1st Therapy Today OR Just When I Felt He Loved Me

[iambetrayed]

A quick history on us: We are 11 weeks past d-day. My husband is in active recovery. He has not acted out at all since d-day. We had a slow and painful disclosure process for about 3 weeks after d-day. Since then we have both committed to trying to save our relationship. My husband is doing everything he can to get better - no a/o, constant communication with me, reading spiritual and SA books, RN lessons, talking, talking, talking. He is really there for me no matter what my mood. I feel like he is saving us. I appreciate all of his efforts. We are closer than we have been in quite some time.

So my husband has been going to a therapist for a couple of months - I think 5 or 6 sessions. At one point I had asked about going, too - my husband's therapist recommended a colleague for me to see. But I haven't gone yet - mainly because affording two therapists weekly fees would be a huge strain - I might try it after the Holidays, but for right now I just didn't feel like we could afford two - and to me it is more important to get my husbands problem under control first.

Anyway, last week I'd had a rotten week. The therapist had asked my husband to list his ten biggest problems in his life. As he was leaving for therapy I said probably the worst thing I've ever said to him - tell the therapist that your biggest problem is that your wife is on the verge of hating you. I was obviously dealing with some extreme anger at that point. And while I refuse to apologize for anything I feel or say during this, it was a short lived emotion. Yet my husband told the therapist what I'd said and how angry I was and the therapist asked if I would come in this week (after h explaining that I was not yet having my own sessions).

This afternoon I went in - and I honestly don't know what to make of it.

On the one hand, he said that my husband's problem was not about sex. OK, thats what I read, so I was with him on that. He went into this long thing about why he thinks my h did this - his childhood didn't teach him how to love - he was left alone too much - they didn't pay attention to him - didn't expect him to be his own person. So he turned to this fantasy life to cope. OK, I guess I can see that too.

But then we got into some strange stuff. The therapist came right out and said that my husband doesn't believe in marriage. That he looked around and saw that that was what other people did and thats why he did it. Now my poor husband's jaw dropped when he said that - H said - wait a minute, am I supposed to know that this is how I feel? Because this is not how it feels to me.

He also said that my husband sees himself as a martian just trying to "act" human - that he really doesn't feel like a human being at all. That his whole life is an acting job, trying to do what the other humans do.

He said that my husband doesn't feel love the same way that I do - that he was going to have to figure out who he is and that I was going to have to face that the "old h" from before d-day, and the "new h" from after (remorseful, etc) are not really h at all. I was trying to be polite, but I honestly thought that this guy was taking all of this too far. I said, OK, so he is going to find out who he is - but won't there be parts of the "old h" and the "new h" in the "real h". The therapist said NO - he will be completely different. Now I'm sorry , but this sounds crazy to me. Maybe at least partially because my whole life my husband has told me how he only feels like his real self when he is with me - and since d-day he has vowed to be the real man that he believes he is (the one who is reflected in our relationship and does not do p). And frankly I see more of him now - more like how he was in our early days before he let the p creep in - and he is the guy that I knew and loved and really didn't even realize I had been losing.

Then I told the therapist that I could see what he meant by all of this, but that I don't see it to the same extreme as he was saying. He said that I was just not seeing it the way it really is - give myself time.

Then there was this whole part about how my husband fakes everything - I basically think that this guy was saying that my husband doesn't love me. I started to get mad - that is the one thing that I have come to understand through all of this - that he does love me, in spite of all that he did.

There was a part about our sex life, too - h has been having some erection issues - the therapist said that that was because he couldn't have me and his "other" sex life, too (Wait! I thought it wan't about sex)

We talked some about the disclosures and the therapist said - that is the one thing that he would have to look into - why my husband had told me the truth, because usually these guys will just lie and lie. I believe that my husband told me that first truth because I started to believe his lie - I remember saying something like - I don't think you would look into my face and lie - later he told me that he just felt so bad about that - that was why he admitted to what I found. Then about a week later I found out that he had been doing more than I thought - and he said OK, I'll tell you everything. That night he told me lots of stuff ... and eventually after another week or so he did the RN honesty lesson and came completely clean with every detail.

So I am telling the therapist all of this and he says to me - why do you think he told you? And I said that I thought he'd realized that it was the only way to save our relationship - and the therapist said OR maybe it was so he wouldn't lose you - and I said - Is there a difference? And he said that there absolutely is - but he didn't really explain what he meant by that. I think he was trying to imply that my husband is using me as some sort of cover or something.

It was all so confusing. I really felt like he was picking on my husband One of the conversations went something like:

I feel like you are trying to give me a warning

Exactly

Well, about what - what is he going to do?

Oh, nothing that he hasn't already done - he's not a monster or anything like that, I just want you to see what is really going on.

At the end he told me that I would definitely need therapy. He would have me back in in a few weeks. He said if I needed anything I could call him and he would try to help me. He went to hand me his card - my husband reached for it and he said - NO , this is for her.

Then he turned to my husband and spoke softly - it was like his whole demeanor changed - he asked if h thought he'd been too harsh, told him to think about what he'd said. It was such a differnt tone than the rest of the session.

Now throughout this I kept looking over at my h, who just kept looking shocked. He said afterwards that this was not what this guy had ever been like before - that he had always had that soft, nurturing, tone from the very end ofthe session. My husband is just utterly confused and somewhat ticked - we were theorizing on the way home - maybe he was trying to get us to fight against what he said in an effort to bring us together.

I don't know, I am pretty disappointed. I feel like this guy is looking for proof that h doesn't love me. I thought we were going there for marriage counseling, but it felt more like him giving me some big warnings about h. And I am sorry, I just don't believe what he was saying. Obviously my h faked me out big time on the p issue, but other than that he has been a kind, loving man. I am so confused.

So I am posting to see what everyone thinks. I feel like we are doing so well and that the therapist is trying to show me reality that isn't really reality, KWIM? Ugh. I was hoping for help that would pull us together.

Well, actually it is pulling us together - we have decided we'll try this for another month or so and make sure that it is inline with RN - then make a decision. So maybe this guys words are backfiring. Instead of staying away I feel more determined than ever to see h through this.

[saddkatt]

Whoa. That whole thing sounds rather extreme. I got kind of confused reading it, actually. Maybe the point was that your H feels kind of like an outsider in lots of situations? That's pretty common. And not having proper role models at a young age, maybe he has to guess at what "normal" and "typical" is in life. But it does sound like the therapist was drawing some very harsh and extreme conclusions.

In terms of therapy, it's perhaps a wise plan for each person to have his/her own therapist, and then a neutral third one for marriage counseling. Is this guy trained in handling PA & SA issues?

[milla]

I don't think the therapist was trying to bring you two back together by doing that. I'm sure he would have outlined that in his initial therapy plan if he had that in mind. I think he was simply trying to convey to you that your h has sociopathic traits or may be sociopathic and doing so in front of your h so that there would be no misunderstanding of what the therapist had told you.

The therapist wanted to let you know what your options are and give you something to think about perhaps let you know how serious he felt the situation was.

[zerotolerance]

It sounds like he has pegged your h as the typical SA imo.

The old ZT, and the NEW ZT don't resemble each other whatsoever from the me before and the me after. I don't really have qualities of both, but rather I'm entirely NEW, so I can sort of relate to that part. When we've never operated as an integrated self, we were never really completely present like we become when we're fully functional with our parts operating in harmony. I look the same, and in some ways I act the same, but I am SOOO NOT THE same whatsoever. I think he just wants you to look for anymore potential blind spots. P-ng doesn't stay in the p box, it permeates EVERYTHING else too, and maybe he's suggestion you consider that in your situation. He speaks softly to your h, to soothe him, to keep him calmer, etc.... He's trying to gain his trust, and his cooperation, without being confrontational per se maybe. When we are damaged in these shallow ways we don't really have the capacity to love fully. I'm sure your h loves you to the best of his ability, however that doesn't necc mean that what he calls love rises to the level of what most of us know as love. We tend to project/imagine and thus assume, that how we love them is how they love us, which may or may not acutally be true. It depends on multiple factors that vary from couple to couple, and only you two can name what is in it for you individually, and then compare. Often they/users just repeat what we say, and/or what they hear from others, and maybe the therapist has noticed your h doing that. They let us assume whatever we want to imagine rather than being honest, or sincere, often because they don't even know how to be sincere.

One factor you can't be 100% sure of is that you h told you everything. Maybe he did, but maybe he didn't. Only he knows, and sometimes they don't even know, because they don't ever think that deeply about it. And sometimes their perception of FULL disclosure is distorted, where he might think he did, and you might think he did, yet there maybe more you don't actually know yet nonetheless.

The therapist seems to be discribing very similar conclusions as I've reached about my h. So I can relate to what he means better, maybe. I dunno. Every two people, and every two situations are different though, with variations of effectedness among the factors. Maybe your h isn't as full gone as the therapist suggests yet, but that is where they end up if they don't get out of the p nonetheless. The problem is you don't know what you don't know. That's the rub for all of us. And we don't know if your h has told the therapist things you don't know yet which could be inserting other elements of concern into his assessment. But he can't tell you that. He has an outsiders perspective, whereas you and your h are right in the middle of it. That doesn't make him right, but I think he's just trying to point you both in the right direction of self discovery, and in really getting to know each other better, or to be able to approach the situation without blinders on, or to eliminate any potential blind spots he might see, etc....

[emptyanddestroyed]

Hi there.

I'm sorry that you had such a bad experience. I don't want to make you more nervous, but this still sounds a lot like my situation. I thought that we were on the road to recovery and that my h was doing everything right, but there were still things that he was keeping from me to "protect" me. It wasn't until I went to my OWN sa/pa therapist (whose h is an sa himself) that I found out what I think is everything. I came home and told my h that we would be having a formal disclosure and there would be a polygraph. That's when the s*** hit the fan. I guess formal disclosure occured then, in a way. Some things my imagination ran with (which occurred in my posts) and others were just plain bad. I was so shocked and had to leave. I left obviously and the REAL changes have started happening since. I don't mean that your h hasn't told you everything, just what my experience has been.

My h still thought that somehow he could fix himself without the entire truth coming out, and I honestly don't think that he remembered everything he has ever done because he was in that much denial. He is still remembering random things that he did that he now realizes were a part of his addiction or reasons for it. He still couldn't see the complete truth. He'll be taking a polygraph and a plesymograph (I think that I spelled that totally incorectly - it is a horrible test that measures your arrousal template) soon so that we'll know most, if not all, of the whole truth. He's going to an SA meeting everyday, has a sponsor, seeing an sa therapist, being more honest with himself, and will start group therapy soon. It all sucks though (for me).

I think that the therapist maybe should have seen you on your own or explained things differently. I have found with the now seven different therapists that my h and I have seen between us that each has a different way of explaining things and a slightly different view of the past and future regarding my h. In a way, my h didn't believe in marriage - or he had a vastly different view of what his "fantasy" marriage would be. Reality has since slapped him in the face, but he needed to be honest with himself in order to change, in order to truly get rid of his "monster" side and keep and expand the good side of himself. He also needed to understand what he was thinking in order to see how unreal and how actually unfulfilling it would have been.

I also don't think that my h ever truly knew what "love" was - for a variety of reasons. I think that he is learning now. He still has a ways to go. Whatever love he is capable of, he does have for me, but I need more than that and deserve more than that. Yes, my h has always loved me, but in the way of an addict, not a healthy man.

I doubt that I'll go back to my h (although I have a snippet of hope depending on the testing results), but at least he is being honest with me. After the first disclosure, he said that he wasn't having images, but he was - "flashes" is what he calls them now. He wanted me to be hopeful before for his recovery, so even though he was fighting them, he still wasn't being honest with me. To me, that leads a path right back to relapse. He lied to me a few nights ago - told me that he didn't have any flashes of his therapist during their session, but that he could feel them coming and didn't let them in. At 3am, I got a phone call from him. He couldn't sleep, was shaking, and was crying because he had lied to me and had had a flash of her body. He also called his sponsor and the therapist to tell her and to apologize. His therapist called him today and told him that this happens and how they need to address it. The good part of this is that he if finally having guilt/anxiety/general really bad feelings over lying. To me, it's a step.

Sorry for rambling. I'm tired, lonely, and pregnant. I have so much hope for you and I hope that I haven't brought you down, but given you things to think about. I wish you the best of luck on this crappy road we have to travel.

[completelydone]

iambetrayed,

I actually believe that your therapist is right. He was actually giving you BOTH good news, and I encourage you to hang in there a couple more times with this guy because I think he gets this and in time will help you both.

A good therapist can see both sides, for one, and it sounds like he is seeing both sides with both of you. He understands your husband's life of pain, and he is empathetic with the pain your husband has caused you. I've read many threads by SO's where they were hurt and livid because the therapist they saw with their husband's didn't have ANY empathy for them, but blamed it all on the PA's being "visual men".

Re-read what ZT, said too, that was good.

This IS good news. This therapist is confident he can help you both. This isn't about sex, but in your husband's mind (right now) he probably thinks it is. You see most PA's think they need more sex, more excitement, more women........ that they have some sort of special, cursed sexual "needs" as men that women don't have. So, I think what is confusing you is your therapist is trying to relate to both of your separate "realities" at once, while trying to lead you both to what reality really is. When your husband recovers he WILL be a totally different, improved, better man then he has ever been. When you recover you will be a stronger, more secure and sure woman than you have ever been; or at least that is the goal and possibility.

My husband also didn't know love. So, does your husband love you? Yes, he does, but I think he doesn't love you on the level of what you THINK he does because he doesn't know love. He may know the feeling, but he doesn't know the actions, expressions, etc. Or, if I'm reading into what your therapist said correctly, he doesn't feel it on a deep level and has to try to force it all to be there. He knows he SHOULD feel a certain way about life, love, people, but he doesn't feel like a real person because he wasn't nurtured in love growing up. He felt like an object that was unlovable instead of a human being that was loved. (Or at least I think that is what the therapist thinks). Which is entirely possible. A person that grows up without love has many issues to deal with so they can heal, be healthy emotionally, relationally, and socially. So, really he wasn't beating up your husband, he was being honest about where your husband is right now, and that there are reasons behind it that need healed.

There are roots underneath the tree of addiction. You have to deal with those or the addiction will never be healed. He might quit the porn but turn to another addiction, but without healing in ones heart, without rooting out those primary causes of addiction, the addiction will not heal.

My husband did not heal from PA by willing it, he healed from it by willing it AND healing it; dealing with those things that made him go there to start with. Your husband's therapist has already found those roots and is trying to help you both. So, don't blow him off too quickly.

Yes, your husband loves you to the extent that he can love right now; which isn't much, that's why he used porn instead of being emotionally intimate with you. But for HIM it's a lot. But, if he heals and grows, his love for you will grow, your emotional intimacy together will grow. I think THAT is what your therapist is trying to say to you. Your husband's "love bank" is damaged, immature, because he hasn't had it, or even a good example to grow from. Did he quit to keep you? Yes, he did. But here's the good news, he chose you over porn; and in time if you both continue to heal, he will learn unselfish love, instead of his selfish love. Do you understand what I'm trying to say to you? There's not a short coming in you. There's a love problem in general for your husband. I'm sure that in his world of love, he loves you, but his world of love is upside down and backward right now. He isn't capable at this point to truly, completely, unselfishly love anyone because of his childhood. But, he does love you on the level that he has. He probably loves you more than any other person he's ever had in his life; otherwise he wouldn't be trying to fix this. Do you see what I mean? I think that's what the therapist is trying to tell you too.

Take care,
CD

[beginagain]

A lot of what you and ZT has written has hit home with me today.


Quote:
I'm sure your h loves you to the best of his ability, however that doesn't necc mean that what he calls love rises to the level of what most of us know as love. We tend to project/imagine and thus assume, that how we love them is how they love us, which may or may not actually be true.


This was true for my H and I too. I assumed he was intimate/loving/present in the same way I was. He was there, but not in an intimate/loving/present way. I've said to him "I thought I signed up for a marriage of 2 people taking care of each other". He didn't see it that way though. I think he thought we were 2 people taking care of ourselves. And he is so different now, but I'm still concerned his focus is on "doing it right", not being present and loving, which is what is required by intimacy.

What the therapist said about your SO "acting" human also resonates with me. I think my H spent so much time growing up "trying to do it right", it wasn't his true self responding. And this carried over to our relationship. He's very list focused: just tell me what to do, and I'll do it. He can play the part, but it's not his real self. I love his parents, but they were all wrong for my H. His nature/temperament was not able to thrive in that home. And that's where he learned how to relate. I'm not surprised by his troubles in this area, now that I can see it. But it is still hard to deal with it. I do believe my H is trying to make our relationship work on an intimate level now.

I'm thinking this therapist has some valuable points. We are 1 year + past D-Day, and I do believe he is P/MB free that long, and I continue to be surprised by what comes down the pike. Most surprising of course, are MY issues that are affecting our relationship negatively. And damn, those are hard. And that just gives me more compassion for his issues.

I wish you well.

Begin Again

[iambetrayed]

I have to apologize - this is a very, very. long post - self therapy. If anyone reads all the way through, thanks in advance!

I have spent an awful lot of time this past two days searching my soul about this. I have looked so far back in time to the beginning - gone over my life year by year and stage by stage. Looked at my husband's face in my memory. Tried to see the points the therapist was trying to make, read and reread your posts looking for truth.

And ultimately, after all of that, I think that there is a good chance that I am going to have to change my name to :

iamindenial.

Just kidding

But here's the thing. I still maintain that this guy is just taking all of this a few steps too far. While I can certainly see what he is saying, I think that he is seeing it as more serious - or maybe I mean more severe - than it actually is.

First of all, thinking way back to when I was 16 and we were first together, I realized that my husband was the one to initiate what would eventually become the basis of our relationship. Lots of affection. Sweet words. Looking in my eyes. Writing me heartfelt letters. Talking for hours. Now sure, this was a teenagers interpretation of love. But he was the one who started it. He wasn't mirroring me back then, thats for sure. We always laugh about the first time he told me he loved me, it was very new in our relationship. We were taking a walk and he was just staring at me. Finally he stopped, climbed up on this little pile of dirt, took my hand and so sweetly he said - I love you. To which I promptly replied, No you don't. It was too soon for me. He always says he was so upset when I said that. But looking back, there was definitely not mirroring going on back then.

And yes, he already had his problem. He's had it since childhood. He started mb'ing at 8 or 9. He was looking at porn when he was 5. It is very deep seated. And yes, I knew about the early porn exposure a long, long time ago. Because - well, he had told me. He told me lots of stuff. We were intimate. He told me deep secrets from the very beginning of our relationship. Unfortunately I just had no idea what to do with that information - back then I had never even heard of sa. I had no idea what that early exposure would do to him.

But he definitely shared his deepest thoughts with me back then. And he did for many, many years about many, many things. Initially after we were married and he first slipped back into porn briefly he told me about that, too (if only I knew then what I knew now - oh, how we could have been spared). Then he stayed away from it for a couple of years. And yes, he began to keep secrets at that point. I thought he had completely given it up, but that wasn't true. Very hard for me to face, but I need to see the truth.

But after going over and over this in my head, I see that the secrets were only about the porn. He was still open about most other things. No, I had no idea that he was using this as a coping mechanism. But I did know other stuff. Lots and lots of other stuff. Because he told me. Because he still talked to me and told me most of what was going on in his head and heart. He hid the porn from me and from himself. He knew he was doing it, but he would go into denial right after finishing with it - move away from it, ignore it. Until the urge hit again. Then the process would start again. For him is was all about the compulsive mb. The p was a vehicle to the mb. He wasn't watching for hours - he was watching just as long as it took to do the deed. Then he would stuff the shame and move on. According to him, everything was a vehicle to the mb.

Now - I know that that is not normal behavior. I know that he has a problem - a complusion, an addiction, whatever. I know that he has not been thinking like an adult. I know that he was being unfair to me, and it hurts me that he didn't see that.

But when you consider love - that is an entirely different story. My husband made it different. He was the King of the compartmentalizers. He kept his feelings for me and his feelings about porn completely separate. You know, we never did have sex until we were married - I was 21. But we were sexual back then - we did get close, touch, etc. And even back then he was sweet - it was not pornified. It was about me. I know it in my heart. He always looked in my eyes, told me he loved me. And it was always that way - even through all of these years. He told me when I first found out about this that it was like our sex life was good and pure to him - it made him feel whole and loving - and the porn was dark and disgusting and hateful.

I asked him last night for some details about the two girls that he had had sex with before I came along. I have to say, his descriptions of what went on make me feel sick - and sad for their teenaged hearts. It was quick and selfish on my husbands part. He feels really bad about it now. It was nothing like with me. I asked him - Did you caress them? No. Touch their face, look into their eyes? No. Were you worried about if they were satisfied? No. Was it sweet - were you sweet? No. Then why would you have been that way with me, even back then? Because I loved you - I cared about you.

Sorry, Mr. Therapist . You are wrong.

(Hey anyone know how I can change my user name? )

Heres my point. I could never have done , to my husband, what he did to me. Thats true. He wasn't putting me first in this one aspect of his life. And at first I felt like that was proof that he never loved me. But it isn't. Because he had this stuff so buried that he wasn't even seeing it as hurtful to me. Is that normal? No. But then neither is being sexual when you are 9 years old. My husband was selfish, he was immature. He has a problem.

But the minute - I mean the minute - that this came to the surface he stopped p/mb. Why? Because he was forced to see my reaction. He saw my tears and my sobs and my despair and he realized that it was about me. It was about my life. He realized what he had done - not just to me, but also to himself. And he has spent the past 11 weeks apologizing, soul-searching, studying, realizing, crying, seeking help and changing. Now I know that we are just starting the battle. But he is determined.

He is no martian. And he definitely loves me.

What is love anyway? If you spend 20+ years of your life feeling like you really love someone (as he says that he has) and that someone spends 20+ years of their life feeling deeply loved by you (as I honestly have felt) - then who can say that that isn't really love?

I would be different to me if he had been distant, unkind, uncaring. But he wasn't. He was a wonderful listener, we had fun, we laughed and cried together, we were affectionate. It was all real. It was coming from him. I know it was.

Recovery Nation says that it is possible that an sa's good moments with a spouse can be just as real to them as they are to us. And his were. I am sure of it.

Did he take some cues from me? I am sure that he did. He tells me that he always felt that I was so good, and yes he wanted to be like me. But I took cues from him, too. I loved the affection he showed me. He was always smart and I wanted to be, too. I tried listening to radio shows that he listened to and browsed through the books that he read. I tried to capture his optimism and make it my own. I mirrored him, too. Isn't a relationship about give and take?

And if I am brutally, brutally honest with myself, I can see that this past 9 months we had been losing ourselves just a bit. We weren't as close as we had always been. We weren't talking as much. Sex was less frequent. I didn't feel like I was able to reach him as well as I always had. He was less patient, had some anger and despair that I hadn't seen before. I was in denial , but I see it now. And I now know that that was when the p had escalated. I know that for the first time in his life he was feeling like it controlled him.

I can see where that might have headed. I can see where we might have ended up. His personality might have changed, his love might have been corroded. But I truly believe that we weren't quite there yet. I feel like I found out just in the nick of time. Thank you, God.

One strange thing that the therapist said and I forgot to mention is this. I told him how my husband had come clean when I found out about multiple youtube accounts. But he didn't just come clean about that - he realized that I knew that this had been going on for more time than he had indicated and he said - OK, I'll tell you everything. That night he told me almost all of it. Things that I would have had no way of knowing - things from years ago. Things that he didn't have to tell me. The therapist did act like that was surprising to him - he said that usually these guys will just lie and lie even when confronted. He told me to ask on the board what it means when they tell the truth like that - he said something like, see, it meant he didn't have to change. But to me that is exactly the opposite of what it meant. It meant that he did have to change. I feel like he was crying out for help. Several days later he read the honesty lesson on RN and came to my and confessed the last details. Why would a person do that? The therapist seemed to think it was some selfish ulterior motive. Everything that I have read says that full disclosure is the key to beginning true recovery. I'm sorry, I just don't get what this guy was tryingto say.

Oh, and he did mention that there had been no actual people involved , so I know that my husband hasn't told him anything more than he told me. Also - I did tell my husband a couple of weeks ago that it was recommended on my board that guys who were in recovery take a polygraph test and that I had found a place for him to take one ( I really didn't , I was just looking for his reaction - and he wouldn't have known this, I have never been one to deceive him, of course I never felt desperation before). He was very serious - said he would be thrilled to take it so that I could stop worrying that there was more/worse stuff that I didn't know yet. He asked when the appointment was. So I do really believe that I have the whole truth now.

Anyway, I know that we all have to come to our own conclusions, and that is what I am doing. I think that this therapist is tacking things onto my husband that are not his true reality.

My husband does know how to love, and it comes from him.

I asked him one day early on in this process - do you think we have had a good marriage? He looked at me and said - yes, yes, we have had a wonderful marriage. To which I replied, can you imagine how great it could be with all of this cr*p out of the way? He cried when I said that, sobbed. I know that he felt what I was saying.

And now - now that is how I am thinking. It was good. Our relationship was good. Very, very good. We loved each other all along. And how great is it going to be when I have all of him? Yes, I guess that will be a more pure love from him. I see signs of it already. But that does not invalidate what we have both been feeling all of these years.

Ah, soul searching. You know, I heard this song by Garth Brooks and it is how I feel. I'll post the link below. The truth is, even if I knew back at the beginning what would eventually happen - even if I knew the pain that I would endure, I would still choose him. It was worth it to me to have had him. To have felt what I have felt in my life. Even if we had completely ended on that terrible d-day I wouldn't have given up what we had had prior to that.

We are actually sticking with the therapist for awhile. Husband is going solo for a coupld of sessions, then we will do another joint session. I sort of want to see if we can find someone who deals more exclusively with sa. But we both feel that this guy has helped my husband to get to the bottom of some important feelings, so we are going to give him more of a chance. And I will probably start solo counseling (with a female counselor) after the holidays.

So I guess if therapy is supposed to help you, it is working. That one session sent me into a lot of self reflection. And I know what I think.

I have a lot of hope. I believe in the love that he has shown me. I believe that we have always had intimacy. Obviously it was not perfect love or intimacy - but it was pretty good. And ,wow, how amazing it will be when it gets even better! I have faith in my husband when he says that he want this to be gone from his life. I have faith that he will do what it takes. I have faith that he loves me - that he always has, that he does know how to love. And I love him. I want to help him through this. He wanted to keep me - well, frankly, I want to keep him, too.

And if I am being stupid - Oh, well. Only time will tell.

Now, where do I go to change my name?

Garth Brooks - The Dance
www.youtube.com/watch?v=miKZ0ncoeLw

[zerotolerance]

humm, well, okay then! lol! I read all the the way through it. And it sounds like you tried to make a pretty thorough assessment for now. That's all we can ever really do anyway, and it's something we need to constantly, or periodically, be doing all along.

One thing that kinda of stants out for me as being different about your story than some of ours is that you don't seem to have as many of all those little things that didn't feel right, that you couldn't quite put your finger on. We may not see em at the time, but we FEEL some quirk about it, and then in hindsight as we get more of the puzzle pieces it all starts to come together. And that's when we start to come out of denial too. ;-). Just try to stay open to seeing anything else that might be hidden. Pray on it, keep it active in the back of your mind, just in case. Ask to know the answers, and ask for the right questions to ask so that you can get any answers you need to know.

Also, I think I can see how it would be possible for a person to compartmentalize at that young age, and perhaps still develop emotionally in the YOU compartment, per se. Like, one the one hand stunted, but not halted, and on the other hand, perhaps as developed to whatever degree is possible, under the circumstances. He could have learned about both p, and love. Why not? A lot of these guys don't have early loving relationships, (because they are p-ng so much). And I think that's a factor. We have to learn love, just like everything else. And when they never really know love, and then we meet them when they are older, they are more confused about love vs lust. They lust in ways they never did before, with maybe a few heartstrings involved, and imo, sometimes they thinks that's love, when it's more like supersized lust, or maybe we should call it objectified loved. Yeah that sounds good. Maybe you got in there before ALL women were objectified. I definately think it makes a difference when a real relationship gets in there early.

However, I don't care how much a person knows about love, if they continue to use, they can loose every bit of it. The compartments merge, and distort, and morph, and they keep wigging out, or multiplying, or something. It's too hard to describe in words. Anyone that would be one question on my mind, is how much has he really used over the years. I don't totally buy the "just for quick arousal", then he mb'd quickly version. That sounds "minimizing to me", perhaps for your benefit, or perhaps his own denial. When they compartmentalize things don't cross over in the right way they should and that's damaging in all areas of their being in and of itself imo. This happens in ways we can't really imagine when we try to think things through sometimes, so we overlook them in naivity, or denial, or ignorance, or whatever. IWe can't see what we don't know from perspectives we don't have per se. It's soo hard to describe.

Basically it sounds to me like the therapist is describing FULL BLOWN NARCISSISM. Something along the lines of narcississtic personality disorder (npd), on up to, anti-social personality disorder (aspd). And it would be a very accurate assessment if he were talking about my h imo, because that's exactly where I think my h falls on the personality scale. But the way I came to get it in the right perspective was that I started having symptoms in myself. There are times where I think I might have been on the verge of developing "adult onset" npd. It's an effect of emotional abuse. Basically their thinking is upside, inside out, and backwards. Which means one's perspective is more from the outside in, rather than the healthy perspective on inside out. It causes a person to percieve everything as being dependent on outside sources, and directed at them personally, in a bizarre twisted way. It cause an inability to discern "intent" properly, and does it in a way that eliminates self reflection and self awareness. One's true self is buried on the inside, dismissed and stuck in a compartment, rarely used. And instead a fake or false self emerges and usually runs the dog and pony show, rather than the responible being that should be in charge. As women, we get our own versions, for ex, extreme "people pleasing" where we view ourselves as only having value if we're pleasing others, rather than by living our own lives with love and good character. Borderline Personality disorder, and co-dependency are other common names they call this type phenom in women imo. We can all have problems with our perspective, and never realize we have problem. We all have filters, and/or lenses, from which we see the world. They can cloud our vision of REAL REALITY. It's like mirrors in our minds. And when we are affected in a pd way, it's kind of like being in the funhouse of mirrors, at the fair. We see ourselves and others in a distorted way, and distorted in different ways, depending on which mirror/lense we are looking through, instead of at. I had to practically develop it in myself before I could see what my h's view might actually look like from his perspective. What it caused me to do was to take things WAAAAAAYYYY to personally, and from a rather paranoid perspective. In this paranoia, I needed to control the people and things around me, in a way not phathomable to my normal self, a noneffected mind, with an healthy inside out view. I didn't go full blown, I just got a taste of it. I had the symptoms in matters regarding my h, for some time, but I didn't realize what they were until it started spilling out into my other relationships. It's one thing to think a KNOWN passive agressive person is doing stuff to mess with you, when that's their MO ALL the time, but when I started having a similar perspective based on things the kids did, for ex, I knew that messed up. It was like I was taking kid pranks, and EVERYTHING too personally, and then either falling in puddle of tears about it, or extreme anger and raging uncontrollably sometimes. If they did something wrong, rather than thinking or feeling, about it in the right way, of they are just dumb kids, being stupid, because that's what kids do, and it's not about me in the "inside out" view, it was more like they did that specifically to hurt me, or EVERYTHING was directed AT ME specifically, ALL the time, in this distored "outside-in" view way, common among SAs, and pders. My ability to "discern reality" was altered, changing my entire perspective about everything. It was like being on another planet for me, or landing in oz, but I really think my h has lived this way forever, or for so long, he doesn't know it's wrong, or he never learned right. What this does to a person is make us hyperviligent in trying to control others, rather than lookng within where the problem really lies.

In it's FULL blown state, like I witness in my h, he has no sense of reality. He just plays different movies and different scripts from his various compartments at different times, never accessing his TRUE self which is suppressed and buried, and in his mind totally unimportant, or nonexistent, or bad and to be avoided because there are painful emotions there that he doesn't acknowledge or doesn't want to face. In his mind he is merely an actor in whatever movie is playing, and not a free thinking, free willing, participant who decides his life. When he's with his parents, he "acts" like the "good son". When I used to be with him in maritial ways, when we would be around others then he would "act" like the "good husband". Etc.... It's not deep, words aren't associated with there "whole" meanings but rather only in a superficial way. In his mind he is only good when he can "convince" others that he is something other than what he is, because he is nothing otherwise, because he, (his soul, his real self and his proper inside out view self,), is in a compartment somewhere not being used, or it is ripped full of holes making it unfunctional. He is merely an "actor" who measure everything by how well he plays his "role". And he assigns imginary "roles" to others to support this "on stage" mentality. He doesn't tell us we are in a play, the "play" of him "playing at life", but rather he goes around in a passive agressive fashion trying to manipulate everyones "performance" because he views us as extensions of him, and not as seperate beings without him. It's soo hard to describe. I'm only offering it, so you can try to see what I think the therapist thinks he might see in your h. The extent of effectedness varies from individual to individual, and there are many other factors besides these, that also have to be considered. PD's and dysfunction in general, are not "one size fits all". EVERY single person is different, thus so is every single case, or every single combo. The key is finding out what elements are in it for us. You have to look at your elements AND his. You have to continously be turning your mirrors so as to ensure you view is of reality, and not a funhouse mirror view instead. And HE has do learn to do that do.

So with ALL that said, I would suggest that you read up on NPD, and see if you see any elements that might provide you more perspective between your current view, and what the therapist said. I would think you'd be seeing signs of this more than you've described if you husband is affected in these ways. When I finally read all the pd stuff, I just sat here and cried because I knew they were describing my h. And when I read about emotional abuse, and PTSD, I knew they were describing me. If you can't relate whatsoever to any of those descriptions or disorders, or symptoms when looking at you or your h, then you are most likely not in a relationship with these elements, or not many of them, or less than the therapist suggests. Which would be a GREAT thing !

As far as grand gestures of disclosures go, would we be remiss not to say, we've almost all seen them, and we've all believed them, at the time, only to discover later they weren't that grand, nor were they anywhere near full disclosures. With my h, he's carefully to only tell me things HE KNOWS, I already know. Or he only adds just a tiny portion of new information, rather than the whole truth. His mirrors are distorted and in order to maintain that view he tries to distort my mirrors too. It's not all concious. He doesn't set about it in the way I'm describing it here. To me, and others, he appears well put together. He fakes functioning very well, and he has others fooled. But he can't keep it up 24/7, 365, and being that I live with him, I can he is ALL fake now, always acting, or otherwise just hanging out in his cave p-ng, pretending that he is the stud man of the universe too.

My h has shed a lot of crocodile tears too, seeming quite ginuene to the observer, but not from the right perspective imo. One exception is with the kids. He's still fake around them some, but I have seen moments of something more real sometimes too. Like, when we left the youngest at college my h cried. But even then his tears were somewhat shallow imo. There was a trace of awareness and concern about leaving the kid, but there was also a lot of selfishness in it. It's hard for me to tell how much was kid, and how much was my h's fear of abandonment for ex. It was almost like when a toddler realizes he's not attached to his mom, my h realized that our kid was not an attached part of himself per se. And he also realized that the day was upon us that I'd been planning for years, ie we were closer to divorce. I told him years ago, "don't expect to wait until the kids are seniors in HS or in college, and then decide you want to work on it, because that won't work." I said, "we work on fixing it now, or never". He ignored me, but he heard me. He kept procrastinating, and engaging in magical thinking about the outcome of his ignorance of my concerns, but the day is nearer now and it's harder for him to remain in denial. But rather than look within in, rather than heal his soul holes, he's still blaming out. He's perfect because he pretends to be, and I am an errant object who is defective because I dont' play "my role" according to "his" scripts anymore.
I can see right through him now, so I see the fake. I see the me,me,me, mentality where in his perspective, the whole world exists to revolve around him, and we are mere appliances for the most part. It's hard to see, because we can't even imagine it until we see it, and know it from a new perspective we never had before.

I don't know how accurate you view is, it may be 100% right, or it may not. Probably some of it is right, and some of it's not imo. Some of your view of him is probably right, and some wrong (or just not yet known), as well as some of your view of you, and also how it all works together creating various dynamics among us. Just keep pondering and learning, and reflecting on all of it, and if there is more you need to see it will be revealed to you in time. We tend to learn things that change everything though, but it's really a good thing when we get back in real reality and learn how to stay here. Maybe you are here too, I dunno know. But finding out, and honing our perspectives, is what recovery is all about. No rose colored, nor any other colored glasses belong. We recognize reality when we see it, because it shines in bright vivid living color and blessed clarity, beyond any doubt. It's not always pretty, but it is always crystal clear. It is for me anyway.

[iambetrayed]

Wow, ZT! I can't thank you enough for that post. I read it through three rimes to make sure I understood what you were saying. You are one smart chick

I think you have the therapist pegged right. I had no earthly idea what he was tring to get at, but I think you figured it out. I spent last night reading about personality disorders - npd, dpd, bpd ... I had no idea that all of this existed. I analyzed. I took quizzes titled : Are you living with a narcissist? I added scores and then went back to make sure that I was being objective and re-took the quizzes and added the scores again. I read a lot. Lists and lists of characteristics and symptoms.

And I have to say, honestly, that I don't think it is there. Sure, a few things would hit home. I'd say to myself - oh, maybe its this type - I'd find an item or two on the list that could be attributed to my h - only to get to the bottom to see that you would need five items to be considered and ten to be diagnosed with, whatever particular problem this was.

So then I went back and ready everything about pa again. I went to different sites - ones I had never been to before. I read lists there - bing!bing!bing! - his denial, lies, a/o. All pa. Somehow he had avoided the parts where he wasn't supposed to talk to me. Was supposed to a/o sexually with me. Wasn't supposed to show empathy. He is very empathetic - to me, to our kids (if they get a bump, they will run to daddy as fast as to me - they know they will get the same warm snuggle and sympathetic ear). He is empathetic to my family - will run at the drop of a hat to help someone. Even to people on the street .

But here is the thing - he was using co-workers and even my cousins as mb fodder without even a thought to them. When I found out about this I was horrified. Where was the empathy that I usually see? I told him how I felt like it is wrong to use a person sexually without their consent - even if it is just in your mind. He had NO RIGHT to think about people in this way. I asked how he would have felt if he knew that someone was thinking about me or our kids (when they are older) that way. I talked about how these people's husbands would have felt if they knew what he had done. Somehow, my empathetic husband had seen none of this. I don't get it. One night when we were talking about it he got physically sick to his stomach. I had asked him at one point - after you had done this, did you feel strange around these people? He didn't. Didn't give it another thought. But I almost feel bad for him now - because he is very uncomfortable around the people that he used in this way. Well, I guess I don't feel bad for him, really. He should be uncomfortable around them.

Anyway, my point is that I think that all of his problems at least stem from pa. So my question is - does every pa guy here have a diagnosable personality disorder? It doesn't seem like it - unless they want to come up with a new one. Porn Personality Disorder ( what the ladies here like to call p-headedness) I am not sure that this therapist has enough training in pa to see this clearly. I know he has a lot of training with psychotherapy. It is sticking in my mind that my husband came home from probably the second session and said something like - he just keeps trying to talk about my parents and my childhood. What I want is strategies on how to get past this. Now I know that examining one's parents/childhood can be an important part of therapy - but should it be the only part? It seems to me that the early p exposure and the possibility of sexual abuse should at least come into some, shouldn't it?

In it's FULL blown state, like I witness in my h, he has no sense of reality. He just plays different movies and different scripts from his various compartments at different times, never accessing his TRUE self which is suppressed and buried, and in his mind totally unimportant, or nonexistent, or bad and to be avoided because there are painful emotions

See, I am not saying that my husband doesn't have insecurities, and he certainly compartmentalized the p. But from very early on he has told me (these are his words, not mine ) - I am my TRUE self when I am with you. And later on , I am my TRUE self when I am with you and the kids. After all of this came out his take on it was - I want to go to therapy, I want to kill this disgusting part of me that I hate, I want to be my TRUE self all the time - the man who could never do those things.

I think the therapist is seeing it that all of his realities are fake-o selves, that what I see is just one of the fakes. Thus, he wouldn't really love me. At least not the way that I think. he wouldn't really believe in marriage. I see what he is saying.

But wouldn't an intense fake self eventually cause the person stress? Because heres the thing. The times that my husband stopped p-ing in our life were the times when he was with me the most. The first year or so of our marriage - a couple of years after that - when I was pregnant with both kids - when he was laid off and home for several months. Those were the times when he was able to give up p for a number of months or years. He says it was because he was so focused on our life together - so able to be his true self. Other times he has given it up for weeks or months - those were white knuckle times when he was trying to improve himself. But his self-loathing and anxiety would get the best of him and he would cave.

And even on a more simpler note - he is happier and more carefree when we spend time together - the weekends, vacations. I see a change in his comfort level on the weekends - he laughs more, smiles, etc (he really hates his job). He said that the only time he did not think of p last summer was when we went away for a week. We went to the mountains and he did seem so happy there. We spent the entire time together with the kids - when we came home he started talking about wanting to move there. He tells me now that that was because he felt free. Didn't even notice anyone to objectify.

So if what I have seen all these years was "fake" wouldn't it be stressful to maintain it like that? I don't know.

As far as grand gestures of disclosures go, would we be remiss not to say, we've almost all seen them, and we've all believed them, at the time, only to discover later they weren't that grand, nor were they anywhere near full disclosures. With my h, he's carefully to only tell me things HE KNOWS, I already know. Or he only adds just a tiny portion of new information, rather than the whole truth.

This is definitely what I saw at first. I found out about youtube. He told me about that. I found out about myspace. He told me about that. But when I found out that he had multiple youtube accounts, he told me things that I never, ever could have found out about on my own. Things that he did, years ago, in other states where we lived - on business trips - porn mags he had bought years ago. Stuff like that. I ask him why he told me that stuff at that point - he says he just felt so desperate, that maybe if he gave me a little overview of everything that went on it would be enough disclosure to move on. He would feel like he had told me the truth. But it didn't work that way. He had a lot of guilt and anxiety at that time because he was claiming that I knew everything and I really didn't. At one point he kept getting pale and feeling cold and shivery - even though it wasn't cold out. He said he felt like he was in shock. We realize now that it was because he was lying. It is one thing to omit and deceive, another thing to out and out lie. So at that point there were still details left. Terrible ones, too. The next week he got to the RN lesson on "Your Partner" and he wrote out a chronological list of things he had done and gave it to me. Basically what he had told me before, but without the sugar-coating. Then a couple of days later he did the RN lesson on "Honesty". It flat-out tells these guys that they have robbed their wives of their right to make a decision and that even if the relationship ended they owed it to them to tell the complete truth. So he came to me and added the last rotten details to the list. Why? He says that he finally realized what he had done to me and he wanted me to have a chance to be happy - with or without him. So do I have everything? I don't know. I think I might. But I guess you can never really know without a polygraph, right?

However, I don't care how much a person knows about love, if they continue to use, they can loose every bit of it. The compartments merge, and distort, and morph, and they keep wigging out, or multiplying, or something. It's too hard to describe in words.

sadly, I have to agree with you here. And I think that he was heading to a much worse place. He keeps telling me how last summer was bad, how he felt hyper-sexual all of the time, how he felt controlled bythe compulsions. I knew that he was depressed. He had recently turned forty, he is unhappy with his career, he wanted more from his work life, etc. Of course I didn't know how bad it really was. I fear what may have eventually happened if I hadn't found out.

I do know this. I am not really religious, but I used to pray every night - first to Thank God, then please bless my babies, then to please bless my h - lately when I realized he was depressed it was to please help him to feel better and find some peace.

Then he cut and pasted one night and for some reason when I cut and pasted my cut did not "take" and I pasted in the name of a movie he'd watched into what I was doing. He told me he never cut and pasted like that - that he would have been careful, but he must have been really tired that night. He has even toyed with the thought of wanting to be caught. And wht did my cut not work that particular time? I cut and paste all the time. It works probably 19 out of 20 times. So what were the chances? ZT, you talk about prayer so I feel comfortable saying that I think there is a chancethatthe horror I have been enduring was the answer to my prayers about my h. He was heading down a very, very bad path. He was losing control.

Anyone that would be one question on my mind, is how much has he really used over the years. I don't totally buy the "just for quick arousal", then he mb'd quickly version. That sounds "minimizing to me", perhaps for your benefit, or perhaps his own denial.

Maybe. I asked him how long he would be on the computer when I was alseep and he said probably a 1/2 hour - he said he wanted to do it quick - he would surf for something to interest him enough to finish, then spend 10 minutes or so clearingthe computer. Who knows, he may be completely off in his perceptions, after all he wsn't timing himself or anything. I do know that there weren't hours and hours between when I would go to bed and he would show up. But it definitely could have been longer than he thinks. And he had done it at other times w/out p - he says that could be 3 or 4 minutes.

I don't know how accurate you view is, it may be 100% right, or it may not. Probably some of it is right, and some of it's not imo. Some of your view of him is probably right, and some wrong (or just not yet known), as well as some of your view of you, and also how it all works together creating various dynamics among us. Just keep pondering and learning, and reflecting on all of it, and if there is more you need to see it will be revealed to you in time. We tend to learn things that change everything though, but it's really a good thing when we get back in real reality and learn how to stay here. Maybe you are here too, I dunno know. But finding out, and honing our perspectives, is what recovery is all about. No rose colored, nor any other colored glasses belong. We recognize reality when we see it, because it shines in bright vivid living color and blessed clarity, beyond any doubt. It's not always pretty, but it is always crystal clear. It is for me anyway.

Excellent advice, ZT I will continue to question everything, even my own perceptions, as we work through this. I think that the therapist may have thought I wasn't seeing some things right. Of course he only talked to me for an hour, so I don't know that he could really assess that. Who ever thought you'd have to question your own reality so much? I hate porn.