SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Any MC or IC that tells you it was a one time mistake and to move on from it..without examining it,feeling it,processing it,etc,is a waste of time. You need to find a MC who understands infidelity.

Move on?? It takes 3-5 years to heal from this..and thats with a remorseful WS who doesn't lie or TT,and is committed to repairing the damage.

I felt stupid and like a fool too when I first found out. Please know it's not true! You've been duped by the one person you love and trust the most. Believe me, the anger will come.

I am so sorry for all of your losses.

I'm sorry. Don't beat yourself up!!! Everyone does but it's NOT your fault!!!

How much does the truth matter to you? Because I don't believe he paid 50 or 100, fwiw. Also... this is gross but I don't think he's using google to scout out clubs and massage parlors, I'm pretty sure I know the name of the site and it's disgusting. And yes I think he knows the name of the club.

If he's a member of the site I think he is, that's why he's scrubbing his computer.

ETA:

Was he at the Gentleman's Club in Glendale CA? They do have a 10 minutes in VIP/$100 thing. So maybe that's it.

Maybe try bluffing. Tell him you're taking the computer to have the hardrive analyzed. Tell him you want to know the name of the site he uses to search for clubs.

[This message edited by absolut at 12:11 PM, April 26th (Friday)]

Oh no, no, no, it was nothing anyone said. It is the reality of the situation. And the fact that the people I would have turned to for support - - my mother and my sister - - died this year. And I am still bleeding from the d&c, that was so very recent -- just a week today.

I get this. As I said in my eighteen page post (I'm sorry. I am SO VERY WORDY!!), my cousin, who truly was like my brother, passed away ~2 weeks before my first D-Day. Every...single...day for at least a month, I wished I could know what he would say to me, what he would advise me to do. In the shock right after stumbling upon the evidence, I actually called his phone - I was in such a state of shock that I... forgot.

So I do understand this and know it makes things feel so much more insurmountable, I guess, or brutal.

I've also had a miscarriage, though not recently, but I do remember the horrible hormone/mood swings from ~2 to ~8 weeks after the loss -- hold on tight and really consider talking to a doc about anti-anxiety/depression meds, whatever they feel is best for your situation. You're looking at 2 major traumas within days of each other, and one of them is about to do a number on your hormones. ((HUGS)) I'm thinking of you -- and I really mean that, I'm not just typing it for the sake of saying it. My heart truly goes out to you.

You're looking at 2 major traumas within days of each other, and one of them is about to do a number on your hormones. ((HUGS)) I'm thinking of you -- and I really mean that, I'm not just typing it for the sake of saying it. My heart truly goes out to you.

This - oh my God, this is so much to process. And you're being his rock while he's curled up in a ball. Take care of you, please.

Absolut, if there is a way for me to go to the site and figure out by entering his email if he is a member then I want to know. If there isn't a way to do that then I think the website would just torture me.

Thanks for the words of support everyone. And Absolut, with regard to your comment about your post not casting you in a good light, it seems to me a matter of considerable grace if the bumps in our lives and some of our harder experiences are something we volunteer to use to help others. By that I don't mean you have to pass on the website if you are uncomfortable . . . just a general thanks for sharing your knowledge in this area.

ETA: I think it was the gentleman's club. He told me though it was 10 to enter and then 40 or 50 for the lapdance and then what turns out to be an additional 100 for the private booth business.

[This message edited by cds22 at 12:20 PM, April 26th (Friday)]

I totally agree with confused! We were able to start from the beginning with a therapist certified in sexual addiction. She was the one who diagnosed my WH SA in just two visits! By the second week he had gone to his first SA meeting & has gone to one Step Weekend. Sadly as I suspected would happen, he has told me he doesn't feel "comfortable" with her & wants to find another one. I know she makes him uncomfortable & I know it's because she's on to the games he plays. That's ok with me! I'm not going anywhere! If he doesn't keep it up that will tell me all I need to know!

cds22, I'm so sorry you are going through all of this. It seems like so many of our WS's choose to act out at times in our lives when we are already dealing with so much else - it is the definition of selfishness.

At times, it is so overwhelming to hear the advice here. When I first started posting here I received a fair number of 2x4's letting me know that I was not getting the whole truth from my WH. He told me he kissed an old classmate at a high school reunion. I honestly believed this was the extent of A for months. I think I finally started posting here because something in my gut said this just isn't right. Every time I went back to my WH, he came up with some other bit of truth to satisfy my questions, whatever it took to avoid conflict and to end the questions (although he never acted defensive, I only learned later that his extreme shame act was a conscious or unconscious technique to stop the questions dead in their tracks).

Your WH has admitted to a huge number of lies already, and there are more to come. I eventually found out that mine had oral sex, and had previously kissed two other women dating back 5 years.

I hear what you are saying regarding the spying, and like you, I knew I could not be in a marriage like that; but in the beginning, it is necessary to protect yourself. A keylogger is a very good idea. After a few months, if he is doing everything he says he is (i.e. no porn, no looking up massage parlors, etc.) then you can reevaluate how you feel about stopping the surveillance. I don't actively monitor my WH, but I know very well that by doing so I am taking a risk.

Finally, we explored the sex addict angle as well. First and foremost, I agree with the others that you do need to see a CSA or a therapist recommended by a CSA to get an accurate diagnosis. My WH was told by a few therapists that there was no problem with his behavior. In our case, my husband was abusing porn, overworking, and drinking too much. He was using all three as an escape, but he had not yet escalated to the point of addiction. He wasn't using out of compulsion, it was because he had limited forms of coping with stress. Getting the SA evaluation was pivotal in getting my WH to face the facts in terms of where he was headed if he didn't learn to cope with the stresses in his life in different ways.

(((CDS))) I am so sorry.

Don't for a minute feel stupid and small. It is your WH that is stupid and small. You are honest, loving, and loyal and believe the best in people. Like a spouse is supposed to me.

I won't traumatize you further with details of my story, but I can say that we have many parallels thus far and it is only the tip of the iceberg for mine. But there are a few things you asked, and you said, that I feel need addressing so please know I have been in your shoes and I know what I am talking about.

When does he stop seeming filthy and tainted to you? That is hard to answer. It takes a lot of time. I think you need to reflect and think about what is your dealbreaker, what will make you decide to leave first. If you think sex with another person is your dealbreaker (and that is ok if it is)...then I think you need to prepare for D. There is no point pondering when you can kiss him again if there is no chance for the relationship to begin with.

I am worried for YOU. You have mentioned IC for him, MC etc but I don't see much in the way of therapy for YOU. IMHO, you need a therapist that specializes in trauma and if at all possible a CSAT. If you think what is happening to him is extreme, it compares nothing to what is happening to you, what has happened to you, and what will happen to you. You have basically had all the worst traumas that can happen to a person all at once. Regardless of whatever you decide about anything else , you need to make yourself and your healing the priority now. You will not be able to make the best decisions for you and your kids unless you do.

I am also concerned with your need to know the "cure" rate or relapses to decide your future. You can't cure an addiction of any kind, you can only treat it and manage it. It is a lifelong commitment, and there will always be the risk of relapse. So if that is a dealbreaker for you, that is ok too.

We could tell you all the ways that you can find his internet history on his phone and computer. You could get to 50 posts and find it out for yourself. And you are absolutely right, having to check that regularly is no way to live. But if what is a dealbreaker for you is lying, that he is continuing to lie...well, I think that ship has sailed.

I would stop all efforts on him at this point and only focus on you. What do you need to feel safe, to be able to heal, and move forward with your life? What therapy do you need, what support do you need from others? What does CDS want and need out of life?

You can always take him back later if things are not as they seem (unlikely). You can always support his recovery and healing later when you are strong enough and healed enough on your own, if you even want to. But I am telling you someone who is lying to you even now after all that has happened, is not ready to address what is broken in them, not ready to fix it. So any effort on your part for him will be wasted. He has to decide he needs to do it on his own. Now is the time to focus on you.

Keep posting. You can do this.

Thank you for your kind words CDS. I appreciate it very much, especially at this dark time for you.

Dances at GC are 20 a pop, so maybe he got 2. Really I think he's trying to line up his spending with an ATM withdrawal rather than tell you exactly what he did and spent. Guys were always worried how the ATM at the club would show up on their checking account.

My experience, an enormous percentage of men who go to strip clubs are sex addicts of some stripe. Most strippers know this on some level, we had ways of referring to them, but after a while I started to realize how much behavior lined up with actual clinical sexual addiction. I'm not going to t/j with all that. But no I don't think there's a cure.

I'm going to try to articulate this... take something like heroin addiction. I think an addict would likely be very motivated to recover and quit because everybody on the planet thinks it's disgusting and almost nobody uses it to any extent whatsoever.

Porn? Strip clubs? look at our whole culture. men tend to cheer each other on in regards to these things. If you don't participate, it's viewed as, your wife has you "whipped." The whole culture supports pornography. It's very easy for a man who is a full blown SA to look around him and decide, no, I don't have a problem. I mean, even the covers of mainstream magazines like Cosmo and Maxim are pornographic imo. In regards to the photos and the little blurbs.

So that's just my two pennies on that.

in regard to the website I'm referring to, it has a similar setup to many, you choose a username and password.

Do you know how to lock your computer? How to put a password on it? You can lock it and tell him he can't get back on it until he tells you the whole truth. Sex addicts are also internet addicts. They freak out without internet access for 5 minutes.

(being sarcastic there...but it's true...)

I wanted to update everyone-- there is good and bad.

On the positive side, my HIV test is negative! I cannot get tested for anything else for at least a week due to healing from the d&c. I went out to lunch with a friend and ordered some SAM-E online.

Also positive my husband on his own called a CSAT therapist and made an appointment for the diagnostics and evaluation to determine whether he is a sex/pornography addict or transitioning to one.

On the negative side, on Friday there was another disclosure from my husband. He phoned me to say that he has been combing his memory and twelve years ago when we were first married, he went to a massage place he walked by. He was not sure what kind it was but it sounds like he was hoping it would be an erotic massage. It turned out to be an above-board massage but he said he left feeling pretty bad about it because he didn't think his intentions were good. He said he has not attempted anything like that since.

I told him I was going to have his hard drive analyzed if he didn't take me to all the sites he was a member of. He told me he was not a member of anything and I could take it to be analyzed, he just did the free porn download sites. I told him I needed to know if there was anything more awful than what I saw on the sites he took me to. He told me the most sordid thing he views is something called face-sitting (?!?). He now says he wants the polygraph as he has told me everything. I am meeting with a CSAT soon to get info on the polygraph pros and cons and good people in my area.

Thanks again for all of the help and advice.

Kudos to you cds!

I continue to be amazed at the number of people signing up daily on this site! To me it is very telling of the fact we as a society have lost our morals. Your strength & courage has been a true inspiration to me! You listened to what these good people were telling you then took the bull by the horns! You have made so much progress in such a short time that I'm am truly amazed! You are a good bit younger than me but you have inspired me to keep putting one foot in front of the other or, as my friend told me recently, right, left....breathe!!!! You are a strong young lady!

Yes, you are a very strong lady. I admire you for being so kind and forgiving and then listening so well to others about what may have happened and how to handle it. You have been open and honest yourself and willing to learn. Much can be learned from those who have gone through this before us.

I do not believe he only looked at porn 15" at a time. No. It is very addicting and if he uses it like that why would he ever quit after only 15"?

I am seriously against porn. It is degrading to women and so addictive. It changes a person. It hardens people. They go to the next level and get further into the behavior. It escalates. It does not get old and they quit. It gets less exciting so they look for other activities to give them a greater buzz.

My husband's betrayal has hurt me to the very core of my soul. It has been devastating to me. We are in R and after a long time I feel much better. It still bothers me so I have found SI as an outlet for my sorrow and pain and to learn from others.

I believe it is possible to R. But it takes a very willing WS who works extremely hard on their own recovery and behavior.

Checking up on the WS is stressful and takes a great deal of energy. It is worth it if you are to hope to stay together and make it work. If he is faithful there will come a time when it will not be as necessary. I still believe in "check ups" now and then even when things seem to be going well. They were already apparently going well when all this as happening.

I firmly believe in polygraph testing if there is any doubt. Also follow up testing in 6 months or a year and then yearly for a while can reveal dishonesty as well as prevent this behavior in some WH who know they will be checked up on later.

It also troubles me that your husband has progressed to enjoying lesbian sex and and more than one person. That just doesn't seem like the normal early discovery and interest of someone new to this.

It is time to take care of you. Any anxiety and depression he is having is a direct consequences of his behavior. He needs to feel that and experience it fully. It is not yours. You have been subjected to a great trauma.

There is a book called "Your Sexually Addicted Spouse". It explains the trauma and the importance of finding a counsellor who will treat you for trauma.

Hang in there. I have great compassion for the loss of your baby and your plans for another child.

I sent you a private message. Look on your profile for it