The typos in the important paragraph diluted it's point. Without sex addiction, I would guess that a husbands attraction to another woman could not threaten the fidelity in the relationship. But rather be appreciated by both partners as beauty not lust.

It's more and more like this in my recovery. But this is "every mans battle" not just sex addicts.

I think it is not complete enough Charlie, I do think the pendulum of expecting no response at all and that any response being part of the addiction is an important thing to find balance in.

Regarding the feminist comment; how Many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?

THAT'S NOT FUNNY!

Hey Choose...,

How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?

One, but the light bulb really, really has to want to be changed!

You know ose personality tests confuse the heck out of me. I took one in a text book of my psych class. Well I felt it was all very predictable...I can't remember the exact stuff but now I am motivated to go back and do it.

But I have a question for Charli: Obviously I am an extrovert but if I remember correctly on all of the other answers when I tallied up the scores Ai was so close to being the middle of the road that I took a deeper look at the test and thought to myself depending on the time in my life such as the depression I went through after discovering my husband or during my roaring twenties I am sure I would have answered many of the questions differently.For example just from memory I believe there were questions about whether you were the type to loose track of time at a party while visiting and mingling with friends or would you be looking for the nearest exit. Something happened to me after discovery. Normally I drive my H crazy when I loose track of time but that first year I dreaded going to public places and lost all interest in hanging out with friends. I even tried to avoid them. But it wasn't just questions like that. I was like entire areas of my personality changed. I was told in class that you are born with the personality you will always have. So how can this be true or is it true only for people who score middle of the road?...Does that make sense or am I babbling?

Lorilou

I think I'm understanding you, Lorilou. I hope I am anyway. The "experts" who work with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, as well as those who deal with the Enneagram (another personality assessment instrument that gives you the same information as the Myers-Briggs, but goes about it in an entirely different manner) will tell you that your basic personality "type" never changes. Your preferences within the various categories may change somewhat due to life events, but the personality you're born with is the one you'll have until the day you die.

I'm not at all sure that I agree with that. I have seen too many total personality make-overs in the years that I've been in recovery. Of course, as a good friend of mine (another psychologist) pointed out, it may have been that the personality you saw before recovery was so depressed because of the addiction that the individual projected an entirely different facade' to the world while their real personality remained buried under all of their other issues. With recovery, their depression lifted and their real "self" came shining through. I guess that's possible, but the main changes I've seen in the Myers-Briggs characteristics have been towards being more intuitive, and being more judging or orderly. I don't know that changes such as these can result from simple therapy. I actually see this as more of a spiritual transformation, but that's just my opinion, and what do I know.

Got back home from my trip to LA yesterday. Hmmmmm.......

It feels like I've opened up the front door to DS and there's been a party and i missed it.

Yup you missed it, but we missed you!

Flutter: You said, "I'm glad after seeing how SheenRe says she never will unconditionally love or trust her husband, that I am no longer with my ex husband (that I acted out on so much). To think of staying in a marriage where a spouse may never come to love or trust like that no matter how much you work at your addiction is very disheartening. I can empathize and understand how much it hurts being in the spouses shoes. I really can. It is life shattering and heart breaking. But if an addict spouse can never gain back unconditional love and trust, will it ever be the marriage it should be? IMO, no. "

I do agree it is too bad about the results for myself and my H. I think you fail to understand some things,,,but that's ok...not your side of the coin anyway. Maybe my feelings will change in time...I don't know. I allow and hope for that possibility....in a very small way But, given it's been nearly three years, I just have serious doubts about that. There are many factors that contribute the overall outcome.

I have never offered false hope to my H about that. Not at the onset...and not now. That is honesty. And, I would understand if he chose to leave the relationship. I told him at the onset that might well be the best option. Except of course, that he knows he can trust me...and that's pretty tough to find these days. And the fact that he wants to stay. That is his choice. And, I'm not of a mind to deny him that. I guess thirty years really is a long time. And, neither of us has any desire to ever enter another relationship anway...so?

You said, " I can empathize and understand how much it hurts being in the spouses shoes. I really can. It is life shattering and heart breaking. But if an addict spouse can never gain back unconditional love and trust, will it ever be the marriage it should be? IMO, no. "

It's good that you think you can empthazie and understand...but I have my doubts about that too. Sometimes there's nothing quite like experience. That's why I often have difficulty in providing quality empathy with certain aspects of SA...because I don't think that way...it's foreign in many ways.

Not everyone feels as I do. But, then, not every one has thirty years to look at either. Maybe that plays into the factors somewhat. I'm sure it does. And, the fact that I have never deviated from my vows. I'm sure that has some bearing. And that I didn't realize when I was feeling intimate with him, it wasn't real...just a game. That plays a huge part. Lots of factors come into play.

You seem concerned about what a marraige should be. What should it be? Have you experienced what it "should be? If so...what is that?

Lori: I was surprised too that my personality scores were the same, even though I feel I've changed a lot. Apparently, my personality hasn't changed...just the way it manifests itself in day-2-day living.

You said, " I dreaded going to public places and lost all interest in hanging out with friends. I even tried to avoid them." I experienced that too on a grand scale after finding my Hs secrets. I would try to go places with him...and panic...had to just get up and leave...wherever.

I couldn't go out of town with him at all...because I felt that if I couldn't repress the need to just leave any situation things would go really bad. It did...several times. That's somewhat better now. But, I never feel fully relaxed out like that anymore. I can tolerate some situations....and others I won't even try. Truly, but for becoming and out and out hermit, which isn't good, I wouldn't go. Thank goodness, I'm very self-contained. I can see where that would be a real challenge for an extrovert.

I think the trick may be to allow my specific personality to express itself in the current enviornment. It's tough in many ways...but I'm ever glad I'm not extroverted. That would be even more challenging.

Charlie: Yes I do know how close those personality niches are. I read mine for the first time and it was eerie...how do it know....HA! And, I've also read the material you referred to about the unconscious subliminal biological basis of attraction....that's why I said "breeding stock" to Choose. Ha! I think in many ways my personality type is really challenged in this SA situation. Only makes sense? The personality factors that are most prevalent in my particular type reallllllly has trouble...HA! I feel...therefore I am? HA!

Once you get fairly familiar with this personality typing stuff, you can figure out someone else's personality type in no time at all. A friend of mine, a Chinese lady named Sammie, and I used to sit in the hospital cafeteria before I retired and just watch people walk by. Bases often on little more than the way they walked, held their body, what they were wearing (people in the medical profession are NOTORIOUS for displaying the levels of education and expertise by the kind of lab coats they wear, whether they have their stethoscopes draped around their neck, etc.), and who they ate lunch with, we would come up with a personality type, and the funny thing about it was that we were very, very rarely wrong. Once you get the hang of this Myers-Briggs stuff, it's easy as pie to spot an ENFP or an ISTJ. And once you know someone's personality type, you can very easily predict the kind of interpersonal problems they will have in their life.

On more than one occasion, we were able to diffuse major arguments by pointing out differences in personality types, and explaining how the different types saw reality from very different points of view. Once those involved in the argument understood where the other person was coming from, they were able to work together without any further difficulties. Very interesting stuff this personality typing.

Yes, I know what a marriage should be intellectually. Have I ever experienced it? No. But believe it or not, and none of you know me, I have a psych background as well. Will be going back to school in January to finish my degree. But aside from that, the hundreds, yes hundreds, of books I have read, research I have done, doctors I have talked to... etc. I DO know what a healthy marriage is supposed to be. That's the main reason when I found out I was a sex addict, it hit me so hard. I am a very self aware person. Always looking to better myself. And to realize I had this my whole life and didnt' know it? It was very upsetting.

Yes, I can understand TO A DEGREE what it feels like to go through what you SO's go through. I have dated a sex addict in the past and at the end of my marriage was cheated on, and the last year of my marriage my husband developed into an alcoholic (which of course is an addict). I will never be able to fully understand 100% what any of you go through individually, and I didn't mean to come across like I did. I just got a taste of what it was like to be with an addict and be cheated on, and I know it broke my heart.

I also didn't mean to assume, SheenRe, that I knew all the circumstances involving your marriage and the decisions you and your husband made. I'm sorry if it came across that way. It was disheartening to hear what you said immediately about never being able to unconditionally love and trust him. But if your husband knows that, and chose to stay anyways, that is between you all.

To answer your question though... I have my opinion on what a marriage should be. Many I have spoken with think the same as I, though I try to be non-judgmental and realize that every couple has to do what works for them. This is how I see it.................

For round numbers, lets say the divorce rate is 50%. Out of the 50% that stay married, how many of those can you think of around you or that you've come across in your life, have the kind of marriage that is successful in the terms of being happy, loving, and healthy? The couple that are so in love and you can see it day in and day out. The couple that when you look at them, you say, "That's the kind of marriage I want. That's the kind of marriage to be envied." I can only think of 2 in my life personally that I've come across.

Yet while the odds are so small if you think about it that way, that is what I aim to have with my boyfriend at the time. We are doing everything in our power to change any past habits, heal from "baggage", address any past problems, etc, so that we do not get engaged until we feel we have that kind of relationship and have what it takes, with no doubts or mistrust, to stay married and never go through a divorce or unhappy marriage again. While no marriage is problem free, I personally feel if many of these issues are addressed together as a team beforehand, and past issues are healed from, that shows that you have what it takes to be able to tackle anything in the future as man and wife.

I am not trying to come across as a know-it-all. And yes, there are many that have years of experience living more than I do. But I have also come across many in their 40s, 50s, and even 70s who are in unhappy marriages or havent' dealt with issues they had as a child, etc. So, I do not necessarily see age or how long one's been living as an immediate source of knowledge based on experience. But on the flip side, I have learned some very valuable things listening to others who have gained wisdom through their years. I take what I believe I can apply to my life, and discard the rest.

Think that's about all I can say.

Flutter: Thanks for your commentary. I didn't mean "life" experience, I meant "marriage" experience. And, as far as the "The couple that are so in love and you can see it day in and day out. The couple that when you look at them, you say, "That's the kind of marriage I want. That's the kind of marriage to be envied." I can only think of 2 in my life personally that I've come across. "...that's what was said of our marriage...the envy of all of our daughter's friends....and that's what I "thought" I had...and when that disillusion became apparent...also came the shock...and that is what destroys so very many things.

So, now....that I'm no longer operating from the affects of "illusion", I really don't know what to do with all of this. Reallllllly...I don't. Because my H and I weren't arguers, or dissenters, or unhappy....well "I" wasn't unhappy anway...and if he was...I certainly never saw nor heard of it. So.....major shock. And, so now...if we went back to what we were....and things seemed right....I could never know if they were "really" right? So, what basis do I determine from? I really don't know.

I do know this...that my H is far more considerate in day-2-day living...but then he really didn't get much choice about that..other than to vacate. Because I am not willing...and I will never be willing...to tolerate any mistreatment that I can "see." I never really much was...and I certainly am not now. Because he admitted to me the truth of tha matter...and so...I live in the constraints of that truth. And that...is all...I know to do.

As far as trust. I don't believe that he'd ever make the same errors again. But, if he can, and I "ever" see it again...he'lll be set free to persue his "rush." And, I will do what I will do. I don't trust him sexually anymore. I don't know how to do that. And...because I don't...we lack...or "I" lack sexual fulfillment. Which, this late in life, can and should be a "moot" point anyway. However, it has been hard to lose that part of my life. And, I hope that any desire in that direction will cease to matter to me at some point...very soon I hope.

I can't imagine the pain you went and go through when you thought you had "that kind" of marriage, only to find out you didn't. I won't even pretend to imagine. I'm very sorry you had/have to go through all that.

There is so much my ex husband does not know and doesn't need to at this point. It's so hard to explain..... If he knew everything, he might very easily come to the conclusion that everything that we ever had tht was good from the time we dated was a sham.

But I know in my heart it wasn't. I am not a mean spirited person. I have a huge heart. I did love him with everything I had and all that I could at the time. I was going through our 13 yrs together having no earthly idea I was an addict. Every time I cheated, it just fed more into the ideas that helped formed my addiction... " I am worthless. I am a slut. What's wrong with me? I am a horrible person. I am undeserving. I am not loveable, etc"

And while, yes, I should have maybe felt like a horrible person for what I did, to even start to really take a deep look at why I was doing what I was doing, was too painful for me to even start to address. No, I did not make this decision consciously. But looking back, I can say that.

I have been in therapy since I was 14, and in the hospital a few times when I have had complete breakdowns from my depression. Or so I thought it was just that. All these years, I have never intentionally run from something painful, if it meant getting better, stronger, and healthier. I have addressed it head on. So much sometimes, that I fell on my ass fast b/c I was trying to do it too fast and not give it time.

So, looking back, for something to be so painful, that I didnt' even SEE it to address it? That's mind boggling to me.

Every time I stopped acting out for a period of time, I truly believed if I did what I was "supposed" to do as a good wife, that my husband would also, and I wouldn't want to ever cheat again. (Not saying you did anything in your marriage to cause your husband to want to act out, btw) But every time, I was rejected. He never wanted to be with me sexually. I could try and "excite" him for an hour and he would fall asleep or just sit there, not even touching me. There are many more examples, but every time I went to him, I was rejected.

All I'm saying is, FOR ME, he might have seen our marriage as a sham if he knew everything. But for me, it wasn't. Maybe in the sense that I was an addict the whole time and didn't know it. But not in the sense of how much I loved him or how much I thought I was trying many times throughout it.

My ex even told me after he left, that while he was hurt by the cheating and there is no excuse for it, he came to understand why I acted out. He acknowledges he was a horrible husband as well, and we both contributed to the demise of our marriage.

Yes, addiction, takes over. But I can't and don't believe for me, that I was a sham. I gave all I knew how to give at times, and dealt with any triggers of abandonment, depression, shame and neglect from childhood (and then from my husband) the only way I knew how to at the time... And that was acting out. Was it right? Hell, no. Am I excusing it? Absolutely not. I just think when people are sick or addicted and don't know it, sometimes, they do and love the best they can given the circumstances, until they DO come to realize it and address and heal from it.