stillinlove

Dear Bluebell! Yes I am very familiar with a similiar situation as yours is! As it all happened two years ago my partner was away for work too. Not only did his porn habits escalate, he also started an affair, with a look a like, who went easy on him. Selfhelp Groups call themselves SLAA. S for Sexaddiction and L for Loveaddiction as I understood it. Searching for love, for new love or not beeing able to let an opportunity go, is from my perspective something that can go hand in hand with Porn and Sexaddiction, as it is a great antidepressant and gives an escape from beeing selfhating and shamedriven. Therapy and selfcare is needed for both sides in this story and I assure you, reading good intel about this problem as is provided here and talking or trusted ones is really helping! Either if u are staying or if you are not, you will be okay again! I hope you feel less alone since u wrote your post here, because you are not alone! all the best!

Dear Ginny! I really felt your answer and it helped me understand myself and breathe!

so i caught my partner in a lie. it was not a relapse, no porn, no contacts. he checked out my new dentist (female) who i felt surprisingly attracted to a lot, in this short moment. i told him and my best friend about it. one week later he scooped through the homepage of this clinic, to find out how this woman looks like. he did this at work and was not alone, so it was not quite for arousal. but what he did is, that he deletet his browsing history. i found out because there was an automatic download of the cv of one of the dentists on his notebook. so as i saw that i immediately knew, that he wanted to know what she looked like, because i told him that i got nervous about her. but as i asked him, why this cv was on his notebook he lied to me first about having tooth pain. afterwards he explained to me he felt ashamed for scooping and i kind of felt he invaded my privacy, what is so bigott as I am allowed to check his computer and stuff all the time I want. That he deleted his browsing activity. that is what really got to me. i am kind of frozen now. not want him to be my partner at this moment. we just moved in a new apartment 2 months ago. big but only two rooms. he is going to therapy, he is off porn. and then he lies to me about something he could have told me. he could have asked me, yeah well how dies she look? wouldn‘t that be normal? of course i wouldn‘t want him to tell me if he had fantasys about me and a other woman, i would have loved to be enough for quite a while further. but lying and hiding and then acting like a shocked little desperate boy. i really don‘t know what to make of it and I am very very sick of constantly helping him to grow, telling him how to act responsible.. how to share thoughts... I feel drained and exhausted for such a long time now. and there is nowhere to go, no getaway, not even meeting my friends who all life in my homecountry. as there are covid restrictions. maybe someone would share a thought. thank u all for reading and caring!

Dear All, I am at a point where I am numb or sad all the time. It is been 2 years since I first learned about an affair my partner of 7years (then) had. She looked a lot like me. Just a few years younger and few years happier. He was in deep remorse and wanted us to heal and stay together. We had couple therapy. one year and a few months later I discovered a whole lot more as I found out he not only knew her a few months but nearly a year - allthough they only met 3 times. lived in different citys. but also in this year he watched porn and even visited prostitutes. I told the whole story in a posting half a year ago. i ran away but after talking a lot about sex addiction and him starting therapy and then covid - we tried again saving our relationship. it is known by now that his mother who always tried to dismantle me, was emotionally abusing him as a child and as an adult. also his parents created situations in the living of the family which are sexually inapprobriate big way. also he says he can't remember what he did. he knows he did it, he remembers darkened rooms, but no more. in therapy they told him that can happen in extreme situations. first i handled the situation kind of well. but these days i am just falling. everything is very hard. in summer my beloved cat died. she was still young and she had cancer all of a sudden. we fought for her, but we had to let her go. the day i learned about her illness, this big tumor out of nowhere. my thoughts were i am not strong enough for this. not yet. it shattered me. he loved the cat as I did. we still have our dog and our first cat. nala was our youngest, our little one. I can't stop thinking about what he did. all the lies he put me through for such a long time. I am not perfect, I can be very hard, controlling and mean. But I am also a very loving woman, loyal and always there for my friends in a big way. I can be a force in all kind of ways. I just don't know if I can ever trust him to be really over all the lying. Or that he is really going to become an adult in relation to his, crazy mother who took so much of my strength and patience over the last years and did me so wrong, while he was passive and victimizing himself. Why would he want to be in this relationship after all of that? Why did he never even try to stop himself? Why can't I leave?

Hi there! I have a very similar problem. As I know the socialmedia name of the one real affair besides the as I now know well hidden porn addiction that startet when my partner was about 15 years old. First I had to find out about the affair. More than a year later I found out about the porn abuse and the escort visits all in one night. All of them as well as the affair happened while we endured a long distance phase in our relationship. I still visit the social media page - long story short: it is not making me happy. It feels like I am an addict in some sort too.

Dear Natalieb! I am deeply sorry you have to go through this! And though I do not have an answer to your questions, I wanted to answer you, to let you know you are not alone! In my opinion you did nothing wrong in searching for the truth and it is not your fault it came to this. I hope you know that. Maybe you would want to seek professional help, on this site you find useful links for partners counseling as well. There is nothing wrong in seeking help right away. This hurt is deep and unfair, you should not have to go through this alone.

thank you both so much for your answers! i really think there is a big gap between harsh and negative sites like this and beeing somewhat of a person who is blind and naive. if there is love and also this feeling comes with so much individuality - but if you feel loved nevertheless and the addicted partner really works on changing things, then why shouldn‘t there be hope and happiness. of course one might be hurt dreadfully again. but hey we came out of that once - on our own and gladfully with the help of real friends - so we will come out the next time too! if there ever is a next time. because i believe in change! If the addicted partner wants to heal, wants to stop hurting others and themselves - than there is a lot that they can do. as firefly described as well! I suffered from severe panicattacks and anxiety for a very long time in my life. the best day in my life was, when i decided that i don‘t want to suffer from this half-life no more. i started therapy, made my homework, learned to take responsibility for myself and it really did so much for me. everything changed. i enjoy myself and my surroundings now even though there is this not so much fun covid 19 situation. i think after all, with anxiety and panic there is also not such a big difference to addiction - as i felt i had to learn how to calm the little reptile in my head that really craved for beeing alarmed all the time! so yes there is hope!

Hey there! Thanks for your reply. I am looking forward to both of this blog entrys as I enjoy reading this blog a lot.

Hi there! I have stumbled upon a page which is named sisterhoodofsupport - and i was seriously shocked. the comments are very negative. the pagefounder explains that sexaddicts can‘t change and that therapists are naive.. and that they will act out again and again .. it made me actually very sad and sick in my stomach as i felt like it seems to be as if i would have to relive all of this awful experiences of discovery again. me and my partner decided to fight for all the good things that we have after i took a 4 week break away from him. i had to work through my shock. he started therapy - which is now a little bit more difficult as we are in corona lockdown. does anybody know this site? i really hope all of you are fine and healthy and in a good place!

hi there! i have a maybe strange question. as i found out my partner was cheating on me with 6 sexworkers, had one affair and a few women friends he went out with them, i had a relationship with him for nearly 9 years. we lived together for 6 years - then had long distance because of his new and very intense work. the last 6 month we again shared a home. now i know, that he was addicted to porn for at least 6 years before our relationship (in this six years he had a lot of short term affairs) and he thinks he got it kind of under control whilst we where living together. except when i went away ( i think he is in denial on this part.. but maybe not, who knows). shortly after the long distance period startet he said he was watching porn a lot. he said every day would be to much, every second day would be to less to describe it. and 6 month after this period started he went to see the first sexworker. he says he had an encounter with a sexworker once in a very drunk state long before we both got to know each other. maybe it is important to know that his first girlfriend cheated on him, and maybe to know that his childhood was a real mess. anyways i found out because i read all of his whatsapp messages because even though i knew about this one „real“ affair, i just couldn‘t shake the feeling, that there is something i didn‘t know.. as i confronted him, with what i read, he had a very scary breakdown. i was in a state i know is described as a deep shock. he said, this is the darkest side of me, which i never wanted you to see, i don‘t want to see it myself. and he cried and talked about him that he is a monster.. a monster... the next talks we had were apart from each other. we talked bout sex addiction, i have studied both for teacher and social worker - so i brought this up. the next days he read and he then told me that he could find a lot of himself and the descriptions. the thoughts, the urges, the shame.. he started counseling this week. what i think is strange is that he does not know a lot of the details. some messages with women he just can‘t remember who they were and that he wrote them. the ecounters with the sexworkers he remembers but no details. he can‘t say how he got there for example. if he got there by bike or with the bus. the next thing i think is very strange - is that all this years until i found out. we really had great sex. i now know, that on long work days when we had no sex because he was tired and me too .. he wasn‘t craving any because he sometimes masturbated to pornos in his bureau when nobody was there anymore. he told me that this started at least when he was 13 - when he masturbated after sport, training in the change rooms when nobody was still there. he think it is totally sick - i think the problem is the big shame! well again about our sex life. i really felt a great connection. he told me a few time that sex with me is fulfilling for him and it is very sensual. yeah i felt the same way most of the time. only in times where i would feel as if he is shutting himself out while our long distance phase (around the time he acted out) it feld kind of mechanic to me. when i told him that, he was concerned but not an a**h*le about it. i also once said to him in this phase - it seems to me as if your feelings where gone - as if you couldn‘t feel joy anymore. but that was only for a short while and the connection between us felt intense and passionate most of the time. we want to start couples therapy, for which i will move back - maybe with an own room. but i have the strangest feelings since i am gone - and i mean i still feel very attracted to him. he says he always felt that way about me and does not think this will ever stop. what i am asking you now is for opinions to our story - or questions if you have any and maybe you habe an answer for me about my thoughts of having sex again with him, and when - if it is possible for me, as i haven‘t seen him since everything went nightmare - only facetime. is our sex as real and intimate as it seems to me - maybe this is something only i can answer myself, then the answer is yes - and he is consistent with this answer too. bit do i feed his addiction? or is it possible that our sexuality has its own life besides the addiction? thank you! i am from austria - if you wonder about my mistakes