Oh sweetie, I've just read your journal post. I'm so so sorry for you, I know exactly the shock and horror that you're feeling right now. I'm really pleased that you've reached out here on DS and are starting the Recovery Nation workshop, it's great that you're getting straight into getting the help you need. You've definitely come to the right place here, these people are so wonderful and make all the difference.

Please know that I'm here for you anytime please feel free to drop me a line. Our stories are very similar as are many others here. All shocking and a huge trauma for us to cope with. If you haven't already, have a look at the book "Your Sexually Addicted Spouse" by Dr Barbara Steffens, it will help you understand how the discovery of our partners' sex addictions affect us.

I'm so pleased that you're here, being able to share your story with people that get it and receiving the support of people is such an important step in our healing. We're here for you. xx

I have not yet read your journal entry but I would also say Welcome! And be proud of yourself that you have chosen to walk your healing path! I also do the private coaching on recoverynation with Coachcheryl - she and all the coaches are wonderful (she does the addict side, and the couples - which H and I are doing). I would also second the post above the book "Your Sexually Addicted Spouse" is wonderful! The ladies here have been wonderful!

Silla and Anyone...
Thank you for your support already. I can't tell you how freeing it is to finaly feel like someone, anyone, out there can relate to me, provide guideance, and lend support.
I was thinking I should also mention that shortly after discovery, I signed us up for CovenantEyes on both laptops and my Ipad. The cable is blocked for both mature content, any payperview or erotic natured on demand, and the netflix internet is child locked. BF is aware of all this and requested it. I also have access to all his passwords, and the two illicit email accts have been closed down.
BF also made the decision himself to get rid of his Iphone and feels he can't be in healthy recovery with it, as he mainly used this for access to his other world. He in fact stabbed and dismanteled it with a screw driver saying he found that cleansing. He has a blackberry for work, but knows the content is monitored and has sworn he would not endanger his job by using that, and for both our sakes I hope he doesn't.

Hopeful, though I find with hope comes worry of being crushed again...

Welcome to our group. Yes, you will find a lot of support here. It seems like you have both already begun the road of recovery. It is a long and winding road. There is a great deal of very useful information here so peruse through the various threads if you haven't already done so. You are not alone in your journey. Hugs!

I remember the feeling you described where your head isn't in an organized state. I think it's just great that you can get your feelings out on here at all, no matter the format. When you're in a state of shock and feeling totally betrayed, it can be really hard to get your feelings out, so I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to post on here. I hope that you will find this board to be a safe and comforting place--I know I have.

I'm not one for giving too much advice, largely because I know that when I first found out about my H's PA, I just wanted to be heard and feel validated. I will agree, though, that "Your Sexually Addicted Spouse" is a wonderfully validating book and may help you on your own journey to recovering from this IF you are in a state where you can read about it. For me, it took me months to get there, although I wish I had read it sooner. Other than that, I am so happy to hear that you are both getting counseling. Keep going and if it feels like the wrong therapist for you at anytime, don't hesitate to find another one who feels right.

Keep hanging in there and be gentle on yourself: You couldn't have known all this was going on, so don't let yourself get caught up in feeling ashamed, guilty, stupid, etc. It was all HIS choices and HIS alone that brought you to this exact place. Just do your best to keep on keeping on. And know that you can find refuge here. <3

I will be ordering that book tonight. Thank you wach and moor. I find my feeling right now are day to day, though this is an improvement over the minute to minute as they were last week. I know this will be a long and winding road. BF is aware that I'm here for the long haul, so far as he is not crossing my boundaries (which I'm still working out) and is involved in what I feel is an active recovery.
The one area I am having the most trouble finding articles, info, or forum topics about is the same sex issues. His therapist explained it's a further escalation of the addiction, much like drug users would escalate to same sex encounters for drugs... Only here the encounter itself was the "drug" in this case.
He (therapist) stressed that only BF could ever decide if this is representative of his sexuality, but from the conversations we've had, it doesn't read that way...then again I thought I could read him all along :-(
I would be open to any resources focused on this, or input.

I don't have any good resources for this either, but I can tell you that even with my husband's PA, it escalated in a similar way. It started with pictures and videos of women online, to IM chats with women online, to phone calls with women online, then to all of the above with men. I, too, was deeply disturbed and wondered if my husband could be gay. He still denies it--saying that he had phone chats with men to discuss which sites about women they found online--but I don't believe him. However, I don't believe that he is gay, either. I really think that it seems to be an escalation of the problem. In fact, when he did switch over to men, my husband was in a deep depression and his anxiety was the worst that it had ever been.

quk4mm,

My H did not have an issue with same sex, however...I am doing recovernation.com workshop for partners and I DID run across this issue explained there. They also say that it may not be part of their sexuality but just an escalation of their acting out. Of course only your BF can work through that and decide. I believe that I also ran across this in...(help me out if I'm wrong ladies) Mending a Shattered Heart by S. Carnes??? I've read so many books in such a short time it is hard to keep track. Take care of you...

Thank you ladies!
Anyone, I saw that today too but think I'll wait to get farther along before jumping into that!

G - There are varying degrees of this addiction, like many other addictions. Some manage to control their urges to the point where a problem is barely detectable on one end of the spectrum, while on the other end of the spectrum, addicts have lost their jobs and have even been arrested for their pursuits.
I have read that addicts may relapses again and again after trying to recover, that they fall deeper into their addiction with each relapse. This may be what has happened with him over a period of years.
What happens is that as the addiction increases, the addict begins to find that their drug of choice is no longer giving them the high they once experienced so they begin to look for more excitement which may include same sx prn, hook-ups, etc, but it doesn't mean that they are gay.
This addiction is not about looking for a relationship, it's about looking for a high.
It seems that you both realize that you have a lot of work to do and you are both willing to move forward in this regard. As long as you BF can see that he has challenges ahead, is willing to accept responsibility for his own recovery, is willing to offer complete transparency to you as well as respect your boundaries, then there is hope for the future, but again the road to recovery is a long one..
There is great information here about stages of recovery for both SAs and spouses and you can delve into those when you are ready.
Needless to say, it seems very overwhelming, but you have found great support here!

Two possiblilities of same sex acting out that I have read and asked my h about are 1. childhood sexual abuse and 2. Unfinished business or feelings about their fathers. I am glad that you found this site. I also have not read your journal but plan to. It will be overwhelming but number one is to get clarity for yourself adn Wach has given some good suggestions with the boundaries and therapy, books and recovery nation. You found this site to so you are on the right path. :)

It's encouraging to read that he seems to be so committed to his recovery, being proactive about it and making a lot of concrete steps. I am totally with you in understanding that this can feel positive and make you feel hopeful but with that comes all the fears that you may be setting yourself up for further hurt if he relapses. That's a really tricky one and is just a really awful inevitability after finding out your partner is a SA : (

Has he considered going to SAA meetings? They're making a huge difference in my H's recovery, it can be so much more intensive than therapy alone (eg checking in 3 times a day, having a support group and learning from them - what to do and what not to do, there are meetings in most big cities a number of times every week, e-meetings, sponsors, etc).

Interestingly, my H actually only revealed to me last night that he had had a sexual relationship with his (former, thank god!) best friend who was also his #1 acting out buddy for more than 15 years (the stories of what these two got up together!) They'd been really tight best friends (a friendship based on screwing around...) for about ten years before my H and I started going out but only had their first sexual experience with each other (not counting numerous times that they would be screwing other girls at the same time in the same bed...) a few months before my H and I started going out. They were then together sexually with each other another 4 or so times over the next couple of years. This is the only time my H has been sexual with a man (he denies there was any real anal sex but they did most everything else) so it seems pretty clear to me that he's not gay. He's slept with squillions of different women but only one guy. We also came from a city with a huge gay population and where we lived within five minutes of a huge number of gay bars so he certainly had every opportunity in the world to sleep with gay men if he'd wanted to. He also knows that I'm very open minded about homosexuality so I don't think that he would have felt that he had to lie to me about that. I think that if he truly considered himself to have some kind of bisexual leaning, whilst he may not have felt comfortable coming straight out and saying that to me (on account of feelings of shame and guilt that he told me he feels about what he did with this guy), that he would have at least said something like, "mmm I'm not really sure, I don't think so." But it really sounded to me like he is really not attracted to men. He didn't have to reveal to me last night this secret that he hasn't told a soul and that he felt a lot of shame about (he actually volunteered it, y'see I said the SLAA meetings are effective!). If he was willing to reveal that, it doesn't make sense that he would then conceal any desire that he has for men. I think it was more a case of two insane and horny sex addicts drunk at the end of a long night of clubbing and trying to find women to sleep with and, not being successful, getting their rocks off with other. Cos that's pretty much what happened on each of the occasions it did happen he says. And, while he did sometimes watch Asian transvestite porn (these shemales can be unbelievably beautiful and feminine, you would have no idea that they were harboring penises under those dresses!), he never watched gay (male) porn and way more than 95% of what he watched was women.

After having read this discussion earlier and hoping to be able to provide some answers here for you I asked him if he could explain what that's about: why a straight man would start having sex with men? And his answer was almost word for word what many of the other posters here have said: he definitely doesn't consider himself gay and it was simply about needing a bigger high as he needed something more intense to get the same effect. (Sheesh the mind boggles to think what kinds of stuff these guys would be getting into if their SA continues unchecked for even longer than it has, ewww!)

I hope that helps in some way to help you make sense of what might be going on with your BF and also letting you know that your BF is not alone in having done this. I suspect there might also be a lot more SAs that have engaged in gay sex at some point but, whilst they may be willing to share much of the details of what they did, revealing that they'd had gay sex might be simply too shameful for them?

Oh, and Cynclaire points out, I do think there seems to be a higher incidence of men that engage in homosexual behaviour in later life if they've been the victims of childhood sexual abuse (by another male). (Although I don't believe this to be the case for many others like my H for whom I suspect it's more about needing a bigger thrill to be satisfied.) In the same way that there seems to be a link between promiscuity in women and earlier sexual abuse. I'm reaching the conclusion that our early sexual experiences have an enormous bearing on our sexuality in later life (such as what things turn us on, whether or not we have a healthy relationship with sex, associating sex with love or power or status, etc). I could be wrong but it seems to me that those experiences we had in our formative years where we started to feel sexual have a large bearing on our understanding of what sex is (eg if a person's earliest sexual experiences were from finding their father's porn magazines, I suspect that then porn becomes a huge part of what they need to feel turned on throughout their lives, or a person who is punished as a child for masturbating will forever feel shameful about doing so, etc). I think this also goes for healthy sexual development, ie healthy childhood experiences related to sex/sexuality set a person up to have a healthy relationship with sexuality throughout their lives.

My husband was using same sex to fill the high as well, and it was the part that I find still triggers me the most and was always hardest to wrap my head around.

His explanations to me were that it was easier to find men for sex and chat partners. It was free and plantiful. They were more discrete and more experimental and just an easy way to fulfill the high.

I believe that a huge percentage of the men who do this on the down low are actually sex addicts rather than closetted homosexuals, but I don't have any stats to back that up.

I also found myself go through a period where I felt actually stimulated by thinking about this. I think for me, that was akin to the husband in the movie "What Dreams May Come" joining his wife in hell rather than living in heaven without her. I don't know if it helped our recovery or hurt it, or if it was just one of the landscapes we've crossed together, but I thought it might be helpful to you if I spoke about it in case you find yourself in the same spot at some point in your recovery.

Silla and Grrly,
Thanks for your continued input, info and support. It's nice to know I'm not alone in this. I'm sure just as it's hard or our SAs to admit same sex interactions, it's just as hard to admit those as a partner! Thank you for your honesty on this. Silla, I agree so much with your ideas on younger exposures to sexuality forming our views, in either positive or negative ways. BFs mother and I had a long talk last week and during it she mentioned that although no abuse ever took place that she is aware of, (she doesn't see BFs fathers emotional absence and constant ridicule as abuse) she worried that something may have happened to him as a boy. From both her and BFs account, at some point (8 or 9 years old I think) he developed intense uncharacteristic anxiety about playing baseball, or stepping onto the hockey rink (always been super athletic and loved sports). She said she picked him up at least twice from sleepiness bc he was 'flipping out'. Thankfully, they got him into counseling and though it helped the anxiety the cause was never revealed. She even said maybe this is something that has yet to come out, and will through his treatment.
If he did suffer any kind of abuse I pray he can come to terms with that and release it. He told me his same sex acting out was something he'd locked away so deep inside that he 'planned to take it to the grave'. I have no doubt that he may well feel the same way, if not even more protective of any memories of abuse. At this point I fear he has all but convinced himself that didn't happen to him, just as he stated the same sex encounters were almost not him but someone else. The SAs ability to compartmentalize will never cease to amaze me.
He has looked into saa meetings though none very close, and wants to get a sponsor. He also said today he wants some time alone to check out recovery nation.com and see about their workshop.
Still on this winding, bumpy path but at least I feel we're standing together, maybe not holding hands yet, but facing the right direction.
G