Hi Everyone,
It’s been ages since I posted and I have to be honest and say that I haven’t been keeping up on emails, comments, etc. and I feel guilty. So, I’m sorry.
The last couple of months have been very confusing and clarifying for me. The truth is I like challenges and throughout this whole misadventure I wanted to ensure that “Bob” was into me and that the other women were just sex and there was no emotional connection. This period of my life was certainly a challenge and it has ripped the core out of my soul. I have become someone I do not know and do not like.
Before I met “Bob” I liked who I was – it took me till I was in my early 30s to get that way, but I was confident in who I was, what I looked like and so many other things. I knew definitively my strengths and weaknesses. Now I am angry all of the time…that is not me. I yelled at my boss, everything I say or do or how I analyse things at work is negative and tainted with edge. While I’ve always been sarcastic – I have not had that sardonic edge.
To top things off I see the world, relationships and men differently now. I liked the way I saw it before – that people can fall in love, that people can be faithful and that the world doesn’t revolve around the way someone looks or the triggers in someone’s mind. That deeply people are attracted to others for their warmth, their sense of humour, their intelligence and kindness and so many other inside things and that looks were something that attracted you to someone initially, but love came from the innerself. Cheesy as that sounds.
I have become more of a watcher, a shrinking violet and I watch people at the gym and on the street. I watch how women flaunt themselves (men too) sexually to gain attraction. I used to do it myself. I compare myself to every woman out there and they always seem to be better than me now and I hate that. I’ve always considered myself attractive until now. I don’t have long hair, big boobs, legs that go on forever – I see the women the men stare at now. But as I lower my eyes to everyone and anyone I do not notice if they look at me. I feel ugly. And I see, rightly or wrongly, that my brains, my career, my old sense of humour, my kindness and innerself would not matter now.
This is not a great way to feel. I feel like I’m going/am crazy. I was thinking about going on anti-depressants and thought, why? I am very unhappy – miserable in fact – and the only thing that will get me out of this slump is to change something. I like my career and the company I work for, I adore my friends and I have one heck of a great family. I am lucky in a lot of ways, but I seem to obsess about the crap things now.
Things I don’t like …my commute to work, my BF’s family and the fact that my brain doesn’t switch off and I ALWAYS wonder what Bob’s up to, where I was when he did everything, how it is possible that I really would never have thought he could ever do this, how he could leave my house and sleep with someone else and call me from the hotel after his session, how Bob could use or objectify other people, how I’ll never know if he’s disclosed everything, if he can fall off the wagon – but mostly, I can’t get the visions out of my head or come to any resolution about why (he still can’t explain it) or how he could do this – but mostly I do not ever think I could trust him again. Not even one little bit.
It’s not the fact that he had sex with another person (predominantly) it’s the duplicity, the lies and after getting caught with text messages and continuing to lie and cheat and look me in the face and pretend that everything was normal. It’s the “how could he live two seperate lives” and act the whole time like the perfect boyfriend and how on God’s green earth did I ever, and I mean ever, think we had a near perfect relationship and that at 38 years old I finally found the man I could get old with.
Who the heck is this person? And how was he such a great liar. And how did he show up at my house nearly every night, daughter in tow and pretend? How did I not know? I beat myself up at this and I know that he is such a great liar that he could easily do this again. If he’s in a good mood I wonder why – if he’s in a bad mood I wonder why. He’s starting to feel again and he cranks at me and I wonder if his (imaginary) GF has made him mad or it’s me.
I am sick of analyzing. I am sick of wondering. I am sick of BS. I am sick of looking at him and feeling zero respect and instead feeling sorry for him. I am sick of my brain never shutting off. Of having to know every minute detail. Of things I think have happened, but he says they haven’t – but my brain won’t stop and still won’t stop until like he says, “he tells me what I want to hear” – and I want him to say that the bruise on his nipple was from that bitch, Lisa or someone else.
I want him to say that there were other women, because quite frankly, I can’t believe that his addiction in 2 years and out of the hundreds of people he cybersexed with – no one else wanted to meet. Even though he admitted (I had a bit of evidence) that he tried to hook-up with Jenny from Lavalife (until she said her meetings were $500) and Diane from Toronto who at the last minute couldn’t do that to her husband. He just says having one other person on the side was too much work. As a reminder…Lisa and Bob stopped f’**king last October and 2 months before that he sent emails out to 9+ women that I found – one being Jenny. So as his realization that Lisa was a real person with feelings, who allegedly wanted more (maybe it was Bob who wanted more. Maybe it was Lisa who dumped him – who knows and this is what drives me nuts. The not knowing, not believing, always being in the gray space. And like Bob says, until he says what I want to hear – which is the negative, the stuff that makes logical sense to me - than I’ll never be able to move on.) he’s admitted that if one of those women had worked out taht he may have had an affair with them.
The one thing Bob has always said…is…if you’re going to lie, just give them a bit more than the evidence and they’ll think you’re telling the truth. Learned that as a boy, when shady characters from an Italian men’s club were the only people who gave him attention.
Then he says at the same time that he would get the same “high” from cybersex and then porn and it was faster, so when he stopped the meeting in hotels with Lisa – he says that the other stuff was enough.
So you can see…mentally, I am no further ahead then I was 5 months ago, in fact now I’m angrier than ever and jaded.
On Bob’s note…he is still going to his SLAA meetings and says he hasn’t acted out at all since May when he got caught, including masterbation. He says it’s hard, but that he would rather talk with the group than with me since I throw everything back in his face. Which, I’ll be honest, I do – not to be nasty, but everything he says I analyse and then have a gazillion other questions and my brain starts obsessing about that. (Stuff like, “how is it that I can live like this when I feel like I’m competing with every other woman on the planet” and a gazillion other things.) Bob says he sees the world differently too and realizes what an addicted brain he lived in most of his life and that he wants to be normal – even if I left he’d still go to meetings and get healthy.
Isn’t a good portion of this addiction about intimacy issues? How can you be intimate if you don’t share with your partner? How can I keep throwing everything up in his face and expect him to have heart-to-heart’s with me?
Before I met Bob, I loved sex, thought I was good at it and was “randy” for it all the time. Now, the thought of sex just makes me feel inadequate, not sexy at all and I figure with Bob that I can never compete with his fantasies, the rush he’d get with strangers that he’d never be able to get from me and I’ve given up trying to please him in bed and he wonders why I just lay there. Before I found out about this addiction, the affair, etc. I bought lingerie a lot, and really enjoyed and made an effort to be queen of the bedroom. I figure now that I gave him all I had in bed and what’s the point now. I can’t compete. Plus, I don’t feel sexual at all – no drive. So we’re not having sex and since he’s trying to get healthy…he says I hold all of the power. If I say no, then he can’t do anything at all. I don’t want this power, the guilt or the wondering if he’ll eventually justify me not putting out to go elsewhere. And thinking like that (and when we were intimate wondering if he’s fantasizing about someone else, if it’s perfunctory or if he did “this” with Lisa – and those crappy, horrible, gut-wrenching visions of her) just makes me not want to have sex even more. In fact, I don’t want him to touch me at all. We are not having sex now.
We went to Recovering couples Anon (RCA) for awhile and while the people there were lovely and welcoming I didn’t get much out of the meetings. There was no concrete advice on how to cope, it was more a venting thing and I have friends and family for that. I’m not saying that there isn’t value there, I’m sure there is for people who can’t discuss these issues anywhere else. I din’t connect with anyone there – always thought “those people” – most of them were still going after 5+ years. I thought if I had to still be going that long than there obviously would be no real intimacy or trust or something with my partner. Wrong and judgemental, I know.
We also started couples counselling before I found out about the affair/ the addiction…only to find out that our counsellor did more damage than good. He told Bob, after he was a confirmed sex addict, that it was perfectly acceptable to comment on a woman’s cleavage if she was wearing a low cut top, because that’s why she’d wear it. Bob said he’d get fired for that and does he (shrink) realize he’s a sex addict. We never went to another counsellor at all. Bob tried to get an appointment with the only SA counsellor in our city – but his calls were never returned. Apparently.
I would have liked to go to individual counselling, but I know logically that if I went to a shrink and retold the story that he/she would say get the hell out. If I went to an SA counsellor they would have said to stay and given me justifications about how Bob loves me, is afraid of emotion and everything else I’ve read in the SA books and I should set up boundaries and give him a chance, etc. So I was afraid of their votes and afraid that the logical side of me would be over-ruled by persuasion. I needed to come to an answer myself. Plus, if I’m honest, I leave the house very early in the morning and don’t return till late. Where can you find an appointment after 8pm or weekends? If I was charging $100+ an hour I surely wouldn’t want to work nights or weekends.
So…
The reality is…that Bob and I had a new relationship where that should be the best part of a relationship. The awkwardness, the getting to know you, the necking in the car for hours, the touching, the excitement…all of it, before you get intimate (emotionally) with someone and comfortable. I feel robbed. All the time we were getting to know each other, while all of those nervous feelings were swirling around, while 2 years later and buying a house together, was exciting and good memories for me…he was not there mentally. He compared me to every woman he looked at, cybersexed with, etc. He didn’t buy a house with me to be with me, but likely to get out of his situation. (It doesn’t matter that he says he did love me all that time and that the others were just sex – just a messed-up fix.)
I feel robbed and there is nothing for me to think otherwise. All of the good memories are now replaced with…when he went to the bathroom did he text message someone…when I took him to Dominican for his 40th (all expenses paid) why did he immediately go online when we got back (and was he jonesing when we were there). It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t about me that “it was about his addiction” and that his feeling were genuine.
Genuinely, he put his feelings/needs/urges above mine and put not only my emotions on the hot grill, but my health too. I find out next month if I have pre-cancer, due to squamous cells on my cervix and I have warts on my bits, due to HPV. For the record, it was from him and not anyone else. I had a full STD check when I met Bob before we had sex. I made him wait the 2 months before my HIV test came back. He said he had an STD check too at the same time, but he’s such a liar about everything (not just the sex stuff), who knows. During the time I was trying to protect him from something I could possibly have had (I was clean) he was meeting Lisa ( a stranger he met in a cybersex chatroom) in a hotel room for sex. They used condoms, but condoms do not protect against skin-to-skin diseases like HPV or herpes and more. We decided not to use condoms because we both ”clean” and if I got pregnant, I got pregnant. Plus, he had difficulty getting them on since he was never that hard, so it just made things frustrating and the moment lost. So thanks for protecting her and not me.
I now feel sorry and angry at this Lisa. I talked to her on the phone and she was a rough-sounding imbecile. Bob said she was a plain Jane with C-cups and that she was the only one that would meet. That you could have replaced her with anyone- that it was the situation and not the person . He says when she’d call him or he’d call her whenever she was talking about anything but sex that he’d say his wife was on the phone and he had to go. He told her a million lies. And she likely told him a million too. She is definately a sex addict too – anyone who would put themselves at risk to meet a stranger, that they met cybersexing, in a hotel room in another state, far away from the safety of home, once a month for sex has to be. I’ve tried to contact her again so she’d get herself checked out (HPV pre-cancer is treatrable if they catch it fast enough), but she has changed her number and she’s untraceable now. If I’m honest not for her sake, but for the other unsuspecting women out there who’s partner’s she’s sleeping with. Bob wasn’t the first one – she admitted to him.
Mostly, I feel bad for her that she got to be a sex addict for likely childhood issues and that she turns to men to “fix” whatever needs she has, only to be used (and likely use) and be disgarded like she probably always was. Plus – here’s the nasty side of me – she’s not very bright, not attractive and uses sex as her way to attract people, they are not into her, just the sex.
But I am jealous of her. She knew about me and I didn’t know about her. She got protected, I didn’t. She knows what Bob wants in bed, I only know what he likely only wants me to know and she could pretend to be anyone she wanted, she only had to look good once a month, he shaved his head and waxed his car and looked great for her once a month. I got the non-showered, farting version most of the time with the occasional dress-up.
Mostly though…I’m jealous because I know that he could never feel that sexually excited with me because our meetings were not clandestine, because I wear flannel PJs most of the time and becasue I nag about bills, his parenting skills, housework, and a gazillion other things. She just got to tell him what he wanted to hear and get told what she wanted to hear. It must feel great being a constant state of romance (until you realize that it was all a ploy for sex). All part of the ritual sex visits. That she knew exactly what happened in that room and that I know how romantic and charming he can be and while he was wooing me in the beginning he was also wooing her.
So these last few months I’ve been doing some deep soul searching.
The biggest part now is what do I want from my life? I want a normal life, a normal relationship and I want to be part of an extended family that I respect (Bob’s Mother is the biggest liar and manipulator ever – the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I guess) and I want a child. I want to feel calm. I want the person I used to be back. I want to respect and adore the person I’m with (and not wonder if I’m tired and don’t want sex (or if we argue) if that’s a justification for my partner to seek a fix).
The reality is…I do love Bob still. But he cannot provide me with the loving, stable environment that I want. That if we could work this out, there is still the issue of his Mother. That if we had a child together there would be a number of issues…the stress, would it make him act out, if I was spending most of time with the child would his needs not be met and that would selfishly “justify” him seeking it elsewhere – I know for certain that my child would not be allowed to stay at his Mother’s unsupervised – and that in itself would cause all kinds of arguements. I’m almost 39, my biological clock is ticking, I may already have pre-cancer and that might complicate things anyway – do I have the time to sit by based on hope and faith? The answer is no. If I want a good family I cannot simply sit-by for what ifs.
Consequences. We all make decisions, conciously or subconciously, but they are decisions. Whether Bob is an addict or not the reality is…he mislead me to believe he was someone he wasn’t, he made the choice to sleep with at least one other person, he made the choice to not be “intimate” emotionally or take that risk and no matter how I slice the pie, no matter what excuses I make for his abysmal childhood, the reality is – he cheated for most of our relationship, he lived a double-life, he lied about his commitment to me, his feelings for me, he mislead me to believing we had a future together, I cannot compete with his imagined perfect woman and that I cannot be held responsible for his actions.
He did this to himself, to us and to me personally - he chose it. There are no guarantees that he won’t do it again. The thought that he could use people is not a trait in the person I want to be with, the thought that he can be someone else and keep it hidden and be duplicitous and not affect him when he was with me, the fact that he lied about who he was through and through (including lying about coaching his kid’s soccer team, his finances, living in other countries), it is mostly the fact that he is a great, great liar and I will never know what is true or who he really is and I am incredibly disappointed and I feel a fool.
The man I fell in love with and the part of him I still love is his kindness, his willingness to help me, his family, my family and his friends, the romantic, charming person, the tough looking exterior and pussycat interior, his ease of life, his intelligence and his ability to make me laugh, to calm me down. The way he was with my pets – the way he took care of me, the way he listened, the way I felt safe with him. The way I thought he adored me and the way I felt like I was in the best relationship of my life. The way I was sexually free with him and trusted him. Mostly, the ease/comfortable nature of our realtionship. I was always me, I never had to put on a mask to appease him – it felt good.
I’ll miss the person I thought he was and I’ll miss the relationship I so gloatingly and greatfully thought I had.
