Recovery Nation

After learning of my husband's addiction over about a year ago, more of the truth of what he was doing has come to light. After hearing at the beginning that it was just phone sex, I now know that it was much more than that, from massage parlors, to anonymous sex partners and escorts. Our marriage is over, our family destroyed. I am now trying to move forward in life without him. Single mother of a teenager, a toddler and an infant. Times are very stressful right now. I can't begin to understand how he could do all of these things and then ask me to marry him and give him to children of his own. I found out about his addiction the same day that I was going to confirm a pregnancy test with my doctor. He also has a gambling addiction which I think just helps him to hide this addictionn more. His stepson understands why we aren't together anymore but our two girls are too young to know what's going on. It's hard to try and put on a happy face these days because of all of the hurt, sadness, anger, resentment, and fear. I am seeing a psychologist as well as using recovery nation in hopes that I will get back to the happy, confident, strong person I used to be. My main focus is my kids, especially my newborn right now.

Hi casper, and welcome.

I am sorry for the circumstances that have brought you here, but here is a very good place to be under the circumstance. As long as you do the work, you will be happy, strong and confident once again.

Be well.

_________________
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. (Epictetus)

Before I met my husband I was a single mother and a very good one at that. I worked hard to support myself and my son, working two or three jobs at a time and made time for myself and quality time for my son and I. I was happy, strong-willed, hard-working, independant and very happy. This is the person I would like to be again. I want to be able to focus on my kids, giving them the individual attention they require, focus on myself doing the things that I enjoy and get back to feeling complete on my own again. I want to get my smile back by enjoying the simple things in life again.......walking at the lake, kicking the soccer ball around the yard, listening to music, playing card games with friends, baking etc. I want to get out of this dark fog I've been keeping myself in by obsessing with what he is doing and take in all of the sunshine I can if that makes sense. I want to be that ray of sunshine that I once was.

Brainstorm the times when your 'gut feelings' have been right about your partner's sexual and/or romantic behavior. Include times when you feel strongly that you were right (though it may never have been proven either way).

There were many times when my husband would not be home on time and when I would ask him "well why didn't you call?" he would lash out at me by saying I didn't know I had to report to you. My response was usually a calm one simply stating that I worry about him driving that late at night especially if he was tired. After the first few times I told him that it is common courtesy to call your spouse or significant other to let them know when you are going to be late coming home. When he continued to show up late without notice I knew something was wrong.

There were also times where he would take more money than needed for parking at work and then state that he left the money in his tool box..............didn't want to account for the missing money.

Some days there were many cash withdraws from the bank that he would insist was for gas because they had him driving all over the place from job to job, town to town.

B) Identify as many major situations as you can where you allowed your head/heart to override your 'gut feelings' in relation to your partner's behavior.

They weren't situations as much as they were questions and answers. When I discovered him calling gay hotlines I asked him why he was calling those numbers and he insisted that it was to sell naked pictures of himself for money for gambling. He had to pay to use the hotlines so his response didn't make sense, but I knew if I wanted to keep my marriage I had to ignore my gut. The same way I had to ignore my gut when he told me he never physically cheated. The day I married him I felt so sick to my stomach that I didn't think I was going to make it to the alter..............I ignored my gut that day too telling myself it must just be my nerves.

Hi Casper,

Your doing great work on your lessons

I just wanted to let you know that there is a way to keep all your posts together in one single thread, rather than making new threads each time you post.

Adding New Lesson Responses to your Thread:
1. From the Self-Help Lesson Response Forum Index, find your Personal Healing/Recovery thread and click it to open.
2. Choose the Post Reply button located next to the "New Topic" button underneath the title (which should be the name of your thread, if it isn't, you are in the wrong thread so go back to the index and try again!)
3. Input your work in the "Message body" text box
4. Click the "Submit" button.

There is a tutorial here: http://recoverynation.com/partnersbb/vi ... 80&t=10760

Take Care
Starry
(Partners Mentor)