Recovery Nation

Exercise 1.........share your background in relation to the discovery of your partner's sexual and/or romantic compulsions/addiction

Where to begin......I have been with my husband for 16 years (married 14). We met in college. He was not the usual type of guy I dated- he was quiet, sweet, "nerdy". I was tired of all the obnoxious frat boys- so I went out with him. I almost immediately fell in love with him. He was from a large, "good" family and was the only boy who had ever asked me if he could kiss me the first time. We were engaged for a year then married right before we both started professional school. During our first year of marriage I caught him masturbating for the first time when I walked in the bathroom accidently. I was confused, hurt but thought maybe it was normal- I didn't have brothers so maybe I just didn't know about these things. I now know that it should have been my first clue.

While he was in medical school (during our second year of marriage) I found him flirting with a classmate in the hallway. They were standing way too close when I walked up. We fought about her for several days but ultimately I decided it was just an isolated incident. My first actual discovery happened in year 5 of our marriage when I was 5 months pregnant with our first child. I saw a message on his pager from a girl talking out missing and loving him. I blew up, left for a couple hours. When I came home he was sitting in the dark waiting for me. When I asked all the necessary questions he confirmed that he had indeed had an affair with a medical student who he was supervising. I was devastated. I was on the ground in a ball crying for days. I couldn't believe it- I never imagined he was capable of this. My life fell apart. He left and stayed with friends. I was alone and pregnant. It was the darkest time in my life. We started counseling but halfway through I found his therapy journal which proved he was still in love with and seeing her. We stayed separated until our daughter was born. We reconciled after her birth and did a few more counseling sessions but then stopped. After he finished his
residency we moved back to his hometown. I was hoping for a new start. I was wrong.

I was always paranoid and kept an eye on his phone, computer. Several times I found pornography websites he had visited and fights ensued. Otherwise, our marriage seemed "normal" and happy. We had a second child. I sacrificed my career goals in order to support him and to care for my children (which I don't regret). He became a popular small town doctor. In year 9 of our marriage I picked up his cell phone to read a text from one of his nurses that read "I really want you right now". After much denial, my suspicions were confirmed when a man showed up on my door to inform me that his wife was having an affair with my husband. I was shocked and very angry. My kids were standing behind me in the doorway when this extremely angry man showed up late one night. We separated for several mont5hs, but eventually decided to reconcile. We went to an intensive 4 day counseling session and I left there feeling stronger and that we finally understoood our problems.

Fast forward to March 23, 2012. His compulsive masturbation has always been a problem but in recent months it seemed to escalate. So I became suspicious and started snooping. At first I found nothing. But then I happened across the archived messages folder on his FB account (he gave me the passwords). And thats when I found the dialogue between him and a girl who worked for him 5 years ago. It was very clear from the conversation that they were having an affair. And it appeared that it was a renewal of a previous relationship from the past. When I confronted him he confessed to having had seen her sporadically for the past 5 years. And then he said there were 2 others during that time also. I was dumbfounded because I honestly had no clue the entire time. He's a physician so his schedule is crazy, his phone is always ringing- so he said it was easy to lie and hide. It was at that time he told me he feels like he has a sex addiction. I didn't even know what that means. So since that day, he has moved in with his sister. And I am trying to figure out how to keep my head above water to care for myself and my 4, 8 year old. This also involved his job (one of the girl's mom was his patient so there was a patient confidentiality issue, he used work phones/computers) so he is now on a 90 day probation with a 25% pay cut. So add financial stress to all this.

Thanks for listening. I have no idea where to go from here.......

Hi MelissaM -

Welcome to RN. The Partner's Healing Workshop lessons can be found on the Recovery Nation homepage, or you can follow this link:

http://www.recoverynation.com/partners/ ... rkshop.htm

When you are ready to post your first lesson, you can use this thread that you have already started by hitting the "reply" button at the bottom of the page.

Again welcome to RN -

Sending you hugs -

itstimeforme

_________________
"The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. And what is a grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion." - Eckhart Tolle A New Earth