There may not be more that you need to do as far as daily volume. If there is, someone here is sure to notice and say something eventually.

What you need to do is run a marathon, now that the sprint is done. You've done all the immediate things that needed doing, so far as I can see. Now you need to consistently continue to be transparent, and come up with a plan to systematically meet your BW's needs, as far as she is willing to let you.

Then just keep on going, even when you get discouraged. Keep posting even when nothing new is happening. We can help you keep your spirits up.

Persistence is the key.

Nave:

You have to admit to all the things you talked about with OW for the three years that it went on.

Sure, you had SF with her a long time ago. And she was ugly.

But that wasn't enough for you to STOP Talking to her.

Whatever EN it was that she was giving you...Admiration or Conversation, or she was someone you could be brutally honest to, and say ANYTHING you liked, and she still took it, THAT is what you have to admit too.

Because no matter what, THAT is what your W was never given. All of YOU. What you thought, what you believed in, what really made you tick.

OW got that. You may THINK that you were giving that to your BW, but you were NOT. You had this whole secret life you could NEVER reveal. And you couldn't even HINT at it. It was the elephant in the room that you KNEW about, but that your BW could sense, but never actually grasp. Now, she knows it is there. Describe it to her. In all its ugly colors and shapes. Reveal it all. Admit to it all.

Then you just might have a marriage going forward.

LG

Ok..... so how can you tell when you are lieing to yourself?
You are now in my arena, Navy Guy.

You can EASILY tell when you are lying to yourself.
1. When what you say or do is meant to cover up or hide something you do not want someone else to know.
2. When what you say or do is meant to make yourself appear better than you really are.
3. When what you say or do is meant to make yourself appear better than another person.
4. When what you say or do is for the purpose of getting what YOU want - when what you SHOULD be saying or doing would better benefit someone ELSE.

Those are pretty much the top self-betraying items, Navy. There are more, sure, but if you find yourself thinking for ONE SECOND along any of these lines, stop talking immediately. Your very next thought should be, "Stick with the TRUTH." If you can stop yourself the INSTANCE you think about or have the urge along any one of these lines, that's the point when you are lying to yourself. That's the point when you start lying to others. And the point at which your world begins to get screwed up completely.

I know that sounds stupid, but my wife has told me numerous times that I am lieing to myself to hide. She may be right on. Can you see that "hiding" is on my list? What she is saying is that YOU are hiding information from others. The issue here is this BIG PROBLEM, though::::

Others do not believe your lies.
That should tell you that the ONLY person you are successful in lying to

is YOU.

Think about that. Everyone else alreadly knows that you have some kind of issue. Your lies haven't helped to cover it up much, huh?

So how do I know if it is a lie if it is the way I am feeling? I've been asked this 1,000 times.

"Feelings" can be WRONG. Big surprise? You ever have the feeling that someone was behind you, and you turn around and nobody's there? When you were a kid, did you work up a really big scare that someone was under the bed, so much so that you were in tears, full of the "feeling" of fear and trepidation, you couldn't move ----- there was nobody under the bed. That "feeling" was wrong. Ever walk across a grassy field and look down, jump up and back because you thought you saw a snake right there - only to find out seconds later it was a stick? That's a wrong "feeling" too. We have wrong feelings frequently. We have them all the time - which should push us in the direction of learning to base our "feelings" on information as well as events.

So, in your case, you admit you have "problems". Perhaps it might be helpful for outside observers, such as friends and family, to lend to you their observations of YOU - because perhaps your own observations are

inexact and imprecise, and maybe wrong altogether on some things. Seek their help.

I know everything with regard to the affair that I have done is wrong on so many levels, and the betrayal is beyond wrong, but when I say that I had no real feelings for the OW, I don't feel like I am trying to hide from my shame. I don't think you are trying to hide from your shame, either. I believe you had no feelings for OW, as you did use her and then cast her aside like an object. My concern would be that you LACK sensitivity and connectedness, and that you do not recognize this in yourself. I am exetremely shameful of what I did with her and don't feel I am hiding from it. Interesting that you are ashamed of what you did "with" her, but not ashamed of what you did "TO" her. Do you see the difference in the terms? I am just trying to figure out what is wrong with me so I can move forward with my wonderful W. One of the discussions that my W and I have had is about how I felt about the OW. She swears that I had feelings for her and I came back with, "I refuse to believe that I felt anything for her other than being a friend." Again, you were no friend to her. She was an object to you. Looking at that now I know it sounds stupid, but I still don't feel that I had feelings for her. Obviously there is something there for me to have done what I did but I am not in love with the OW. I guess I am rationalizing it as not having feelings because I was not in love with her. So am I lieing to myself or what????? Your wife is wanting to understand what OUGHT to have been there. Your wife cannot fathom your lack of connectedness. Frankly, neither can I, on a human level. It is difficult to understand, however, I believe you, as callous as it comes across.

Now to the man thing. This one I carry SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much shame and disgust that it is not funny. I know that I went looking for it and enjoyed doing it, giving and receiving and it NEVER went past oral, Your emphasis on this point, and your repeated emphasis, tends to bother me greatly. but trully felt disgusted after it was over with. Disgusted, yes. What fascinates me about this issue is that you tell us that you saw things going more and more extreme. IS THE FEAR THAT UNDERLIES THE CONSTANT REPETITION HERE THAT THE NEXT STEP FOR YOU THE ULTIMATE TABOO FOR YOU? The next step was beyond oral...with a man...is that the fear? Is that the disgust that underlies this whole thing? Or is there more to the story that you cannot reveal? Is that the lie your wife sees underneath that you "hide"? I wonder. I don't think it was anything else more than me just wanting the taboo/exetreme to get off. I never had a desire to want to do anything other than oral, I had been asked and strongly oppossed to anything other than that. So again I ask, am I lieing to myself??? Yes, on this topic. You are lying to yourself. And, I am afraid, to your wife. There is something under this paragraph that is a lie.

I know I will hear about being in a fog and that may be so, but I don't feel I am lieing to myself when it is truely how I feel. If so then how do I get past it and move out of the fog. Radical Honesty. You will risk everything. You already have. At this point, you have nothing left to lose - but perhaps you have the chance to regain your self.

I LOVE my W dearly and so badly want to recover and become the devoted man I once was to her when we first got married. Hell the first 2 yrs we were married I lived in another state and traveled 5 hrs oneway every weekend to be with her and the whole time I was away all I thought about was her and wanting to be with her, I had missed her so much. Even after she moved down with me all I wanted to do was be with her. All the deployments I was on and away from her it never crossed my mind to even consider doing what I did. I don't know what went wrong with me to have gone in the direction I did to ruin her life as I did. Even when I was doing what I was doing I still wanted to be with her and be together all the time. I was even jealous of her job, I would get mad when she wanted to work late to get some overtime.

I guess that is enough bantering, just trying to get some advice to recover and figure out whats wrong with me.
Believe it or not, I am on your side. I hope your marriage can survive this.

Navyguy, you just got some of the best advice you can get on MB from SB. Read and reread her post to you. Soak in it until you understand it. Then go look in the mirror and be honest with yourself.

SB,
Thank you so much for the advice. I am not sure what else there is under the man thing though. I have come clean about all of that. I am not trying to hide anything there. I see what you were getting at about the possibility of taking it farther because of the exetreme/taboo portion of it, and that may have been, IF I had continued. At the time that everything was going on though I had no intention of taking it to that level. I am not addmitting that I was or had the intention of taking it there, just that it was a possabililty that it may have gone there if the oral got boring to me, so I could get the next high. I see that because I never had the intention of having oral with men before, but I still went there. So now I am glad that I have been caught so I can reflect on everything so I can get myself right.

I am also on another forum site called recovery nation (for sex addicts) and one of the coaches had pointed out that this was just a form of what I had brought up before, that it was just a way for me to fill the next exetreme high to get off. It has nothing to do with my sexual orientation.

Again thank you to everyone for your advice and I am trying so hard to see the light and move forward, I don't think I would be able to if it were not for this site and my IC. Thanks again, god bless, and Happy Mothers Day to my W and all the other mothers out there.

I'm so lost. I don't know what to do anymore or where to go from here. I have read and read, but still feel lost. How do I reconnect with my W if she is so distant. I know she is still in shock of it all and it is her way of dealing with it, but I still feel so lost.....

Take a polygraph test
Offer your wife a divorce
Fill up your time with working and productive things so you dont have so much time to get excited.

Do you work full time at a job?

Your wife has to process your addiction at her own rate. Likely, she's going through some major PTSD right now. It's not shock, it is major trama. It takes couples 3-5 years to heal from sex addictions. My husband's addiction was limited to porn and compulsive masturbation, and we were on the 3 year end. Also, we weren't in a position to be applying mb techniques until my husband was in solid recovery, that is, when he knew the why's of his choosing a poor coping mechanism and learning healthier ways of coping. For us, that was one year into my husband's sobriety. Up until about 18 months, we were truly on an emotional roller coaster daily.

You can't rush time.

Do you have a RCA (recovering couples anon.) meeting nearby? Is your wife willing to work through the parter's side on recovery nation? About the only thing you can do is give your wife time and space to heal.

I have no intention of offering her a divorce, and yes I have a full time job, I'm in the navy, but I still worry about her breaking down.

I am just at a point where I have to wait on her to start to heal. I just want her to have some sort of peace again, and I know that she will never have that with me again. So I have to wonder if the old saying is true, "if you love something, let it go and if it was ment to be it will find it's way home." I am in no way wanting to leave her or am giving up, I LOVE HER, and I just want her to have some kind of peace again. Because I love her so much I will do what ever she needs.

I do not want to leave so pumpkin if you are reading this don't be scared, I am just saying if you need the space or time or what ever it is, I LOVE YOU and will support you how ever you need it. Like I said I just want you to have some peace and be happy again. I know what you have said before about that statement, but it is how I feel. I LOVE YOU!!!

Someone please help.....

Oh...that is really sweet of you--

"Hey honey, I went out and f**d someone else for a few months. You and me have been living a lie for the last year or so. I lied out my a** for a long time to you. While you were pregnant with our child, I was bed hopping. And, oh, by the way, you can forget about a divorce."

That really shows compassion and an ability to accept the consequences of a mistake, doesn't it?

She has every right to divorce your sorry a**.

Yes, Bozo, she can...if you get with the program. I hate to break your bubble, but people have As and successfully put their M back together.

It takes time and a lot of work, but you and her can have a fantastic, tremendous M.

I had an A many years ago, and right now, I think I've got one of the best Ms in the world. It can be done.

It is pretty simple, really:

(A) Ask her what she wants you to do to help her get through the pain.
(B) Then, do whatever she asks.

naveguy - please just take a deep breath. Nobody is going to decide anything tonight. Everybody just try to take a deep breath and relax. This is going to take a long time and you will both have to walk through it one step at a time.

I just posted to your wife that she may need to get on ADs. She may even need you to take her to the ER *right now tonight* for treatment for the anxiety. I had to do the same a while back because the pain was just too much.

Please consider the ER trip if it seems to be necessary, and let us know how it's going. So many of us have been there, too, and we do understand. Don't hesitate to get your wife some help for the pain if she needs it and she almost certainly does. Many of us here have had to do the same thing.

I know she does, and if thats what she wants then I have to suffer that consequence. I accept full resposibility for my actions and know what I face. But I am not going to take the cowards way out by saying it is over. I have already been the coward by doing what I did. Yes I screwed up and destroyed our life together and my kids lives, but I LOVE her and want to fight to stay and be a better man for it. I am not running, I am looking for help....

In my IC session today my C brought up a good point, so what IF I am attracted to whatever... what matters is that I am here trying to save my M and be with my W. It doesn't matter if I am or not just have to figure out why I am doing this, be it for me or my wife, and if I am truely wanting to make a change or not. I DO want to change just not sure if it is for me or my wife. I know that I love my W dearly and want to save my M cause I know I will never find anybody like her and what we had.

I am begining to see where I went down the wrong path and why. I think that as I went along that path it got more and more addictive to me because I was filling the void with it and it was the wrong thing to fill the void. I was blind to the what was reality and what was fantasy because I was depressed and the needs were being filled in the wrong capacity. Again it was the high that made me feel good and I just needed that next high to be more exetreme to get that high when it got boring.

I am sure I have said something wrong again because I am in a fog still so plesae just point it out so I can figure myself out here. THanks again to everyone.

nave, your statement "I am beginning to see ..." looks foggy to me. I think at this point, you don't really know if you see or not. Someone else said her husband didn't see until one year of sobriety from sex addiction. I find it doubtful that you really do see, right now ... and I think that may be okay, because I think you seeing may not be what needs to change right now. Here's what I mean:

Someone else commented that you should ask your wife what she needs you to do to help her get through the pain, and then give her whatever she asks. She might not welcome such a question right now, but in my opinion, you need to be focusing on what you DO right now as much or more than what you THINK.

So, what are you doing, right now, to help your wife to feel good? What nice things are you doing for her? What things did you do for her to win her love when you were courting her?

Have you read, really read, this article, in its entirety?

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5042_qa.html

Next question: your wife knows that she can never be sure that you won't find a way to do the same thing again. What are you going to do to make yourself accountable so that she will always KNOW, at every given moment, that you are not engaging in sexual behavior with someone else? What are you going to do to protect her? Have you read this thread: ?

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2366441&page=1

Read that thread and pay close attention to tst's posts.

They are working. You just don't see it, yet.

You are building a bridge. You have a long way to go: you didn't just burn the previous bridges, you unleashed a torrent of water to make the river ten times wider and deeper than it ever was before.

Your bridge is not done, yet, so you can't walk on it. That's why you get the sense that it's not "working." But what is happening is you are building the bridge.

Check this out:
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2367794#Post2367794

Good way of putting it, Markos.

Pretty much that is it...you learn fast.

So, now you've got to do the hard part--which is helping your W overcome the pain of the A and figuring out how you can avoid As in the future.

Part of helping her get over the A is to provide her with whatever she needs to feel that she can trust you. Don't debate with her, just do whatever she asks.

Read on the thread by ihurtsomeone. I don't know how far back it goes toward the beginning of the thread, but tst has been doing some excellent work taking IHS's fogbabble and restructuring it to where, if said that way, would be taking responsibility.

Maybe it will help you begin to recognize your own fog. (Which is perfectly normal for you to still have at this stage of R, but you want to lose as soon as possible.)

Neak, I know what you are getting at with that statement, but in my IC my C had me right out a timeline of my life from when I was a kid until now puttong down all major things that affected me in my life. I noticed that after my DD was born is when I started down this slippery path of evil. I realize that I never wanted kids, DON'T get me wrong here folks, I LOVE my kids to death and glad I have them now, but the fact is I didn't want kids. I didn't want to share my W's love, affection, admiration, etc.. with anyone. So that is what led me to my deeper depression and I picked up the wrong drug to use. The other thing I learned from my C is that I learned from watxhing my parents that sex with others was ok. I founds pics of them when I was a teen of them "swinging" with others, so my C thinks that I learned my bounderies from that. ie..."if my parents are doing it then it must be ok." Just in my depression I failed to rationalize that boundry that all parties involved must agree to be willing to allow this. I didn't get that from the wife. So that is where I think this has stemed from and why I say that I think I see that part now.

Now to answer your questions, as far as what am I doing for her... Well I have been involving myself with her and the family 110% more than I was before, ie...cleaning up around the house, doing the dishes, help DD with her homework, picking up the kids, fixing dinner and then cleaning it up, laundry and so forth. Also been taking her out on mommy/daddy date nights, when we can. sending her flowers, holding her so on and so on....

As far as what am I doing to show her I am on the straight and narrow, well... I have the GPS on my phone, she has complete access to all my accounts, she paid one of those search sites to conduct background checks on me, I call or txt her every time I get somewhere or leave so she knows whats up, we are planning on getting the keylogger and flexispy but money is very very tight and we are putting it aside when we can to get them.

As far as being accountable... she has made it very clear that if she even gets the slightest notion she is gone. she doesn't even need proof, if I just look guilty she's gone. So I this that is plenty for me because I do not want to loose her.


JimmyMac, I do what she asks all the time, my problem is I miss interprate what she is pertraying. Case in point....this past weekend we had a date night. All night long she seemed to be having a good time, we held hands, kissed a few times, and talked normally. We didn't bring up anything that was going on just had fun for the moment we were in. I knew she was holding back one stuff she was thinking or wanting to say but for the most part I thought she was fine and having fun. Well sunday night she had an AO and said that she was faking the whole time and that I was an A$S. I tols her a few times that I though she look beautiful, HOT, and wanted to f@#% her. Bad choice of words but she did look that good, I was just trying to make her feel good about herself, wrong way of doing so. On sunday she found out her dad was sent to the hospital having a heart attack, please pray for him everyone, well my way of dealing with stress is distracting myself from the situation at hand (sex). So when we got into bed I started rubbing her and kissing her neck and back, saying how good she looked and felt. Well she flipped then went on her AO. She asked what was wrong with me, she has told me before no sex, and she is going through this with her dad and I think she wants to have sex. I told her that I was trying to distract her from it. I know now that was the dumbest thing I could have ever done. Problem is I didn't see it until she had to point it out.

So now we are back at the crossroads of wtf. She thinks I have shown no progress because I am still wanting sex, my thought is yes I want sex, but I want it with her no one else. Yes I know it is way to early to even think that. My C has said that it is natural to be that way, I am human and it is fine to be that way with her, she's my wife and I should be attracted to her. Like I said I know that it is way to early for this type of behavior so please don't beat me up to badly on this, don't dwell on it. I know I was an A$S and have seen my errors. I just need to figure out how to read her. She has said to me that she doesn't see how I didn't see anything was changed all she did was force back the snied comments and try to be nice and not ruin the night, I guess I just saw what I wanted to see which was her holding my hand and kissing me back as signs that she was moving forward.

Now I have to re-evaluate everything she does so I don't trigger her again. I need to stop pulling back when she lashes out at me. I need to figure out why I am here and how to share her with everything....

Your appetite for sex is offensive to her right now. Women need to feel good about the R BEFORE they have sex. She's not anywhere close.

Stop trying to "figure out how to read her". It's a DJ to think you know what she is thinking and feeling.

The problem with bringing up your childhood and making it the reason WHY you have done what you have is you CANNOT fix anything in the past. You also cannot fix the fact that you are a father NOW. How are you NOT going to allow yourself to use THAT excuse again to behave as you have? It's a viscious circle(and excuse) that you could use for years. You need to look at the present day reason you did this otherwise you will feel entitled to do as have because your parents were swingers or whatever reason your IC thinks is valid. BTW this type of IC is setting you up for YEARS of C by bringing up your childhood and relating your bad behavior to recent events. You need to dig a little deeper within YOURSELF and find out why you allowed yourself, a grown adult, to go down this path. You are not that teenaged boy now.