Devastated

[Lorraine]

Hi sorry I have never been on any sites or forums before.

How can you carry on with life as normal when you find out such devastating things about your husband. is it normal to feel you are in some way to blame? Can you ever forgive them? should you keep it secret from people to protect them, your children and yourselves.

I just feel so lost and confused after finding out that my husband has been visiting prostitutes, using chat lines, webcams for most of our 20 year marriage, he says it started before we even met. he has started to go to 12 step meetings and says he is there to support me but i can't see how he can be when he is the one who has caused me this hurt.

He says it was only about sex and no emotion but i have seen emails, pictures and messages where he has made arrangements to meet up, (not spur of the moment meetings) and what he is going to do to them. The last 3 prostitutes he had been seeing he says he wanted to have all 3 of them on the go at the same time.He even arranged to go shopping with one of them and spent hundreds on her just before Christmas, They would also send him pictures (nude and not nude) and he also sent pictures to them, they had his personal phone number and he would let them know he had blocked them when he was at home, so in my eyes he could have stopped what he was doing. I don't feel as though he understands how far he took things, he keeps saying it is his addiction. Part of me does not believe this and i believe you are responsible for your actions.

I just need to talk to someone who understands how I feel. I lost my mum a few years ago and feel very alone. I don't know if I want to be with him and support him or just walk away now. Part of me hates him right now!

Thank you 

[Florrie]

Hi Lorraine, so sorry to hear you have made this discovery. Similarly to you my husband has used sex workers and pornography for all of our married life (27years). Like you it started way before we were together, and is in part related to a traumatic childhood. It is hard to take in and as you say, continuing with ‘normal life’ seems impossible. However, we are 8 months down the road now and I would say some semblance of a new nomality is emerging. That isn’t to say that everything is rosy now, it often isn’t, and arguments seem to flare up from nowhere as a result of  ill timed statements or clumsy attempts at humour, but we are generally learning to get on in a more meaningful way than we have done in recent years. Can I suggest you look at the revovery nation website, there is lots of information there that will help you to gain some understanding of what has been going on with your husband and also gives some good insight into how it effects partners and ways for partners to move forward for themselves. There are also a series of things for couples to work on together ( whether you intend to stay together or not) which I found particularly helpful for us moving forward. Also I recommend the Paula Hall books, both for the addict and partners, they are full of useful stuff too. I know this is all a big shock, but the way I dealt with the shock was to try and understand the situation and gain as much knowledge as I could in order to make informed decisions that weren’t emotion fuelled. That is not to say that there hasn’t been lots of emotinos on display ( not a day goes by when one or the  other of us isn’t in tears over something, but I can say that it is getting easier. As they say at SAA, just take it one day at a time....

wishing you all the best,