Recovery Nation

Lesson 1-1

13 ½ years ago. Age 40. Marriage dead 2 yrs. Old acquaintance. Connected. Became committed couple. Both lived separate. Enjoyed independence & love. Now know different reasons for each. Sex like bunnies. ed & anxiety for him. Thought fun 4 both anyway. After 2-3 yrs. No sex. Doctor. Viagra. No go. Tried reassuring, caring, loving, understanding. No go. More doctors. More drugs. No go. His constant answer “I don’t knowâ€Â

re: Perhaps changing one’s vision is a lifelong project.

I would say so! As you grow and change, so will your vision. Creating one in the first place will give you focus. As you work through your healing you may even find that you already make changes to your vision. That is ok! It is your life and therefor your vision!

re: Still, putting some of my thoughts on paper will make them more concrete to me and perhaps easier to follow through on.

Good insight!

re: I don’t know who I am anymore.

All the more reason to define your vision!

re: Part of caring for myself is going to take a lot of work on healthy boundaries.

I would agree. As far as not seeing it coming... this had nothing to do with insufficient boundaries. It has more to do with the fact that the person with addiction becomes very good at keeping their secret secret. At worst, you ignored little signs or feelings of intuition. We all have. You are no less wise or perceptive than anyone else!

re: I need to find my brain again. Anyone know where it went? Or where I can get a new one?

Follow the yellow brick road? (if this made you smile, you already do have some sense of humor!)

re: At the moment, I’m basically clueless as to how I will achieve that.

That is ok! If you had all of the answers you wouldn't be here! As you work through this workshop, things will open up for you. Remember as you do the lessons that what you get out of them will be relative to what you put into them! So far it is my impression that you will get alot out of the workshop! You are a very introspective person and although you feel your vision is incomplete, I already have a sense of who you are by reading what you have shared thus far.

I don't even know how to express my feelings about what you have had to deal with (cancer as well as discovery of addiction as well as divorce...) other to say that I am sorry and I know that you will come out on the other end of this feeling much more empowered and healthy (physically and mentally). A word I would use to describe the sense of you that I have is valiant.

Welcome to Recovery Nation and keep taking care of you.

Oh, I almost forgot! When you wish to add to your personal healing thread, open up the thread and choose the "post reply" button. I think you used the "new post" button which actually creates another thread!

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

I can't add much to what Coach Mel says except where you say



Perhaps you can look at it a different way. Why are you searching for this stuff? You already know that it is there and (I am presuming that he is still not in recovery) will continue to be there until he accepts that he has a problem and attempts to do something about it. What will searching for it do for YOU, how will you benefit from knowing exactly what he is looking at? Will it make things any better/worse/different? My guess? It will just make things more complicated for you.

Your self-protection will most likely be served by working out (via the lessons) what your values are and what your boundaries are, that's what the lessons are all about - irrespective of his behavior, it will help you to deal with the pain, minimise it for the future and will mean that you do not have to be the porn cop.

The line will be those values and boundaries that you set up - it will be a clear line and you will know exactly where you stand. It takes time, patience and hard work but it pays off.

dear coaches,
thanks so much for listening and replying. on a practical note thanks for explaining how to put these posts in properly.
went out to the garden to look for the yellow brick road, but it must be still covered with last falls' leaves. oh my - there is till a spark of humor in me.
i am still thinking about my vision and what i need to do for me. i put my first trustworthy name in my date book this morning & it did give me some sense of relief.
re: my self protection/snooping issues. still thinking on this. feel guilty about snooping. this is the kind of behavior i would never have thought myself capable of. my initial discovery was, in fact, accidental. after that i checked his history regularly. on the whole, i am glad that i did snoop in the past. never thought i'd be capable of saying that either. i know it's an intrusion of his privacy, and in many senses i consider my behavior immoral. if my lessons are to be helpful to me though, i have to be honest about my thinking and my reactions. so - even though part of me will probably always feel badly about snooping, most of me is glad that i did. knowing something about the amount and types of porn videos he owns and knowing that he was consuming internet porn daily in large quantities is helping me to protect myself now. if i had not made the accidental discovery, i don't know if i would have ever discovered or been told what he was doing. i can easily envision a scenario where i was kept in the dark for the rest of my life, wondering why we had no sexual intimacy and attributing the increasing lack of emotional intimacy to incorrect causes. if i had only made the accidental discovery, i would probably have been able to believe his minimalization excuses and again, the problem would never have been solved. through all the years of doctors and searching for solutions, i never once considered hidden pornography as a cause. that was something outside of my experience. none of the doctors or ed research mentioned this as a possibility.
he has finally admitted he has a problem,(9 days ago) although he is still not admitting the whole extent of the problem. yes, i peeked ahead at some of the lessons and i'm hoping i'll be able to get more insight as i go through the lessons on how to self protect. my best guess is that each lesson builds on the one before and really are most helpful if done in order. i am now working on 1-3 which talks about gut feelings.

Lesson 1-3

a.)
pre discovery
After years of trying to discover why he no longer had any sexual interest in me, my gut told me something else was wrong, but i had no idea what or how to find the answer. I had tried everything I could think of. Note the pronoun. My partner never really took the initiative to look for solutions. None of the doctors, counselor, books or internet sites ever suggested a secret porn addiction could be the cause. My partner’s answer was always “I don’t knowâ€Â

Lesson 1-4

Yet one more lesson that I think I will have to come back to. I’ve told myself that I should look back at my lessons maybe once a month. To do so more would be obsessing (I think?) to never look back would be to lesson their value.

Values that will survive recovery

Honesty (in all other areas of his life. Hopefully this area as well.)
Strong sense of morality (in all other areas of his life. Hopefully
This area as well)
Trustworthy (in all other areas of his life. Hopefully this area as
Well)
Compassion
Understanding
Loyalty
Supportive
Caring
Affectionate
Loving
Humor
Responsible
Dependable
Intelligent
Comfortable
Passionate about same interests
Helpful
Easy going
Meticulous, detail oriented
Great at his work (great mechanic)
8/20/09 Courage - ( i think he struggles with great courage and great fear. sometimes one wins, sometimes the other)


Qualities that will continue to pose obstacles

Poor communication skills 8/2009 - best guess here. i now think his poor communication is a combination of many factors. much of it is due to the necessary secrecy involved in this addiction. i now know that his mother was very domineering, always interrupting, and insisting on 'her way or no way'. obviously that would interfere with developing good communication skills. i suspect that his life history has taught him to avoid intimacy and communication. we'll see.
Being selfish – don’t know about this one. Mostly I associate his
selfishness with his pornography addiction. 8/20/09 I am now
beginning to recognize that his selfishness has spilled over into
other areas of his life. again this is one of the contradictory
traits. at times he can be incredibly selfless, at others incredibly
selfish. i think ???? that this selfish part can be directly traced
to the addiction.Not recognizing his own worth
Too much isolation. Not reaching out to family & friends
Sticking to comfortable known patterns & “thingsâ€Â

You've made a good start on working things out - well done.

The list of obstacles to your parrtner's recovery point out how much work he has to do to move from addiction to recovery and how this has to be about the whole person, not just about the SA and about how he has to face this problem head on and mature. Do you think he is also depressed? This often goes with SA (though not always). You have also made a good like between his fears and understanding how these might lead to compulsive behavior and this will help you in future lessons.

Many of the forthcoming lessons, though, will be about you and how you work on your side of things whilst (hopefully) he gains enough insight to work on his - as he is the only one who can work on his transition to health whilst you work on yours.

dear coaches,
i've said before that my brain seems to be on vacation. there is one paragraph in this lesson that i just don't seem to be able to process and i think it may be critical in my situation.

THIS IS THE PARAGRAPH"interestingly, another sexualized approach is the morally righteous one--where everything remains sexualized, but rather than a more hedonistic perceptual filter, it is a condemnation of all people, activities, actions that involve anything but morally acceptable sexual behavior. Sex within the relationship is practically non-existent. . . .as a moral conflict has devceloped between his/her secret life and the life that is shared with you. And where there is moral conflict, there is condemnation and sabotage to ensure that such sexual behavior does not occur."

our sex life was pretty hot and heavy the first few years and then pretty much stopped. none of my attempts to discover why were successful. so - i think i need to understand what this paragraph means, but i'm just not getting it. HELP PLEASE and many thanks.

In other words, some can develop a mind set where they think that sexual acts that can be deemed as immoral or degrading performed by others (even if they do themselves) is something they condemn. They become outraged at the people involved in them while they may be doing the same exact thing. Also a conflict starts to build up in the back of their thoughts that tells them they shouldn't have sex with their partners because they might engage in some of these acts and that is unacceptable morally.

Moral outrage at everything and everyone but themselves no matter what they are engaged in. Hard to grasp how one could be that way but a lot of addicts get into that pattern.


Hope that cleared it up for you.

To me, it is rather like those bible-belting so-called religious people who say that all sex outside marriage is wrong, quote the bible left, right and center to prove it and then you find they have had half a dozen mistresses and illegitimate children. They have narcissistic and immature personalities and an ability to compartmentalise (traits shared with SAs) and need to project to the outside world (including partners) that they are "holier than thou" and perfect whilst doing the very things they preach against.

i think i'm getting they have a very moral outlook on life in general, even though they engage in/view immoral acts. that part sounds like my p.
they don't engage in sex with their p because they are afraid they will cross the line between their moral life and their immoral life? and they can't face their immoral life if someone else knows about it??

am i close?

I think you are pretty close - wonder if any other coaches have different ideas?

coaches,
still struggling to understand why a pa would not be sexual with his willing & attractive partner for 10 yrs. despite all my attempts, drs. & on & on. posted this ? re: lesson 6 & just realized i never posted lesson 5. told you my brain is in tahiti.



Stage one, lesson five

a.) how do you manage your stress?

When I am ill (physically) it’s harder to manage stress. I’m hoping I’m almost there in terms of being physically well and that changes things.

Ill – talking to friends and therapist, reading both fiction and non fiction, thrift store, junk store, or antique shopping when possible, writing in my journal, distracting myself with old movies, watching monk, the closer, bones from tv, bubblebaths, aa meetings, the occaisional binge with comfort food (esp. chocolate fudge brownies – I know that’s bad!!)

Well – I do the above things and more. I find great relief in yoga, working out at the gym, riding motorcycles, antique motorcycle events, getting really really dirty with heavy duty gardening, therapy animal work at the group home, working on my stained/fused glass in my studio, taking trips (don’t do enough of that), learning new things, learning more about old things, getting out of the house, visiting friends and being social (need to do more of this)
8/24when i look back i realize i've come a long way on this journey. i still need to keep plugging away at taking care of myself. some days i do a great job of it. other days - not so great. still, it's a vast improvement over no days. darn it. why am i so inept at this color thing?
What would it take for you to become so emotionally overwhelmed that you would turn to irrational behavior to produce enough intensity to escape from that stress? Can you think of a time in your life when you have turned to such a measure?

i am long term bipolar with anxiety disorder. I am also a recovering alcoholic (6+ years sober) I used alcohol for many many years as a means of calming my anxiety, fears, and pain. It worked quite well for a long time until t, of course, the alcohol became a bigger problem than the original anxiety and fear. So _ I could write a book in response to this question. In fact, looking back, I did write a book (journal) while I was first recovering. I think now what would be most helpful for me is to back to thinking and rereading my writings then. Of course, I’ll have to access my vacationing brain to figure out what safe place I put my journal. Hmmm. Another search to take on. But at least, this search will be a healthy one. Listening in the aa meetings also reminds me. I have returned to aa meetings at this time as I feel they will help me protect my sobriety during this crisis. And yes, there is much in my p’s addiction that I can relate to/understand as well as much I do not understand yet.

8/24 i am much more balanced now, but not as balanced and 'stable' as i want to me. i can still be thrown off my centre by the people in my life. still, i am not thrown as far, as deep, or as long as i once was.
b. see last part of a


c. his life without porn as a life management skill
the more I think of this problem as a whole and this question in particular, the more I am realizing that just as I did not have the life skills to recover from alcoholism by myself he does not have the life skills needed. If he does not get help to acquire those skills, I do not see him (now) dealing with life in a healthy way even if he achieves abstinence. I’m pretty sure his alcohol use will become an even bigger problem. It’s a very sad scenario.

5/1 COMING BACK TO THIS LESSON
I UNDERSTAND THAT A COMMON EFFECT OF PA IS THAT THE PA STOPS BEING SEXUALLY INTIMATE WITH HIS PARTNER. I'M STILL STRUGGLING TO UNDERSTAND THE WHY OF THAT.
I KEEP READING THAT PA'S DO NOT COMPARE THEIR PARTNER TO THE PORN IMAGES. I'M STILL STRUGGLING WITH THAT ONE TOO.
SINCE MY P IS NOT BEING OPEN & HONEST WITH ME, I DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT IS IN HIS MIND ON THESE ISSUES. HE IS NOT IN RECOVERY AND WE ARE CURRENTLY TAKING A BREAK FROM EACH OTHER.

8/24/09 COMING BACK AGAIN. p is still not in recovery, but finally headed there. the difference in therapists is like the cliche - night and day.
i think i am getting a handle on the comparisons thing & the desensitization. i think. i am going to discuss it with the new therapist.
i am realizing more and more how poor my p's life management skills are. i think he does use p as his stress reliever as well as his solution to ed & performance anxiety. the recent thread about h's who lack friends hits home as well. i have learned through extended family that his mother was domineering & constantly interrupted others. apparently it was her way or no way. i think this explains why he sometimes seems to judge me by harsh standards. he is interpreting my actions based on hers. i think. ????????since this lesson is on understanding your partner's addiction, i think i should note what i believe his addiction is based in. i believe that his deformed pituitary led to ed & performance anxiety early on. so far he has admitted to copying porn tapes starting around 1983 which was 12 years before i even met him. i don't have his full disclosure yet. porn must have seemed initially like a great occaisional solution to his sexual performance issues. but of course, the more porn there was, the more ed & so on there was. and so, an addiction was born. eventually it became the only reliable way he could perform and feel masculine. sigh. i think this is what happened. maybe someday i'll know. i do see where it became his stress reliever long with beer. i don't know whether he feels powerless to control these things or not. i also wonder what role p played in the ending of his last long term relationship. actually, i wonder about all his relationships given the problem of low t.
but - i think we are now finally headed in a good direction with the new therapist. sigh. so much work to do.

dear coaches,
i am still struggling with lesson six for a couple of reasons. i find i'm still too raw to read he dances alone. i'm also still very very confused as to why a pa would use porn daily but rarely have sex with partner. we've had ten years of a mostly sexless relationship. are there other reasons a pa would neglect his partner sexually? i have felt so rejected that i think it's incredibly important for me to understand how this could happen and i'm definitely not "getting it".
can i skip ahead a bit and work on lesson seven while i try to figure out lesson 6?
thanks so much for helping.

Here is a post of CoachJon's that may help you understand this concept of moral vs. immoral behavior.

Dear Jon: "What are the differences between someone engaging in compulsive sexual behavior and someone engaging in conscious moral choice behavior?"

This is a difficult question. It's not easy for the outside person to differentiate between the two. It gets confusing because all overt sexually compulsive behavior (masturbation, porn, affairs, etc.) involves conscious moral choice. So it is not an either/or situation. As well, all subtle sexually compulsive behavior (scanning, fantasy, etc.) may not begin through conscious choice, but there is always a conscious choice made to continue those rituals once an awareness has been achieved that they have begun.

The only person who can accurately assess whether or not an action was compulsive or morally calculated is the person engaging in the behavior.

In a compulsive event, the awareness skills that most with addictions develop are so skewed that they cannot process events in a moral reality. Instead, they process them as feelings...as things 'beyond their control'. This, they label 'compulsive'. But ignorance and emotional immaturity is not compulsion. At least, not if the definition of compulsion involves the belief that compulsive behavior is 'beyond their control'. With that definition, there is no such thing as 'compulsion'. No sexual rituals are truly 'beyond their control'. However, if we define compulsion as 'an intense feeling that drives the need to engage in a particular action'--then okay, we can enter the realm of sexual compulsion with a working term. But, even then, clarification is necessary. The 'compulsive rituals' that developed in a person's life were developed out of experience and habit. The feelings associated with these rituals became ingrained and took on the element of feeling 'natural' to the host, but as anyone who has left such an addiction behind can attest, these very same rituals go on to take a very 'unnatural' feeling once a healthy life management foundation is built. So it is not about some supernatural connection to this stimuli--unique to the individual...it is about life experience and habit. Two things that can be changed.

So, to pull this together: when faced with two options involving immoral behavior: indulge the urge to continue with a particular immoral sexual ritual or end the ritual and accept the emotional discomfort that will follow: there is always a conscious decision that is made. There is no 'It was compulsive--I couldn't help myself'; there is only 'I lacked the maturity to manage that situation beyond immediate gratification'.

This is one reason why the recovery workshop is structured as it is and has been so successful to those who embrace the concepts: it systematically reduces the 'mystery' of the compulsive urge to CONSCIOUS CHOICE. A whole lot of personal development must be undertook to get to that point, but that is the destination.

Another reason why it is so hard for partners to differentiate between compulsive behavior and moral choice is that you cannot know with any certainty what your partner's motivation for their actions are. Yes, you can look for patterns that suggest the motivation, but you cannot ever know with certainty. Only your partner can. And if your communication and trust has been rebuilt, then you can eventually get to the point where you are relatively certain which behavior type was engaged in, which should help with issues involving forgiveness, understanding, etc. But until you both get to that point, only your partner can identify the variables to determine which was which.

For instance, it would be easy to see a man having an affair while his wife was pregnant (or sick) as engaging in immoral choice. Beyond the morality issues involved in the affair itself. Or his choice to have the affair in your shared bed. Or while the kids were home. The anger that is generated from such events is often along the lines of "How could he do that at a time when I needed him so badly?" Or, "How could he value me or our kids so little?" Of course, thousands upon thousands more examples could be offered here. But my point: it is impossible to tell whether or not these behaviors stemmed from compulsion or moral choice. In compulsion, there will be an overwhelming emotional intensity that deludes, warps and alters reality. With moral choice, there will be an almost calculated, risk/reward decision made.

Let's confuse thing further...

If your partner is acting on compulsion, they will still experience many of the same elements of 'immoral' choice. As shared above, the major difference is in their decision making process. Compulsive people can intellectualize what should and shouldn't be done. They can understand what is the right and wrong action to take. They can understand the consequences of their actions--though this assessment is often so warped and disconnected that it plays no real value in their decision. Their decisions are based purely in an effort to maximize the immediate emotional stimulation they will experience. In their minds, once the stimulus has entered their consciousness, they feel compelled to act in a certain way--usually because they have done so so many times in the past that this response has become habituated. They can fight this compulsive feeling with other feelings (guilt, shame, threat) and most do. They attempt to guilt themselves into making the moral decisions...they turn their lives over to God in an attempt to make the moral decisions...they even consider mutilation and suicide (in extreme cases) because they cannot find any other way to stop their immoral behavior. But they are only, at best, 'usually successful'. And in this success, they don't really experience pride, joy and fulfillment. It is typically fear, anxiety and regret. Mixed with a 'watered-down' sense of relief.

In the compulsive mind, once the 'urge' to act (say, to view porn and masturbate) is felt...they can force themselves not to act...but the emotional instability will increase and increase until it becomes overwhelming and that emotional imbalance will have to be stabilized somehow. And until they learn better, the only way they know of to end the anxiety is to complete the ritual. Or one similar.

The lies associated with compulsive behavior are intended to separate the moral/immoral conflict that exists within them. At all costs, they want to continue being seen by you as a moral person worthy of love. And they are legitimately devastated at your discovery of their behavior.

Moral Choice

Those engaged in moral choice behavior experience the stimuli in the same way, but their decision making process is more like a healthy person's. They can visualize the consequences, know the differences between right and wrong, and they then use this knowledge to help them make their decisions. To them, the action is not based on a compulsion, but on a risk/reward platform. They know the risks, but are willing to take them in order to be rewarded with the pleasure that comes from having the affair, masturbating to the porn, engaging in the online sexual chatting. It is a moral choice that they are making--at least in relation to their morals. And ironically, many will consciously use 'compulsion' as a way of rationalizing their decisions. As in, they know that they are not feeling compelled to act in a certain way...they are choosing to act in that way. But since no one else knows--they use that security blanket.

Their lies involve attempts to minimize the risks of being caught and to minimize the damage once they are caught. But much of this preparation and minimization takes place before and while the behavior is being engaged in. To the compulsive mind, much of the minimization takes place immediately following the behavior and/or right after confrontation. It is reactive. With moral choice, the entire process is much more calculated. It is a much more selfish type of behavior and one that, when caught...often leads to a defensive, aggressive stand...rather than an experience of personal humiliation and shame. But again, it is almost impossible for someone outside of that person's mind to accurately gauge what is going on.

Finally, this is not an either/or proposition. There are degrees to both behaviors...which again, is why it is nearly impossible for you, as the partner, to ascertain which is which just based on your observations. Shifting your attention to his/her reactions upon confrontation will offer you your best clue. But even then, it can be tricky...as both have reasons for protecting their secrets.

Why share all of this then if it has no real application? Because it has tremendous application in terms of health, communication, intimacy, trust, etc. You may not be able to use it to determine the exact nature of your partner's past actions...but you can certainly use it to help you assess the transparency of his current behavior. And your partner can use it to further his/her own awareness of the true nature of so-called 'compulsive' behavior. That it influences actions--it does not cause them.


re: "i find i'm still too raw to read he dances alone. "

Any time you start to feel overwhelmed by this process, simply take a break. I like to think of my mind as a sponge and so when I'm overwhelmed, well, the sponge is full and needs to dry out, wink.

re: "i'm also still very very confused as to why a pa would use porn daily but rarely have sex with partner. "

There are a couple of reasons like intimacy is masturbation or he's too emotionally exhausted by the constant fantasies he is engaging in. In my situation my husband viewed intimacy is sex and would gauge my level of "love" for him by how often I had sex with him. There is a spectrum of sex addiction from no sex to numerous times in a day. If you have further questions, please consider private coaching. I've been in private coaching with Jon because of similiar questions that you are asking. It helped me tremendously to put all these pieces together.

re: "i have felt so rejected"

Please don't feel this way. It truly does not have anything to do with you. I know that's a difficult concept to accept. Consider counteracting any of your negative thoughts with affirmation statements. I came up with a list of things to say to myself every time I had a negative thought. I thought of a few positive physical traits of mine, positive personality characteristics, and positive skills I have. The reason I chose a variety of attributes is that I didn't want to focus on one part of myself but myself as a whole person.

As for skipping a lesson, just make a note to remind yourself to revisit it at a later date. Something I did in my thread was to go back and add new insights as I became aware of them. There were times that I couldn't see, for example, my husband's sexualized mind when I did the lesson. But as I progressed, things became clearer.