5/5/16

So we have an upcoming appointment with the therapist this weekend. It was advised that we both attend the initial appointment. I don’t really know what to do. It was agreed that we take each day as it comes, and surprise surprise the same thing has happened. Every day I have to ask how his day has been. And each day he says the same. Nothing’s happened, work was too busy and I was occupied, or it’s OK I distracted myself. It’s almost unbelievable that he thinks I still believe this.  I asked what triggers were at his parents and he lied about that. I just cannot get him to tell the truth, and so I really don’t think a therapist is going to help anymore. He seems to be under the impression that a sex therapist will somehow be able to unlock all his secrets and cure him. I keep telling him he has to be honest with her, or it will never work. I now feel like I am repeating earlier posts. I’m wondering if we should bother wasting the £60 for the appointment, when I could buy something for my son with that money. I am really in turmoil over this. 

I suppose this is quite a short entry, but more to follow after the weekend I guess.

 

 

Here we are again

It has been some time since I wrote on here. 

On 10.10.15 I gave birth to our son, which was the most painful but most special day of my life. At this point my partner told me it had been 60 days since anything had occurred, and his birth marked a special day for him in more than one way. I have been reluctant to believe everything he has said, but without evidence there has been very little I have been able to do about it. Usually when there is little niggles, they turn out to be correct, so I was wary. In time the arguments started up again, with the same old, ” I haven’t done anything, why won’t you believe me.” We had the conversation of how I couldn’t trust him anymore, and we needed to work past this. To which he told me I would have to start giving him the benefit of the doubt. 

He stayed away at his parents a few nights, and spent several nights a week downstairs on the couch. All the time stating he was getting better. 

One day last week after a huge row, he confessed everything. He had always maintained masturbation was not an issue for him, it was purely the looking. He confessed he had been doing this by himself, and had been finding newspapers and magazines over which to do so. It broke my heart completely. All the time he was spending away to think things over, he had been continuing his habits. Even when he had no material, he would sit and think of magazines he had looked at before.He had been going into supermarkets again, to read the magazines, to think about later on. And he had my son with him. He had my son with him when he was doing this over magazines and newspapers. He was asleep, but this was too much for me. I didn’t want my son being exposed to these things. 

I don’t think I have ever been so angry in all my life. I told him to pack his bags and leave that day. Later on his mum dropped the baby off after a night away, and I broke down and told her everything. She vowed to help him, and wanted me to stick by him. I’m finding the lies much more difficult to deal with than the actual act. I keep telling him to be honest and straight from the start and we will beat this together, but he never does. I feel so distant from him. I had found  a fool proof way of uncovering deleted and in private browsing history from his work computer. He had searched my own history for how to do this, and then how to delete that. It doesn’t seem like he wants any help, but then he breaks down and begs and begs for help. I’m stuck in an impossible situation.

I was diagnosed with PND shortly after my son was born.  My anxiety returned with a vengeance, and every day was a struggle. I am now having to deal with my own worsening mental health, and my partners. 

He has now made an appointment to see a sex therapist; his mother has agreed to pay for this, which I’m extremely grateful for. We have both agreed to take each day as it comes. He has agreed to tell me about what happens each day, but struggles to come to terms with what he has done in the past, and states he will always sub consciously try to hide it. 

However, he is an excellent father. He does night feeds and settles the baby when hes distressed. My baby has been quite unwell since he was born, and my partner has taken us back and forwards to hospitals, chemists and GPs. Nothing has been too much for him. I am not willing to separate a good father from his son. What will happen in the next few weeks? I really don’t know. Too much hope is pinned on him seeing a therapist.

Week 9/8/15

Where do I begin? 

I think it all started on the Monday. We had a lovely weekend, shopping for baby, being intimate again, and generally a having a much happier time. He had said the previous week had been al right, not much to report. On Monday evening we found out we were in quite severe financial difficulty. He had had suspicions of but hadn’t said anything to me about it, which didn’t put me in the best of moods. It was literally a case of getting to a till to pay, and the card not working. Embarrassing to say the least. Then in the car on the way home he came out with how he had actually struggled the week before, and hadn’t been coming to me for help at all, he had just kept it to himself. He had found some women’s magazines in the staff room at work, and of course endless amounts of celebrities in bikinis showing off their latest bikini bodies. I asked who the women were, he said he didn’t know. I’m not proud of the fact I made us drive all the way back to work to find out just who had tempted him. What I never understand is that these women are all women he tells me he doesn’t find attractive. He even says it contradicts all his beliefs and morals, and he hates himself for it. 

He also informed me he’d used the internet at work- without telling anyone or keeping a track of it (which he promised to do if it was essential he use the web there).  After a weekend of realising how much weight I had gained, and not being able to fit into any of my summer shorts, it really was another blow to my confidence. And I think that’s where it began.

He slept on the couch for most of the week, and I have to admit I have been an absolutely horrible person to be around, As much as I have always tried to keep myself logical and understanding, I think I also needed to vent. And vent I did. I don’t think I have ever been that cold and prickly with him. I can’t believe some of the things that have come from my mouth. The only way this will go forward is if he’s honest, and open, and he admitted himself he hadn’t been. He has never shouted back, never insulted me or even said unkind words. He just sat there and listened to me scream and shout and say horrible things. By the end of the week, I felt like the world’s worst partner. But every day he still went to work and did everything his therapies advise. He’s told me when he’s struggled, told me when he has had to use the internet, and continued to be loving and kind. He still hasn’t given up. That is what has given me hope. I told him I would probably never trust him, and he could have gone straight back to porn, but he didn’t. I am seeing a change in my partner, something internal. He now has his own determination and sense of self achievement with every day. 

He has also continued to be affectionate around me, and has paid me so much attention. I think in the past few weeks he has really realised just how hurt I have felt. Despite having possibly the worst week since this all began, I actually have some real belief and trust again. 

Week 2/8/15

The past 2 weeks have been incredibly stressful, and we haven’t had much time to discuss things. Things also seem to have taken a turn for the worse in our relationship. I had to be admitted onto the ante natal ward last week with contraction like pains (thankfully baby is fine and still cooking). It was my partners first night alone, so I was quite concerned. I had my laptop with me and I put a programme on his so that I know when he turns it on. He didn’t. The less evidence I find, the harder it seems to be. Now I am paranoid that he was using thoughts of porn, when he didn’t have access to it. I think I will always have doubt. I am unsure how to get past this.

He also ran into problems at work due to time off with me being in the hospital, and one evening he came home close to tears. It is so hard to believe that when he is under the most stress I haver seen him under, he is managing to abstain from porn. His sexual interest in me has dwindled to nothing. I find myself uncomfortable without clothes on, or even just lounging around in pjs. We’ve barely kissed, or cuddled. I have heard from others than lack of sex drive is a common occurrence when stopping these behaviours, but I feel absolutely worthless. 

I want more than anything to have a very natural labour, without caring about my appearance at all. I don’t know how I will cope with him around. I worry now I won’t even be able to breast feed around my partner because I’m so insecure. There is so much damage already that I just don’t know if we will pull through, regardless of if he is successful in overcoming his issues or not. 

I have to spend afternoons searching computers, checking where he is, looking through phone records, bank records and it goes on. I have no desire to do any of these things, I really don’t think I care what I find any more. I’m doing it for him, he says it keeps him on track. I had a phone call last week from him at work, he sounded quite anxious. Said he was struggling that day. Other than that he doesn’t really talk to me much about it. According to him we are still on the sobriety track, so I should really be ending this post more positively. 

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

fightorflights

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3 weeks clean

This weekend was hard. One of the hardest. And the strange thing is, he’s 3 weeks “clean”. I checked internet/computers, checked in on where he was, even got petrol with him before work so he couldn’t be tempted by magazines in a garage. We’ve put so much effort into helping him and putting blocks in place, that we completed neglected our relationship. He has been more talkative about his issues, and told me things that I would never have known had I not asked. It shows it he is learning. However we tried several times to be intimate, and something isn’t working.

He barely notices me anymore; he used to jump at the chance for sex, stare if I took my clothes off and so on. I tried to give him some “relief” I shall put it, before he went to work one morning and I saw he had his eyes closed as I was doing so. Panic mode set in, and all I could imagine was him lying there thinking of porn. He knew straight away, he said I went tense all over. I stopped and walked away from him, barely saying anything and then he left for work. I tried explaining in the day that I hadn’t felt wanted sexually for a long time, and this was very hard on me. But he tried to dismiss it, saying he had felt too tired or stressed. Which of course made me feel even worse. This quickly escalated into a full weekend of nothing but rows, tears and sleeping on the couch. All these feelings I thought I had put to one side so that he could recover, came spewing out. I don’t think I have ever shouted so loud. I couldn’t bare to be near him or have him touch me, but was screaming at him for intimacy. No wife/partner wants to beg for affection, it feels degrading. 

Such a dramatic weekend, when it should have been a great chance to be proud of him for achieving this. A great chance to be close. But my emotions and insecurities got in the way, and he didn’t know how to handle them. When we first started this, we bought a book. The Porn Trap. My boyfriend has an extremely hard time trying to get through a book, but I noticed he has made it nearly half way through this. He takes it to work and makes notes, although it is hard for him to read whilst others are around. It is working for him, so I looked into some help for us. 

I am about a quarter way through this book, and it is excellent. It is a great start to healing. It’s true, I didn’t put much effort into looking at our relationship, I just figured if the porn stopped, we would work again. But it goes much, much deeper. It discusses a woman’s insecurities perfectly, or at least describes a lot of what I am feeling. It’s hard, constantly having to work on your relationship.

Another week

This week has been a stressful one, perhaps maybe because this is the longest my partner has been without viewing any images. He has very little opportunity to view things without my knowledge, but there are times that have had to be completely down to trust. Which we do not have yet. There has been times where I have noticed a difference in his behaviour, he will immediately apologise if he spoke a lie or “played something down”. He has been incredibly stressed at work, which is when he tends to need porn most. He says he hasn’t looked at anything at all in 2 weeks, which he has said before, but we have never been so on top of this. So I am hopeful but still not trusting. 

Having gained some pregnancy weight myself, I think it is fair to say my confidence is at an all time low. To not take this personally is one of the hardest things I have done, especially with worsening stretch marks. I know we will never have a happy life together if we don’t get through this, and my little boy won’t have the family he deserves. So I will stick with it. 

It’s a little frustrating to think you are beginning to understand something, and then more research appears that contradicts what you think.

http://www.medicaldaily.com/porn-addiction-true-dependence-or-another-type-problem-entirely-340148

I think this is worrying, not the research and the findings of course, but how porn addicts and their spouses will now feel towards this. Every man that maintains he doesn’t have a problem, will now surely feel he has been proven right, even if it is destroying his marriage. I think I should clarify that I in no way believe porn in itself is harmful. I look at it the same way as everything else, if an alcoholic has a problem with spirits, I would not expect everyone in the world to become teetotal. But it worries me that the way these articles are written will fuel peoples problems. It is important to continue to research and learn about this problem however. Porn addiction does not behave in the same way as other addictions, but the important thing to see is that there is a difference between people “affected” and people “not affected” by porn. They show decreased brain activity towards pornographic images, instead of increased (as in drug addiction etc). But that is still a difference. From how I understood this previously, the typical porn addict also shows decreased grey matter in certain areas of the brain, as a result of “neural plasticity”. From my partners opinions and other PA opinions, it seems that they must have more and more stimulation, because they cannot get enough from
simply viewing one image, or one video. They will constantly move on to more and more, forgetting about the previous images. These findings make perfect sense to me.

I think the true problem is the definition of the word addiction, and it’s scientific meaning. If addiction requires increased brain activity on EEG at certain images, then we are indeed giving this condition an incorrect name. However I don’t believe this is any less of a problem than any other addiction; I have seen how it grips people and ruins lives, marriages and families despite the addicts best efforts.  

Update

The weekend has been challenging. Friday night I discovered my partner had been searching through my phone, and I also suspect my laptop. It took a 3 hour row/battle for him to even admit it, which was absolutely exhausting. He’d promised me not to keep up any lies, but found it so difficult to just admit he had deceived me. His reasoning was he was worried about if I had been looking/talking to other men, because he didn’t feel good enough for me any more. Of course he didn’t find anything, but it also worried me he may have seen the web pages I had visited on how to check his internet usage. If he’d seen them he may know how to alter his history. He hasn’t admitted to seeing anything about this, but I still feel the niggle. The fact he had kept me up all night trying to convince me he was innocent meant that I got to bed around 4.30. My whole sleeping pattern was messed up from the start- I was due to start back at a work placement this morning, so that I could finally get my degree. I didn’t sleep at all last night, and with an anxiety problem, no sleep and 2 panic attacks later, I had to accept defeat and admit I wouldn’t be going. A baby playing on your bladder all night doesn’t seem to help. I feel so down and miserable today, I feel like I’ll never get where I want to be in life. I’d never expressed my anxiety problems to my partner before, or even anyone, and I’m not sure if its because I’m feeling emotional anyway but I just broke down. He stayed awake with me all night, tried to calm me down, and ensured me he would help me get past my anxieties. He listened to me, and talked to me, and cared for me all night. 

I guess this weekend just confirms what I already thought- I have the most loving and considerate partner in the world, he is kind and helpful and doting. But he has demons, and insecurities, and he is having to learn how to change how he has been since he was a teenager. Lying to cover up his problem, lying to make him seem like the perfect person. It is such a yo-yo of emotions. He has been reading the book we bought, The Porn Trap, and going through some sheets and workbooks, which is promising. We took a trip out to the city on Saturday, and even I was surprised at the amount of images he has to avoid; dvd stores, magazine aisles, clothes shops with models on the walls. I saw him glance a few times, and I asked him how the day had been. He said it was good to go out and see what he is up against on a day to day basis, but hard. It is extremely sad that we can’t go for a walk without him having to concentrate on avoiding his problem. 

I’m exhausted, depressed, anxious.

Our First Week – 6/7/15

Here is the beginning,

I have been in this situation many times, had the promise of no more lies and no more porn. It has ranged from promises of complete abstinence and honesty, to begging for help, to begging for understanding. For a long time I believed the problem was not really a “problem” , and admitting to one was just a way for him to “get away with things”. I’m extremely nervous and have slept horrendously the past week. There is one major difference this time; we have agreed to approach this together as a couple. We are trying to understand more of the nature of not just porn addiction but any other. I used to run away from it, because every time I tried to research it I would be hit with things I just didn’t want to hear. I didn’t want to read how it was virtually impossible for my partner to stay away from naked images, suggestive images, fake images and so on.  

I spent the first two nights alone and crying, being heavily pregnant and full of stretch marks I just didn’t feel there was a way for me to compare to these images. I’ve dieted (starved), bought new outfits, tried sexual exploration, kept full make up on 24:7, and the list goes on. I knew I had to get past these feelings for any of this to work out, and I found the more I busied myself with trying to help and understand. the better I felt inside. 

On Monday we agreed to certain things, I pulled up a load of information, fact sheets, books, articles, self help guides and placed them altogether. We agreed to begin reading through together the next day. He agreed that I should go into his work and clear his history, so that from now on I will regularly and randomly check to see if he has used the internet. There was little point in examining the history already, he has admitted what he has been doing on there. He also admitted using other websites to gain access to more tame websites, so all internet has been stopped now. Even on Tuesday I told him I had a feeling there was more he was hiding, and he broke down and admitted he can’t go into supermarkets because he heads straight for the magazines. He had been secretly going for shopping trips alone just to read through the magazines. It was sort of another blow, because I expected him to have been honest straight away, but hell, he didn’t have to admit that and he did. Going through the work sheets together has really helped him see the devastation he has caused, and I believe now he fully wants to change. 

It feels like I am keeping an alcoholic from their beer. He has asked to be watched 24:7, for me to have bank access, email access, phone access, proof of where he is at all times. This is what made me feel sorry for him the most; he is clearly desperate. He has no access to any internet, no laptops/gaming consoles/phones. I love my partner with all my heart, and I think in time this has a chance to heal, but this is just the beginning of a very long battle.