This may get rather lengthy; however, I will try my best to cut to the chase.<p>History: This is the second marriage for both my husband and I. His previous marriage was what you could call an "open" marriage. His ex wife was bi-sexual and they participated regularly in swinging with other couples and women.<p>He has always been very honest about his past but has always maintained that those days are long over and he could take it leave it and really has no interest in doing it again. His outlook on sex is much different than mine. He believes that as long as a husband and wife "play" together, it is not cheating. He sees nothing wrong with recreational sex as long as the husband and wife do it together...a theory that I do NOT support and he is well aware of this.<p>My husband is a very sexual person and we have always had a very good sex life and relationship. He is very affectionate and supportive of me; however, he seems to crave the attention of other women and loves to flirt.<p>This past weekend I discovered that he had posted a number of internet ads back in October and November of last year. The ads were calling to meet other women at lunch and occassionally for dinner to flirt and possibly more. Some of them said that he was looking to have a discreet relationship with someone because his wife (me) did not want to fool around with him. Other ads claimed that he was single and just looking for someone to play around with on occassion.<p>According to him, all of these ads were placed out of boredom at work and he was just looking for someone to flirt with online and he never had any intention of actually meeting them. He said that he likes to flirt with other women and then come home and fantasize about it with me. I know his favorite fantasy is to imagine that I am married to someone else and we are doing something on the sly. He REALLY likes that.<p>He seemed to feel really bad about what he has done and the fact that it hurt me so bad. He claims that he will never do it again and that he was completely in the wrong to go about looking for companionship and flirtation in the way it was done.<p>I was able to figure out the passwords to all of his email and personal ad accounts except for one. I went through and cancelled all of the ads that I knew about. He claims, though, that he has not been into the second email account in a couple of months and claims that he cannot remember the password to it. Here is where the real dilemma comes in for me.<p>I don't know whether to believe him or not. Has he conveniently forgotten the password to the second email account because he knows in there I will find the real truth about what he has been up to and that the intent wasn't JUST to flirt with someone? Maybe he feels like he is in enough trouble already and knows that if I find out that he was actually with or met someone else in person that I will leave him.<p>My husband draws a very difinitive line between love and sex. He is perfectly capable of having sex with another person and having no emotional connection to it all. I know this. <p>I know that he loves me dearly and does not want to leave me, but I seriously question if he can leave his life of recreational sex behind. I find it hard to believe that this type of behavior is normal and he may suffer from some kind of sexual addiction. <p>I am at a loss of how to handle this. I do not feel like I can truly begin to learn to trust him again without seeing the email activity on the account I cannot get into. Who's to say that he does not go in and delete everything except for those things that will substantiate his story that he did not meet anyone? I cannot begin to rebuild the trust lost without closure to the past. <p>I read his ads and emails and the things that were said were not things that a person who is looking to "just flirt" would say. They indicated that he was looking for a relationship. He claims he was just "fishing"...trying to see what he needed to say to get a response to his ads because he wasn't getting much of a response.<p>Any ideas?

I think you and I are married to the same man!<p>Based on what I've learned about my H and seeing what you write...<p>... he knows exactly what he's doing and it's not out of boredom at work (same with my H)...<p>... he knows that password and knows what you find will be devastating.<p>My H told me it was all fun and games for him while at work - just words on a screen and then he disappeared for 2 days. I found out 6 months later that he flew out of state to meet an on-line sex buddy.<p>He has had a couple on-line female friends with whom I found he was talking to them on the phone and telling them we were separated or divorced.<p>My H also did the ads, except he didn't post his own, just subscribed to them via yahoo - had a file set up called my desire for the ones he received.<p>Go with your gut on this issue - he used to having more than just his wife in a marriage and knows how to do it.<p>I wish you the best!<p> [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img]

Free2B...thanks for your response. It is somewhat comforting to know that I am not the only one who has had to face this issue.<p>I have tried to encourage him to come clean if there is anything else he needs to tell me. I have told him that, as far as I am concerned, the fact that he was out looking for sex with someone else was just as bad as him actually doing it. I have told him that if there is anything else he needs to tell me, he needs to do it now while I feel like I can handle it and there is the chance to make things right. If I found out more later, I will not be so willing to work things out. The pain of him actually having sex with someone else cannot possibly be any worse than what I am feeling now. In my mind, he's already done it.

There are some really good links in some of these threads for sex addiction. Check out the one by onegoing with other useful links - there are some for SA. Also try www.sarr.org. There's another site (heart 2 heart something or other) that i found last night that has free newsletters for the spouse. I'll look up the site when I go home and post it.<p>Did you say he moved out? Use the time to educate yourself. Try to detach yourself from his toxic behaviors that are making you sick and emotional. You can't make him do anything and this is his problem to work out - not yours. It's hard when what he does affects you so painfully.<p>Good luck!<p> [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img]

Interesting find! i just did a research paper on sexual addiction. As with anything..how much of what makes an addiction? Ill give u a few things to look at and a few sites to go to and u can make that decision.<p>#1..There are five elements of which must be present for a behavior to be labeled as an addiction.<p>1. cant stop despite negative consequences
2. presense of an mood alterted state (withdrawal)
3. strong element of denial
4. behavior is cronic and escalates because of tolerance.
5. occurance of withdrawal symptoms.<p>**for the sex addict** (sexualrecovery.com)
For the sex addict, sexual behaviors that are secretive, illicit or dangerous carry an even greater internal experioence of intensity or arousal(high) which thus encourages irrational choices. This is no different than the compulsive gambler who will gamble far beyond his/her limit to do so, aroused and distracted by the intensity of the process. Some sexual behaviors that my represent an addictive disorder are :<p>*multiple extramarital affairs
* using a postition of power to gain sexual access to multiple partners
*Use of prostitutes
*Indecent phone calls
*Excessive expenditure of time and money on porn/cyber/phone sex.
*multiple anonymouse sexual encounters
*touching others without permission.
*problem behavior isnt an isolated occurance.
*despite past consequences behavior continues.
*compulsivity-loss of control of behavior
obsession- with obtaining or participating in behavior.<p>Here are some links:<p>www.sexualrecovery.com/sri_doc/public.html
http://www.sharonohara.com/Pages/article01.html
http://rf-web.tamu.edu/files/SECGUIDE/Eap/Sex.htm
http://www.hcsac.org/disclosure/htm
http://www.sexhelp.com/sa_q_and_a.ctm<p>Hope this was helpful.<p>mercy