Sex / Pornography Addiction Support Group

I don't think that the marriage is hopeless...yet. There is a viable chance that if in fact he sticks to his guns...we can at least have somethings...companionship...kind of a friendship....shared resources...our families....something. Where it hit me...was right in the romantic love...sexual intimacy...intimacy part of the marrige. The heart of it I guess. Broke my heart all to hell this time. Never thought it was possible again. Shows to go ya...one can be wrong on that too. I'm hoping that this time....if he does fail...the leaving won't be as hard because I'm not committing much hope to it anyway. Don't want any more surprises or hurts now....been way too much. Gave me a nervous breakdown and it's been 18 months and I think sometimes that living isn't worth the trouble. Then, I remember, that he is not my life, marriage is not my life....life...is my life...and there are other things to enjoy than love and marriage.

I monitor these sights in hopes that someone might inadvertenly say something that would reach down into my heart where the knife is embedded and give me hope that I might someday pull it out. I doubt it...but stranger things have happened. It is the strangest thing to walk around feeling like there's a huge black hole where your heart used to be....it really feels like that. And, like there is nothing at all that you can trust or depend on. Seems like a rollercoaster out of control headed for disaster. I think they call it PTSD....I call it tremendous anxiety. I would very much like to feel like a normal person again...and I don't. Every day is scary to me...I don't know where I've been...and I have no idea where I'm going anymore. My life was centered around my H, our daughter, and our families. Now, none it makes any sense. It's like a weird joke...non-realistic. Sometimes I wonder if I'm having a nightmare...or if life is a nightmare and someday when we die we get to wake up. So, if someone knows something I don't....like how can he even say he loves me or loved me ever....I don't get those words at all. They make no sense to me. I love you...but I don't care if I hurt you....I love you...but this lust is more important...I love you but??????

wow.... I feel ya there. That where I am at with my relationship right now.

Hey SheenRe,

Not to try and defend your husband or what he did to you and the relationship, but it may be that he really does love you, only his definition of love is different than yours. Reading what you're feeling and going through makes me wonder if he isn't in the same place as you seem to be. I know that I was at one time exactly where it sounds like you and he are now.

In my case, I went through some horrendous abuse, abandonment, and neglect as a child. For several months, I was involved in a ritualistic abuse situation where I was kept in a cage and expected to "service" several men every day. This was when I was 4-years-old. And later, once my sexual acting out had begun, my parents couldn't handle me, so they signed me over to the state. This happened on four separate occasions. I, too, suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I, like you, and maybe your husband, shut down completely, on an emotional level. I could not feel, express, or identify an emotion for the life of me. I wonder if that's what's going on with your husband.

Recovering the ability to feel is a very long and involved process, requiring years of therapy. Basically, you need to learn to trust again, and for someone who has been deeply wounded, such as you and I, and perhaps your husband, that is next to impossible. You've been wounded and you'll do anything and everything to keep that from happening again. So you remain shut down and on guard. The trouble is, if you continue to remain shut down, not only can you not be hurt again, but you are also unable to experience happiness, joy, humor, closeness, peace, and love. You shut down the good feelings along with the bad or hurtful ones.

People who are in this situation don't so much live as they survive. Every day is just a repetition of the day before. Nothing much ever changes. There is no excitement or joy in life. When such people are in a relationship, they may say they love the other person, and they may really mean it, but there is no conviction in their words. And honestly, there is little or no feeling behind the words. They may care, but they can't feel. All they can give is what they have, which really isn't that much. Could something like this be going on with your husband? Could he really mean it when he says he loves you (as much as he is capable of meaning it), but be unable to truly feel the love? Could that be what you're picking up on? Just a thought.

I know that many of the addicts I've worked with over the years (all addicts, not just sex addicts) have been in this position. Working through this stuff involves the same techniques and processes that are used to work through the childhood abuse, neglect, and abandonment issues. I guess what I'm saying is that as the addict works a recovery program, their ability to feel slowly returns, and they feel alive again, like they are human again. Could this be what's going on with your husband? Could he be at a point where he really hasn't done that much work with his childhood issues as yet? Something for you to consider and think about.

Charli: Thank for your considerate reply. I can understand why your struggle would have been so hard. I can't even imagine the level of pain and suffering you have indured. I'm very sorry. I would have no one suffer if I had anything to say about it. Seems like there is soooo much of this kind of pain released in the world. I have tried my best to prevent anyone from suffering pain because of my existence on this planet. When you hut bad enough...you don't want anyone else to ever...ever...feel that...or at least I don't.

My H was introduced to porn early...he was not physically molested...just enticed into a lifelong belief system about sex...and women. That is what I believe anyway. These days, these many months...he is much more human than I am. I think he may have truly learned the difference and the cost. I hope so...for his sake...for our daughter's sake. He is a very different man. I'm not sure which shock is greater...the man I didn't know...or the one I don't know now. You see the amount of years involved of my life and the amount of trust and love I had for him...has nearly destroyed me. Has in fact destroyed who I was...and I don't know what's left standing now. In my past, not by my H now, but by a much more sick man, I have been deceived, tormented, raped, and beaten severely many, many times...and that hurt nothing like this hurt because I had truly learned to love someone and trust someone and that was the biggest mistake I've ever made. I can't even describe how I feel most of the time. It seems better to rationalize and handle what I can from an entirely objective, mental view.

I spoke to my psych again today. I told him as best I could what I think...how I feel...what's happening to me inside. He told me that he doesn't believe that any kind of thought process, or stabile logic, or rationale, will help me...because the wound went so deep this time it has nearly severed body from soul. I can believe him. We talk about how I might reduce the pain and the mental instability, the fear and the anxiety by just allowing my body and my mind to dictate the when's and where's and what's without much interference. Maybe he is afraid I'll repress it and make it worse. So, I'll shift with the tides from day to day and find what peace I can.

I feel or think...that my heart got so injured this time that even though my H seems a different man, it's too late, because what entered my heart made it impossible to penetrate. I try...because I do love him...and I can't...it won't let me...it's too afraid and hurt to let anyone in. Darned if ya do...darned if ya don't? But, I know this...I have suffered before...and I have been hurt before...many..many times and I have survived and I have made a pretty good go of it. I just don't know what now...I'm lost...and I'm injured so badly inside that the animal is running and running and running. The thoughts...images...emotions...are tormenting me and making me confused and disoriented....so I don't know where to go...or what to do....just wait...I think.

But, for the record, at best I feel my H may have recovered his life...so if it cost me mine, then I think I'm okay with that. You see...I do truly love him...as anyone can love another. And, I hope that his heart is healed and his mind clear and his path enlightened.

I told my psych that I've heard it said that from great pain we are to learn something. He said maybe so...but he doesn't think so necessarily,,he thinks that we suffer often so that someone else can learn something and so that someone else can be redeemed. We pay the cost for that. And...if that is so...and my H is truly healed and he can be okay now...then I won't regret the cost so much to me. At least, it will have served some purpose...and saved someone....if not me.

I commented on your initiation of this subject matter because I know that one can quit anything they want to...I KNOW they can. What I would hope...is that some see what the cost is truly...and the action for what it really is...and maybe if they knew, they could save their wife or H, and their children, and their families. Because, it isn't as simple as one may think. The cost is not for them...the cost is to us...and it is great...and sometimes it even costs lives. So, don't take me as mean and uncaring...because that has never been so...I am just the one caught in the shrapnel and I know the cost...and I would hate to see any more have to pay... Do you understand what I am saying? Or, am I irrational?