Sex / Pornography Addiction Support Group

You're in kind of a tough spot. On the one hand, telling the spouse could really be beneficial to your recovery. Even telling her about DS would be a positive. On the other hand, you wife is dealing with some pretty traumatic issues of her own right now, and she really needs your love and support. I guess if I were you, I'd hold off talking to her until her medical/psychological situation stabilizes a bit. Right now, you need to be there for her to support her. You can get your recovery support in other places for the time being.

When it comes time to tell her about the progress you've made, just sit down with her and lay all of your cards on the table. Tell her what you've been up to, what's changed, what new support you now have in your life (including DS), and where you see things going. She may or may not be willing to support you. (By the way, having a spouse as an accountability partner is never a good idea. But that's just my opinion, others may disagree). It's always a problem to expect to get more than 30% of your support from any one person, including your spouse. So find yourself another sponsor if you will or accountability partner. Don't put everything on her. Good luck.

I agree with charlie. Do not add this to her plate now. I totally completely empathize with you. For many reasons, my wife responded very supportively and constructively by my initial disclosure, a big part of that was my voluntary and completeness of that disclosure. I tool full responsibility. But since then, she is stuck in the pre-recovery mode of avoiding dealing with it in a real way.

I know this reaks of blame, but this above anything else has been the most difficult part of staying sober for me. To respect her boundaries and keeping my stuff to myself is very distructive to both my recovery and our relationship, on the other hand, violating those same boundaries is disrespectful, and as distructive. This is called a double bind.

My story is not yours, so I am not implying that your wife is avoiding things, but as her husband, your role is to protect her. Even from your reality during times like these.

So I have this question. Are you fully willing to tell her everything you have done and press into what ever her reaction is?

If your answer is yes to this question, then your in a good place and your doing your job, weather you tell her or not. So, take "take your stuff to the program" and let her needs be more important for now. What I mean is to be accountable to other men, pursue intimacy in those relationships regarding your recovery.

"One never ought to listen to the flowers. One should simply look at them and breathe their fragrance. Mine perfumed all my planet. But I did not know how to take pleasure in all her grace."

Take pleasure in your wife's grace. Weather it is spoken or not, your wife will feel your recovery in the new connectedness you become capable of. So you do not NEED her to be involved.

Back to my wife and how I relate this type of stuff to her. When I want to tell her that I am struggling, I typically start with, "I want you to know that I have no secrets. My accountability partners know every detail about everthing." This sets the groundwork for the idea that she is totally in control of what I do and do not disclose to her. If she says, "I want to help, what is going on." This hurts but I am still in a position to respect her in that because I have no secrets. If she says, "I can't handle that right now." This invokes compassion for her situation, and I am still in a position ot respect her in that because I have no secrets.

It is better for your wife to be in it with you, but in this situation it seems to me to be far more important that you are in it with her, because she has a pretty severe fight on her hands. I know how painful my wifes misscarriage was for her. It is much more of a blessing to be her support now than you could possible hope to get from her support of your recovery at this point. Even if she does a full bore exemplary job watching your back, it will cost her something, and you dont what her to pay that price right now. Especially when it would be pretty easy to go get almost that same depth of intimacy from relationships with other guys at SA, SAA meetings or mentors at your church.

I can not count the times that I have been gut punched by my wife's avoidance which feels like rejection. Then I went to any kind of meeting and listened to the strength and hope of other people fighting the fight, and came home centered, kind gentle and compassionate with no hurt or anger. In fact, at first she got angry because I was doing my thing instead of being home with her, but after a few times of the moster leaving the house and the loving husband coming back, she quit complaining about me leaving.

Learn how to take pleasure in all her grace. Let her perfume your whole planet! Ask not what your SO can give to you, ask what you can give to your SO.

I know its tough, and I am the biggest hippocrit around, but I know this is the answer. And I hope you can do it just a little bit.

God bless you and stay clean man. One more thing, becuase I know it has been so helpful for me and several other guys, please sign up for an accountability software like covenanteyes.com or x2watch at xxxchurch.com. Get someone watching your internet use and if you fail talk through it with your accountability partner (more than one is best). Just having the light shine on this dark dongeon takes most if not all of its power away. It is almost a silver bullet to avoid porn.

If you do not have a relationship that you trust to help by holding you accountable, get one quickly. And in the mean time, I will even put my money where my mouth is. If you send me a private message, we can exchange phone nubmers and talk and I will watch your reports and help you keep clean like I do with 3 other guys and they do for me.

Keep the faith bro.

Thank you both for your suggestions and willingness to help. I appreciate such support.

My story is your wife's story. I had my 2nd miscarriage in July and found out in September my husband has had a PA our entire marriage. As I was nearly bleeding to death in the hospital from the D&C, he was at home looking at porn. That is certainly something I will never heal from

My suggestion is that you wait until she starts to heal from the miscarriage. Even then, expect her to sink back to where she was before. I would much rather my husband have come clean with me, and ask for help, than me finding the trail. So coming clean with her is a good start. But please, don't leave out some of the truth. My husband told me about 1/2 of the truth when I first caught him .... then as we began to communicate and make some progress, I found out the rest. The sting of the 2nd slap was so much worse. I got to where I did not believe a word he said.

If you want to talk or have any questions ... just msg me. You're in my thoughts.

Sad bones is more right than I am. Though now is not the time. Prepare yourself to make a FULL and VOLUNTARY disclosure when the time is right. Catagorically tell her everything, but do not blast her with all the details.

Once you tell her at a high but complete level. I have masturbated to porn for 3 years, I had an affiar, I had anonymous sex in a bookstore,
Everything you did, but not the gory details about how often, when or with why, then stop. Tell her you are committed to telling her the truth no matter what and let her have all the control. Tell her every detail she wants to know, but do not force her to listen to it, by telling her every detail. Let her be in control after your intial disclosure about what she wants to know. As SadBones said there are things she will never forget, so it needs to be her choice to hear them.

I am not saying hid ANYTHING. I am saying let her have full control of the details after you give her the catagories of ALL your actions.

Are you accountable for your internet use yet? Just Do it man.

Tonight, I told my wife about the porn addiction. I cannot ask for a more loving and forgiving person. I listened to all of the advice that people gave on here. I just could not keep anything from her. There are to be no secrets between us. We have installed accountability software together on the computer (she will have the password). It will track every site I go on. It will also block me from going online in early morning (which is a tempting time for me). We are also going to spend every evening reading the Bible and praying together after our daughter goes to bed. Thank you to everyone here for your support. I will check in with all of you on a regular basis. Good night

I'm so glad to hear that things went well. Even with her being understanding, and supportive of your recover, expect many slips into depression for her. Its been 2 months since I found out everything, and I have good days and bad days. I have forgiven him, but the pain has not gone away. Sometimes I feel bipolar! I'll have great days where I have lots of hope, and then days that something triggers those feelings of distrust and betrayal. Just be an open book to her! Sounds like you are headed in the right direction!