Nicky

My husband of 20 years has recently been diagnosed with a sex addiction. During our 23 year relationship he has been unfaithful to me on at least 3 occasions, (twice with 2 different escorts and once with a local girl with whom he had a month long fling with). These are the ones I know about, however I know that he has had chatted up and flirted with numerous girls online, evan setting up a few online dating profiles looking for "no strings" attached sex. He evan had an emotional affair, choosing to discuss our problems with her over me. Up until this point I had turned a blind eye to his antics, because we had 3 young children and I distracted my self bringing them up. I did confrount him a few times , but he denied the allegations, always coming up with some exuse who these girls were. Our sex life wasnt brillent, all ny attempts to imlrove it were dismissed. The knowledge he was pursuing other women made me feel very insecuere making my self esteem very low. When his latest meeting with an escort came to light 8 months ago, I had had enough and asked for a divorce. At this he broke down and begged me to stay, he admitted having sex once with this escort and chatting up other women in the hope it would turn into more, but still denied sleeping with anyone else, despite the evidence I had at this point. I reluctantly agreed to "try again", providing he had counselling, (he refused couple counselling), which he did. His counseller diagnosed him with a sex addiction caused by a very low self esteem and depression. My husband was adopted as a child when his birth parents abondoned him. My husband did try, and as far as I am aware has remained faithful to me since. His counseller suggested that we forget the past and start again, and start dating again. My husband did start taking me on dates etc, and evan took me away to Spain just the 2 of us for a week. However I cant stop feeling that my whole marriage has been a lie, that the whole time we have been together he has been chasing other women, so therefore he couldnt of really loved me. I feel as though I am second best and only with me to make himself look good. I feel hurt that he honestly thinks I can forget the past and pretend that we have just met. He evan tried to put some blame on me. It dosent matter what he says or does, part of me cannot open up to him or let him truely back in because I feel betrayed. I understand that sex addicts have trouble emotionally attaching themselves to people, and when they come across a difficult situation that we would deal with by talking to others and facing our problems, they would turn to sex. Therefore how can a sex addict truely feel love and emtional closeness to thier partner ?