Recovery Nation

My partner has been a compulsive masturbator for the duration of the time we have known one another – 16 years. Though I knew he masturbated occasionally, I had no idea the compulsion or shame associated with it.

After a couple of years together, he slept with another woman. At the time, he thought he was interested in her emotionally and was confused about our relationship. Though they did not have sex frequently, their relationship lasted about 2 ½ years, until a few weeks before our wedding.

After our wedding, he continued to masturbate but did not “act out” with other women for about 2 ½ years. In the next seven years, he slept with four different women, and maintained relationships with them lasting from 2 to over 5 years. In addition, he counseled them on their lives and their relationships. From my understanding, this was his main motivation. He says that he was not attracted to them physically or emotionally and that he shared nothing with them of his personal thoughts or feelings. He says that the cycle went something like this: She started hanging out. The sexual tension built until they kissed. A seemingly innocent request would land him at their house where they would have sex. He left as quickly afterward as he could, filled with shame. He spent time afterward making sure they were okay and trying to not look like a user. They appreciated his kindness and seemed to think the best way to repay him was with more sex and the cycle would continue.

I learned of all this only when he took me to an appointment with his therapist just over two months ago. Though I knew we had an unhappy marriage and had suspected him several times of having an affair, he was always able to persuade me into believing that I was overreacting.

Hello cluck,

I am sorry that this has been your experience. Recovery Nation is a very good place to work through this discovery. The workshop lessons will help you create balance and stability in your life, helping you determine what course your life will take, thus bringing healing and eventually-- peace.

Welcome and Be well.

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

Ex. 2


I am a wife and mother, a daughter and sister, and a friend. Yet all of those things I am only a shadow of. For as long as I can remember, I have let no one get to actually know me. My children have come the closest but they are children and I cannot rely on their friendship or support in my life.

I want to be a whole person – someone who has enough left over to give others. I want to share my life fully with my husband and children, and a few close, reliable friends. I want to know who I am and be comfortable it. I don’t want to be described as “nice”; I want to be described as something more tangible like generous, considerate, passionate, friendly, helpful, honest, etc.

I am determined to both get through this period of my life and finish school, and to do both well. I am prepared to juggle my healing with school work and know that there will be times when one must sit on the backburner while I concentrate on the other, but I hope to not let the fire go out from under either.

I identify myself as a mother first and foremost. In the chaos leading up to disclosure, being a mother was the one thing that I could grasp. I am not a perfect mother and I must relieve some of the pressure of expecting myself to be perfect. I am focusing on small changes in my relationships with my children as well as big ones e.g. consciously spending more connected time with them each day and also sharing my feelings with them routinely rather than maintaining the façade that I do not have feelings.

I see myself continuing in my healing and spreading the benefits to other relationships in my life, including with my mother and sister. These relationships are currently very superficial and even forced and will require a great deal of effort.

I see myself striving to incorporate the values I idealize into my life on a regular basis. I see myself listening more closely to people who choose to share with me and making myself more accessible to them for sharing. I see myself learning to be accountable for my role in situations, both good and bad. I am coming out of my shell and accepting and giving affection more freely and I see myself becoming a warm, caring individual.

I see myself living a simple life in which small things matter and I recognize the difference between needing and wanting. I see myself counting my blessings and letting go of situations I cannot control.

Ex. 3


There have been many times in our lives that I have had suspicions that something inappropriate was going on. Sometimes I confronted him with my suspicions, sometimes I snuck around trying to catch him doing something, and most recently (about a year before his voluntary disclosure), I made a decision to get out of the relationship that I immediately repressed.

One of the first times I remember calling him out on his behaviour was in regards to a long phone call with a friend while I was out of the country. At the time he fairly easily convinced me that they were just friends and since she lived hours from us, what could be going on any way. Most of my accusations were met by the same style of rebuttal. The biggest one was about three years ago when I woke from sleep with dread and confronted him. Not only did he deny everything, he made me feel guilty for being so distrustful and suspicious.

A few times I have had suspicions about his whereabouts and tried to find/follow him. I was never successful (whatever that means) and usually felt too ashamed by my actions to repeat them. Though I do now frequently check his email and call him at work, I am less trying to catch him doing something wrong than reassure myself that he is where he said he would be i.e. trustworthy.

About a year ago, he was out of town on business. Though I had the number for his hotel, he was never in and not answering his cell phone. I remember sitting in the living room and it dawned on me like fog rolling in that he was having an affair. I even thought “another” affair. I decided to work myself and our children out of the relationship. I did not remember this evening until after his disclosure, though I had been following through with my plan.

Days after his first disclosure, I not only was sure there was more, I could pinpoint the years. It took him a few weeks, but he did verify my suspicions. In the following months, this has happened many times and my instincts have always been right.

Ex. 4


1) I believe my partner values honesty even though it is difficult for him at times still. After so many years of living a lie, he seems genuinely glad to be able to be honest with me.
I believe he also values communication and has great faith in that being the cornerstone of our relationship from this point on.
I believe he values kindness and feels that I am a positive role model for him.
Not surprisingly, he values sensuality and sexuality and is starting to have a healthier understanding of it.

2) My partner has always been very gregarious and charming, bordering on flirtatious. This is especially bothersome in this new light and is something that I have difficulty dealing with.
He is quite selfish. I hope this has more to do with his emotionally immaturity that his personality.
He is dependent on me for many things. I have done so much for him that it is a lifestyle we have fallen into but I plan to change and he will have to change too.
He has not been as persistent in making changes in his life as I would have expected him to, both before and after disclosure. He does not follow through on requests that I make, though this could come back to selfishness, too.

Ex. 5


A. I do not manage stress well. In fact, it would be true to say that I don’t manage it at all – it manages me. I tend to eat junk food when I am stressed, even at low levels, which does nothing to ease my stress and often makes me feel worse, physically and emotionally. Sadly, it does nothing to relieve my stress yet I return to it repeatedly, even though this is irrational. There was a time when going to the snack cupboard was part of my daily routine. I knew my marriage was miserable but felt powerless to do anything about it. I was able to break the snack habit for a few years but it became engrained again when my marriage once again went haywire and I had become a fulltime student.

B. The daily trips to the snack cupboard would count as a compulsive behaviour. After putting my son down for his afternoon nap, I would go there directly for a snack, even though we had just had lunch. Once I realized how unhealthy the habit was, I tried to stop, but I was very distracted and usually ended up there later anyway. Distracted was really as bad as it got.

C. He has always enjoyed working out and I think that would be a good stress reliever. He also likes to tinker in the garage and around the yard which provides him with alone time, but maybe that is not what he really needs. Without the addiction, he could use me as someone to talk to and confide in. He could develop a same-sex friendship without feeling vulnerable and secretive – someone else who will accept him for who he is. He would likely have less stress without the need to maintain his secret life and would enjoy his family more.

Ex. 6

A. I don’t think I am in a good place to begin the reading.

B. In hindsight, I see many of his behaviours as sexualized. He is very comfortable naked – sleeps naked, walks around the house naked, watches TV naked, etc.. He also touches himself frequently and at inappropriate times, like having a hand in his pants at the dinner table with the children present. He also urinates frequently and I have begun to suspect this may also be related. He slaps my ass whenever he finds it naked. Any sign of intimacy was always interpreted as an invitation to sex, so much so, that I grew wary of simple kisses and touches. He had told me that he thinks about sex a lot but I had no idea just how much or how debilitatingly so. He also used to tell me how high his libido is. He used to take very long showers. I believe these are all signs of a sexualized mind.

C. I see all four areas in my husband. In addition to the sexualized mind, I know that he objectified the women he slept with. He has described them as being more like masturbation tools than friends. I know he watched porn which also is objectification. I have not yet been able to see how I relate to the puzzle and if I was objectified in any way.
The need for immediate gratification was a corner stone to my husband’s addiction. The compulsive masturbation provided that for him most of the time but was not always enough. He also practiced all or nothing thinking. He has told me that once he decided he was never going to tell me, then it didn’t matter how much he did. He idealized me and told whatever lies he needed to in order to keep me and our marriage “untarnished”.

Writing this really hurts today.

Ex. 7

A. 1. Effective Communication

My husband and I started out doing the RN couples workshop. Though this seemed like the best choice at the time, in hindsight, neither of us was ready. However, we did benefit from many of the lessons, including the one on communication. We were able to incorporate some of the ideas into our daily lives and have since practiced those and expanded upon them. Though there have been times that I have not been able to listen to him in a non-judgemental fashion, things have been much better in the past few weeks. I have always been comfortable telling him to stop when I think he is going to tell me something I do not need to know or cannot handle at the moment. I have a great deal of difficulty expressing myself but have been trying – both to my husband and my therapist.

2. Managing Your Partner’s Recovery

Although I initially felt I needed to prod him to do his RN work, I no longer feel the need to. I’m not sure where he is in his workshop lessons, but I know that he is working on them and that is good enough for me. We do not share our work but we do share ideas that we think are especially noteworthy. I have been getting a lot of books to read and he sometimes chooses to read one of them but I do not give him any with the expectation that he will read them. I do share things that are relevant to my recovery that I read. I also do not nag him to see his therapist, whom he found on his own and had been seeing for 9 months before disclosing his addiction to me. I will make it easier for him to go out for an evening if he is wanting to go to a recovery meeting but again, I never suggest he go.

3. Empowering a Pursuit of Health

When I have been having better days, making healthy choices for myself is much easier. Healthy choices for me are often healthy choices for my husband as well. He believes his mood strongly follows mine, so when I am in a good place, so is he. This is extra pressure for me to “perform” but it also helps me avoid the negative thought spirals that I can get stuck in. I have started working out again and cook healthy meals for us. I try to maintain a regular bedtime and limit my alcohol intake. I try not to nag him if he fails to do these things, and though I’d like to think I’m being a positive role model, I truthfully just do them for myself.

I try to not ask him to do things for me but rather tell him how the things he does make me feel. Eg. rather than saying that he can’t go out for a beer with friends, I tell him how uncomfortable I am at home not knowing where he is and feeling powerless.

B. Initially, my husband was getting much more support than I because he was in therapy for nine months before I even knew about the addiction. Our relationship at that point was abysmal but I did not know why or what to do. Since the first disclosure, I have seen his therapist, found my own, and talk to a coach weekly who has personal experience with being the partner of a sex addict. I feel that this is a good level of support for me though I sometimes wonder about our need to see a marriage counselor of sorts to help us with the non-addiction problems in our relationship, like communication. I have also found a few books that have been excellent and plan to read them annually for the rest of my life.

C. The best wisdom I gleaned from this lesson is that I must behave in a manner that fulfills my values and expectations for myself. By being the best person I can and making the best choices I am currently capable of, no matter what happens with our marriage, I will know that I did all that I can to make it work without jeopardizing myself or my values.

Ex. 8

A. I am trying to be very objective because I do not want to be fooled again. I do think that my husband is on the path to a healthy lifestyle, after the first transition. He has accepted that the past cannot be changed and that his current behaviour is what needs to be judged. He does still get caught by feelings of powerlessness and helplessness, usually triggered by the realization of the effects his behaviour has had on me, but they eventually pass. He does see his recovery as a process and tries to celebrate even the little accomplishments.

B. 1. I would like to see him learn to manage his feelings of powerlessness so that each time we revisit the topics that trigger them, he does not go into a negative spiral and imply that I would be much better off divorced from him. These negative thoughts infiltrate my mind and make my own healing more difficult because I begin to doubt his sincerity.
2. Though he does recognize the damage his behaviour has had on me in many ways, he does not see the whole picture in regard to me and our children, though this too is coming.
3. He seems convinced that he will relapse and that I am wrong to expect a time to come when this risk is gone. I believe he also feels that “making it up to me” is a wrong approach because it puts him in a negative place and me a positive one.

Ex. 9


A. Key signs of a healthy recovery that I have noticed include:
i) the recognition of fundamental flaws. Though my husband still uses the word damaged instead of deficient to describe himself, I think he does see that the problem was in his inability to make the right decisions, not in a lack of desire to.
ii) change is generalized across all areas of his life. The changes in regard to the addiction were faster to happen than in other areas of his life, but they are happening. His self-esteem is improving and he is working on better communication and healthier intimacy.
iii) vulnerability and transparency. I know my husband still struggles with transparency. I think the main reason he hesitates is that he believes he is somehow protecting me from the truth. But he has made great efforts including giving me all of his passwords and giving me a daily report of interactions at work. We spend a lot of time talking about our hopes, fears, and dreams, sharing things we have never shared before. This is a huge improvement in vulnerability for both of us.
iv) proactive vs. reactive. These are changes that I have been seeing quite recently. Previously, slips would cause him to feel worthless and shamed but he started using them as learning experiences and seems to have made great strides reducing them. He knows he has weaknesses and is trying to work at making these areas of his life stronger.
v) slips and relapses. Assuming he has been transparent with me, he has not had recent difficulty managing any overt rituals. However, I was not aware of him having any more subtle rituals to deal with, and this is worrisome. I will have to see what he has to say on the subject.

B. I see my husband’s recovery as a process and he has made progress in the areas described in this session. He was initially very private about his recovery but now is much more transparent, though I am sure not completely so. For a long time, he did not even try to maintain sexual sobriety but now finds it surprisingly easy, or so I understand. Until the transparency is there completely, I cannot know how proactive he is being. I suspect he still weighs the value of telling me something against the damage it may do. I know he used to try to find the gentlest way to tell me something but now he places a higher value on telling me promptly. I am concerned that I am not aware of any subtler rituals that he may experience and be struggling with.

C. We have discussed my perception of his recovery a few times. There are aspects of his progress that he is aware of but I am not. For a long time, I was not able to believe his words and could only go by his actions, so if the progress could not be seen in his actions, I didn’t trust it. For awhile, I didn’t even trust his actions but luckily we are past that. I am more likely to point out the unhealthy aspects that I see. It is not because I am trying to nag or control him, but rather trying to deal with my own fear and lack of understanding.

Ex. 10


A&B. The three most important values to me right now are
i) maintaining my integrity. No matter what happens, I want to be able to look back and know that I did the best I could while upholding my values. I enjoy the days that end with me feeling confident that I was a positive role model and like myself. It would be nice to be able to look back at a whole week or maybe an entire month and think “yes, I was a good mother/wife/friend/daughter, maybe not perfect but good enough and happy”.
ii) fairness. It is slowly dawning on me that I need to offer him the same reassurances that I am expecting from him. I need to call if I’m going to be home later, I need to compliment him more, etc. Rebuilding the trust in our relationship is a two way street. The more positive feedback loops we create in our lives, the more positive our lives will be.
iii) my family. I’m hoping that by strengthening my relationship with my husband, it will also make our family ties stronger and our children more confident and capable. I see worrisome traits in my children’s behaviours and demeanors. They are so sensitive to what is going on between my husband and I, any change is reflected in them within days. I don’t want the bevaviour patterns we suffer from to be repeated in them. Or at least not as severely - I know they won’t live carefree lives; no one does.

C. In order to maximize the potential from these values, I should:
- make decisions based on positive emotions, not fear or anger
- not be afraid to follow my heart
- listen to my inner voice
- not let myself get distracted by busy-ness
- keep my priorities straight (me first!)
- follow the same guidelines in my life that I ask for from him in his
- be open and honest
- remember that it is okay to be needy and dependent
- be confident asking for clarification when I need it
- express my feelings in actions and words
- treat my children with respect
- be aware of their needs and fulfill what I can
- spend more quality time with them rather than just spending a certain quantity of time with them
- moderate my words and tone, especially now that they are super sensitive
- model appropriate ways to handle emotions

D. I will reinstate my habit of jotting down questions during the day to ask my husband in the evening, rather than assuming my concerns are not valid. I will contact one friend that I haven’t had contact with in some time. I will make kindness a priority.