just not sure I can do it - semi rant/dump. Maybe will help someone feel less alone
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Anonymous
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In some ways I should be hopeful because DH has finally admitted he had/has a porn addiction. He has taken steps to remedy it which happen to match some of the better therapeutic measures out there. He has admitted to his anger problem, is on medication for his depression, is clearly trying as of the past few weeks to really step up to the plate and be present while still being clearl ADHD and not really having much in the way of strategies for that. He wants to repair the family for the sake of our 7 year old daughter. Etc etc etc. And yes he says he loves me and I believe him on that.
Problem is: after so many years of denial and lying, after not as many years but more than I could take of anger outbursts and getting in my face and verbal abuse, after years of promises to improve, I simply cannot see how exactly this time is going to be different. However, I also know that I _cannot_ see it because even if it comes to pass, this turn around, I know I wont know its real for some time. I also currently feel I may never completely trust him ever again. There are things I trust him on, such as not being a cheater. But as to anything he has lied to me about before, and anything he has reneged on such as "being better" and "getting better", I may never have real peace with that. I have spent 20 years, the prime years of my life, married to someone difficult who only became more difficult over time (while, ironically, there were some improvements). Upon telling an old friend of mine that really some of the worst moments of my life involved him, she said "but so have some of the best". Which is true. We do have this amazingly loving and remarkable child who needs me very much and would benefit from having her father directly in her life. BUT BUT BUT. I am hurt, tired and angry. I told him a few years ago that if the porn resurfaced he HAD to tell me becuase if I discover something and he lies to me about it "it will break me". Well sure enough it did and he did. And it did. To me I cant help feeling like his love his lacking. He contends that he just did not "see" his addiction as such, and kept thinking it could be something he could rid himself of, that he did not realize it would be this hard. But I dont know if I can ever deal with having been lied to so much. Sometimes I feel like I can see the only way out is to let him own his lies and not police him. Which I didnt. But nonetheless, being lied to, it is so damaging. I cant even put it into words. Its gut wrenching. This last time he lied to me so convincingly (I was not convinced but I could tell he was trying to be) taht I told him flat out it disturbed me. He also lied about his weed smoking. He had in fact quit before we married (not for me, but a few years before we were even engaged), but resumed occasional use in our marriage while hiding it from me, and then later asked for official permission to smoke again because of his stress levels. From then on of course nothing he told me ended up being true- that he wouldnt smoke it every day, he would be super discreet, he would not smoke whie out of town on business, etc. ALL those supposed SELF created boundaries and rules were broken almost immediately. Meanwhile I am not saying much but if I did he would act like I am the problem. See, thats the fucked up part here. He says he didnt mean it, he says he sees now what he did, and how terrible he was, etc. but the fact remains HE BLAMED ME for EVERYTHING including his terrible anger. That is what he said to me. I never once bought it, thank god, becuase I have my self esteem in tact. I know when someone is out of whack. But he said it and dug his heels in on many occasion. He would relent, eventually. Meanwhile however, I do know depression creeped in, and so I may never have had him in his balanced out state. Maybe what I am seeing now (way more normal acting and sounding) is what is ahead. Anyway, not per se seeking advice here, and yes yes yes there will be therapy. Oh will there be f'in therapy. There was therapy before too, but without full honesty by DH it only went so far. Now maybe it could go farther. I never thought I would lose my love for him. But I have lost so much respect, its pretty close to the same thing. I have known him since we were teenagers. We are deeply bonded, and now we have this great kid. But I am tired. Ive lost trust. I dont know how much happiness I can hope for here, and its probably best I dont have a y specific expectations in that regard. Its going to be a long gradual process of building a new life. But I guess I am not used to committing to something with so much uncertainty for the future coupled with BAD CRAP in the past It SUCKS!  But maybe now with everything out in the open, after 20 YEARS, (GRRRRRR) something good can come from this. Or something. ((sigh))
Anyone even .001% less resilient, patient and loving would have cracked a long time ago. Problem is that now _I_ am less of all of those things. |
Anonymous
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Why does the porn bother you so much?
And don't say it's not the porn, it's the lying. It's clearly the porn. |
Anonymous
| How many times have you posted here?! |
Anonymous
+1 No wonder the man lies so much, OP is very unforgiving. |
Anonymous
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OP, you are a horrible person. You took a guy who smokes weed and watches porn and married him and had a baby. You knew what he was when you married him. You knew that your values and his values did not coincide.
Your poor kid. Your poor husband. You are going to spend the next 50 years being smug and martyred at their expense. Divorce already. |
Anonymous
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Oh shut up PPs. Maybe the high schoolers have the day off or something.
OP, listen to me. I totally get where you are coming from. The particular issues are different, but I just had a very similar conversation about my limits with my DH last night. I told him the various issues had to be fixed, that I wasn't sure I could go on if they were not. I said I wanted them totally and completely fixed for once and for all, and that I did not think I could handle it if they were not and cropped up again in the future. He made promises of doing all the right things, but I made sure he knew I was relying on those promises. I told him I was not threatening him, just being honest about how I felt. I also said that the last time things were really bad, I would not have believed that they could ever be as good as they had since gotten, or that I would have stuck around for the current downward spiral. But I did and am (so far), so I was not going to predict the future and issue an ultimatum or a threat. I am not saying that is what you should say or feel. Only you can decide if it is worth it, and sometimes I change my mind minute by minute. When you are going through these things, it is hard to sort out. I hope you get some support for yourself because you will need it regardless of what you decide. In the past few days, I have hated when people told me I was strong and would get through it and could keep going. Sometimes it does feel like you can't go on one day more. That's when you need your support network or to decide the price is too high. No one can say you didn't try, so this decision is only about what you think you can bear right now. And post as much as you want. Plenty of people do when they are going through something hard. I am thinking of you. Today I have a little bit of extra strength and energy, so I am sending it to you. Signed, OP of the past the breaking point thread |
Anonymous
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One thing, especially about addiction and dysfunction, it seems that the co-dependent spouse (OP in this case) actually really likes her role in the relationship-even if she will not admit it. When the addicted spouse starts to get better the co-dependent spouse actually gets upset and finds fault with the addict.
I think the OP does not like the positive changes in her husband. Her role gets marginalized and she no longer has someone to blame for all of her own problems and is starting to face that fact that she has issues, instead of having a person to chronically blame for her unhappiness. After 20 years of OP supposedly having a miserable marriage, it does not come down to her having "patience" and "resilience" she just as fucked up as him. |
Anonymous
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Resources for porn addiction:
Every Man's Battle Workshop (they are having one in DC in January -- tell him to go) http://newlife.com/emb/workshop/ Safe Eyes Porn Filter software: http://www.internetsafety.com/safe-eyes-parental-control-software-affiliate.php I wish you all the best OP. |
Anonymous
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To a certain extent, OP, your husband is a horrible liar.
However, to another extent, you have put up with it for too long. You put yourself through this heartache. Question is, do you want to heal and move on without him or accept all that you know about him and stay? My premise is that if we are talking about a grown man he isn't likely to change, but he may mellow out if you are also willing to mellow out. |
Anonymous
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The problem is that the trust in the relationship has been destroyed. You can't recapture that, I don't think. How can you believe that a repeated liar is no longer a liar? I couldn't do it so I divorced him.
I decided what my ex was missing was ethics, and I could not be married to an unethical person. Didn't know about his ethical problems until times got tough, and his choices were really disappointing. |
Anonymous
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Hey 13:51. OP here. Thank you. Yes you totally get it. I appreciate the support and thankfully have found plenty here in other posts. And yes Ive posted about 8 times over as many weeks. Each time something new is added.
I had that same cool non threatening very collected conversation with DH about the explosive rage issues last November. It took till February for him to actually get help. Then the meds sort of worked, then they stopped working, etc. You are spot on about the minute to minute changes of stance. THe cofusion is created by the arc of it too- in the beginning there were not these things, and then they developed into problems, but the derpression and anger, once that kicked in, kind of drowned everything else out. Now that the depression is somewhat under control and the rage is definitely more under control, there is a hashing out going on of what has been taking place. Unlike what PP thinks, it was not 20 years of a miserable marriage, but rather 20 years of very small things spaced pretty far apart growing into much bigger and stranger things closer together, but very gradually, while depression came in, piled rage on top and then took the bottom out from everything. I think PP's projection about codependence is hilarious. But it speaks to what popular psychology and armchair psychologists with degrees from google university conjecture about humans and motivations. Those of us who are actually dealing with the real problems, however, have to work a lot harder than PP with her very odd attempt at somehow finding fault with with everyone. This living stuff is hard. And deciding who is worth supporting and who is not is not easy and cut and dry. Also, people change over time. I know DH has evolved in certain ways, and those would have helped him a lot easler. At the time we decided to have a kid he had a few solid years of being very much like the guy I married. It was the economy tanking and his business suffering that really took its toll. That is when things got strange. I do believe that DH is having a kind of breakthrough, and is for the FIRST time really owning his problems, and seeing them conprehensively. But its just really fresh and I cant tell if it will stick. Interestingly, the nasty stupid responses here seem focused on making eother DH or me or both of us to be terrible fucked up people. The reality is, the more people I talk to about this, the more I find that many people are in fact experiencing this problem. Porn addiction is a relatively new problem brought on by the ease of access, for example. Therapists deal with it all the time- and the reluctance of people to treat is as an addiction while others see porn in general as some grave sin combine to make it really difficult for those of us actually coping with it to find support. But when I have posted about it, I find those dealing with it, and its painful and stubborn like any other addiction, and it has a range like all other addictions. There is the 5 beers after work drnk and the binge blackout drunk. Not the same kind of drunk. And not the only two kinds. |
Anonymous
OP here. This is really hilarious, actually. You actually have made me laugh on a difficult day. I know you take yourself very seriously, which makes is even funnier. So, thanks! |
Anonymous
OP here. Sorry to hear this. Yes, I can see what you mean. ITs when times get tough that things are revealed. When times got tough, DH got angry. That was just weird. It was even weirder to learn this was a symptom of depression. I have to still kind of figure out whether DH has an ethical problem or a compulsion problem brought about by a dysfunctional childhood (new details revealed recently) depression and an inability to deal with stress. I think only therapy can produce this answer. The good news is that it has been the presence of our daughter and her now 7 year old super aware self that seems to have prompted him to face up to really calling things for what they are: addiction, compulsion, what have you, and take responsibility. THIS is BRAND NEW. As in, two weeks old. Problem is: is it real? Only time will tell. But yes, I am wondering if this is in fact an ethics issue and DH has made disappointing choices. If he is NOT at his core unethical, just behaviorally a mess and needs some cognitive adjustments to align himself with what he feels is his true self, then there is some hope. Its just not a knowable thing at this time. |
Anonymous
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OP, haven't you posted a lot of this before? I have very similar experiences to yours. I will tell you that his porn is him self-medicating, (as is/was the pot, obviously). I'd bet money that it's not just some special man-version of straight-up depression that he is dealing with. A lot of men in the bipolar spectrum do what he does. With it come the rages, the blaming, the porn addictions, the depressions, etc.
With your husband, even if he gets on an effective mood stabilizer, there will always be a lot of exhausting battles for him to fight, and you will continue to wear down. As hard as he tries, he will let you down again and again. I know this from experience. It's painful to read what you write, because I could have written it all. How much energy are you willing to spend on him? Don't end up like me, burned out from spending too much energy trying to figure everything out and fix everything, at great expense to just about everything and everyone else (including myself). If I could go back and counsel myself, I'd have said, "Get out now. This battle will empty you, and you will have nothing for it." |
Anonymous
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OP, I don't think you really get who and what you are dealing with. When you told him last time that he had to tell you if he got back into porn, did you really think he would do so? Did he go to therapy back then to deal with his underlying issues?
To the PPs who are giving the OP a hard time about porn, you don't get it. It really IS the lies, the betrayal, the realization that you and your family are at the bottom of his list of priorities because his life revolves around porn. I'm not talking about occasionally looking at porn, but a compulsive habit that takes him away from his family and responsibilities. OP, I actually think you might benefit from some individual therapy to figure out what you want, talk through what it would take for you to believe he has made real changes, what you can forgive. |