SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Oh boy, this will be a long one.

I found out 2.5 years ago that my husband of 5 years (together for over 10) had been cheating on me for most of our relationship. I inadvertently found evidence and confronted him. At that point he admitted a lot (of course not all of it because I feel like no cheating spouse in the history of time admits everything on the first go). All said and done he had slept with multiple sex workers over the previous 3 years, countless sexual activities with others in that time, and had been sexting/buying videos etc from women for the entirety of our relationship.

A couple of months prior to finding out about the cheating, he confided in me that he had been experiencing a deep dark depression since a few months into our relationship and that it had continued to spiral downwards heavily in the last few years. I was aware at this point of all the times I could have lost him to the darkness forever. But he wore a very good mask through all of those years and I felt dumb for not ever seeing his pain. He had become more secluded and more distant over time but I chalked that up to being introverted and just left him to it.

So when the betrayal came to light he immediately admitted to knowing he had a sex addiction and porn issue and that in all honesty he was doing all these things to "feel alive". The betrayal is heavy and there's no excuse of course, but at least this felt like a reasonable explanation on how we got to that point. I told my therapist early on "the thing that saved his life has destroyed mine".

So I stayed.

Flash forward, we have been good. We spent a lot of time in the depths relearning how to communicate and setting up boundaries. He has tracking and restrictions on what he can do because he has acknowledged multiple times that he doesnt believe he's strong enough to resist temptation of porn. Things feel manageable. The vast majority of time we are happy. He is supportive when I'm upset. Answers questions as openly as he can, hes never been good at the communication but I know he is really putting the effort in. He does play the victim at times and believes I'm attacking him when I'm not but we are working on that too.

Now to my issue. I fear he will never stop wanting more. Like porn, or like other women. He is starting to admit he has resentment to the fact that he has no privacy (he usually also acknowledges that he caused it but his anger or frustration is directed to me). I have asked multiple times what he needs privacy for and he has no answer. We both know it's porn. Recently our usually vibrant and fun sex life has screeched to a halt, seemingly overnight. When asked about it, since he's a sex addict of course, why wouldn't he want it all the time? He said that he doesn't feel the intimacy when he knows I'm watching his every move..

I can't tell if the cold shoulder sexually is him trying to pressure me into changing things. Or if he is really not feeling interested in me. Both of those suck. Because on one hand he is playing with me to get his way. But the other, he needs MORE than what I can offer and it reinforces my fear that I'll never be enough for him.

I'm stuck. Because there has never been a fear that he didn't love me. I see it clearly in a thousand things. But if I'll never be enough... Where do I go from there?

Has anyone with sex addict partners dealt with dry spells from their partner? How did it make you feel? Did it get better?

Even though 98% of our life is absolutely fantastic, I'm just so very tired.

Welcome to SI and sorry that you're here. The Healing Library is at the top of the site and has a wealth of resources. In the ICR (I Can Relate) forum, there are a few threads related to spouses who are married to sex addicts. You may wish to read the posts to see if there are any wisdom nuggets there that apply to your situation.

Are you still in therapy? If not, you may wish to return and work on your self-esteem. You are enough. He's the one with a serious lack. I hope your WH (wayward husband) is in therapy and doing his SA work.

My XWH (wayward ex-husband) wasn't a sex addict, but does have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Not the same, but I recognize this pattern: lack of sex, cold shoulder (silent treatment) are controlling issues and are emotional abuse.

He does play the victim at times and believes I'm attacking him when I'm not

DARVO - Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender

Also a form of abuse. At least, they were in my situation.The actions are intended to control you, and to keep your emotional state unbalanced (which is exhausting).

I didn't have dry spells due to XWH being SA, but I did through his NPD abuse. I ended up D (divorcing) him because he was never going to be a safe partner and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life being treated the way he was treating me.

I don't have any advice regarding the freeze out when SA is involved.

Thank you for the response.

I am still in therapy. And she has been wonderful in helping me work through a lot of stuff. Thankfully, in generally my self esteem is usually quite high and intact.. my mother always said I was blessed with an unwavering confidence in myself (when people told me I was cute as a child I would always say "I know" lol I never lost that!).

My worry isn't that I'm not enough in the general sense or desirable. It's that I'll never be enough FOR HIM specifically.

The cold shoulder act is exhausting. I know it comes from fear of saying the wrong thing, or upsetting me, or his childhood experience of being chronically ignored so why bother speaking up. And we have uncovered that and have been working on changing the way we relate to each other. In general, he's more open than ever before. Because we know his silence caused this. He could have trusted me with his thoughts during his early depression and we wouldn't be here. But just lately, it feels.... Intentional instead of coping. If that makes sense. I fear sometimes that he's pushing me away intentionally so that he doesn't have to be the "bad guy" if I implode and end things.

I do not have a ton of experience here, but my experience of an affair ended up being love addiction for me. And I have had a lot of different things prior to that, which I would call "mini addictions" all really just escapism instead of having real coping skills.

Relapse is part of the process for a lot of people. Especially ones prone to depression. And it’s a terrible cycle, you feel depressed, you self medicate, and it takes you further down into the abyss. When I hit rock bottom, it was evident that I needed to manage my own happiness differently.

I do not feel it’s fair that he asked you to help him be accountable and the resent you for it. When you have to be in an authority or parent role with your spouse it does kill passion. A lot has been documented about parent/child dynamics with your spouse.

So all that being said I wonder if he can get into a recovery program where a sponsor can be acquired? This would allow him to be accountable to an outside party.

And in reality, if he wants to relapse badly enough he will find ways of doing that all on his own regardless who is helping him with his accountability.

I do not know what the odds of his recovery are. I do know I have learned to have healthy outlets of escapism, through hobbies, meditation, etc. for me it was a matter of replacing the sparks of addiction with the sparks of happiness that come from various sources.

My therapist explained that because of growing up in chaos there was a lot of need to keep creating it so I could feel normal. She is the one who told me instead of looking for someone else to light me up I had to learn to light myself up. And that has been indeed the path that has kept me moving in the right direction.

I don’t know if this helps but I think your assessments and concerns seem well founded.

[This message edited by hikingout at 9:56 PM, Friday, June 6th]