Changes in our future

I am not entirely sure what exactly is in store for us. Mr. C is active in his addiction. He relapsed quite some time ago and doesn't appear to be making any effort to regain sobriety. Last week I caught him texting with three different girls. Two of them were customers he had been flirting with at his place of employment. The third happened after cruising craigslist from the computer at work.

I am devastated and feeling so hopeless. Two nights ago he once again went missing. He always has a very pathetic excuse as to why he disappeared from work, failed to call, and doesn't answer my calls to his cell phone. I am so weary of this rollercoaster.

We had been planning a move to the west coast and now I am struggling. He says he is committed to recovery but his actions paint a different picture. It has become so normal for him to lie and deceive me. He has no idea how hurtful his behavior is, or maybe he does but he just doesn't care. At this point leaving him would be less painful than staying with him.

Maybe I should? Maybe I need to just go do something for myself. He obviously doesn't worry about me because he doesn't make any attempt to get better. I am pretty sure if I leave he will go crazy and binge on craigslist hook ups and dating site girls. That seems to be his main concern in life.

The struggle I am having is how hard do you fight for someone to get help with an addiction that is consuming them? My husband is in there somewhere but I don't see him anymore. The addict is constantly present. In 7 months this addiction has thoroughly consumed Mr. C and it is terrifying.

I feel so alone in the world and have the weight of it all on my shoulders. It makes me angry and irrational. The pain is so overwhelming that some days it takes everything I have to just get out of bed. That isn't like me. My natural state of being is happy. I thrive in positivity. This is all getting to be too much. I am growing to dislike my husband. Mr. C has been my best friend for 15 years. It is sad to imagine not having him in my life but with how he treats me these days it is more painful to stay with him than leave.

I am just not sure what our future holds.

Living in Chaos

The discovery of my husband's sex addiction did not happen in one fell swoop. It actually came in bits and pieces over the last five years. It happened in such small increments that I began to grow numb to each discovery. I became to anticipate them based upon the changes in his demeanor. I called it his red flag behavior. He, like most addicts, has certain tells when he is using. One of the most difficult things for myself, and I would venture a guess many other spouses, is that during the pre-discovery phase we are aware that things are not right with our husband or wife. We can tell that there is something going on but we may be unable to put our finger on it. Either that or we are unable to find the evidence. The latter is what happened in my case. It always took awhile for the evidence to come to light. The time between my initial notice of his red flag behavior and the evidence to surface feels like a living hell.

This span of time has always involved very codependent behavior on my part. I question, ask, snoop, and investigate to an obsessive level. I know there is something wrong and I became determined to uncover exactly what (or whom) it is. This leads to a lot of checking up on Mr. C. Which only serves to make him defensive and so our Addict-Codependent tango goes; I ask, he lies. I plead, he denies. I beg, he gets angry. I get angry, he gets apologetic. We have been doing this back and forth for five years and it is exhausting. It is so difficult to stop, especially once it is set into motion.

Mr. C is struggling tremendously to fully accept his sex addiction and embrace recovery. He has been at a crossroad for several months and it is mortally wounding our marriage. I am uncertain of how to proceed when he is not fully on board much less in recovery.

The hardest part of this all has been to know what to do. Mr. C is an addict but where do I draw the line? I religiously read my books and attend 12 Step meetings but ultimately this is a question that you have to ask and answer for yourself. Answering is the hardest part of it all.

Mr. C has been acting out this week. He has been lying to me about his whereabouts after work. For example, today he got off work early and was missing for approximately an hour. I have no idea where he was or what he was doing. This is highly unusual behavior for Mr. C but very telling behavior for Addict-Mr. C. Unfortunately I have no idea what to do about it?

I feel so alone in my marriage with a sex addict. I love my husband more than anything but his addiction is stealing him from me and I am utterly lost. The saddest part is that his sex addiction is stealing him from himself. It may be difficult for some people to understand but I know that my husband loves me. I know that my husband adores me and I know that it breaks his heart to hurt me.

Addiction, specifically sex addiction feeds upon the feelings of shame and guilt. It becomes a cycle that looks something like this:

1. Somethings sets off his inner pain. This might be a memory. It might be something as "simple" as waking up feeling poorly about himself. It triggers the internal awareness of his feelings of worthlessness and hurt that he always carries with him. This is the very beginning of the addiction cycle.

2. He experiences uncomfortable emotions. For my husband this centers around feelings of anxiety. He struggles with anxiety and depression, which is very common of sex addicts. He also feels tremendous amounts of shame and guilt. These feelings result from his family of origin and childhood dysfunction. The result is that he becomes to feel uncomfortable and uneasy in his own skin.

3. This cycles to unresolved conflict. It might be trauma from childhood. It could be guilt from secret acting out. It doesn't matter much what it is, so much as that it continues to feed the cycle of addiction.

4. Stress. These uncomfortable and painful feelings begin to create a sense of urgency. Addicts are terrible at self-soothing. They are not good at self-regulating their emotions. In fact, most active addicts don't know how to self-sooth or self-regulate themselves. These continue boiling inside of them eating them up.

5. In comes a need to connect. They begin to feel lonely.

6. This desire to connect draws in a dissociative to state. That is to say that the addict begins to disconnect between himself (or herself) and his (or her) feelings.

7. After the addict disassociates with themselves they enter an altered state or fantasy world. Reality gets blocked out.

8. Pursuing behavior. This is when the addict may begin to engage in acting out rituals. They are setting the stage to act out. For my husband this includes curtailing his intimacy with me. It also may include the use of pornography and masturbation, pulling away emotionally, and acting erratically.

9. Acting out behavior. This is when everything has come together in a perfect storm to allow the addict to engage in their addiction. For my husband this may be flirting with a customer, setting up personal ads on Craigslist, texting girls, or engaging in sexual activities with them.

10. Shame. After acting out the addict generally feels remorse, guilt, and tremendous amounts of shame. My husband talks of driving home from his affair partner's house and crying. He's talked of letting go of the steering wheel, sobbing, and hoping the road would open up and swallow him whole. Unfortunately the shame cycles right around to the first stage which serves to set off the inner pain only to have the entire cycle repeat again.

The further into the addiction the addict gets the more progressive and quickly he may cycle.