I can't see any reason why you should blame yourself,it's not your fault....he's more than likely worried about losing his peformance...and acting out ways to see if he can keep his manhood going...doesn't feel good about himself...like being able to do these things while he still can...before he gets too old....

A Sexual Addiction is often started gradually when the SA is young. He will have started with porn and it manifested from there in to other forms. The addictive high he got from orgasam each time, sort him to push his boundries each time.
I also forgave my h after each discretion, not knowing to power of SA/PA, and he meant his apology, he just lack the education each time to fight it. My h's addiction also escalated over time.
Your forgiveness did not allow him to continue, he just lack to skills to fight this on his own. You can't just turn it off, it takes much work.
Firstly you both need to educate yourselves on SA/PA, is there a support group he and/or you can attend or therapy. He needs to learn why he seeks this kind of behaviour, he also needs to learn the triggers that urge him to act on SA, and he needs a plan for when the urges to hit, so to fight it.
It is possible to fight this, if he is ready to stand up and fight this. He has to be ready to let it go, not even hold onto a little bit. It will be tough, but achievable. My h hit real recovery in May 08, it has been hard but worth it.

Now if you need some extra support for yourself, there is a Spouse Of Sexaholics group for you here at DS too. Many others spouses like us going thru similiar things.

Best of luck, and be strong.

No, forgiveness does not allow someone to continue in the offending behavior. True forgiveness is actually a significant part of healing a relationship in a spiritual way. I think your issue was not forgiveness, it is boundaries. Your story (or his) is clearly a progression of his sex addiciton. Trina is right, that for your part, education about what SA is, and some of the catalytic issues that cause or incite it in am man will allow you to accept and understand his reasons for becoming an addict. His behavior is a facit of addiction that takes hard work on his part and support, boundaries and forgiveness on your part.

Here is an example. You process through the betrayal of him masturbating to pornography. But you are not completely committed to the fact that porn is very districtive to true intimacy. So your willingness or better said your acceptance of that behavior as OK, leaves the door open in your relationship to tolerate pron. Well take it from a recovering SA, porn is not good for anyone. From a spiritual perspective, porn incites lust which turns us inward into our own fantasy which seperates us from the true reality of our selves, or relationships and especially our sexual relationships with our wives.

If you are not a sex addict yourself, then you will proably have no problem putting down porn forever, and expecting and supporting his avoidance of it as well. This "leaving the door open" for him allows a great deal of insane rationalization to keep him trapped in his addiction. The cycle of addiction will always escalate farther. This is because of the brain chemistry (not the morality) behind the addiction.

So, please do not accept the insidious lie that your forgiveness allowed his addiction to progress. Other elements that you bring to the table like denial, the lack of ability or compassion for yourself and him to set and enforce boundaries, and your lack of education about the addictive process helped enable and support BUT DID NOT CAUSE his addiction to progress. His addiction was there long before you were. Your job is your recovery as a co-addict and to decide if you want to stay in the relationship and if so, what the boundaries that will have to be followed in order for you to do so.

My personal belief is that divorce is never what God wants, but if you can not soften your heart to HIM then it is permissable in the case of sexual immorality (or adultry), (Matt 19) But it has also been my experience that if you truly learn to depend on him for your needs, he will show up with healing and true freedom from this insidious painful addiction, for both you and your husband. This is because he is far more committed to your marriage than you or your husband are.

Hope some of what I said helps.

Last thing,

I read a survey of 250 or so wives of Sex addicts and this is what they said helped in order of how many used each.

1. Reading about sex addiction, recovery and communication.
2. Confiding in close family members.
3. Private therapy.
4. Couples therapy.
5. Prayer
6. Support Groups.

I would move prayer up on the list. I find it hard to believe that most women going through something like this with their Husband does not spend at least a little time praying "God help me, why is this happening to me." So I would say God answers those "quickie" prayers by putting good books, and trusted family in the path of those women."

Not trying to proslatize, just telling you what I have experienced.

You did not cause him to continue by simply forgiving him. Forgiveness is one of the healthiest acts a human can give to another. It sounds to me that like many men, he had an issue with porn before your marriage. Many of us did and have a misconception that the desire for porn will fade away after marrying a woman. It's not until after we marry that we realize it wasn't the need for real sexual gratification that we had gotten used to but a chemical stimuli in the brain. The mental stimulus does not come from normal orgasmic, sexual situations but merely enters the brain through the eyes to begin and then progresses to a masturbatory stage.

The second stage is a distancing stage. During this stage you will notice that your SO will want to be by themselves more. During this stage you will see men escalate to verbal stimulation or other types of interpersonal relationship through communication with other people. The verbal stimulation usually comes through phone interaction. The other communications are going to be through chatting or video chatting. Both of this types of stimuli are usually attached to the masturbatory release.

You can see that porn is a base for other types of stimuli and is completely unhealthy and not fit for human consumption.

If youve read anything that I posted on this bored or any others previously. You will see that I always have to introduce the only factor that is helping me to fight this problem myself is my faith in God. God sent his Son to this earth so that we can be free from sin. This is sin and because Jesus already died to forgive of this sin, we can defeat this and go on to have healthy relationships and marriages.

The first step in this is to ask Jesus to forgive us our sins and to come into our hearts and lives and begin a personal relationship with Him. If we ask he will do it. This will put you a path of richness of life and enjoyment like none other.

Hello I am a recovering addict myself. I can only speak for myself and my feelings. First don't blame yourself, that is what we as addicts do, is blame everything and everyone for our on choices and actions, and cover them up in any way we possibly can. S.A. is a very complex, and is very hard to understand even for us who are addicts. First, he does have a problem. The worst part of S.A is the denial. Its very hard for us to admit something is wrong with us, or we cant controle our actions.It is a cumpuslsive dissorder. We live in a fantasy world, until we realize we cant controle it. He must first want to find out if he really has a problem or not, and must want to fix the problem or it will continue. Tell him to read " out of the shadows" by Patrick Carnes." If he is an addict, this book will scare him to the point he will want to get help.

Thank you all for your input. It has been a great help. Just hearing someone else say what I am thinking helps me believe it. Thank you all!