From your description, no... is there more to the story like porn, or sexting or... online affairs? If not, no that is not sounding like an addiction to me.

However, our opinions here do not count it is what your wife needs to feel safe. On that part of it I can not say, btut I do wish you the best and for my 2 cents worth, counseling would be a great idea if it isn't too late. Good luck

No online affairs or sexting. I think I only know like 2 women outside of my (stbx) wife and family, and I barely talk to them.

If anything porn was a tool. I would so much rather have sex with her than masturbate, any day. That was never an issue. I never spent money on porn, and I don't have a problem not looking at it for weeks on end.

I agree with you that the only thing that counts is what she needs to be safe. That's why I gave up trying to have sex with her. But if she's basing our divorce off of these unrealistic expectations and just plain false ideas, and then refuses to talk about it, I'm stuck.

If I'm a sex addict, I'm the worst one ever, cuz I never get any :)

After reading about your relationship with your wife, I dont believe from your description you are a sex addict...if you have sex that many times a year, that doesnt sound like you NEED sex that you mentally decide [consciously or subconsciously] that if you dont have sex, you cant survive; and it has not encouraged you to cheat, or act out, then I would say no.

But maybe because of her expereinces, she views your looking at pornography as being a sexual addict. Now, i have a couple words of advice to say about your veiwing of pornography. if you even begin to question that you have a problem, you probably do.

I have learned this most recently. Pornography is very addictive, it has been scientifically proven that the body releases very powerful and addictive hormones and endorphins during the viewing of and during masterbation.

if you feel it is not much of a problem for you, test it out. Try to see if you can really handle being away from pornography and masterbation, prove yourself right, or wrong.

Tell your wife, let her see you are trying to see her point of view.

I am so sorry your wife wants a divorce, keep asking her to do therapy with you, try to prove to her that you want the marriage, ask what she wants you to. Talk. Communicate.
My mother was a rape victim, and she lives in an entirely different world. I am sure your wife does too.
As for that, that is the only advice I can offer.

good luck, and best of wishes

I have two bits of advice for you. First, if you want to see whether you're really a sex addict or not, you can take the Sexual Addiction Screening Test. It's available on line by going to a website called Sex Help (www.sexhelp.com/). On the Home Page of that site, you'll see the question, "Am I A Sex Addict?" Click on that question and you will be taken right to the test.

You can take the test right there online. Once you've finished it, you can go ahead and submit it, and it will be quickly graded for you. In just a few seconds, you'll know whether or not you're an addict. Just for your information, a score of 12 or more indicates that a sexual addiction is probably present.

Now the test may come back saying you aren't an addict, and you won't be, at least not one who's "acting out" (engaging in sexual activities). However, you and your wife may both be what they call "sexual anorexics", people who are compulsively asexual. There is an excellent book out there by a Patrick J. Carnes, Ph.D. titled "Sexual Anorexia: Understanding Sexual Self-Hatred". I'd like for both you and your wife to read this book. You can order it directly from AMAZON.COM. This is kind of the flip side of sexual addiction. You aren't going out to the strip bars or having affairs, but you sex life is far from normal. And 180 degrees from crazy is still crazy. This is just a different kind of craziness than you've been looking at.

This sexual anorexia and you wife's problems following her childhood sexual abuse may be the answer to the problems you've been having. At least it's something to check out before resorting to divorce.

I agree with Charli. It sounds like at least your wife is a sexual anorexic. I am a sexual anorexic myself. I discovered this problem once I got sober from sexual addiction. As it turns out, sexual anorexia is much trickier to deal with.

What I make up about her accusing you of being an addict is that she is projecting her anger. You are the one with the problem so she does not have to deal with her own trauma issues. You BOTH need counseling to get over this issue. However, you may need to be the one to go to counseling first before she comes around. I strongly recommend you find someone who is familiar with sexual anorexia.

In addition to Patrick Carnes, Doug Weiss out of Colorado has a work book and CD for sexual anorexia. However, this one is geared towards men.

Hope you both find the help you need.

soberone

Unfortunately she's made up her mind and doesn't want to go to counseling and still needs to go through with the divorce, so there's not much I can do. But thank you all very much for the advice.

Wind climber I am so sorry that she is not open to more counseling. I was sexually abused as a child, my husband is a sex addict. A lot of what you said about your wife was true for me, following my discovery/memories. I could not initiate intimacy. I would have panic attacks if my boyfriends even hinted at sex. Physical affection felt dangerous. It is a powerful fear and I found myself a prisoner in my body, very lonely, feeling so guilty for what I put my SO's through and I would ALWAYs self destruct in the relationship just to stop all the stress and guilt. She may feel responsible and looking for an excuse. Maybe, I don't know. But you sound as if you have been very flexible, conscientious, patient. I also freaked over porn in my early healing, totally over reacted. My emotions were so unreasonable and extreme. That was a miserable time and I had to do some major work to be free of those injuries and how they affected me. I could not have sex hardly ever, felt so guilty, so ashamed, so inadequate, scared my SO would leave me, very stressed and lonely. If your wife feels some of these and if she feels threatened by the porn, her feelings may be just extreme. Her feelings of guilt for her inability to nurture and love you sexually is huge, feeling inadequate and also feeling like you have no control over your own body - porn could really make these feelings more intense, worse. I am sorry she is set on divorce. May you find dome peace and clarity

Wow, thank you so much, that's really insightful. Good for you for getting to where you are. I feel so hopeless for my (stbx) wife it's nice to think it's possible for someone to come to these hard conclusions. That makes so much sense when I think about how she feels about herself.

I'm so far from perfect, but all I wanted was to help her and be there for her. I guess it's my own problem with porn that I couldn't get over it just for her. I realize that, at least in my case, the porn itself wasn't a bad thing. Just my inability to give it up for her. But is that really my issue? It may just be an excuse, but does it really help anything if I just give in to her delusions.. I guess I'll never know.

Wind Climber I am so sorry, this helpless feeling must be terrible. I can just share some more that reading your recent post triggered in my mind. NO ONE could help me, but me. If she is delusional about where responsibility lies and if she is in denial of her true feelings and they govern her emotions, than you going along with her will only enable her to keep blaming others and not look inside and face her pain. You had no way of knowing unless told by someone or a doctor that her feelings regarding porn would be super extreme; she may have not disclosed the true feelings she had out of embarrassment. When I was 21 and frigid and had been for 4 months, I found my live in boyfriend's stash of porn in the bathroom. No sorry. Not even porn, but just freaking playboy. OMG. I had not realized yet of my own sexual abuse; I felt crazy. And so embarrassed. I felt threatened, I felt victimized and could NOT get that one. I over reacted so harshly, attacking his self worth, it was horrible. I KNEW and felt like a horrible person. Sexual abuse makes you feel worthless, dirty, embarrassed, ashamed, responsible. I feel I may be trespassing here, but here it is and for you. In light of what you know about her, your use of porn should have stopped. But! For this to be known to you would have required you to understand how devastating it was for her. Or for you to have simply done the right thing at the right minute and NONE of us are perfect! Honestly, from what I have read and from what I have lived, she sounds like she is in the hellish part of recovery where truth is so scary, you think you may die. Intimacy is so dangerous, you are incapable of letting anyone in. I wouldn't even let my boyfriend touch me. I thought when I was tired my body was sensitive in an irritated way. This was me rationalizing my incredible dysfunction. Until your wife owns her emotions regarding her sexual abuse, other people and things will be the reasons behind her feelings. I don't know where she is in recovery and I say all of this with great hesitation. I hear your desperation and desire to help her, but to help her, she won't allow. To carry her lies for her as she avoids those dirty, worthless, disgusting, ugly feelings that shape her emotions, including the ones regarding your porn use, regardless of whether you are addicted or not - as long as she hides, she will remain cut off. She may be able to start up relationships, but can't maintain. It manifested that way for me. It took many of the exact same thing before I saw the cycle and I really never saw it until I did therapy much later. I had the sweetest man I dated, never told him, made his life hell. I disclosed this to him and apologized almost 20 yrs later; he so didn't deserve what I dished out.. He NEVER guessed. And he is the legal representative for a non profit group that represents abused children legally; he goes to court and does the dirty work. And he said he sees this every single day. He is a fighter for children, an educated man, a good man, we almost married, he loved me so much, he was my best friend and he had no clue! Don't beat yourself up. And be prepared - I hope she doesn't put herself through this. After finding out about my abuse, my next 2 boyfriends were worthless, because for a while, I thought I deserved nothing better. And I couldn't see it, although everyone around me tried to tell me I am so sorry.

Supersmurf, thank you so very much for your input. This is the first time I've seen this from what I really imagine is her perspective. (I would have loved to get this from her instead, but here I am, right? lol)Sorry about the long post, but you've given me so much to think about.

Firstly, you are absolutely right: I should have stopped with the porn cold turkey, right there. I feel that is one of my biggest failures to her, and regardless of whether it would have made a difference or not, I will always feel guilty of that. I guess in my own way I rationalized it as her over reacting and not me giving in to her problems and being honest, but I should have been stronger.

At some point, consciously or otherwise, I knew that I had to be honest with her about how I was feeling, and about myself, because I just felt that giving in wasn't going to help. And I see now that her utter and complete defensiveness to anything that challenged her idea of herself was part of her "problem". Not to blame her completely, I could have done a better job of communicating in a non-judgmental way.
One of her biggest reasons for the divorce was that she doesn't feel safe with me, because I always made everything out to be about her trauma. And to a large extent maybe I did do that, even though I always took responsibility for my part. Maybe she was over-reacting, I don't know. For instance, after about a year of giving her space sexually, only having sex when she initiated (2 or 3 times a year), I sent her a letter. Because we never really talked about it, I was scared that she might start feeling unattractive or rejected. So I told her why I was giving her space, and that I still wanted very much to make love with her, and I still thought she was beautiful, and I just wanted to give her the space I thought she needed, and that I would never be happy about not having sex, but I accepted it. What I got back was an angry letter about me making it all about her trauma again, and she's really over all that, she'd come to terms with it all. I slaved over that letter, walking on the old eggshells again to make sure I didn't offend her, but I did anyway. Maybe she was right. From then on, I believed her and decided to never make it about her trauma, just her own behaviors. (That didn't work either!)

I think one of the worst parts is that she has made amazing recovery. She's come so far from when she first started realizing and working on her SA and really shut me out. I understand that, she needed her space, and I thought I did as much as I could to help her through. In the last year she's been happier than I've seen her in a long time, and she's more confident and she's taking better care of herself emotionally and physically than ever. I can't help think that she really is better, and that she's right, because of our hurtful past and because I'm not changing, I am perpetuating all those messed up SA emotions. She's so angry with herself that she was abused and is now with a "sex addict".

I found out that she's been having an emotional affair. She's pretty much fallen in love with the guy, writes love poems about him, dreams of kissing and snuggling and touching him. In the text record I found (I'm not a paranoid jealous freak, found them kinda accidentally after she sprung the divorce on me.. don't know why she printed them out and hid them) she told him she's so happy she finally admited her feelings for him. I know she won't have any problem being intimate with him. Does that mean anything? In her eyes, she doesn't have the emotional walls and fears with her friends as she does with me. If it's possible that she only has intimacy (emotional and physical) problems with me, I could accept that and be happy she's moving on. It would hurt like hell that I really was the issue, but at least I'd know she was really going to be happy...
And other than cultivating a romantic relationship with a married woman, he's not a bad guy.

The last time I was home (I travel for a living) she initiated incredible sex the first night I was back. I though holy shit, she really is getting better. We had gone to see her counselor together a couple times in the past when I was home to work on things (went nowhere), but she asked if she could go by herself and I said of course. She asked if there was anything I wanted to talk about. I said I'd like to know if there was anything I could do to make that night happen again. In my head it was a cute way to say we're doing really well, as I thought we had been. Later I found out she had her feelings reinforced because she had done something she didn't really want to do and all I wanted was more sex. She said anohter reason for the divorce is she did initiated that because she wanted to try to be what I wanted her to be, but couldn't. That was about 2 weeks before she sprung the divorce. It actually disgusts me that she would have sex with me only because she thought that is what I wanted. That is utterly NOT what I wanted. I don't know how many times I told her I didn't want her to do anything she didn't want to.

Crap I've rambled long enough. It all doesn't matter now anyway. Thanks for listening :)

Windclimber, I could be totally wrong, but she may be appearing better physically, emotionally, etc. Because of her involvement with that guy. When I was frigid, the beginning of the relationship was kinda fantastical as I thought my intimacy issues were gone, but they always came back. I think I was in love with being in love and I would have a new boyfriend before leaving the old one, every time. God, that just sounds so familiar. These were MY experiences. I don't know about her, but from outside appearances we were virtually the same in behaviors. Kinda wild. And starting up relationships was easy, exciting, I began to think I was fine and it was my ex that was the problem and within a year or less, I would be frigid again in the same cycle, etc. That was me. Take care.

Tx: That is the most insightful thing I have read here. I have always had the most horrific reaction to porn. I wasn't sexually anorexic ever...but once I saw the porn I shut down immediately. I'm nearly entirely shut down now even though I know I am and try to overcome it. I'm gonna keep what you wrote for reference. I was raped as a teenager. My XH was sexually, physically and emotionally abusive and I was only 17 foing on 12 when we married. And I know that when finding my current H was involved so deeply in the porn thing...it shut me down and off. I haven't been able to recover from that and it's been two years. I'm way messed up there. What helped you?

Forgiveme Windchimer for not having read the entire thread (yet) but it seems to me that you are using the porn and mastrubation for comfort in your situation. It also seems to me that you do not seem to describe the compulsions we sex addicts have to deal with. It also seems to me that you want to do whatever it takes to save your marriage, but may be facing a no win situation because she has made her own decisions and may not back down from them.

If this is all close, I would suggest you make the decidison to stop the porn and make the decision to disconnect any fantasy and 'visual' thinking from your masturbation and set boundaries aound it to "steralize" if from lust and becoming complusive. Women don't really get the biological drive men have for sexual release, but they definitely do get the breach in intimacy that lust and porn cause, so seperate the two, find a place where you can be rigorously honest with your wife about your masturbation and stop any porn because it is hurting her. It is not necessary, it is not a tool, it is a financially, and spiritually driven trap to sexualize society and break down intimacy.

Here is what I am getting at. If you need release in your situation, then do it explicitly within boundaries.

Always in the shower, with your eyes open, never involve porn or fantasy, and do it as infrequently as possible and don't hide it.

If you masturbate once a month and let her know that you are doing it becuase you need the release, and you would rather be sexual with her, but you are willing to resepct her asexual boundaries, and that you are not going anywhere. You can actually do without sex for an indefinite period of time, and not even msturbate at all. If you are willing to do this without it causing you infidelity issues, and you think this will help build trust for her then I would do that. But if this will cause you too much pain and the release will keep you in a better more positive state, then the trust can come from rigorous openness, and making sure she knows without a doubt that the porn is out. You could even get covenant at eyes, and send her the accountability reports to help shore up her trust in your porn abstinance.

What I am saying is that there is no value in the porn and it is most likely very distructive for her even if your not addicted to it, so it is worth giving up even a marginal improvement in your marriages chances for success.

SheenRe is a very good example of how much porn can affect a spouse, especialy one who has been sexually abused. I would guess that it has a similar affect on your wife as you describe her. Most of the christian books on sex addiction say that using porn is 99% of what actually cheating is.

One other thing, early in my recovery I had a dream which I woke up to knowing that I needed to read Matthew 19. This is the pharacies asking Jesus about divorce. That experience galvinized my covenant to my marriage. I realized that he instructs us not to remarry for the sole purpose of preserving the opportunity for reconciliation with our spouses after a divorce. Once I realized this, I realized that my wife divorcing me was not the end of the game. Though I may not be sttrong enough to do this, my response would be to continue pursuing her as my wife until one of us dies or she got remarried. This was a great relief for me, and it let me know that I need to do those things now anyway. So if you want to see this hope in action You can go to Recovery Couples anonymous meetings and see the healing that is possible from couples that actually did get divorced and remarried, and are working hard at success.

I am just saying, its not really over, even facing a divorce. I would say your wife needs your purity and strength and resolve to love her more than anything anyone else in the world could give her, so get on your game and lover her with all your might. Healing of the most deep and gruling wounds is what God is in business for.