Hello everyone.

I wanted to take a few minutes to reach out to the community and (re)introduce myself. My first thread (from over a year ago) can be accessed here to get details of where I was then and some background: Prior Thread. (Yes! I am embarrassed by some of the things I was saying back then, but also encouraged about how different I am now!)

Since this is a new thread and it has been so long since I have posted, I thought it would be helpful to summarize my situation. I am a sex addict who is in active recovery. I was a sex addict the entire length of my marriage (about 10 years) and through that whole process betrayed my wife in many ways that I regret. My addiction (like many) started with pornography, moved to online porn, added online chatting, cruising personals, and even trying to solicit real people (the previous thread has details - but I even once kissed a colleague, actively flirted with my wife's best friend and setup a meeting from someone I had met online). I regret all of this behavior, but I do own them. They are mine. With respect to my addiction, I have been in individual counseling for the past 18 months, I have worked through (only once) a book called the sex addicts workbook (which is excellent, but I didn't approach it completely open) and have completed a recovery workshop with one-on-one coaching at Recovery Nation (which I highly recommend to any person struggling with sex addiction), the techniques of which I now implement and utilize in my daily life. I have not engaged in any of my addictive behavior for the past 18 months and since starting Recovery Nation (about a year ago) I have actually been moving toward living a life of health rather than a life where addiction is at the center of and controls all of my actions. I do not think that I am at a point (will I ever be?) where I can be complacent with respect to my addiction, but I do believe my house is in enough order that I am capable of working on and being a part of a relationship with my wife where addiction is not the focus or controlling factor of how we relate to each other. I am eager and willing to move in that direction.

When my wife initially discovered computer porn, I lied to her repeatedly about the extent of my activities. Only due to her persistence with digging deeper and deeper did I ever divulge more. First by her discovering an email I had sent someone. Then by begging me to be open and honest with her. Eventually (after much pain on her part) this led to a point where I had divulged to her what I viewed as my greatest infidelities, but I still wasn't operating with radical honesty. I had convinced myself that by divulging the greatest infidelities I wasn't really hiding anything. This wasn't true. I still was carrying around previous lies that I had told to cover up the extent of my addiction and, more important, I was not talking with her openly - my conversations about my behavior were staccato, not part of a conversation. This pattern of not being honest has caused a serious wound in our relationship with respect to her honesty and trust of me. She got to the point where she wanted me to take a polygraph. Not having operated in an environment of radical honesty, I hemmed and hawed and tried to avoid the lie detector. This, naturally, exacerbated her insecurity and so we setup an appointment (phone counseling) with Marriage Builders. We only had two sessions, but two important things happened: Marriage Builders really pushed complete openness and introduced me to Recovery Nation, which I started almost immediately. When beginning Recovery Nation, the principles behind having a healthy life finally pulled me in the direction of complete openness. It was at this point that I began to finally own the concept of complete openness or radical honesty. So, I finally talked to my wife about everything - divulged it all. Since then, whenever she wants to talk about my past behavior, I am there, ready and willing while trying not to be defensive (a general problem I have as will become more clear in future discussions, I'm sure). But, there is still this lack of trust between us. Recently, I have actually taken (and passed) a polygraph in an attempt to lay the groundwork to try and repair this lack of trust. Recently, we have also begun couples counseling (we have had three sessions).

So, why am I here? I need help in how to build a better relationship with my wife. We still struggle with our daily lives and have not really begun to start laying a groundwork for our future. Right now we are having an extremely difficult time communicating. We talk just fine with respect to things not related to us (anything really). But when it comes to us, we just can't seem to do it. Tension fills the air. I have, at times, gotten very frustrated with this and really don't know where to turn. Counseling is not really working (yet? - we have only had three sessions). I feel like when I try to tell her what is going on with me and what I see as going on with us, I feel like she clamps up, that she doesn't want to talk. I feel, at times, that she doesn't want to work on us. In fact, she has told me as much. She feels that I am not at a point where I am the type of person she wants to be with emotionally so how can she open up to me? So, at the big picture level I am out of ideas. I don't know what to do or where turn. I don't expect answers to these questions off the tops of your heads. In fact, I'm not even sure that is the best way to approach this. I'm wondering (do you agree?) if perhaps the best way to approach is to to focus on one or two smaller problems with respect to how we relate at a time rather than the big picture and begin chipping away at these until (hopefully) we reach a point where we are both ready and eager to work on us as a couple. In that regard, I think the biggest problem I am having right now is what to do when I know something is bothering my wife (I am feel it when we talk, it just hangs in the air) and she doesn't want to talk to me about it. Should I ignore it? Should I acknowledge it but tell her that I'm here when she wants to talk (what I have been doing more recently)? Should I acknowledge it and push her to talk to me?

A few more thoughts. I can only get onto MarriageBuilders about once a day to check on what is going on so please be patient with me as I process and digest your thoughts. I will almost certainly be much slower than many of you in responding. I view this as a place where I can be completely open and not really worry about how other people react. I do expect my wife to read this (I was completely open with her about starting this thread and told her that she should feel free
check it out). When I told her this, she actually told me that she has been posting and the same rule applies to her thread (should I be concerned that she has been keeping this from me?).

I would recommend you look into a program called Retrouvaille.

retrouvaille.org

It is a Catholic program open to all faiths or non-religious. It is NOT about religion. It is 100% about learning to communicate with your spouse. It is one intense weekend followed by 6 one day sessions.

It has brought the divorced back together.

It is to communication what MB is to infidelity.

I don't know if I read your posts from when you first signed on here, but you may want to look up my husband's threads (Kasey or sufficientgrace).

He didn't try to focus on rebuilding my trust. Instead he went to work on BEING trustworthy and focusing on living rather than recovery. Recovery only gets you to ground zero - the point at which you would have been growing from had you not taken that step into addiction. There is huge amounts of catching up to do in the maturity cycle.

You have no idea how painful it is to be married to a sex addict - your wife does. And the more focus there is on the problem (which is entirely yours to take care of), the more pain she feels.

Instead of focusing on getting information from her, try courting her. Fix a special breakfast on Saturdays that you know she enjoys. Take her for walks in beautiful public parks, or for a drive to see the autumn leaves. Download some great music that she doesn't associate to addiction or you- but could associate it to the NEW you.

Carefully discover her emotional needs by trying to meet them all. Pick up the laundry for her - fold and put away the clothes. Spend very little time at the computer - all those trigger behaviors must be GONE. And replaced with kindness and patience.

Too many times the recovering addict wants special recognition for doing things that should have been part of his normal routine. So guard your expectations - those premeditated resentments. You should have NONE of her.

She loves you or she wouldn't have stayed with you. So give her a chance to see your actions over the next 18 months or so. Avoid relationship talks. Instead BE in a relationship with her - just BE your very best.

Boy are you right about the catching up to do in the maturity cycle. It has been amazing just how behind I was (and still am). In retrospect now, it is shocking just how immature I was and yet, I was always the "mature" one. I was just discussing this aspect with my counselor yesterday. My entire family (although not perhaps addicts (I think)) is very immature and now that I see the world differently, I have a hard time relating to them the same way. What I thought was a strong tight-knit family is not - at all. This is all a long way of saying that I think you are right - there is a huge amount of catching up to do.

Thank you for pointing out how painful my addiction has been on my wife. Your insight into how focusing on the problem is itself painful is very helpful. I think I have been missing this aspect of things. I think I had an attitude that in order to grow we have to "work" on things, which means discussing, talking, pushing, etc. Lost in this is the realization that triggers can be very painful and perhaps it is better to avoid triggers in some regards. My thinking is still primitive on this.

I'm not so sure that our relationship is ready for my active courting or meeting her needs. At this point, she has clearly told me that I should not be trying to do such things as write her notes, buy her flowers, call her during the day or give her gifts. It is a clear boundary and I think that my crossing it would actually tell her that I don't listen to her and if I did, then I made a conscious decision not to respect her boundaries. I think at this point, the only need that I can meet without crossing any boundaries are honesty/openness (very important given my past lying), domestic support and family commitment. I am actively trying to meet those needs. I will have to give this more thought.

Thanks for your help - I will check out your husband's threads.

Since I read your post this comment has stuck with me and caused me more than a little reflection. Your right, I do want special recognition and I even find myself getting resentful at times for not getting it. I think I always knew this was there, but never spent the time and energy to reflect on it more fully. Your pointing this out has been that springboard for me. I really need to be careful about this. I think this applies across the board, not just with respect to recognition. I think I have a tendency to have certain expectations that are probably not fair. I need to become more aware of when I am building in those expectations so that I can try to avoid building expectations and having resentment. Building an awareness of these expectations is key. Thank you.

On a different subject, I think I am developing a better way to interact with my wife when she is in distant mode (i.e., she is obviously angry or frustrated with me - it just hangs in the air). It has taken me a while but I now think that the best thing to do in such situations is to tell her that I am available to talk when she wants and then to completely avoid relationship talk. To instead talk about other subjects. If for some reason I am having too difficult of a time (due to my own anxieties over the coldness) I should remove myself from the situation. Thoughts?

I need your advice/thoughts on something.

For quite a while now my wife has been keeping her feelings/thoughts to herself. In this regard, she is withdrawn from me. I have taken the approach that I shouldn't pressure her (either through my words or actions) and I should instead tell her that I am there to talk when/if she wants to. I think I have been successfully doing that.

Last Saturday (I think) she told me, without my prompting, that the reason she has not been sharing with me is that she is afraid of my response. Specifically, she said that whenever she has something uncomfortable to tell me I respond either defensively or with anger. I was taken aback by this. I know that part of my MO in the past has been to get very defensive when my wife would tell me things involving my behavior. I also know that when angry I would act in certain ways that would show my anger (the ever manipulative addict), but wouldn't directly acknowledge or express the fact that I was angry (I would never yell or shout or throw things - that has never really been a part of my history). I say "in the past" because I have actively worked on this behavior. Starting approximately 6 months ago I specifically made it a part of my filtering process to try and avoid acting defensive or engage in behavior that is passively angry. I really thought that I had cut out my defensiveness and passive angry behavior to a very large extent.

But, my wife told me a recent example to let me know that this was not "past" behavior but current. It occurred at our last counseling session. My wife was very angry and cold for the day or two leading up to the session and carried this demeanor into the session. Early in the session the counselor asked my wife why she didn't want to talk at the session and my wife responded by saying that she doesn't want, and sees no reason, to come to counseling with me; that she doesn't want to work on our relationship. This prompted my counselor to ask me how this made me feel, to which I responded that it made me sad and (paraphrasing) asked what's the point? why should I work on our relationship if my wife is not willing? To which our counselor said, are you sure that is sadness, it sounds like anger?

My wife and the counselor were right - I was angry. And, this is a good example of the type of behavior that I wish to avoid and thought I was avoiding for the most part. So, my wife bringing this up at a later point was very helpful to me. It helped me realize that I still am engaging in behavior that is not how I want to act.

Reflecting on this episode over the last few days, here is what I am thinking. I don't think my feeling angry in that situation is "wrong" - that's what I felt, it was authentic. I think the way I expressed my anger was bad. Instead of saying that it makes me angry, I made a statement that made my wife feel threatened (to her, the subtext was that if she doesn't start talking then I will leave the marriage). So, here is my question - assuming I am right that it is ok to feel the way I feel (please challenge me on this if you disagree), what should I have done? Is it better to say, it makes me angry. Or, is it better to say nothing, to not acknowledge the anger?

On another note, kind of related, I get the feeling (not sure why) that my wife is keeping something from me (not something related to how she feels or how she is frustrated with me - something else). How, if at all, do I deal with this? With the boundaries we have in place, I can't directly ask her - that would pressure her and violate the boundaries we have established. But, it is becoming a thing. This may be an example of my imagination running wild - over an extended period of time without my wife sharing with me, I begin to wonder why she is acting funny (when she does). I wonder if X is bothering her, or perhaps it is Y. For some reason, over the last week or so, my mind has been focusing more and more on the thought that she is keeping something from me. There are times it almost hangs in the air. This may just be a symptom of an insecure man - if you think so PLEASE challenge me on it.

Thanks for reading - I can't wait to read your comments.

Hi PG,

Congratulations on the steps you are taking to mend your ways. In answer to your question, I have a W who is also extremely private and liable to keep her thoughts and feelings to herself.

Let me ask you, can you think of any times when your wife did open up to you? Any time? What was different about that time? How did you approach her differently or did you approach her at all? Rather, did she come to you - if so what made her come to you? I would recommend racking your brain for this and do whatever you can to recreate the conditions that made her open. And when she does say something that may be awkward for you cheerfully say "thanks for sharing my darling, tell me more...".

What ever approach (or lack thereof) that you have been using hasn't worked excellently so try something completely different. I find that when I am good humoured and casual, my W is more open to sharing. Interrogation is useless. She is also engaged in an active EA and this approach has gotten her to share with me.

Good luck my friend.

GH31

Hi.
My husband is also a sex addict. Porn and masturbation.

I wrote a huge long post...but it really comes down to a few things.

1. Your wife needs to personally recover from this. What is she doing for her recovery. She is not obligated to own her part of the marriage at this point. She's obligated to heal herself. Just as in the begining of your recovery/sobriety, your main focus had to be you.

2. Your actions have taught your wife much. She's dealing with broken marriage vows, broken trust, dealing with the fact that what she thought was reality really wasn't. She can't really fall apart, because she's got the kids to think about.

Your actions have taught your wife that being with you is unsafe. When given the chance to show her that she can feel safe with you (agreeing to the lie detector without reservation, fulling disclosing ONCE), you blew it. You reinforced that her world is not safe. WHY would you expect her to open up when she feels so? Why would you want her to behave in a way that would make her feel unsafe (being emotionally intimate with you again?)

I'm guessing your wife thinks that one year of honesty doesn't make up for 10 years of lies (if you were a sex addict before the marriage..I'm assuming that was the case..) You've withheld important information from your wife. She couldn't make an informed decision for herself because of your actions.

What would happen if you let your wife lead the healing of your marriage? Can you heal your half, and let her work on her half, in her own time? It takes 3-5 years for couples to heal from this, according to my husband's sex addiction counselor. For couples who do make it, that figure seems right. So you have one year down. Several more to go.

Perhaps she's misunderstanding your enthousiasm for healing the marriage as rushing her into something she's not ready to deal with. Just as you dealt with your addiction when you were ready, she will work on the marriage when she is ready. Have you made peace with the fact that she may never want to work on the marriage? Have you thought about what that may mean for you? Like, do you wish to remain in a marriage where one partner may never want to be emotionally initimate with you again?

Hello GH31 - thanks for the thoughts.

In the past when my W has opened up the most it has never been as a result of me asking questions or trying to talk about the relationship. It has always been initiated by her - she comes to me. Most of the time when she really opens up, when we really connect about our relationship, is when things are more casual and not stressful. I think my avoiding relationship talk and just living - just being with her - is probably the most effective. I shall continue on that path. Thanks!

Hello irn - thanks for your thoughts. Your post helped me to understand better just how painful my actions have been and just how insecure/unsafe I have made her feel. It is good to be forcefully reminded of that on occasion especially as a guard to unfair expectations. In response to your questions, I did have a few specific thoughts and would appreciate your further feedback if you have any.


I get what you are saying - it really makes sense. Just as with my addiction I really couldn't work on our marriage until I had dealt with my addiction, my W really can't work on our marriage until she has reached a certain point in her recovery. My W, however, has done some things to work on herself - she has done the partner part of RN (even though toward the end of it she pretty much said that it was garbage). She has even, at times, indicated that she is pretty much over what I have done, that she is ready to work on us, and even forgive me, if I was the type of person she wants to be with (she doesn't think I am right now). All of that said, my W has not been willing to see an individual counselor for over a year and at our first session our couples counselor really pushed her in that direction. So, perhaps there is still a lot of healing that needs to be done. My take away from your comments - I need to step back, not pressure her, and let her heal at her own pace.

So, this raises another question - if we as a couple are not ready to begin to heal our marriage, should we even be doing couples counseling right now? At our last session she said only a few words, pretty must just staring into space while I talked. The counselor was pretty good and helped me talk through some things that I think will help me grow with respect to our relationship, but I'm not so sure it was good for the two of us.


I think I have come to the conclusion that my W must be the driver on healing our marriage. She has said, repeatedly, she will be ready to work on our marriage when she sees that I have done enough with respect to our relationship to make it worth it. IOW, she has put the burden of her working on our relationship on me. But I think that can't be right - all I can do is my part of it - she gets to decide if/when she is ready to do her part. In the meantime I will try to focus on the things that I think I need to work on in our relationship based upon the information I do have, even if limited. I will try not to push her on the relationship. I will let her take the lead in this regard. 3-5 years sounds manageable - difficult, but manageable.


No - I have not made peace with the fact that she may never want to work on the marriage. I need to think about this a bit before writing more.

Just because she doesn't want to work on the marriage right now doesn't give you an excuse not to.

Study up on the ten primary emotional needs; since she's probably not going to give away which are most important to her, work on all of them.

Also study up on the giver-taker concepts - as your taker prevents you from being emotionally honest with her - getting angry in your counseling session was a mask for true feelings of hurt, guilt, remorse... You need to negotiate with your taker to power down for a season - while you step up and demonstrate that no other man would work as hard to be the man she wants and needs. Harley's methods work.

P.S. edit to add - vulnerability and emotional honesty are what I'm talking about - anger is a cover that prevents these two traits from being demonstrated in your character.

Yesterday W and I had a pretty good session with the marriage counselor. I like this counselor so much better than the one we tried when we were first starting over a year ago. Not surprisingly, our counselor had never heard of marriagebuilders, but I'm ok with that. My major take-aways from the session:

• Continue acting as I have the past few weeks (with regards to not pressuring W and just living my life)
• Frequently give W positive feedback
• Try to be more aware of my own emotions, especially when interacting with W
• W is where she is and I need to be accepting and patient - I should have no expectations in this regard

I want to thank everyone who has posted - you really have been helpful. One theme that has pushed me along has been the concept that I need to accept W where she is - it is not right of me to expect her to be in a different place than she is. I should instead worry about living my life and trying to meet her needs to the extent that I can. Right now, that means not engaging in LBs where I pressure her, or get angry, or act defensively.

I should - definitely - read up on takers and givers. W has said that I am selfish with respect to my needs (esp. affection and sex). Perhaps putting it in a different context mentally (i.e., I am taking, not giving when I seek to have these needs met) will help me recognize that I don't need them met.

With regards to coming to peace with whether or not W will ever be willing to ever be in an emotional relationship with me, I don't think this is something I should be concerned about with at this point. Right now, the very fact that she is living in the same house with me, talking to me about things in general, going to counseling with me - all of this means that right now she is working on us the way she can. You said that this process for sax addicts and their partners can be 3-5 years. That sounds reasonable to me - if at the end of this period I don't think W will ever be willing to be emotionally intimate with me then I should address this. Worrying about or looking into the future on this now just doesn't make sense to me. I'm cool with where things are now.

Hello PG,


This is precisely how to do it. Let the bringing up of difficult issues start with her rather than with you, and let the discussion of these issues be incidental rather than central to the interactions with your wife. If every time you thank your W for sharing and make her feel safe - this will make her feel more safe and encouraged when bringing things up in the future.


I wish to God that my own WW would be doing this. Your W sees hope that one day things can be different, which is why she's there with you. Accept where she is. Your being willing to be trustworthy, honest and open - relentlessly and consistently will work wonders eventually. Above all, do fun things together. Make her associate great times with you.

If only my W was trying as hard as yours!

GH31

Thanks GH31!

The following response caused my W to express her frustration with me this past weekend:


What W needed to hear from me was that I was committed to our relationship no matter what - my past actions have created the problems we now have and I should be willing to stick to our relationship even if I'm ultimately not in a satisfying marriage. On some level, I owed that to her and if I can't come to peace with a marriage without emotional intimacy then there really is no reason for her to try - there is too much risk that I won't be there in the end.

Hearing W express this caught me off guard and I needed time to process. So that is what I did. Internally, I went through my typical range of emotions and responses: I can't possibly be expected to a roommate relationship for the rest of my life if your not willing to even try; it might actually be better for the kids if we divorce in a loveless marriage than to model our marriage as an ideal to them; why do we have to worry about an unlikely contingent possibility in the future when here and now, there is no indication that this will ever come to pass. I even found myself being defensive - wasn't talking about things being the same five years from now as they are now, I was thinking about a scenario where we are completely shut down as a couple - no communication or intimacy of any kind.

In the end though, I processed W's request - if she needed me to process this now the worse thing I could do was fight with her on it. That would be making the situation worse - not better. When actively trying to build a relationship with W - putting up roadblocks is not very smart. So, I processed. And I processed. And I probably seemed distant as I was processing. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that I was at peace with whatever happens. I do love my W very much and when we exchanged vows I promised to be there for her no matter what. This is the no matter what. This doesn't mean that I am resigned to a marriage without any emotional intimacy. No, I will continue to work on myself with respect to our relationship as detailed in previous posts. I have just come to a place where I accept that our marriage will not be an ideal marriage and may not be fulfilling on many levels. Thoughts?

Two things of note that I'm proud of with respect to my recent behavior:

• I could have reacted with defensiveness and by putting up roadblocks when W confronted me about this, but I didn't. I processed all of that internally. That is growth for me that I hope to replicate.
• I am taking more initiative with respect to our relationship, rather than relying on W to drive things (e.g., rather than just watching TV, I am asking W to talk with me in the evenings when there may be tension between us or I am tired; I am coming up with ways to do creative things together that don't inconvenience her, like coming home for lunch one day this week.

Hello everyone - I haven't posted in a while (I'll flush that out in another post at some time) but I need your help.

Since my last post, my W and I have stopped couples counseling (at her suggestion) and we are not working on us as a couple in any real way. She has asked that I not bring up our relationship (which I really haven't been doing).

Last night, when asking her input on where my phase of recovery/growth should go now that my individual counselor is no longer the right person for me (he has been very helpful at times, but I think I have gotten from him all that I am going to get), the conversation got sidetracked onto a couples talk. I didn't want it to go there, but once it was there, we couldn't seem to stop talking about it (I'm largely to blame for that, but not wholly).

Long story short- life is very hard with my W right now. Last night's conversation reinforced just how horrible of a situation we have. I am really struggling to keep it together at times. Not sexually (my addiction is in check - there is not much of a drive right to even work with), but emotionally. I'm hoping you all might have some ideas.

When you have a spouse who is in complete withdrawal, how do you deal with it on a daily basis? I have been becoming more acutely pained regarding the lack of both appreciation and affection (primarily affection). This isn't something that just makes me a little sad. I'm not just sitting around moping that life is unfair. In other words, I don't think my taker is at work here. I think that emotionally I'm am getting really out of balance. I don't know how to maintain the status quo (give my W the space that she wants) while maintaining an emotional balance. The last thing I want to do is to make a selfish demand, disrespectful judgment or angry outburst with her regarding this (I have read, re-read, and really tried to absorb the Love Busters book). If I were to tell W that I am struggling with this and ask for her help, I will be violating a boundary we have in place which would violate the policy of joint agreement. So, I need to figure out a way to deal with this on a individual basis. Any ideas?

I want my marriage to work, and I want to get to a point where the two of us are both working on the relationship together, but we can't get to that point unless I figure out a way to manage my emotions when I'm feeling like this. So, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

If your wife is like I was, she's deep in withdrawal and not much can bring her out of it.

I know it's tough to not get your emotional needs met. That is something my husband dealt with not-to-well in our early days of his recovery. In fact our first two years on the Marriage Builder boards (emotional needs - you'll find his posts under "Kasey" or "sufficientgrace") it was in my mind selfish demand after another.

13 years ago I was the one sitting in counselor's offices/minister's offices listening to a list of "conditions" for reconciliation to my marriage that I had to meet in order to come home (I left and lived in a shelter for a time during Kasey's first two years of sexual recovery due to verbal abuse and a "pushing/restraining" incident that I reacted badly to). I remember repeating in each consecutive bi-weekly session "I don't need to be married that bad".

In my mind, I was done, and had even filled out the divorce papers and served Kasey with a notice for divorcing parents. But I was flat busted broke and didn't have the $500 fee I needed. So to me I was biding my time. I was DONE. Kasey had no clue I had taken it this far.

What brought me out of withdrawal? Seeing Kasey "man up" to responsibilities he'd dropped several times in regard to our family. He wasn't and hasn't been able to support the family, but he was putting out effort. If financial support is my biggest emotional need, and the one that has caused all manner of health problems for me to have to meet by myself, and Kasey wasn't "getting it", all the other emotional need meeting in the world wasn't going to put me back together again, if that was "off the table" for him.

Addiction recovery - the program literally got in the way of our recovery to a degree. The language of the program became another form of excuse or abuse. Finally Kasey started working his program instead of working me. He went to Al Anon and other anon-type recovery programs. That is the part of recovery most reprehensible to the addict because that's one area of smug self-righteousness they can hold over their family and spouses that they "don't do that" but when they get that honest with their inventory - yeah - they got it too.

Be certain that you have a strong enough support group for your sobriety that she's not having to deal with it at all. Find out what her biggest emotional needs are and meet them. Be the sweetheart that won her heart years ago. And then expect it to take years, not days, weeks or months, to bring her out of withdrawal. Withdrawal is a safe place for the spouse of an addict and the only way back to "together" is through conflict - she doesn't want to go there. It's painful. At least she doesn't hurt if she stays in withdrawal.

I know how painful it was stepping back into conflict - that conflict stage lasted way longer than it needed to, had Kasey been able to snap out of his "I'm worthless" funk sooner.

This was like it for me. We've been married for 7.5 years. I spent at least a good 3 years in withdrawl from my husband. Half of that was before he got sober, and half was after.

My husband's been sober for 2 years with no slips, nothing but working his [censored] off, and I still am don't want to be completely vulnerable with him. I must always protect myself. Always. There's no crystal ball than can predict if/when/how he will relapse. Because of my boundaries-our marriage could break up through no fault of my own. My life is now much more complicated and full of more risk-more than if I were to choose to divorce my husband and not remarry.

It takes couples 3-5 years to heal from sex addiction.

I understand you are feeling good about yourself. But that doesn't mean she's feeling good about the situation. It's a hard spot to be, when spouses don't heal at the same rate.

Do, you know, for certain, if she WANTS to heal from your sex addiction. Not as a couple, but for herself? Maybe she doesn't. Some partners don't. Or is she interested in healing herself but not the marriage? Does healing herself mean she has to face other demons of her past? In my case, I had to do a lot of healing about my childhood-before I could go move on with my marriage. That's hard enough to do with a family with two kids, let alone 4.

Yes, fill her EN. But realize her recovery (or lack their of) is her decision, just like your sobriety and recovery was your decision to pursue.

Where else can you get your EN's met through? Friends? Family? Co-Workers?

KaylaAndy - thank you so very much for your post. It is incredibly helpful. Your willingness to share you own past experience really helps me to put what my W and I are going through in perspective.

Like you, I think my W is seeing just about everything I do as a selfish demand. I'm not positive about this, because she doesn't really share with me much, but when I was posting back in September or October, she said that my posts were pretty much selfish demands and she saw in them the same thing she saw in my behavior and attitude 1.5 years earlier. One thing I am getting from Love Busters is that if the person is seeing a selfish demand, it is. So, I am really trying to not to behave the same way. My solution (probably not a good one in the long run, but the only effective way I can not make selfish demands on my W) is to not tell ehr when I am struggling with my emotional needs, to deal with it on my own to the extent that I can.


I like to think that with respect to most things I have skirted responsibilty for in the past (and there were many!), I have changed radically. There are times I am embarrased when reflecting on how I used to behave toward my W and my children. At how my priorities were off. At how I didn't take responsibilty for my own behavior. It is really incredible just how immature I was. We were sharing a story yesterday with our children about a theft we had in the past, and I reflected (internally to myself) about how ashamed I was at how I treated her at the time over that incident. That, I'm sure, is very difficult for her. There is not just the sexual infidelity, but I was an immature, and quite selfish, person for so long, she can't really see anything else. Everything I do or say is filtered through the lens of selfishness that I have created over time. Breaking out of that lens I have created is the challenge I have and am struggling with.


I'm confused by this - do you mean that all addicts are alcoholics? Do you mean that all addicts don't see all of their addictions?


Wow - that insight is so helpful. Thank you so much for your post KaylaAndy, it really helps give me some perspective.

We'll see what the next few days bring as far as me struggling with my emotional needs. Hopefully I will pull out of my funk soon. This weekend was a strange experience. Most of the time we had a wonderful time together. We talked well, we laughed (with others), we played games, we co-parented well. But then on Sunday evening while watching a movie, her on the couch and me in my chair, it became acutely painful for me. I so wanted to be on that couch with her, holding her, being close to her, and the physical distance between us became painful for me. A reminder of how distant the two of us are emotionally and how much I want things to be different. It's a strange paradox - the closer we get and the better time we are having, the harder and more painful our distance is. It would be much easier for me to withdraw, but I know that won't work in the long run.

Thanks again.