Rosie

Ha, funny guy If there’s one thing a sex addict can be trusted to do its lie eh. Once my behind 🤔😂

The first part of this post sounds so so similar to my boyfriend/ex/mess situation, it’s almost exact beside the part about not watching porn and the incident with a minor. Please please do get specialist counselling, having gone through discovering my partners secret sexual life (I was also sent screenshots) he then was remorseful and full of shame, for a while, then the cycle of addiction rolled on and he did more, worse things ( if you google the cycle of sex addiction it will help understand where your at) Its only once he was ready to admit that he was sexually compulsive and was using female attention as a buzz and online and offline plus ever wilder stimuli needing more and more (even though we never stopped in terms of sex and were very active) that he began to be able to take steps to admit it was an addiction, it was out of control... and frightening once I found out where this was taking him. I hope sharing this is helpful, your best avenue IMHO is to go to a counsellor and tell them exactly what you have said here, they are trained to understand and help, the damage this does to your girlfriend is awful (not to mention the very worrying incident you speak about, which is extremely serious) and you are right to want to address this. It won’t go away just because you feel sorry, as you have realised, it’s a compulsion. Unless you start to work on yourself it will return and even if you do start therapy it takes a lot of fight and help to change the brains habits for the long term.

Hi Nick, it is hard to open up about these things but doing that here is a good first step if you do want to get help and change things in your relationships, what Josh is saying is valuable in that your motivation has to be to change for YOU firstly and most importantly as we can only change ourselves with this strong inner conviction, not if it’s only for someone else. what you describe does sound like compulsive sexual behaviours i.e texting women you don’t want even though you know it could cause problems in your relationship, would suggest it’s the attention (which gives a buzz) that your chasing and that’s what you would need to look into, why do you crave that attention. Try googling or even just reading other men’s stories here who have these issues, I’ve read a lot on this due to my partner and also come from a family of an addict and have my own ‘compulsive behaviours’ not to say I’m any kind of expert at all but just trying to help.

Thank you for your responses, it turns out the relapse had been worse than I thought. He is now getting specialist therapy but I am very disillusioned feeling that his remorse and resolve to 'fix himself' is more about getting exposed and part of the 'cycle' that will soon revert to denial deception and arrogance. I'm numb after finding out my worst fears were right. This addiction is savage

Thankyou so much for your response and understanding, your right in saying I worry about him but also I do worry about us and need to see something concrete to reassure me enough to try, rather than having to walk away, which is very very imminent if he isn't willing to throw himself at being honest and fronting up to this stuff. The fact that I now realise he must have been sidetracking in his therapy sessions is just beyond infuriating, I think his ego won't allow him to be that 'flawed' damn our silly fragile egos, Personally I'll happily flaunt my faults for the pleasure of having a genuine connection with someone. We aren't married and don't live together, when I first discovered his deceptions he was literally begging me not to leave him and saying he would do anything/everything to make things work, he started a 12 step but found it too religious then slowly I saw him backslide on his promises to read about stuff and listen to podcasts, also after promising we'd go to counselling together once he 'got comfortable with her' he seemed to be squirming out of me talking to the same therapist as him, my suspicion being he was basically lying to her as well as me and if she worked with 'us' she'd learn the truth! Seems I was right there. You are exactly right in saying it is only him that can effect a change if he truly commits to it. It's hard to see the 'illusion' of the person you dearly love being with fall away, I just know in my gut that unless he is pointed in the right direction he will fail to make any progress but it can't be me 'steering' That being said if anyone knows of affordable sex addiction therapy in the london area, I would be grateful of the info to pass on. I start counselling in the next couple of weeks for myself. I'm grateful for the support and being able to see others stories

Hi Paula and fellow forum members, I'm nervous to start but absolutely had to share somewhere as I'm completely exhausted and my head is about to explode. Long story short here as its 4.30am and I need to try to sleep, though it's still pretty wordy! Sorry. I'm trying to find a specialist, affordable option for therapy for him/us after discovering sex addiction a few months back, he started seeing a therapist but she isn't specific, also I suspect he's been manipulating her reactions and playing a martyr as what he's come back saying indicates and I'm pretty convinced he's been in denial and 'white knuckling' this addiction mainly. He's very good at charming (aren't they all) and bringing out motherly instinct in women so I'm feeling like he's just been skirting around it and not actually facing things. Anyway, lately he has fallen into huge depression/anger/anxiety blaming work and saying he doesn't actually think he has a sexual compulsion issue, hugest red flag when he suddenly lost sexual interest in me (our sex life has always been volcanic) ignored my flirtations (!) and started becoming hugely distant and detached. I suspected it was this sex addiction 'cycle' but desperately wanted to think the best... lo and behold he 'relapsed' I discovered he's started using private browser settings and by utter chance I saw a page relating to prostitutes, he claims he just gets off looking, I'm probably the biggest fool if I believe that. I've no idea if we will remain together or what the truth is but he wants us to go to a therapist together. I keep pressing the need for it to be an experienced specialist in this field if we go, or even just for him if we split and he's ever going to tackle this! I think anything else is wasting time/money and is avoidance IMO. He mentioned relate but I think that is still too 'general' pls help with any advice/encouragement or just plain reason as I'm half crazy with sadness, feeling helpless and constantly on the edge of a panic attack. Sorry for the verbal diarrhoea and Thankyou for any advice in advance. warmest thoughts to others here going through this, it's a special kind of hell