SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Stubbornft, thanks for coming back with a great update. I remember your name and Devastated Dee's. Wish she'd have stuck around to keep us BWs company!

I am sorry this forum isn't mire active as I couldnaure use some support. If you read my post in just found out you'll know my husband has struggled with very weak houndaties off and on for years. I thought we recovered and reconciled in 2017/18. But over the past year I've discovered that while the behavior stopped it started again probably around 2023. What I thought was mildly innapropriate behviour turned out to be at least one interactive sexual encounter with someone he met on Facebook. He videoD it and I found the video through much digging persistence and sheer luck.

In dealing with this discovery from May I pressed and pressed him to face his behavior and find his why's. I insisted that he was not facing the truth of his own behavior. I dont know what i expected but I begged for the truth to be told because my gut was screaming that I didn't know everything.

Turns out I was correct. Two days ago he confessed without me having any inkling that he had been dealing with a porn addiction for years and years. Somewhat off and on but he has no idea of the dates. But he says it was at least 3 times a week and sometimes daily. This explains so much. The very long periods of no sex between us - For months and months and him rejecting my advances.

In some ways this confession is good becuase hes admitted something (finally!) That I didn't have to catch him or drag out of him. He's is also a totally change person in every way. And the changes coincide exactly with when he says he stopped using porn.

I am so in shock, I never suspected. He hid it well, in all my sherlocking I never found it. In our 40 years together I went back YEARS in his search history, searched all computers meticulously, searched his phone, his multiple email addresses and I found one vhs tape a gazillion years ago, one downloaded but deleted video probably 15 years ago. And one search in his search history for redtube.

With the other activities, i knew but I just never suspected this.

He swears he is completed done and has no desire ever to use again. He has agreed to try therapy and has changed so much. I love who he is now deeper than ever before, I am just so shocked he could hide a secret sexual life so well from me for so many years.

[This message edited by lizziej at 5:52 AM, Thursday, July 24th]

Hi ForestFirePine,

I realise you posted your original post here in 2022 - it’s been a while and I’m wondering how you are doing now. Were you able to get help and start the healing process? My story is quite similar to yours, in that I was in an abusive marriage for over a decade, had been sexually abused by almost every man I knew, had a miscarriage, was close to ending my life, had severe PTSD and never ever sought help. Then just as I got the courage to leave my husband I met a wonderful man online. I trusted him and was so vulnerable with him. He even came to my country and settled down close to where I live. I trusted him with my life. And when I trusted him and was when I was most vulnerable with him I found obscene pics of himself that he had shared online with several women. I remember this time when we were not living together….I wanted to surprise him, so I sneaked up to his apartment and peeped in through the window. He was on his laptop busy typing. I asked him what he was doing…and he said he was eating his dinner. He did not know I was watching him….he was lying right in front of my eyes. He was chatting with someone. I know because I rang the door bell, he looked up saw me and immediately shut his computer before opening the door for me. It’s been one thing or another for over a decade now. I moved out of my house and lived with him because my parents didn’t approve of our relationship….I ended up marrying him even though I really was not sure about him….every year he takes off for six months during which time I have no clue what he is up to. I feel worthless, ugly, dark, dull, fat, ugly and he at 76 years of age (I am 50), he looks after himself like I’ve never seen a man do. I feel controlled by him….I have no boundaries with him….I tend to tell him every thing on my mind so he knows what I’m thinking or doing at any given point in my mind, I feel I’m going mad and I hate my insecurities….. I hate him but I love him….i was the other woman for a year….and now karma is biting me for what I did to his ex-wife. Although they both believe that their divorce was the best thing that could have happened to them, and he says their marriage was dead and he was dating women online long before I came on the scene, I feel so guilty and sad for her.

Hello, I read the forums here often and do not post much.

We are nearing 3 years post DD. We have gone through all the stages and it has come out of all of this that my husband has been dealing with a sex addiction for many years before I even met him, which he is only now coming to see.

We have our 10th wedding anniversary coming up in a few days and his mom is in the hospital in an induced coma to try and help her with severe respiratory and heart issues.

I have 3 children that he helped raise and they live on their own now.

It all came out after my children were out of the house and after I went through the most difficult time of my life (criminal trial where my ex-husband was recognised as guilty against myself and our children and went to prison, we have no contact with him at all and I have not seen him in almost 20 years except at court).

I love my husband dearly and was very happy to have met him and thought we had a good relationship. It turns out he was compulsively masturbating and fantasising about women we know or that he used to know, with many behaviors that are not adequate at all, throughout our whole relationship (online messaging, private conversations, even visits to see them at times...).

He had a 6 month EA with a woman at work and he was terribly addicted to that relationship even though they did not see each other out of work and did not speak the same language.

I feel like I am not doing a great summary here (I am just so tired of it) but overall he has not watched porn or done phone or video sexting or any kind of actual sexual acting out with anyone since we have been together. The thing is that doesn't really matter at all anymore or that's how it feels anyway.

After DD I found out he had dozens of sexual partners before we met (instead of the 3 or 4 he had always said, important to me since I only had one before him and maybe it would have been fine if I had known but he said he did not have much sexual experience and I believed him). Of those, 5 were prostitutes in different cities and countries and one man. This was all over 20 years ago and maybe if I had known that would not be a problem as it is now. It's the lying...the trickle-truth.

He was addicted to porn from age 16 and used to do the video-sex stuff years ago. He stopped but clearly it all then moved to this whole masturbating-fantasising universe of hell that I had no idea about.

I just wish I had someone to talk to about this. It seems that everyone in forums only want to prove he slept with someone and that I am naive or something. I am not. I have taken my precautions and he's been tested and I told him I am considering him the same as if he did sleep with someone. And I have not decided to disclose to family and friends yet (we have a relatively well known company at least locally, I am online a lot, there are some complications to that).

The problem is that it is so much worse to me, and I just feel so alone.

He has been working through his issues and attends SAA but it's all going so slow and his behaviors are so bad (lying all the time about the smallest things, rewriting the stories he said before) that I have started to despair at times.

I want to get better at setting boundaries and I need to take care of my own mental health. I can't focus or do anything like usual at the moment, it is really getting at me. I had a panic attack a few days ago, this has never happened to me like that.

Yes he is doing ALL the steps. But no it is not better, not for me anyway. It's like I don't even care anymore. Or maybe best to say I am not feeling better. He lies about the most ridiculous things and I don't trust him. It's not even about sex or infidelity anymore.

I feel like I am not great on discussion forums but I really need someone to talk to. I keep thinking that getting more involved in the boards would be good but I don't how to start.