying to start over at a more “mature” age. But that actually sounds more attactive to me, rather than trying to figure out what to do with a toddler at this stage. That complicates my relationship with the SAH in a major way. If I were in my 50’s with my son grown, I would feel much less pressure. Maybe not, but it sure feels that way when you’re in the thick of it. Neither scenario is very appetizing.
I tried in the beginning, really hard and very publically supported his “recovery” efforts. He was faking it. Then I found the sadistic torture porn photos and I knew I could not live with someone who masturbated to women being mutilated. Also the financial chaos of his choices started to avalanche and I had to seek shelter from the banks and IRS through separation. The “addiction” has completely overtaken him and there is nothing he has not risked to feed it. I have two children that are not his, and he said plainly when he cut me off financially, “they are not my problem.” Long, long story, but there’s no way to work this out. I tried. Now I wouldn’t live with him if he was the last man on earth. Divorce was final last week.
Jenny, yeah, if I had to choose when this crap happened, I’d rather it was now. In some ways anyway. I can’t imagine navigating it all if I still had kids at home. But on the other hand, there sometimes is this ‘what if’ wistfulness I get. Like if I’d found this out in my 30s..or even 40s..maybe I would have felt back then that I could find someone who really would love me. Then I snap back to my senses and realize I’m too damn tired to even contemplate it. 🙂 xoxo
HI Wren,
I’m new here as well. My meltdown came January of 2011. I forgave him because our family has had multiple deaths close together and I thought he was having a nervous breakdown. I was devastated, but felt we could work through it because he threw himself at my feet. 3 months later I found out that he had reconnected with 2 of his girlfriends. That was the day our marriage really died. I had just started back to school and have 2 13 year old boys, so I am staying… for now. My FIL cheated on my MIL and I always wondered why she stayed. I told myself I would NEVER put up with that shit. It absolutely KILLED me to finally admit that I was no different than her, willing stay with a liar and cheat.I’ve told myself that if he doesn’t change in a very profound way by the time I graduate I will ask him to leave. But I’ve compromised my values and self-respect before. The truth is… I really don’t know how much I’m willing to take.
Some of his SA activity was done via video chat; I’ve told him that if any of it surfaces we are done. The shame and humiliation would be overwhelming. … but now I wonder.
I feel that talking about things here, and not sweeping them under the rug, although painful, has at least kept me honest. Its a start.Like you, I have also questioned the dual personalities of my husband. Some days are really good. He’s going to counseling 2 days a week. Most days we still enjoy each others company. He WAS my best friend. This is infinitely confusing to me. Check out a post I started “the flip side” for more feedback on the confusion of reconciling good times with a SA. I guess nobody would stay if it was all bad.
I hope you hang around Wren, I think you will find it liberating to talk about all the crap you’re dealing with. I’m pretty sure the ladies have heard it all. I know it’s pretty hard to shock me anymore!
i don’t think it is ever easy. younger, older, kids, no kids.
but i do think that once you make the steps and get over the difficult parts, much more than you thought can be possible. and it can get easier. in every situation. it can be done.
i’m still in the difficult part. every day is hard right now. and i’m not sure how it is going to work out, if i will make it financially. i’ve been separated since last march and am still working on getting out of the fucking house and moving towards moving into a new place in january. ugh…
but lately, i am starting to feel like things are actually going to get better one day. that i won’t be in pain all the time. that i might have months and months go by without some stupid fucking drama sucking all my energy away. that i might have people in my life that are genuinely nice. that i might give and receive real love.
it’s possible. not easy. fuck man, it’s really fucking hard. but living with an SA is hard. we’ve already got it hard. what have we got to lose? a life of lies and uncertainty? second guessing? no fucking thanks.
IDK, maybe i’m being a jerk, but i’m just going to say it. i wish every one of the sisters could just leave their dumbass SAs and be completely done with this crap. and never have to post about hurt feelings, frustrations, triggers, discoveries, fucking polygraphs and spyware. every one.
Wren, I am 53 and h is 55. We have been married 30 years. We are not together, but not legally separated or filing for divorce yet. I still have love for him but I do not trust one thing he says, so I decided to choose me and focus on what I need. What I WANT is for him to face his demons, never look at porn again, come crawling back on his belly promising me the moon and then getting it for me. What I NEED is healing. Truth. Peace and Joy. I am learning that I can have those things without him in my life. I am not ready to walk away completely though – not yet. I take it one hour at a time and I try to focus my energy on me, because I can’t fix or save him.
There are many factors in the “should I stay or should I go” dance.
I think the level of trauma we are enduring is a big factor, but there isn’t much out there about that. I suspect the trauma is worse based on factors like the following:
the length of time you have been together
previous traumas in your own life
your ability to get out financially and have a life without constant worry
the age of your children, and their parenting needs
the kind of compulsive sexual activities in which he was engaging
whether you are now compromised by STD’s
the involvement of outside authorities (police, etc around criminal activities)
family support or isolation
religious pressure that ignores your trauma
the ability to find good professional care and treatmentthese are the things my list. Feel free to add.
Agreed, agreed, agreed Diane…to ALL of the above. No sane woman stays with one of these men. There is ALWAYS something else behind that decision in my humble opinion.
Yes, there is something behind the decision. They are named Jane Shelby and Ryder. She is 15 and he is 13. I am not hiding behind them or pretending that I have a marriage because of them. I am using the time that my h is being a good father and using the time that he is being human to secure my kid’s teenage years. I don’t apologize for that and I do not pretend that everything is coming up daisies. My kids are a fact. They are not excuses. They are real.
I am very sane. I have no illusions. I know that I would not in ten million years stay with anybody that did this stuff. Sometimes, it just is not all about me.
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