Hi all, I’m new and have been reading the site for a couple of days and have decided to post my story. However, it seems very different from most of the people posting.
This past Saturday while I was paying bills I was curious what the balance on one of our credit cards was, so I signed online and to pull up the statement. I noticed a charge to a spa, which I thought was odd. I figured somebody had stolen our credit card numbers. We have two credit cards from the same company so when you are looking at the accounts online you can click between the two accounts. I clicked over to the other card and found charges to massage parlors dating back to when we opened the card in 2011. I never look at the statement of either of these cards, because I was under the assumption that we didn’t use either of them for day to day purchases. In fact, I thought that the older card had a zero balance. I was very confused and while I knew that there was something going on, I still clung to the hope that somebody had somehow gotten a hold of BOTH of the card numbers somehow. I googled the ‘spas’ and as you can guess found that they while they were massage parlors they were massage parlors with prostitutes.
I’m sure it sounds so cliche, but H is the last person that anybody would suspect this of. Our marriage is great, we truly are best friends. There was absolutely zero signs.
My husband came home a couple hours later and I asked him to sit down. I explained what I had found and he went pale. He said he understood if I wanted a divorce. I asked him to explain. He said that years before we started dating he lived pretty far away from all of his friends, family, and he started going to these places. He has always had performance issues with sex, and this gave him a place where when that happened he wasn’t embarrassed because it was anonymous and the person didn’t know him. He said that when we first started dating, 10 years ago, he stopped for a couple of years. Our sex life was great in the beginning, but once he started having an issues again he started going again.
He said that he wants to stop, that he has tried to not go but it has never worked. He was always so ashamed of was afraid to tell anybody what was going on. I am not making excuses for him. What he has done is a horrible thing. However, he was sexually abused as a child by his father, although he refuses to admit what happened was abuse. He kept apologizing and said he would do anything to not lose me, but understands if he does. I know most people are going to say that when they are caught.
He called two sex addiction/abuse specific treatment facilities that evening, and made an appointment. He went on Monday and had an STD screening. Also, as per the instruction of the doctor he has an appointment with on Monday, he went to a sex addicts anonymous meeting on Monday and is going to another tonight.
As for me, I’m not sure how I feel. I know most would think I’m an idiot to even consider staying. I have contacted a therapist for me, who specializes in Sex Addiction. She has no openings in the next couple of weeks but doesn’t want me to wait. She is going to call me if she has a cancellation and see what her colleague’s schedules look like. I told him that I can’t make promises, I can’t make ultimatums, because I don’t know how I feel. For now, I’m sorting things out and he understands that I could decide that I’m done at any moment.
I’m hurt, I’m scared, and I’m having to pretend In all the other areas of my life like nothing is wrong. I’m walking around numb.
That turned out to be really long, I’m sorry! Thank you for reading though.