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Post by stillnshock on Apr 23, 2007 14:47:17 GMT -5
I hope I am not overstepping here - I want to be sensitive to you guys but I saw a post by Phoenix it inspired me to start this thread. I put it here so he would see it and that maybe others here who are agonizing over telling their SO would be able to find some support and help. Maybe the SO's on this board can contribute? HOW I FOUND OUT I found out accidentally by entering a word into his browser on his company laptop. Well, the drop down menu, with history, came up and you can guess what it was. I asked him, are you looking at porn? He of course lied. He said, I get pop ups all the time, it is probably a very old pop up that I accidentally clicked on to get rid of it or something. I am so stupid, trusting and naive, I believed him. (I believed him because we have had the porn discussion before: it was a criteria before I married him that my partner not be into it. Been there done that, don't want to do it again...that sort of thing. I USED to trust him.) The whole day he was quiet and moody and I wondered what the heck was wrong and what did I do to make him this way?
That night when we went to bed, he just asked me "Can we talk?", COMPLETELY out of the blue, then dropped the bomb on me and totally rocked my world. He of course said, he has a problem, wants to stop, will do anything...etc....didn't make me feel any better, you know?
HOW I WISH HE HAD TOLD ME: I have been seeking help for something. I stopped three months ago but I need to tell you about it because I value you as a human being, and I love you and I know what I had been doing is wrong and is hurtful to our relationship. This started way before I met you, 40 years ago, when I was a kid, and has been a struggle for me all along. When I met you, I started trying to stop because you are the only one that I want sexually, our sexual relationship is fantastic and I don't want to damage it, and I know it would hurt you if you knew I had this problem. But I know how disrespectful it is to deceive you, the person I love most in the world. It is a bad habit that I just can't break and I took the initiative three months ago to do something about it BECAUSE IT WOULD KILL ME IF I LOST YOU. Please forgive me, and let me make it up to you in any way I can."
Well, it still would have hurt, and we would still be in therapy, but it would have kept him from having to backtrack and say he was struggling with it before he got caught. Now all I can do is wonder if he confessed for all the wrong reasons. In other words, "You aren't sorry you do it. You are sorry you got caught." I would trust him more now if only he had trusted me enough to tell me in the first place.
Phoenix, I know you have given yourself a drop dead date. But because I respect your conviction, I want to warn you to be careful that she doesn't find out first or you may have the same problem on your hands that my H does. Get some clean and sober days behind you, find a therapist to help you (you seem to be doing pretty good, but again I don't know you) and WHATEVER you do, do not become an SA because that is even more difficult for us to handle. That's a deal breaker.
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Post by blueclouds on Apr 23, 2007 15:11:03 GMT -5
Thanks stillnshock,
My SO is 7 months pregnant, and I will not be telling her until after the baby's born. I have 3 months clean at the moment, and I aim to tell her in 3 to 5 months -- with 6 to 8 months behind me. I'm going to paste your post into my journal if you don't mind. I need all the help I can get for how to do this. In all honesty, I am still afraid I will chicken out.
Blueclouds
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Post by stillnshock on Apr 23, 2007 15:20:18 GMT -5
You can take this post. I wouldn't tell her when she was pregnant either. Just don't get caught doing anything! Let me rephrase that: DON'T DO ANYTHING! LOL!
I hope my post helps you when the time comes! Be strong!
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Post by saddkatt on Apr 23, 2007 16:16:58 GMT -5
This is a very interesting topic; thanks; stillinshock!
How I Found Out:
Well, I had known from the start that he looked at p once in a while. But last September, we switched from cable internet to DSL (30 bucks cheaper a month, lol). He was downstairs making dinner while I was installing the new hardware on both our computers. I have a pc, he has a mac. When I finished hooking the stuff up to his, I wanted to check the connection. I was not familiar with the mac interface and I obviously clicked on the wrong thing. Not internet, but documents. And wow, what I saw. 300 images downloaded just that week, with the dates and times listed. I was horrified and actually frightened. 300 a week? Let's see...52 weeks a year, that's more than 15 thousand images! Holy crap! I was so shocked that I actually ran to the bathroom with the dry heaves. How could someone need that many pictures? And more and more and more every day??!? Oh, I was floored. I believe it was the next day that I found this site, actually.
How I wish he had told me:
Well, he never told me at all. And when I said, "three hundred??!?" His reply was, "So?" Like it was no big deal. The whole conversation was extremely callous and insensitive and disrespectful to my feelings. Was I sensitive to his? No. There is no easy way and no good time to confront someone with something that personal and aberrant. I probably embarrassed the hell out of him. I don't care. He wasn't sorry he did it, and still isn't. What I wish is the same thing that stillinshock expressed: that he would like to stop because it would kill him to lose me.
Why are the PA's afraid to tell their significant others? I for one, would be thrilled to death if he was at least trying. I bet alot of the other SO's out there know a lot more than they let on to their PA's. It's a little dance, a cat-and-mouse game. They hide, we seek. Do they know we find? Not always. Is the pain of a traumatic discussion (maybe a fight, maybe tears, maybe a breakup) worth the hiding and lying, and the secret guilt and humiliation? Wouldn't it feel better to just get it off your chest and have some potential support? Or is it better to keep dancing? Doesn't it weigh on your conscience terribly?
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Post by stillnshock on Apr 23, 2007 18:31:10 GMT -5
Sadkatt, thank you for your post. I don't know what to say. I can't believe he was so callous and unremorseful. Didn't he see you were physically sick? I can't believe he was that insensitive. I am so sorry. AT LEAST VALIDATE YOUR FEELINGS FOR GOD'S SAKE!!! I will validate them for you if he won't . You have a right to be hurt.
PAs, please look and see what this does to us. IT IS P-A-I-N. For everyone. Not to make a guilt trip, we are not your mother and we are not God, but please see that this is not only about you. This thing wraps around all of us.
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Post by blueclouds on Apr 24, 2007 3:09:20 GMT -5
Why are the PA's afraid to tell their significant others? I for one, would be thrilled to death if he was at least trying. I bet alot of the other SO's out there know a lot more than they let on to their PA's. It's a little dance, a cat-and-mouse game. They hide, we seek. Do they know we find? Not always. Is the pain of a traumatic discussion (maybe a fight, maybe tears, maybe a breakup) worth the hiding and lying, and the secret guilt and humiliation? Wouldn't it feel better to just get it off your chest and have some potential support? Or is it better to keep dancing? Doesn't it weigh on your conscience terribly? I think the answers to these questions may be different for different men. Although I believe the same mechanisms are at the heart of this addiction -- even all addictions -- I have read some reports from the SOs of how their PA spoke or behaved that I can't relate to at all. Even among those of us who are trying to beat this, we are very different people, with different worldviews and different ideas about what a relationship is, etc. In my case, porn is just assumed to not be a part of our household. We have never talked about pornography, or MB for that matter. She has never asked me if I've looked at porn or if I MB. She doesn't check history or the cache, nor would she know where to begin. I do not go around condemning porn and porn-users, I just keep my mouth shut. I think I have been aware all along that it is wrong, a cause of shame. I have never seen porn as "a guy thing," or thought my SO should tolerate occasional use, etc. I am scared to death of losing her, scared of losing her respect, her unconditional love. This is why disclosing terrifies me. I don't want her to experience the pain of knowing my secret, but I'll admit my first reason for not telling (after her pregnancy) is my fear of the consequences. In terms of this weighing on my conscience, it's starting to now, 3 months clean. I'm afraid active addicts have most of their feelings pretty much deadened -- that's the whole point, after all. When you're active, any guilt, fear, sadness, stress, or what have you is all dealt with in the same way: mainlining. What kicked my butt into recovery was not guilt, but fear. I feared for my relationship, especially in the bedroom. I also started to realize that my P-use was starting to warp (or had been warping for a long time) my outlook on life and my self-image. It is only now, mid-recovery, that I am seeing -- and feeling -- guilt, the treachery of it all, the dangers it poses to my sanity, and so on. Blueclouds
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Post by Disillusioned on Apr 24, 2007 8:13:16 GMT -5
Oh, blueclouds,.. I do hope you'll tell her. She deserves to know.
I kind of wish you'd tell her now. I understand that you're concerned cause she's pregnant and the stress and stuff could hurt her..
But honestly,.. I found out (once again)about my husband porning 13 years ago when i held my newborn in my arms. This forever colors my thoughts of my daughter's birth. It changed the first year of my daughter's life. I SO wish I had been told and dealt with it before my child was born.
And (seriously) if you were so concerned about the pain this would cause your wife, maybe you wouldnt' have done it in the first place...
Get sober now. Stay sober now. For you. For your child. For whatever reason. But let your life-partner KNOW what is going on in YOUR LIFE. Share your life or you rob her of being your partner. And now is soooo important.
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Post by somedude on Apr 24, 2007 11:02:47 GMT -5
stillnshock,
I told my wife on the night I busted her out as an alcoholic. We had a clearing the air talk about her addiction, and I told her I knew many things about addiction from my own struggles with porn. We were honest and loving with each other and we help each other in our struggles.
This is not really related, but I saw something in your post above I want you to see. You wrote "The whole day he was quiet and moody and I wondered what the heck was wrong and what did I do to make him this way?".
Though it was perfectly natural for you to wonder what the heck was wrong with him that day, why did you wonder what you did to cause it? When he's in a non-optimal mood do you always take responsibility for it? When he's a crab, do you always wonder what you did?
stillnshock, you're not responsible for his reaction to anything you do or say. He chooses his response, good or bad. Over the years I've seen the same reaction with my wife, and I've told her the same thing. It's not easy for her to see it all the time; just like it's not easy for me to step back and choose the appropriate response to things all the time. But how I react is the result of my interpretation of events, how I interpret events is a result of my upbringing and emotional make up. She's not responsible for any of that!
Your situation is bad enough already, please don't take on the extra responsibility of his emotional state as well.
Tim
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Post by flanker on Apr 24, 2007 11:24:24 GMT -5
Stillnshock
Thats is a great insight. My ex wife found out pretty much the same way on the computer she bought me as a wedding gift.
OH its was just a pop-up ad, it wasn't me, and so on and so on. The excuses were endless. My wife left me because of the addiction and I believe that if I had her told the truth in a similar way that you had described along with seeing this support board, might have saved things.
I knew she thought she was the only one out there dealing with this. SO and WF's I believed are help by you and other SO and WF that they are not alone, and hopefully will reach a better understanding to resolve their relationship.
Thanks Flanker
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Post by lyssalanai on Apr 24, 2007 11:29:50 GMT -5
Ahh yes... the excuses... I remember those. "It must be a virus." Just to humour him and reformatted the whole dammed thing... what a heck of a time that was.. Five hours of dell dimension fun. Just for my computer illiterate husband to come back a week later and say "are you sure the reformat worked? It's still there?"
Ha... don't try to play tricks on a system administrator... ;D
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Post by timm on Apr 24, 2007 11:37:04 GMT -5
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Post by fouroffive on Apr 24, 2007 11:52:55 GMT -5
Thanks stillnshock, My SO is 7 months pregnant, and I will not be telling her until after the baby's born. I have 3 months clean at the moment, and I aim to tell her in 3 to 5 months -- with 6 to 8 months behind me. I'm going to paste your post into my journal if you don't mind. I need all the help I can get for how to do this. In all honesty, I am still afraid I will chicken out. Blueclouds Tell her now. Let her get over the initial shock before the baby comes. I found out right after the dr released me from bedrest, 2-3 weeks before a c-section. And I filed it away because 1) I so wanted to believe him and 2) I was having a baby. I didn't need to deal with that the first year of my baby's life. And do you know what I remember of my baby's first year? Wondering if he was lying to me. Knowing that it was a load of bs. And when I knew for sure 8 months after my baby was born and it ALL came out.... THAT'S my memories of my pregnancy... My H being a jerk because he was acting out, my H being a jerk because he was going through withdrawls.... My H being mean and moody and mad at me, though I didn't know why... And then it got a little better, and then it got a lot worse... And then I knew without a doubt. Give her credit. Unless she's a total, complete heartless shrew who is just looking for a reason to get out, then it's not going to be the emotional Armaggeadon you think it is.
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Post by blueclouds on Apr 24, 2007 12:25:30 GMT -5
Thanks, TimM. I posted it in my journal so it won't pass me by this time. As I say there, this and others' contributions help me not only to frame what I say, but to find the courage to say anything at all.
Disillusioned, I appreciate the fact that I am already 8 years too late in telling her about my addiction; for most of this time, I didn't even know I had one. I knew I masturbated and I was ashamed of this, but I believed it was just a private thing that all men did. I never shook away enough fog to realize: "I do this compulsively and it affects every other aspect of my personality and my life." I had had periods of heavy Internet porn use before I met her, but I thought it was a thing of the past, a bad habit I had already broken.
Then I brought it back into my life when I was with her, but again convinced myself it was just a masturbation tool, and masturbation was shameful, but above all, my business. In the past 8 years, I have lived around six of them with no home Internet access, and this only helped me keep my addiction in the closet, even from myself. I was using on and off at work, which just blows my mind now, but at the time seemed all in the due course of things. In any case, my use was too sporadic for the habit and my dependence on it to escalate, or to feel like poison, as it would later.
For nearly the past 2 years, I've had an Internet connection at home, and as you might expect, I went downhill at a pretty good speed. I found this board a year ago and very slowly started admitting to myself that I was addicted, and after reading a lot here, I started realizing how deep and wide the effects are, and that yes, I was hurting my SO terribly, even though she didn't know where my "funk" was coming from.
This is how one SO here (about a month ago) advised me not to tell her now: "You may cause the fetus to abort and then you'll have to deal with that the rest of your life." Several other SO's chimed in their agreement. I have to say, Disillusioned, that was pretty compelling. Did it just feed in to my general desire not to tell? You bet. But I'm not sure I want to risk it. It's a proven fact that stress can have permanent negative effects on an unborn child.
But at the same time, you're right. There's no good time to tell, except at the start of a relationship. Whenever I do tell her, it's going to be bad, and it's going to affect her for a long time, and it's going to color her memories of whatever is going on in our lives at the time. Thanks for your frankness, and sorry everyone for the wordy post.
Blueclouds
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Post by sadgirl on Apr 24, 2007 12:35:37 GMT -5
I was married to a heroin addict when I was pregnant with my first child. Talk about Stress!!!! He lied to me, spent all of our money on drugs, went from one job to another, never left me with any money to buy food, and treated me like absolute dirt.
And my baby came out just fine and grew up to be a pretty cool young woman.
Tell her. please.
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Post by Healing Rain on Apr 24, 2007 12:48:55 GMT -5
I was pregnant with my last child during my H's worst acting out time. It was literally a nightmare time for me. I was on bed rest, taking care of 2 one year old twins, alone (except for while my mother was here) and he was traveling with another woman that he was acting out with in a fantasy/emotional affair of sorts. It was unbelievably stressful...
My daughter is here, and the light and joy of our lives. She is absolutely amazing and has had no lasting affects from the stress in our lives.
If I remember correctly, your wife is pretty far into her pregnancy, right? 5 to 6 months or more, right? (your drop dead date is August, so going from that calculation). You have no need to worry about the fetus aborting at that state. In fact, its actually the safest time of pregnancy. (given there isn't any high risk situations, I was ALWAYS considered high risk from day one to birthday) The most relaxed and enjoyable.
I'm not sure where I stand on the telling of her. I can see your situation, and wanting to not add to stress.... but I also clearly see the side of the SO. Its her right to know the truth of who her husband is, what her marriage has consisted of, and why. It is her right to make decisions based on that truth. And keeping it from her is doing her, and your unborn child, and injustice.
Time just adds to the struggle. When you do finally tell her and she asks the question "why did you wait so long to tell me, if you really wanted to make this change in your life?" and she doesn't feel your answer of "protecting" her and/or your daughter is justification enough for keeping her in the dark? what then? You might want to think on that a little bit. Time adds to the struggle. The more time it takes to disclose, the more time it takes to heal.
~Rain~
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