I feel dirty when he touches me

[missygirl]

Hey

I haven't been here for a while now, months in fact. I have been through some really hard times, finding out that my partner who is addicted to porn, has been lying about looking at porn. Anyway as far as i know he went without it for going on three weeks, but he slipped on Wednesday. Ever since then i just feel alone. He keeps indicating that he would like to have sex, but i just cant get past the feeling that he is tainted in some way, that his preference for looking at group sex makes me more inadequate. I am disgusted in what he looks at. I cant help but think that is what he really wants. I feel like he wants that more than me. Because i feel like he is tainted in some way from looking at these things, i feel dirty when he touches me and disgusted with myself for wanting his attention. This has been going on for nearly a year now, and in the past i have forced myself to be intimate with him, to show him how much i love him and support him. But it gets harder every time he slips. I don't know if i am the only one who feels this way, i know i am not the only girl living the nightmare of having a partner with an addiction. But god i feel alone right now.

[LookingUp]

You're not the only one who feels that way. We have an in-house separation after my husband slips - that gives me a chance to heal and feel his touch wouldn't taint me if he touches me. We aren't required to have sex just because they want to - and please don't have sex if it makes you feel dirty and used. I even have a boundary that if I feel he's not connected to me or if I feel used, then I can leave the bedroom. My body needs to be freely given and received with dignity and love or I won't share. It's okay and healthy to have those types of boundaries.

I figure if I refuse sex and he goes outside the marriage - then it will be easy to make up my mind and leave. My saying no also tests his commitment to the marriage. Plus, it's a very logical consequence to his bad behavior of visually cheating on me. Bad behavior needs consequences - that's what tough love is all about.

LookingUp

[hugs4u002]

I'm sorry missygirl that you also find yourself in this situation..I too find sometimes that I feel dirty, like his dirty thoughts contaminate my soul. He doesn't know how to make love to me, I am so starved to see desire in his eyes for me. When he does want sex he usually comes at me from behind which really grosses me out because of his preference in P. I agree with LookingUp, don't do it if it's not right. He is selfish so don't feel you have to do anything for him that you don't want, especially when it comes to sex.

[kello2005]

You are not alone. I have felt the exact same way you are feeling...after the first few slips I became physically repulsed by my SO..he even became less attractive to me and the thought of us having s3x just made me feel angry.

What helped me feel better was the process of separating him from the addiction. It doesn't mean that I don't hold him accountable for his actions - but I can understand that his addiction is a manifestation of a much deeper emotional problem and that the P is just a symptom.
PA's are emotionally immature, they don't know how to handle their emotions and so they continue going back to something that provides comfort - the P does not provide comfort - but repeating the ritual is comforting to them.

Stand firm on not being s3xual with him until you are ready. The emotional damage that s3x before you are ready will do to you and your relationship is not worth it...it will take time. If I were you I would explain to him that you are not interested in s3x right now and you'd like the two of you to work on the emotional aspects of your relationship for the time being. Once you are feeling more secure in the relationship and feel a deeper connection with him - the feelings will probably return quickly.

Try and keep in mind that for a PA, P is not about s3x, just like for an alcoholic, alcoholism is hardly about alcohol - but rather, misguided coping skills.

If you haven't yet, I'd suggest doing the partner's workshop on recoverynation.com You can start healing yourself regardless of where he is at and I found it put a lot of things in perspective for me.

Take care

[completelydone]

Dirty, yes. Shame, weirdly.... yes. Nasty, yes. Embarrassed, yes. Insignificant, yes. Inferior, yes.

Yes, I've felt those things. I don't always now, but for a long while I did. In order for that to heal they must make a commitment to be faithful to you and never use porn again. After they've been free of it for a long time, sex can become more enjoyable again. Although, I must admit, I don't know if the feelings of not being attractive enough will ever go away. When you know your husband has been looking at people that have been painted and whittled away on to shape them just perfectly, it's hard to believe they can ever see you as attractive again. So, I try to ignore that little voice in my head and enjoy sex anyway. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

[zerotolerance]

Ditto, Me Too. This is an effect of objectification imo. Engaging in unloving sex damages our souls, and this element is at the heart of how both the women in p, and us, are being affected, while they just wank away in fako glee. ARGHH!!!! I think we become aware that we are being sexually used and with that awareness it gets more and more difficult to have sex. I couldn't name it at the time, but I could feel my soul breaking every single time I tried to have sex with my h. There was just NO loving connection, no soul connection, no heart connection, just mere bodies. GROSS. It got to where it left me in tears every time. It was unbelievable. Their p-ng, and objectification, and crazy making shallowness, and lying just breaks us on the deepest levels of our beings. Listen to us, all saying the same thing, all describing the same pain, or trying to describe it when it's really UNDESCRIBABLE. And they are soo non chalant about it, as if this is anywhere close to normalcy, when it's NOT! SO GROSS! I HATE PORN and ALL objectification, and dehumanization. They don't just dehumanize us, they literally dehumanize themselves. It takes every single quality of human-ness and distorts it into p-ishness, shallow, shallow, shallow, p-ishness. So of course it hurts us to have sex with them. We aren't having connected sex at all. We might as well be in the p, because as women, we are ALL suffering the same effects either way. We know nonloving sex hurts us, and damages our hearts, and minds, and bodies, and souls, that's why we try having these monogomous relationships to begin with, RIGHT? Because it is the right way to experience our sexuality. Little do we know that their sexuality is already p-fried. And they sit there thinking "they aren't participating", and that their souls aren't broken. BS! They are participating 100%, right in the middle of the action with every view, and their souls are soo broken they probably actually make ours look whole. And the idea that they are soo used to these horrid feelings they don't know they are wrong, or that they have buried them soo deep, under mountians of the p that creates them to begin, with is such a SCARY SCARY SCARY thought.

The good news is that WE can get better. You can get better. He is tainted in MANY ways, and thus it has tainted you now too. I know it is hurting you, but it is not about YOU, nor any inadequacy in YOU. The inadequacy is in HIM, and you're just ACUTELY aware of it right now. He has you in seperate box in his mind, and then in another. To him ya'll are two different, non connected, THINGS. His perception is wrong, and those compartments are keeping his mind from functioning with the proper input from his soul. Your soul is getting through to your brain, and thus you are feeling the ENORMOUS pain that comes with this awareness. Stop doing anything that you are not comfortable with. If it is sex so be it. Three weeks is not very long AT ALL, and probably not even long enough to stop having continous p images playing in his mind. How long has he been cheating altogether? More than 3 weeks, I'm sure. OUR bodies will sense every discrepancy and react to them, long before we can name any of them imo. But you will be all right, in time. Don't try to force it. Keep sorting it out. You have to see more signs that he is out of the p, before you'll feel safe enough to risk sex. He has to get it out of sight, AND out of mind, or your vibes are gonna pick up on it.

[completelydone]

Listen to us, all saying the same thing, all describing the same pain, or trying to describe it when it's really INDESCRIBABLE. And they are soo non chalant about it

I'm also astonished by this quite often. How can they be so blind, cold, and apparently slow whited. Or maybe, we are the slow whited ones to bother with them. Sometimes I think that too.

Sorry, I'm not in a good place tonight. So, just ignore me.

Take care,
CD