SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi everyone, I am posting here for the first time. A few months ago my world was completely shattered when I discovered that my partner of 8 years has been living a secret double life. While he had a history of being unfaithful to previous partners, his behaviours during our relationship had always been (as far as I am aware) contained to online messaging and porn use - until now.
What shattered everything was a massive, highly disturbing escalation that went far beyond anything he had ever done before. Over the course of more than a year,his validation seeking progressed into a deep emotional attachment between the pair of them, which then crossed into intense sexual messaging - sharing graphic fantasies and past experiences for his own gratification and to feed his dopamine addiction. This systematic grooming a much younger person than himself (legal age) known to both of us ultimately resulted in physical acting out, breaking through their digital fantasy into real world behaviour, with her being a willing participant in all of this. All this has lead us to separate while we each work on our recovery and therapy.
During my own specialised coursework, my therapist has talked about 'superficial compliance vs true recovery'. She notes that an addict who presents a flawless facade without emotional vulnerability or acknowledging their internal struggles, is likely just performing compliance. This describes my partner perfectly right now. He is trying to present himself as the "perfect recovering addict" while he relies on his secondary coping mechanism of alcohol to get him through stressful episodes.
He isn't sharing a single genuine struggle; he either pretends they don't exist or is completely avoiding them because he has hidden his true self behind a mask for 25 years. The reality is that the old addictive habits are still fully active. For example, his phone still goes everywhere with him, even to the toilet.
His emotional unavailability is fairly constant. He can appear warm, positive, and connected when I am not asking for anything. But the moment I need something, or try to have a difficult conversation about feelings (either his or mine) he immediately deflects, avoids or shuts down to escape accountability.
I would love to reach out to anyone who has dealt with a partner with CSBD/sex addiction - it doesn't matter if you are still with you spouse or you have chosen to leave. I want to hear from other partners about their experiences in early recovery and beyond.
How did your addicted spouse act during the early "sober but not recovered" phases?
Did this flawless, avoidant facade and lack of empathy eventually alter as they moved deeper into specialised group work?

Thank you for reading and for sharing your journey.

Hi petal.

Unfortunately he never changed, he was a cheat when you met him, he kept being a cheat with you. All red flags were there, you only wanted to believe that he could have a true connection with you and would not abuse and hurt you.

But he did.

There’s one thing, once a heater always a cheater, is not quite true in the sense that a person can’t change (they can, profoundly), but it is true in the sense that you will never be able to force change upon the,.

They can kill the cheater and become the human version of themselves deserving love and trust.

But it must start from within.

Any outside support will always fail unless there is a primal drive coming from the wayward towards growing up and becoming whole.

Staying broken is easier, performing is soothing.

They can feed their validation both through acting in secrecy and by superficial compliance that gets praised or encourage.

But there is not truth unless is coming from within.

Hello, Petalpink. Welcome to the greatest club that no one ever wanted to join. I'm sorry you've had to find us here.

In the "I Can Relate" forum you'll find a dedicated thread entitled: "Spouses/Partners of Sex Addicts." I'm sure you'll find some very useful information, insights and wisdom in this thread.

Recommended reading (from ICR topic thread #18)

1. 
Your Sexually Addicted Spouse: How Partners Can Cope and Heal, by Barbara Steffens and Marsha Means. (An essential read regarding trauma of spouses.)

2. Hope and Freedom For Sexual Addicts and Their Partners, by Milton Magness. (Primer for SA education for both SA and spouse. Great first book.)

3. Stop Sex Addiction, by Milton Magness. (Nice explanation of how the process of recovery ideally works with practical advice)

4. Facing Heartbreak, by Stefanie Carnes and Anthony Rodriguez. This is a workbook for partners of SAs. (workbook)

5. Intimate Treason, Healing the Trauma for Partners Confronting Sex Addiction, by Claudia Black and Cara Tripodi. (workbook)

6. The Betrayal Bond, by Patrick Carnes. (Good good book for anyone in a dysfunctional relationship.)

7. Mending a Shattered Heart: A Guide for Partners of Sex Addicts, by Stefanie Carnes. I consider this the "bible." It has some info that may not be pertinent to your situation but each chapter is stand alone, so to speak.

8. 
Deceived: Facing Sexual Betrayal, Lies and Secrets, by Claudia Black PhD.

9. Intimacy Anorexia, by Douglas Weiss. (Just the book for both SAs and spouses suffering from Intimacy and Sexual Anorexia.)

10. Don't Call It Love: Recovery From Sexual Addiction, by Patrick Carnes.

11. The Storm of Sex Addiction by Connie Lofgreen- a newer book but highly recommended by recent members

12. Sex Addiction by Robert Weiss. Is recommended as a book for clinicians but comes highly recommended by a spouse here.

Howdy Petal, Welcome, sorry you find yourself here, but this is definitely the place to start the healing process.

Secret Double Life? Know it well. Was married for 22 years, and 20 of those were a complete lie. He worked in the entertainment business and was constantly travelling. I trusted. He took. And took. And took some more.

This was back before the internet and cell phones. I was utterly oblivious to the behaviour because he was SUCH a great husband when he came home. House frau, cooked amazing meals, cleaned the house from top to bottom. Much later I realized that was just him scrubbing away his sins.

What I discovered after putting spyware on his computer was horrifying. Legions of steady sex partners, one in every town pretty much. Some quite hideously unattractive. He was extremely charming, and would hit up the flight attendants on the shuttle to the hotel, the hotel desk clerks while checking in, the waitresses, coat check girls, the volunteers who brought ice to the dressing rooms. The siren song of the backstage pass to some pretty big rock shows. His clients were very very famous and that's catnip to a lot of folks.

When we got high speed internet I'd come home from work and he'd be cranky because little did I know I was interrupting his marathon porn sessions. He was so addicted that he lost the ability to get it up for me around 15 years in. He'd come home from the road exhausted and I'd give him space to recover. Actually he was waiting for his STD panels to come back.

He almost died of alcohol poisoning after a bender and got fired from a very good gig. Took him three days to get home from that adventure. Quit boozing and weed and transferred all of that into finding more freaky sex.

He had a 'road wife' overseas. I was so happy when he had a layover there for a couple of weeks because he worked very hard and I thought he deserved a nice vacation. (Stupid stupid me.)

He made me sit down and watch a DVD of her dancing at some dumbass festival. She was not particularly attractive, but was into wiccan culture and had enormous breasts. Just his type.

When he got his first cell phone he called it his leash. (THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A FUCKING CLUE YA THINK?)

Eventually he got sloppy and acquired an in-town side squeeze, a super audacious in-your-face broad who was jealous of the life I thought we had. Found out later she had visited the house we were buying when I was out of town, smudged the place with sweetgrass and tobacco to get rid of the previous owner's divorce vibes, and then gave him a blowjob in the back yard. (Classy!) She eventually put the screws to him and he almost lost his mind when I found out. That included a nasty STD that put me on antibiotics that made me want to just die. All because this asshole liked to bareback the strange and then come straight home to me to give me allll the lurvve.

Everything just fell apart after that. My mom passed and my siblings stabbed me in the back. I divorced the lot of them.

This dude was just an empty vessel really. Shutting down was his go-to when anything serious needed to be dealt with. He was so in the throes that when we took a stab at recovery, he just couldn't stay away from seducing another chick on the next tour after discovery. He just couldn't help himself and didn't really want to get out of it. His heart wasn't in it and he never took any steps to get into therapy because this was where he was most comfortable, and I wasn't about to do the heavy lifting and blaze that trail on his behalf. Fuck that shit.

My advice to anyone in this situation is to just get the hell out. I struggled horribly for 18 months before selling the house and moving on. It took me a good five years to get my feet under me, but after that I never looked back.

The trauma wears off eventually, but I never got into another relationship after that. I decided to just focus on becoming my own best friend because I owed it to myself to make up for those lost years somehow.

I'm nearly 20 years down the road now and semi retired. Live alone and have never been happier. The best part is I don't have to look after a grumpy old geezer who had to have two very painful knee replacements after I booted him out, and his various fuckpals had to put up with him during his recoveries hahaha.

Life is what you make it, and there's a lot of work to do to get to where you feel somewhat sane again. I don't envy anyone going down that road with all this trauma forced upon you. But you'll get there. First you have to leave this guy in your rearview mirror where he belongs. Put. Yourself. First. You're worthy!

Keep posting. We've got your back.

Onward.

FF

[This message edited by FaithFool at 3:31 AM, Tuesday, September 29th]