Hi DQ, Other people have suggested he has a sexual addiction. Oddly enough, I never noticed it before -- he seemed relatively normal. That's what has me living in disbelief is how well he kept this under wraps.
As for other addictions, oh yes, several. Work is one. He told me very early on that work came first before all else. He didn't want children because they'd interfere with work, then changed his mind. (He is a good, involved dad, and he's also calmer than I.)
He also drinks -- about 4-5 oz of vodka, straight, every day, divided into 3 drinks, one at 3 pm, one 4 pm, the last at 5. He then eats large amounts of ice cream at night, which I explained to him was an addiction to compensate for the sugar low once the alcohol had gone through his system.
I have also always know he is a romance addict -- he'd fallin love with women very easily, fantasize about them, and pursue them for years. After our first crisis 11 years ago, when he confessed to his soulmate love for a woman who didn't want to leave her h and have an affair with him, I realized it was more of the same that he had done earlier. Pursuit of a woman who is unavailable to the point of obsession. What I didn't realize is that the romance addiction had at some point turned into a sexual addiction, probably because we weren't intimate (he wasn't interested, and had performance problems, which someone else suggested may have been because he was involved in a PA).
He, of course, refused to listen when I suggested he had some addiction problems. The drinking was only because he wanted a cigarette; the falling in love was only because I made him so unhappy (hmmm, so why stick around 23 years...). In fact, this leaving right now is partly to convince his family and everyone else that it was me all along, and he was being a good boy for staying for the children, etc. I love his mother dearly, but she and his dad are a big part of the problem, and he is their golden boy, on whom they have pinned all their hopes and expectations.
There are more people out there with these kinds of problems than you can imagine, and therapists who pound the old "you're not getting your needs met" theory aren't doing them any favors. People like my husband have holes so big they never get filled. I waver between feeling sorry for him, and being angry.
Sorry, I've probably rambled on too much about this. The tragedy is, if he would deal with this admittedly huge problem, we had a lot in common and a lot of shared and good history.
-- he seemed relatively normal. That's what has me living in disbelief is how well he kept this under wraps.