Anon87

Hi Bluebell, I’m also in a very similar situation. I’m currently 5 weeks discovering of my husbands sex addiction - I’ve always known he’s watched porn, but I naively never assumed it would escalate. We’ve been together 5 years, married for 2 (our anniversary is next week 💔) and have a 4 month old baby boy! After discovery, my husband told me he wanted to make things work with me, but the man was simply dead behind the eyes…. He wasn’t the man I knew, loved or married. I’d put down the lack of enthusiasm to having a new baby and him getting a new job which meant getting up earlier! After speaking with a friend who was also cheated on, she told me his actions were not that of a guilty man trying to make things right. I continued to drill down on other things that might come out of the woodwork, he simply put his head down and said nothing else will surface. Early hours the next morning I went through his phone and found out not only had he continued to message sex workers, but he’d been having an affair! I woke him up and immediately told him to leave - the meaningless sex was something, but an affair? I couldn’t even handle the pain! He told me he was going to tell me about the affair because he was leaving me for her… well that just ripped my heart right out, I felt sick! Once he’d left, I bagged up everything he owned and put it all in the shed… I wanted a divorce within the hour, I wanted him off the mortgage and I certainly didn’t want him playing dad to my new baby! I literally had to fight for him to spend time with our baby, to bond with him. He’d possibly changed 3 nappies over 3 months…. It was so challenging for me! Over that weekend, I found out he hadn’t gone running to her… which I didn’t understand at all. He told me he was leaving me for her and even told me he loved her?! How could he love someone he’d never spent quality time with, or even spent a night with?? He told me he found love in a dark place…. The visits to sex workers have been going on for 8 months and the affair 6 months. Was the affair based on the way he was feeling after his addiction started? I was months away from giving birth & he wasn’t using protection - he put all our lives at risk of STIs. Which angers me so much! Since the discovery, he’s started therapy and taken responsibility. He’s moved into our spare room and our lives have continued as normal and strangely our closeness and communication is better than ever before. We enjoy spending time together, he’s being such a better husband & father - but he keeps telling me he wants to focus on himself and that we’re not together. But everything else including the sex still remains! But last night he told me he’s still messaging this other woman, telling her he loves her and he’s sorting himself out! I'm devastated. Like you, I’ve also read that infidelity is different to addiction. And like your husband, mine feels awful about the addiction; but not for the affair. Is this what they call Sex & Love addiction?