CGIR: In my opinion, one word explains your sexual behaviour:

Addict.

Addictions have three characteristics:

1) The addict lies and lies and lies and hides what he/she is doing. This is done not out of shame but to protect their drug (whatever it is).

2) The behaviour escalates over time. According to your first post, your sexual acting-out did indeed escalate.

3) The addict becomes completely selfish and self-centered. Other people don't matter. Their pain doesn't matter. That's because nothing matters but the drug. Addicts treat themselves like crap, too; look at the sordid, secretive ways in which they live and look at the people and careers and lives they throw away. The drug controls them and nothing matters but the drug.

Mulan,

I agree with your addict comment. I hide the usage, so that I can continue to do it. I am completely selfish and I know that a mistake can finish my marriage and the pain this is causing my wife is justified by - it is done out of boredom, don't really need it, just a waste of my time - but I continue to do it.

I view this sight as my support group to get over my addiction, others feeding advice, pointing out what I refuse to see.

I wanted to post an update..

I was home this weekend and started to review my timeline and the progress made to date. Of course without it completed and without it in front of me, I started to talk about events that occurred and I referenced an event and what I thought it was associated with.

Of course the association was way off from the timeframe that I was speaking and I know it will cast doubt that what was disclosed was truthful and will cause more anger, resentment and distrust. I'll get into this a little more as the week continues.

One thing that I want to bring up is something that constantly upsets my wife when I say it.

I constantly refer to a slip up/mistake that gets caught by my wife, like what started this thread earlier this month, as big or small.

I know that all mistakes are big, yet I constantly do this.

I looked at porn/facebook when asked not to - classified or referred to as small.

I had an emotional/physical affair - classified as big.

Since I constantly say it, I must believe it - right?

How would you feel about going to a 12-step group? Or finding other people IRL that are knowledgeable about addictions.

Dr. Harley says the MB program does not work on addicts.

You need to get into a solid recovery program.

Your classifying your behavior is you trying to minimize your behavior. You aren't ready yet to own your own stuff.

Being an addict or a wayward is like being pregnant. You either are or aren't. No one is "a little bit" pregnant.

Continuing with my timeline discussion with my wife...

My wife has always said that I am guilty of trickle truth. I agree with that statement if it was only referencing the past few years, but as I looked at my timeline and thought about everything that has happened I would say that I engaged in no truth or cover your [censored] truth the rest of the time.

No truth - don't think she will ever find out, so never bring it up.

Cover your [censored] truth - when confronted, cover your [censored] by making up a story that sounds semi-reasonable.

Also, the reason for the timeline was due to my wife saying that to stay in this marriage I would have to take a polygraph test. So rather then leaving my marriage up to this, I decided to do the timeline and come clean with all of the sh** that I put her through, lied about or didn't tell her about all these years.

As I sat there and told her some of these details, I could see the shock and disgust on her face. I could see the life, the energy get taken away from her.

After every weekend together, she updates my phone with a picture. This week, she put a picture of the word TRUTH that was on a billboard with the sun shining through it.

I interpret this as the truth shall set you free - unfortunately, the truth will set her free. Free from having to live with a liar, a coward and a person that she probably can't forgive.

I can't blame her for that. I'm ashamed, embarrassed by the way that I have treated her. I am ashamed that it took the threat of a polygraph test to finally come clean.

I don't know if there is a chance at recovery. I don't know if she will ever trust me again. I don't know how this marriage can continue.

I know the timeline, disclosure was necessary, but looking back - she had asked me for this numerous times and I couldn't do it.

Now more than ever, I could use some advice as to what I could possibly do to salvage this marriage.

One thing that my wife and I never did during all of the bad times is let anyone in our families know what was going on.

Last night, I spoke to my mom to let her know that we were having problems. I have a family wedding coming up and I wanted to let her know that my wife wouldn't be attending.

In the past, my wife and I would use the excuse that she was sick and couldn't attend.

By doing this, it would come across as a negative against my wife (an excuse as she doesn't want to interact with my family).

Since I am tired of covering for my actions, lying to my wife and my family, I felt that I had to tell my mom as passing the guilt/blame to my wife had to end.

Was the phone call difficult? absolutely. No one wants to tell anyone that the reason your marriage is failing is due to your own actions.

I guess I realize that it is time to grow up and deal with the consequnces of my actions. Hopefully, it is not too late.

I was shocked. I wasn't disgusted. I am broken-hearted.


I'm proud that you did call your mom. You've never done anything like that before.

BrokenVase

CGIR

You need to receive something as a fact. You do not get to choose how an action or situation will be interpreted by another person.

You think you have big and small categories of insult to your wife ?

That may be true but BV will not use your metric to decide what is a big deal and what is not to her.

Your applying your own measure of "badness" to your years of adultery and lies is absolutely self-delusional.

The only thing that matters is BVs view of them if you have any objective of recovering your marriage. You must learn to see your marriage through the eyes of BVs taker.

Nothing else gives you a shred of a chance of recovery.

Amen BobPure.

BobPure...

All these things are things that I have done and I do understand that there are no big/small.

I understand that there can't be any more lying, concealment or moment of indecision when it comes to should I or should I not do something. I get that, I really do, but it may be to late.


If you did not know, Brokenvase is my wife and as you can see from her post up above, she is shocked and brokenhearted.

The past 4 years we have been following MB ideas/principals or I should say that my wife has - I have been picking and choosing what I want to do. --> Today, I'll give her a compliment and try to engage her in conversation, but I can't be open and honest because it will hurt too much and it could end our marriage. Tomorrow, maybe I'll be affectionate and supportive, but can't be open and honest and reveal everything that has happened.

This has only been for the past 4 years, the other 18 years that we have ben married without knowing the MB principals, have been so much worse.

Those 18 years were spent with me getting what I wanted, leading my own life and causing her to lose self esteem. Maybe the only thing that I was giving her those years was an outward display of security. By that, I mean that I would physically protect her but mentally, not the case.

So, in doing a timeline, it's time to put it all out there.

Maybe she will believe me, but it is doubtful that she will (22 years of lying tends to cause you to lose credibility). So I'll take a polygraph test and even if I pass maybe there has been too much damage done.

She wants someone to support her, let her know that she is special and is willing to put her needs first.

She feels that I have not always thought that she was special (the affairs back that thought) and that I have not been supportive and that I have not put her needs first (and probably is unsure if I will consistently for the long haul).

I want the opportunity to show her that I can be all of that, but she has said many times that with me she can't get it because it hasn't always been there and she will always know that.

Brokenvase, it means that if it was broke, you can glue it back together but it still isn't the same as what it once was (or what she once wanted with me).

I don't know if I can make it right. I don't know if I can fix a broken heart. The only thing that I can do is show her over time that I can change, but I may have run out of time.

CGIR,

You want to categorize your sins, because of a few things. As a scientist of cognition, the main thing I look at is how the mind works. People categorize things (well, speakers of ENGLISH categorize things) because this is the manner in which they approach organization of words and concepts. The language you think with does this, and so the way you use language for thinking and learning leads you to a natural tendency for it. When you learned in school, consider the tendency for the teachers to ask for you to compare/contrast ideas, look for trends, categorize vocabulary, sort objects and words by classification, etc. Most "Western" societies and languages have this tendency to them. (Not true of Eastern languages and societies - that is another story.)

Anyway.

This lends you to evaluate your behavior and your lies in the sense of how they line up - hence, your compare/contrase tendencies, or your idea that one sin is "big", one "small".

There is also another underlying emotional attachment that is at play, that is also linguistically attached to this mental perusal of your behavior. By virtue of the comparison process, you then begin this assignment of relative terms to your "badness". You decide that perhaps this particular behavior wasn't "as bad" as the other, and so you say to yourself, "Well, this was a 'small' issue, and the other thing, well, THAT was really the 'big' deal."

The problem with this thinking is that the approach of comparison in the first place is the error. In other words, the attempt to assign relative terms to the behaviors is the problem - your thinking about these issues as being issues that require comparison, one to the other, and then categorizing the beahviors as "big problem", "medium problem", or "small problem" is actually entirely the wrong thinking in evaluating altogether!

This is NOT a categorizing issue. What you are attempting to do is sort meat, clothing, crayons, and snakes by color, and then say, "Well, these are red, those are blue, and the others are green," and have someone else make sense of it.

This is not the approach to make sense of what you have.


You have:

Boundary issues
Secrecy issues
Pornography issues
Honesty issues
Communication issues
Infidelity issues
Selfish behavior issues

They don't categorize the way you are trying to look at them.
"Small-Medium-Big".


You must break them down into issues of the SELF.

Issues of what CHOICES you are making.

Because I guarantee you - each and every time you "messed up"
You CHOSE to do it.


Get the book: "Leadership and Self-Betrayal: Getting out of the box" and READ IT.

It is by The Arbinger Institute.


It will help you better understand why you look at your wife to blame, and will PINPOINT THAT DECISION-MAKING PROBLEM.

You will ABSOLUTELY recognize that very moment when you are choosing the wrong thing - and you will almost HEAR IT like a claxon bell going off in your head when it happens.

READ THIS BOOK, and the whole time, think about your affair behavior and how it applies to your choice-making.

While it is written using an analogy of a businessman at work - it really is about life. And affairs.

And bad choosers.


You.

You are this man in this book.
You are the taker in this book.
READ IT.
It will take you about a day or two.


SB

Oh, and whether you believe it or not, your marriage is salvageable.

If, and only if, you change.

Because the measure of a man is his ability to change for the better and maintain that change.

Measure up.

SB

I like that SB.

Schoolbus,

I agree with your comments because early on in this post, I had said that I used to think that I wasn't a bad guy. Why?, because I was doing the caterorizing of my mistakes ans saying - this is only looking at porn (small), not another affair (large).

I also know that I was choosing to do it. By making the decision that viewing porn should be done in a "In Private" tab, I knew that I was making a choice to try and deceive my wife.

I know that I have a bunch of issues to overcome and I know that the only way that one can tell if I am improving is by looking over time.

Is my marriage salvageable?....I don't know if I'll be given that time.

Nobody to blame but myself.

CGIR

Do you realize that your adultery destroyed your past, but your lying and obfuscation is destroying your future with BV don't you ?

Disclosure can't eff up your past contribution to BVs life any more than it already has, but your trying to manage the what BV should know about HER OWN LIFE is killing ANY chance of a recovery.

Just so you know.

This is such a critical part of the relationship, heck ANY relationship that it is notable. Wifes and Husbands more so of course, and at a greater depth. What happens to one effects the other, there are really no destructive acts or painful circumstances that do not effect the other.

Salvagable? About the only thing ANYBODY can do is save themselves. That never changes CGIR. In the process you don't go to the mirror and think, "Oh, I am so wonderful now", then return to whatever pleases you at the xpense of others.

I see your Marriage,(Caps intentional), at a point that you could save yourself and her from the effects and lies we ALL could tell ourselves with IB. We all probably have struggled with issues before, maybe not porn but something that is self destructive, and we have had to make clear choice and learn.

None here dodged that bullit and they are thankful for the ones they did, gotta make a choice for yourself and shamelessly stand for it. Everybody has to, we are blessed we have the boudaries just like a little child is blessed by parents that give them to them. They want what they want and have to learn the stove is not a toy for their playtime pleasure.

Don't be discouraged but yet get angry you have been ripped off. You can blame yourself and give up..but that will lead to returning to what behaviour you had in self-pity. You can blame society, your Mom and Dad, your hormones and maybe even God, but you then ignore your own powere to live free through choice. Believe me you have that power, we all do. Much of the 2X4s are confidance in that you do and meant to stand for that. Really now, who can say they that they never needed instruction or that it didn't hurt at some level? Who is a friend if not one that tells you what can set you free?

You can do this CGIR, and even more, but all you can save is you. You have come clean and people are helping you see the trappings that might have kept you in the dark and giving you a different way to understand them and the painful introspection that come with that. What is crucial for you is not if you save the marriage, but you first.

In that you also save your wife from porn and its effects on relationship, but it is about you first. She will be grateful for that, that she can count on you to stand up for your own life on all levels, and she will again trust you with her heart.

Which BTW, is what marriage is all about.

CGIR,


What I see as your errors in cognition?

1. Belief that you have no control over your use of porn.
2. Belief that you use porn due to "boredom".
3. Belief that your past behaviors of lying and secrecy to cover up affairs/cheating somehow dictate choices today that you should not or could not be completely honest in your daily activities now.


You have a view of yourself as being with an external locus of control

that is

as though events and circumstances external to the self control your decision-making.


The truth is: everyone has an INTERNAL locus of control. We each decide what we will say, what we will do, how we will say it, and how we will do it.

We are in perfect control of ourselves (barring mental illness).



The issues with honesty that you face are that:

1. you fear the truth will harm you
2. you fear the truth will shame you
3. you fear the truth will result in others judging you negatively
4. you fear that you will have to face that which you already know to be the worst about yourself - and you do not want to have to do this because you fear there is more to this than you want to know, or you already KNOW IT
5. you fear that if you reveal the total truth, you will lose all in your life who know and/or love you
6. you fear that revealing the truth about what you have done will cause more harm to more people than anyone might know, and that keeping it secret is probably safer at this point in time than bringing it out (it has been a long time, and at this point, what is good about bringing out things that happened so long ago?)


There are probably more things to add to the list. These are the high points.

The fact is, the best reason to go with the truth?


You can change your life.

Odd, isn't it, that most of the reasons I listed, have to do with fears?

You have work to do. This recovery stuff isn't for sissies, and you've only just begun. The honesty part is just scratching the surface - get over this hurdle

because it is only the first mountain you need to climb.

And you are fighting to go around it.

Instead of the fight, try reading the book I recommended, and before the next lie comes out of your mouth

shut up for 15 seconds,

and then,

during the silence,

figure out why your next statement should be the complete and total truth instead.


And watch your life change. It can be that easy.



SB

BobPure,

Believe me, I understand what you are saying.

After last weekends disclosure and the need to clear up something from that time, I realize what the past is doing to my wife.

By getting out the past, it has caused additional pain, but by not teling her up until that point caused much worse pain.

Now that it is all out there, she may finally be able to move on. Hopfully, she will move on with me, but I know that I have a lot of work to do.

I am continuing with my timeline, going back to my childhood as well as going through times where I was okay (meaning no affairs - not that I was th ideal husband), trying to figure out why I am the way I am (and why I keep repeating my behavior).