Unsure how to recover together - 12/28/21 05:02 PM
Hello again,
I have moved to this thread now that I feel we are more on the Recovery side than the Surviving an Affair side. My husband and I had a conflict yesterday about how we are going about the recovery process of what we now know is his sex addiction. I mentioned early on that I had been doing most of the heavy lifting (found the therapists for each of us individually, told him to ask his counselor about the support group he sent, found the books, created a podcast playlist, asked him to post on MB, installed the monitoring software, etc) and he hadnt taken any initiative on using any of those methods after the initial conversations.
He has since done much better about Suggesting we read the books at night, occasionally listening to the podcast, and found his own books on creating new habits. He really only seemed passionate about reading the books he had on habit forming and a biography we found on ex-sex addict Terry Crews. I feel as though i might be annoyed that he prefers the things that are more geared toward his individual self than material geared specifically toward helping us and our marriage (like MB and the marriage saving specific books). We talked yesterday and he told me he felt like it made more sense for him to work on his issues first so that the marriage could start to be repaired. Which I agree is important, but it made me sad that he still wasnt doing the things i told him were important to me like replying and being active on MB. For example, this is what he expressed yesterday to me:
"I feel like I'm being confined into one specific method of recovery that you've laid out for me. I feel like I've been taking great steps and figuring it out in my own way by reading other's account, looking up how to change habits, effective tools and tips for avoiding thoughts and gazes, going to therapy and arranging to meet with the support group. If the only thing that is going to work for you is a predetermined path in your head I'm always gonna fail to live up to that. I'm sorry I didn't try harder to post on the website more after it was blocked. I just really feel like I'm making progress in my own way. Not to say that your feeling are unvalidated. They are totally valid and I understand where you are coming from. I just want you to know my perspective"
His excuse was he couldn't post on MB bc the new blocking filters on his home computer wouldnt let him, but he never brought this up or asked me if he could use my computer, phone or anything.
He is back now as you probably can see, but it cant help but feel forced because even though i didnt require it, i had to tell him to post twice, and then had to tell him to reply multiple times. He is going through a lot of the content on here and has now read the material here on pornography. His perspective is that when i said i was going to try to take a step back and let him prove through his actions and initiative that he is willing to work on our marriage, that it meant he could do whatever he felt like would help. In that case, it meant trying to recover himself in order to subsequently rebuild the marriage. But it felt a lot to me like me and my needs/what i needed him to do were put on the back burner so he could work on himself. I cant explain why, but i feel like the focus(not all, but at least 60%) should be on me and my healing now that we completely safeguarded our marriage from the opportunity of a relapse. Because this is been very new to me (found out on Thanksgiving) and i feel like ive spent more energy helping him than I have myself and doing what I need to do to become all in again.
Any advice/criticism is welcome!
Edit: I should also express that one of the main reasons for the post is i feel i havent been justly compensated yet, suffering from the feeling that somethings still not right or missing. But i feel guilty feeling this way, much less expressing it.
I have moved to this thread now that I feel we are more on the Recovery side than the Surviving an Affair side. My husband and I had a conflict yesterday about how we are going about the recovery process of what we now know is his sex addiction. I mentioned early on that I had been doing most of the heavy lifting (found the therapists for each of us individually, told him to ask his counselor about the support group he sent, found the books, created a podcast playlist, asked him to post on MB, installed the monitoring software, etc) and he hadnt taken any initiative on using any of those methods after the initial conversations.
He has since done much better about Suggesting we read the books at night, occasionally listening to the podcast, and found his own books on creating new habits. He really only seemed passionate about reading the books he had on habit forming and a biography we found on ex-sex addict Terry Crews. I feel as though i might be annoyed that he prefers the things that are more geared toward his individual self than material geared specifically toward helping us and our marriage (like MB and the marriage saving specific books). We talked yesterday and he told me he felt like it made more sense for him to work on his issues first so that the marriage could start to be repaired. Which I agree is important, but it made me sad that he still wasnt doing the things i told him were important to me like replying and being active on MB. For example, this is what he expressed yesterday to me:
"I feel like I'm being confined into one specific method of recovery that you've laid out for me. I feel like I've been taking great steps and figuring it out in my own way by reading other's account, looking up how to change habits, effective tools and tips for avoiding thoughts and gazes, going to therapy and arranging to meet with the support group. If the only thing that is going to work for you is a predetermined path in your head I'm always gonna fail to live up to that. I'm sorry I didn't try harder to post on the website more after it was blocked. I just really feel like I'm making progress in my own way. Not to say that your feeling are unvalidated. They are totally valid and I understand where you are coming from. I just want you to know my perspective"
His excuse was he couldn't post on MB bc the new blocking filters on his home computer wouldnt let him, but he never brought this up or asked me if he could use my computer, phone or anything.
He is back now as you probably can see, but it cant help but feel forced because even though i didnt require it, i had to tell him to post twice, and then had to tell him to reply multiple times. He is going through a lot of the content on here and has now read the material here on pornography. His perspective is that when i said i was going to try to take a step back and let him prove through his actions and initiative that he is willing to work on our marriage, that it meant he could do whatever he felt like would help. In that case, it meant trying to recover himself in order to subsequently rebuild the marriage. But it felt a lot to me like me and my needs/what i needed him to do were put on the back burner so he could work on himself. I cant explain why, but i feel like the focus(not all, but at least 60%) should be on me and my healing now that we completely safeguarded our marriage from the opportunity of a relapse. Because this is been very new to me (found out on Thanksgiving) and i feel like ive spent more energy helping him than I have myself and doing what I need to do to become all in again.
Any advice/criticism is welcome!
Edit: I should also express that one of the main reasons for the post is i feel i havent been justly compensated yet, suffering from the feeling that somethings still not right or missing. But i feel guilty feeling this way, much less expressing it.