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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Dh is a sex addict and I don't know what to do for the best

67 replies

rogersmellyonthetelly · 01/09/2012 17:18

I have been with dh for 14 years, married for 11 of those, have 2 kids, with a third on the way. He is a sex addict, he likes to contact women online and have virtual sex with them. We have been mostly ok over the years with me finding evidence of these conversations from time to time, being upset, dealing with it and moving on.
I have over the years come to see this as what it is- an addiction that he struggles with and nothing to do with failings in our relationship despite what he tries to excuse it with (I found out the first time a couple of months before I married him when our sex life was great, we had no money worries and no kids to make him stressed)
I have just found a load of emails today, filthy stuff, with photos that make my skin crawl. I don't mind him looking at porn, it's the mutuality of it between two people and the fact that he is sending obscene photos of himself to others that disgusts me. I just feel so betrayed.
I'm at the point now where I just don't know if I can do this anymore. I don't think I can have sex with him again having seen what I have, I feel dirty by association.
I don't know what to do for the best. Do I leave him to it, and get a divorce knowing the upset it may cause my kids and bring this third baby up on my own, or do I insist on some counselling and keep trying?
I should say that in between me finding these conversations, we can have months and even years where we get on well and are happy, we rarely argue.
We do have different sex drives, mine being on the low side, his being very high it seems, as there are 3 of these emails a day with different women in some days! No one surely needs sex that often to be satisfied?
Should I treat this like gambling for example where it will happen from time to time then he will get it under control again?

OP posts:
Lueji · 02/09/2012 14:49

And I also don't buy into this sex addiction thing.
If that was it, he'd be wanting to do it with you all the time.
He's into something else, really.

ImperialBlether · 02/09/2012 15:03

He's just the same as every other man who gets cheap thrills from women online.

I cannot believe that a sex addict (if such a thing exists) wouldn't be looking for physical sex; you would be pestered night and day for this.

fiventhree · 02/09/2012 15:48

OH dear.

Sadly I know a great deal about this kind of problem, as your h and mine could have been the same person until last year.

I never did 'know', as any evidence I found was denied and explained away with all kinds of bollocks which I cant now believe I fell for. But in fact he lied and did this behind my back for 5 and a half years (to my certain knowledge now). He was early 50 when he stopped, and the women were 18-30, with the emphasis on under 25 (I would say). My daughter is 25, and another 16.

I personally found the sex addiction (Patrick Carnes stuff) very illuminating, but in fact it doesnt matter whether it exists or not. And anyway, Carnes changed his views later on to talk about compulsion as opposed to addiction.

This means he uses sexual experience in order to feel better about himself, or to gain/exert power or control, or because he confuses sex and love.

However, he also knows that it is unacceptable, and that he is out of control to do this. He doesnt feel good about himself.

So why does he not stop?

For the same reason that a man who has a one off affair doesnt stop until caught, and only then if his world falls about his ears.

Because he cares about meeting his 'needs' more than about the marriage, and because he doesnt want to do the hard work of sorting out his issues. Rather, he prefers to escape from them. Sure, he would prefer you didnt find out and will half kill himself to hide it, but at the end of the day he thinks his needs are more important than yours.

I am afraid you have only one option, and it is easy for me to say this, because I havnt had to take it (yet).

If you are keen to keep your marriage (you may well not be) this is what I suggest.

Tell him that he needs to leave the family home and get counselling, and that you will not readmit him until you are convinced yourself that he has stopped, and for good. And that you want to attend a couple of his counselling sessions, too (though not all). That you want him to see someone with experience of his issue.

I didnt have to do this as my h had never previously been outed for this (through his lies), and when I did find out, through insisting on the truth I just knew I wasnt getting, it was after a few weeks at Relate and also after I had removed myself for some weeks from the bedroom and any involvement in his life.

He did stop, and sort himself out, but it was f'ing slow work, and I think I should have kicked him out for a while at the beginning to speed things up. There is absolutely no question in my mind, not a fragment, that if I discover this again, he is OUT, and I will tell all of his family and friends why, too.

In your case, you have caught him in this before, and quite clearly he simply doesnt believe that you have any boundaries to resist him. And currently, you havnt, have you?

Can I recommend Patrick Carnes books and also 'Boundaries: When to Say Yes, When to Say No, To Take Control of Your Life, by Cloud and Townsend.

Personally I read myself sick on the Carnes/Sex addiction/compulsion stuff, until a very clever mumsnetter pointed out quite rightly to me that I might help myself and him more effectively by sorting out how the hell I had got here in the first place (enabling, codependence and boundaries).

ie what was it about me and my life and made me put up with him for all of those years when I was suspicious but couldnt 'prove it', and when he was actually treating me more generally like a second class citizen.

This is the key issue for you, but you may be some way from this at the moment

Feel free to pm me.

fiventhree · 02/09/2012 15:50

ps Many people like him DO NOT meet women, though some do.

Because the issue isnt sex, not really. It is about power and control and about inability to manage feelings.

lolaflores · 02/09/2012 16:09

I sat for an evening watching my friend being molested by her Dh in public, which she tolerated as "he feels insecure".
They were in an unfamiliar situation and he spent the whole night running his hands over her.
I wanted to plant him, but she "understood", his wonky view of things that had been given gravitas from a half arsed "diagnosis" from someone.

fiventhree · 02/09/2012 16:46

Lola, I dont doubt it. That man needed to deal with his insecurities and his sexual (and rude) way of expressing them.

But the woman, your friend, had a responsibility too, to tell him to stop treating her like a piece of meat, and to stop ignoring/embarrassing her friend.

It is the man's issue, and no one else's, in this thread, to deal with his own problems. We don't need to get into them, or whether this or that condition exists, because whether it is true or not that he is an addict (whatever that means to each of us) , it is a possible explanation and not a justification.

The OP should stop enabling him, and work out why she thinks she owes it to her children to be treated like this, and to accept it. She needs to notice that he does what he does, because he can, with her at least. He gets away with it.

Personally, I found it useful to start off looking at why my h was like he was, and what he got out of it, and to see how it linked back to his past. BUT that was useful for me, not him.

And it did not mean that she should use his past as an excuse for him to pass on his poor treatment in his own past, to her, in the present.

The man is responsible to himself, not to do this. And the OP is responsible for herself, not to tolerate it. He is violating her boundaries in the relationship, because she permits it through not letting him own the consequences. Because really, she is fearful of the consequences, not least because she is pregnant.

But she needn't be, because it cant actually be much worse for her than it is already, if only she could see this. I couldn't see this when I had my thread either, but now I can.

rogersmellyonthetelly · 03/09/2012 07:24

Sadly I think I do need some counselling. I'm afraid the stuff I have found has made me feel dirty and the thought of him touching me in a sexual way makes my skin crawl. Obviously it's not feasible to even consider continuing with our marriage regardless of whether the Internet thing stops whilst I cant have a sexual relationship with him, it wouldn't be fair to either of us, although he himself can go swivel right now as far as I'm concerned!
I'm angry, hurt, and feel betrayed, especially since I'm 4mo pregnant and feeling very vulnerable just now.

OP posts:
Offred · 03/09/2012 07:42

See I'm not sure you do need counselling if what you are going for is to help you feel better about him after this. I think your reaction is a perfectly normal healthy reaction, I think it would be a great benefit to your family if you stuck with that reaction and did not try to work on changing it because that would just be removing all consequences of his behaviour.

Alibabaandthe40nappies · 03/09/2012 07:58

Offred I agree, the only person who needs to work on themselves is the OP's husband.
There is nothing wrong with how you are feeling OP, you should hang onto that and tell him to get his shit together.

He is a selfish, disrespectful, egotistical twat. He should be on his knees to you begging forgiveness and doing everything in his power to change. Instead, he is going away for a few days while you learn how to manage your feelings in such a way that enables your marriage and your sex life to continue??

Does he accept the need to stop and is he committed to trying?

rogersmellyonthetelly · 03/09/2012 08:16

He's going away because I don't want him in the house until he has committed to stopping his filthy habit and I can be sure he means it. Realistically it will be months rather than a few days.
He has aoologised, been upset when I have been crying, agreed with me in everything I have said, even when I called him a filthy cheating piece of shit. He is happy to do whatever it takes to continue with our marriage. That said, its all so much bullshit until I actually see him do it because I can't trust him at the moment.
I don't want to stop being angry and hurt in a way because it will keep me strong, but at the same time, being angry and upset all the time isn't good for the kids or the baby I'm carrying.
I want to have counselling at some point not necessarily now, i think it will be a good thing because even if our relationship doesn't survive this and we end up divorcing, it will hopefully allow me to see sex in a normal light again and not as some perverse and dirty thing that I see it at the moment. I was watching tv last night and couldn't enjoy it as some of the sex scenes made me feel slightly sick. Dh actually laughed at one scene, which in fairness I may have found funny myself in different circumstances, but my comment was "yeah sure, some man fucking another mans wife and commuting adultery is fucking hilarious love. Thanks for that" and walked out.

OP posts:
Alibabaandthe40nappies · 03/09/2012 08:23

Ah I really feel for you, what a fucking shitty thing to be going through while you are pregnant :(

I think you are right that it is so much bullshit for now. What has he committed to doing to change his behaviour?

PfftTheMagicDraco · 03/09/2012 08:43

Can a counsellor really diagnose an addiction?

madonnawhore · 03/09/2012 08:57

I'm not a counsellor, but even over the Internet I'm able to diagnose your husband with having a chronic case of selfish twattery.

If he's truly, clinically ill then he needs to take responsibility for his recovery and do everything in his power to minimise the effect of his 'addiction' on you. Which so far, he's failed to do.

I agree with the other posters who are sceptical of the diagnosis in the first place. 'Sex addict' is a very handy label for him on which he can hang all manner of shitty behaviour and then plead insanity. It doesn't wash.

I think it's a good idea to get him out of the house and away from you and the DCs for a bit. Seeing he pulls it together to sort himself out.

That would be the recommended course of action for a real addict in recovery anyway.

So sorry this is happening to you. But well done for not letting him get away with it any longer.

rogersmellyonthetelly · 03/09/2012 09:37

Madonna, Thankyou, you just made me laugh out loud for the first time in days with your chronic case of selfish twattery comment :0)
In the face of laughter nothing can stand!

OP posts:
notnow2 · 03/09/2012 10:23

I have the same problem. Dh has always looked at porn a lot - I turned a blind eye until the last month when he has been doing exactly the same with emailing and texting people. Made me feel exactly the same as you - dirty and skin crawling. Mind you some of the porn has made me feel like this too. He is sorry - same as your dh - crying - wants to make it work - give up porn - trying to get help (not as easy as you think - long waiting lists). I have told his parents. We have 3 dc 4,3 and 11mths. I don't want to leave him but if he doesn't stop I will (he has only been doing it for 1 month but I have caught him 3 times) he says he would never physically have an affair but I feel that this is as bad. We do have some issues ( stressful life, house sale, stressful job, mr being a cranky wife) but he is a fantastic job and had been very good partner is the past. I want to give him a chance but I am scared. SadSad

notnow2 · 03/09/2012 10:24

Not fantastic job - fantastic dad!!

fiventhree · 03/09/2012 17:01

I think you would get lots out of counselling, for yourself.

Seapate from him, and to support you through the trauma of dealing with this shit, and strengthening yourself, not to mention recovery.

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