Shanas, I really think it is presumptuous and unhelpful of you to say things like, "You may be sober right now for a few days or weeks, but you will definitely relapse without question."

You don't know that. 12-Step is not a science. People have recovered along different ways from you. Not everyone sees addiction the same way you do. Not every marriage is yours. Get over yourself.

Honestly, the way you try to browbeat everyone else onto your recovery method makes me wonder if you have an ulterior motive, at least at the subconscious level. After all, if, as you've said, addiction is for life and addicts will inevitably fail if they try to go it alone, and full disclosure is the only possible option, basically that would give a wife every right to insist her husband remain under the shortest leash possible once he's proven himself an addict, wouldn't it?

If nothing else, you make me grateful that my wife doesn't share your views, because I couldn't handle being controlled by someone else all the time.

Cancer is a disease that is physically treatable with medications that target cancerous cells. That is why you can't beat cancer on your own.

Addictions are primarily psychological and physiological, and that is why recovery can in theory be done alone. Certainly it is likely to be easier with help a spouse. But in situations where this could potentially cause more than good, you have to maintain an open mind on how best to proceed.

But again, I'm not doing this alone. Not telling my wife doesn't mean I'm doing it alone. It just means I think our marriage is already fragile and I don't want to tip it over the edge without first trying all other possible methods of treatment.

Anyway, I'm a week in and feeling ok. Not really feeling any benefits yet and I have had urges, but I do find the meditation a great help.

I would like to point out that I have not insisted in how much or what manner disclosing his addiction with his wife. There are various levels of details that spouses have chosen to live with; I know one spouse that merely knows her husband has a porn/sex addiction, and is more interested in what he is doing to remain sober.

Yes, there are people who have lost their marriage to their addiction. Here's my question: how many of you have maintained a consistent recovery withOUT divulging the fact that you have an addiction or the nature of your addiction to your spouse (level of details aside)?

Jay, you have mentioned not only the fragility of your marriage, but also your spouse. Given that your acting out includes behavior that has a level of physical risk to your spouse (ie massage parlour), would younot want tto-do whatever it takes to protect her, even if it meant the risk of separation?

Actually Jay, you do not need to answer the second question. It's more rhetoricalthan anything else. However, I am interested in your answer to Andy's question about who has the password to your software filter?

I would be interested in hearing from people who are in a consistent recovery while still keeping it a secret from their spouse.

Unfortunately, there are so many people like you who come and go here who really have no clue how insipid this addiction really is.
Without transparency your marriage is pretty much over any way. Living a lie is what is killing it. Telling the truth will set you free and give your wife a chance to heal. You are basically taking that away from her.
Good luck to you though. Perhaps one day you will realize that all here are well meaning and have walked in your shoes and that the spouses here have walked in your wife's shoes.

jaystak--All the points you make are very true and your ideas of rebooting, exercise etc are great.
I hope what I have to say will make some sense since it features points that have really helped me in the past..points that I've picked up from all different areas in life.

Sometimes, we can turn this situation into one that is far worse than we think through fear and our own mind...FEAR of this addiction being worse than drugs or booze etc.
In fact it is a very simple part of us that has gone awry and if we create a sense of awareness then it can be helpful.
What we usually do though is destroy ourselves with shame & guilt for far much longer than we should and then when we relapse again, then we add more shame /guilt and so the cycle continues.
A Buddhist monk I once spoke to once told me "'Desire is not really the evil, immoral thing that we should feel guilty about..it's part of us but has to be accepted and embraced but NOT acted upon. If we truly perceive it as a monster then we set ourselves up to FEAR of the entity...and when he beats us then we feel useless.
You have to learn to play his same egoic game.
If we can learn to perceive that desire and wanting things, physical or sexual , actually creates STRESS..creates tension and destroys your peace...especially your inner spiritual peace. It robs you of it all and places nervous tension in its place.
Desire causes human suffering..massive hurt and pain that recycles and is never satisfied..you can NEVER satisfy desire so WHY bother to put yourself and others through this agony when it leads NOWHERE?"'
When the feeling arises don't push it away..look at it...feel its presence but don't act on the feeling..then it ceases to be.
Desire, as part of the human ego, doesn't like to be analysed..it prefers to be acted upon, gratified immediately and then it increases I strength and rules your mind..
You may still get the craving as it will recycle and sometimes you may give in but when it arrives, try and delay acting on the impulse for as long as you can.
You will find it has no hold on you and that you are making the whole situation far worse than it really is.
We complicate our own lives with endless PAIN for NO reason.
This way you will destroy the link of CLINGING to the desire""

These thoughts I thought I'd share with you in addition to any type of plan for recovery you may have.
They helped me a lot with all types of desire.

All the best to each of you on Daily Strength!

jaystak---
As you said "'..and once again I fell into a DARK place"'
We become addicted to suffering!
I know this sounds weird but pleasure and PAIN are directly linked.
This cycle will continue unless we break the link.
This type of pleasure we seek brings with it 10 times the amount of pain.
It's taken us on the same pointless ride thousands of times and are we any wiser? Far the opposite.
Is it really worth the constant effort
These are points for you and others to consider.
Whoever you choose to tell, whether your partner or friends etc..the work to improve has to come from US not them. It's our responsibility.
I found personally that the hardest part was achieving the correct mindset in order to understand the problem we have...NOBODY else can create this mindset for you..they might help but it has to be your work.
All the best.

I dont disagree that your wife may be fragile, and all the details may be traumatic for her but living within a marriage that is full of lies and secrets is not fair nor healthy. I agree with Dlansky that you dont have to tell her every detail, those details are ingrained in our minds once we know them and cause trauma and triggers as we heal from the betrayal. You dont have to give details (unless she wants them) some spouses dont want them...but you could tell her that you are battling watching porn and you need her to be supportive. Chances are she already knows that, i mean we are in a society that most think men watch porn and that it isnt a big deal right? I knew for years that my husband occassionally watched porn and masturbated, i thought whatever, its harmless, normal, etc. BUT after 20 years of porn watching it wasnt enough for him and his addiction took him to deeper, darker places, until i caught him...that day was like someone sucked all the life out of me. If you had told me before discovery that i would stay with a man that had done what my husband has done i would tell you that you were crazy.;....but here i am , still here, working through things, and in some ways our marriage is better then it was before, despite knowing his battles. Marriages DO survive this ...

Dlansky what do you mean that full disclosure means a husband being kept on a short leash?

I don't agree that full disclosure puts the addict on a short leash. That is what my husband calls "stinkin' thinkin'". It serves no purpose to hold back and the addiction still has a piece of you as long as you hold onto secrets.
I do agree that every detail is unnecessary and can cause the spouse more trauma. That should be the mindset of the recovering addict as he learns to develop empathy for his spouse, not that he is being kept on a short leash.
The most important thing about discovery is that the addict understands that transparency needs to be a priority if recovery is going to work and if he and his marriage will heal. Anything less than that underminds the recovery process.
In my marriage, my husband left it up to me as to how much I needed to know in order to move forward. I did not need every detail, but I needed to understand how the addiction took over his life so that meant him telling me as much as I needed to know to understand that.
It is a difficult and painful process for both, but cathartic as well. As I told my husband. I needed to make an informed decision about our marriage and I could not do that unless I knew as much as I needed to know in order to do that. Anything less than that for the wife is giving he addict control

Asking for full-disclosure is not a short leash, but if the mindset is that a husband will have to be constantly monitored and explain his every act or even glance from that point forward, yes, that's a short leash. If a man wanted to constantly monitor his wife that way, we'd call him a control freak.

As for what to tell a spouse, I believe that is a prudential judgment that needs to be made wisely and prayerfully. I disagree that full disclosure is the ONLY way.

It also seems to me that in what is SUPPOSED to be a support group for addicts, we instead have certain disgruntled wives telling those who come here for support what they HAVE to do. Even when someone who's overcome the addiction says, "Wait a minute -- I didn't do it quite that way ..." we are shut down, told that it's just "stinkin' thinkin'" -- the 12-step approach to dismissing ideas that contradict their paradigm. Belittling the opinions of others doesn't make one more right.

As long as one believes that addiction can never be healed, I guess one might feel justified in taking the short-leash approach. Personally, I've stayed away from pornography for about a year and a half now with no monitoring. I am grateful that my wife trusts me and that I can trust myself.

If you post on this forum you have to be prepared for people to disagree with you.
I have had problems with you on many occasions and I am only taking this one opportunity to reply and then I am done.
You have gone after people here with a vengence all i the name of protecting your belief system.
It is more important for you to be right then it is to be open to learning.
I will go back to ignoring you, but you have much to learn about recovery still and much to learn about healing and most importantly about empathy.
Good luck on your journey. You are far from over and you will learn much more if you care to, especially from your wife.

alrighty dlansky i understand now what you meant by a short leash...it is very easy for a traumatized spouse to take complete control of the addict after either discovery or disclosure regardless if its full disclosure or parts of. That is not healthy either and i agree with you on that. Boundaries are made to keep the spouse safe and from future trauma and over time as recovery occurs, transparent living and being honest some of those boundaries can change and evolve. Let me give you an example, in our home i have a no change boundary, porn, or having sex with someone else, or strip clubs means separation/divorce. After disclosure i had a safety boundary that my husband came to bed when i went to bed, not to sleep because there are nights when i am asleep by 9 :)
but in our room, he will read, in our room. (he always acted out in the past when i went to bed and would spend hours and hours doing it) Now he is just 2 years sober, and the other night we were watching a movie that i was just not into, i told him i was going to bed and that i was fine for him to stay up and finish it....i trusted him because he is being honest and sincere. I can tell you though that my husband has no issues on any boundaries, or monitoring, because he NO LONGER as anything to hide. Do i check up on him, read his email, etc NO but if i was to he would have no issues with it because he lives transparent and so do i with him.
Regardless if Jay tells his wife or not, he is going to need some form of honesty to remain sober and in recovery.

quick question what do you mean "one believes that addiction can never be healed"?

candycin,

I am referring to something shanas has said in the past: "Addiction is forever. You can always slip and relapse in a heartbeat. Stay connected to your higher self always and know there is no cure for this."

Now it's "You may be sober right now for a few days or weeks, but you will definitely relapse without question."

I remember where I was when I started this process, and those kind of statements would not have helped. When I first came to this forum, I was looking for hope and perhaps some helpful suggestions from people who had recovered themselves. Statements like those above would not have helped -- they'd probably have pushed me away.

And moreover, I've learned from experience that these statements are simply not true. Many addicts have recovered and not relapsed. Those who say it can't be done shouldn't get in the way of those who are doing it.

It's interesting how the topic of disclosure brings out such strong opinions. And the point about being monitored is very relevant. When I think about it, the idea of being 'monitored' by someone is just horrible. Surely true healing comes from within. I want to eventually be in a place where I don't watch porn because I choose not to, for myself. Not because I'm being monitored. I want that choice to be mine. To me, that sounds much healthier than "I'm not going to watch porn tonight because she'll find out about it".

1 week in.