Thank you for your response. I agree that he has some problems. I am not sure that I see them as full on addictions as of yet. He gambles on a very small scale and has not lost a lot of money but he continues to gamble when times are tough. He owns his own company which is suffering due to market conditions mostly and more recently his lack of enthusiasm because of our problems which has resulted in us getting very behind in bills etc. The sexual part of it, although different from a normal affair is more exploratory vs addictive. Initially I went down this same path and questioned addiction etc. but after much reading etc. he did not exhibit the same patterns etc. He is not compulsive nor is it constant.
He is an adrenaline addict. He loves anything that gives him that rush. He said once that it wasn't the sex that he even enjoyed but rather the 5 minutes before he got there. Once he got there he could care less. Who knows maybe it is a sex addiction in a different form as I have a friend that is a former drug addict and he said that it wasn't doing the drugs that was the best part it was the "scoring the drugs" Maybe I am just making excuses for him because I don't want him to be a sex addict. I don't know anymore!
Our therapist said it was a form of sexual addiction because of the type of behavior not necessarily the frequency or compulsivity. But he says he can stop the behavior and that he has stopped. He said it is more that he was tired of the same thing, I won't actually use the word he used. but it was much more hurtful and dealt with one specific body part.
Our sex life had gotten very monotonous. Our 4 year old had been sleeping in our bed for years and we couldn't get him out. Which now I attribute to laziness and complacency on our part. Since this happened I put my foot down and he hasn't slept in our bed once. Initially we had an extremely healthy sex life, but our sex life had diminished to whenever we could when the children weren't around and usually they would end up banging on our door during or we would have to go into the closet while the kids were asleep. So the sex had gotten less and less frequent and less and less adventurous. It was the same position each time, no foreplay and very quick. I sometimes blame myself for this but at the same time he was as guilty as me for not getting our son out of our bed. We stopped taking time for each other. We would go through periods of great frequency and then other times it would be weeks without it.
In any case, I do know that he has to hit rock bottom for him to want to get better and that my wanting him and clinging to him is enabling him and almost allowing this to continue (supposedly it has stopped but he refuses to prove it) but it is so hard to just let him go. He is my life! I can't stand it! I can't even begin to think about life without him. Christmas without him, Open House, vacations we had talked about, our children's first dates, buying their first car, even just dinner in the evening and experiencing all of the funny little things that the children say. I can't imagine him not being here for it all.
I sit in bed every night wondering if he is still out there, who he might be with, if he is looking on Craig's List, if he is over at the one girls house that he was almost emotionally involved with. It is so much to handle. I don't want to let go! I don't want to lose him!
His whole family is very strange in that they can shut off there emotions. "Out of sight, out of mind" If you aren't around and making contact they just shut you out of their lives, if you make them angry they just write you off. I can't do that. I can't shut the door on those people I love. I am afraid that if I don't call or don't see him that it will just be easy for him to walk away. He can just turn off his emotions and leave.
He is very close to one of our son's, our youngest. He doesn't share the same bond with our older one. So I know that it will be hard for him to walk away from him but I don't want him to only be here because of our one son. he has to be here for all of us. Want all of us! He said to me the other night that he enjoyed sleeping in his office because he didn't have the nagging wife, the whining kids , the house that he couldn't afford right now that he didn't have to deal with that. I asked him if he thought that all went away with a D. He said it quieted the noise. I actually laughed and told him that I thought he had a warped sense of reality because at least when he was home he had the nagging wife to help with the whining kids and pay for the house he couldn't afford and the D would actually be making his life that much harder for him. Because now he picks up child support and alimony plus he has the kids by himself with no breaks. At least together we can work as a team. But he doesn't know what he wants at all. He doesn't know if marriage is for him. He likes to be alone. I don't even know if there is a way to save this. If any amount of reading and doing what I am supposed to is going to bring him back to me. I don't know that he will ever be able to face everyone that knows what he has done. It is easier for him to walk away and start over somewhere else, with someone else.
