I think my 30 year marriage is over

[tim55]

Hi every body,

This is my first post and I'm not sure if this is the right place for what is going on. I guess I'll just put up my story and see what happens.

I was discovered betraying my wife of 30 plus years through the use of internet pornography, by my 18 year old daughter. That was about 4 months ago. Many would say I was addicted, I'm still not sure if that is right or not. Since then I have done pretty well dealing with that side of the problem. Through some counselling, reconnecting with my faith and involvement with a 12 step program, I am "sober" since discovery. I have lied and deceived even after discovery trying to minimise what I had done. The full truth all came out about 2 weeks ago.

My wife and I have been on a roller coaster about what will happen with our marriage. At the moment it looks as though our marriage will end. I am currently living out of the family home and pretty well every interaction I have with my wife upsets her peace. I don't think she is on the road to any healing; that is now just about out of my hands. Any suggestion I make is rejected vehemently.

Its now becoming clear that I will not be spending Christmas with my family. Having me in the house is just the catalyst for my wife's pain and hurt, leading to anger that just spills over our adult children. So I expect to stay away.

I have no family where I am living, although, I have cut myself off from them. My father was a verbally abusive man who introduced me to pornography. I have some support through a church, however, he will be out of the city from tomorrow and has a family of his own to care for. So I am staring at the likelihood of being alone for Christmas. One of the characteristics of an addict is pushing people away and I have done that, with no real friends at all.

There are some things I know I can do. I will be attending Church on Christmas Day, possibly with the family, but I'm not expecting that. I guess I am looking for suggestions about dealing with a weeks worth of days by myself as work will shut it's doors. I will be tackling my addictive issues separately with my counsellor. I'm looking for some general suggestions.

Thanks

[tim55]

Thanks Geoff,

I will be in the category of being in pain tomorrow. There is so much that is normal for Christmas that not doing it will bring a level of pain.

I will be in Church with the family, I hear what you say, but I am drawn there. I will be helping them provide the music ministry, again I have a need to show them an unselfish me. Then we will say goodbye after Mass and they will go home to Christmas lunch and I will go to a community lunch. That is going to hurt greatly. But I think it would hurt if I didn't do these things.

That I have stopped with the filth is a good thing, but it is not what is preventing my wife taking me back. 34 years of lies is that, she has said to me she loves truth more than she loves me. So I have a long way to go. She does not consider me truthful at all.

I'll try to be around on Christmas Day, if I'm not, know that one of two things have happened. I have received a highly unlikely invitation to visit home, or I am just hiding in a dark room somewhere, but nothing more than that will happen.

[bindi-QLD]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for replying, I really like hearing the thoughts of a good man. I feel sad thinking of you going into Christmas anticipating pain and ostracisation from your family, and really sorry for your wife who is feeling so much pain herself. I don't think either of you deserve it or intended to cause each other harm, and it really makes me feel so much empathy for you both.

The more I read your posts Tim, the more identify with them and I think its probably because I come from a similar background. I don't know about you, but lying was only part of what I did to survive as a kid. I could probably write paragraphs worth of various survival tactics I used, that later became a burden in adulthood.

I've let go of a lot of those survival tactics, but still have a strange way of detaching in my relationship. Its the longest I've had, and its healed so much within me, I am so grateful. But its like I have comfort zone for closeness, an instinct for detachment really. It covers sexuality, and also my inner world. Its like I can get so close, and then I feel more comfortable with less closeness. Sexuality is big part my detachment as well. I can relate to porn use, at least your use of it, because it became a way to make your sexuality private, remove negotiations, and any potential for rejection. For you, your sexuality became yours, and safe. I am similar in a way.

I've only started looking at this closely recently, its hard to really know when I'm detaching. I think it must come down to being massively betrayed by abusive or scary parents, the way it impacts a child's sense of trust. We learn bad habits to cope and survive, but we also learn mistrust, to hold something back that can't be examined and harmed by someone else. I find it hard to let my partner's significance be something I feel completely. And when I do, I feel so afraid and vulnerable. Sometimes what I really feel only comes out in dreams, i feel the full force of it, my love, my lust, everything. And I wake up shaking. He means that much and I was taught that I am not someone who is lovable. Its makes me feel that my relationship is so fragile, but so deeply important to me as well. I think I detach because I don't really know how to live with those opposing feelings. But what I do know, is that the longer he loves me, the more I heal and I am grateful for him.

I don't know if you can relate, but I hope what i said about trust helps. It may be the main issue with you as well?

[white knight]

Have a good xmas Tim regardless.

Tony WK

[Kate850]

Hi Tim55,

Thanks for sharing your story. I'd like to share just a few brief words about your situation if I may.

I'm a young woman who remembers finding some of my dad's pornography when I was about your daughter's age. Of course at first it was very confronting but with time and maturity, I began to realise that my dad (both my parents in fact) are only human.

I began to realise that we all have needs and needs can be expressed in many different ways.

I also began to realise that we all are entitled to make mistakes or seem imperfect at times.

I hope with time your 18 year old daughter experience a similar change in perspective.

All the best. I know for me, discovering my dad's porn collection did not change how my love for him.

Sarah

[geoff]

hi Tim, Bindi has provided you with some great replies, and now you have a 50/50 chance of being invited to Xmas lunch with your family, forgive if I predicate that you will be invited, I have my fingers and toes crossed for you.

I also want to say that I'm sure most of us have lied when we were kids, to teachers, to siblings and to parents just to escape any punishments, and I know I am no angel, my twin and I used to get into so much trouble, but Mum always knew when we weren't telling the truth, sometimes she would let it slide, but if she said 'no TV for a week' then we would confess.
Most kids grow up with inquisitive minds, something that needed to be explored, that's how we learn, being told something at school and never believing it, so we try and find out, again that's how we gain our knowledge, and what is happening in today's world is something our grandparents would find appalling or even atrocious, that's how the world progresses.
It is true that we may tell white lies or in some circumstances wholehearted lies to our spouse, just so we don't get into trouble, and no one can confess that they always tell the whole truth, what about when our young kids ask us whether 'father Christmas' is real for example.
If you are on today I really do hope that your wishes do come through, part of it has because you will see them at church, enjoy that time and wish all the very best. Geoff.

[tim55]

Hi bindi,

I am amazed by your replies.

My wife and children do not deserve everything, the shit storm, I have brought to them. They have all been nothing but loving and giving. Many, would tell me to be kind to myself and I am trying but I have brought this on myself.

Thank you for the suggestion that I might be a good man. I have shown a side of me like that to the world for a long time. In the end it has been a facade, cause underneath I have been rotten. That is not the case now, but not everybody is ready to accept that. The joy of being a liar.

I think the extent of my survival tactics were to hide and when that was not possible, it would be to lie. I'm not that creative or clever. But neither of them are a good thing for adulthood. They just destroy relationships. Hiding just builds distance and that kills any chance of intimacy.

One of the questions around my use of pornography is what came first. You talk about using it to make my sexuality my own. My wife and mine sexual relationship has been the cause of much pain for my wife. I have been very guilty of rejecting her over the years. Now that my "other" life has been revealed, my wife has seen that rejection as being because I didn't want her, I wanted pornography. I am wondering more that I had long before made pornography a medication for a pain and then got more locked into wanting the hit. My wife will not accept what I have done is not about her. A man who loves his wife does not do what I have done. She will not accept I loved her for all of these years.

I am not sure I can fully relate to all that you are saying, but one thing that has struck a chord is the idea of holding something back. I have not been able to fully let go of things. I have only recently told people I had been abused as a young boy. I was told to be quiet and not to tell anybody. This has a bunch of ramifications, one of which is that I do hold many things very close to myself. I could not talk with my father, still can't, about anything of great importance, nor would he listen, so why would I.

[tim55]

This is not a good trait for a marriage. Opening up and talking is a good thing for a marriage, it may be very difficult but I have to be ready to open up.
bindi, I'm not sure if any of this has made a great deal of sense, but I do appreciate you replying to me and opening up to me. The questions are helping

[tim55]

Merry Christmas Tony WK.

Thanks I hope you have a great day too.

[tim55]

Hi Sarah,

Thanks for sharing your kind words.

At the moment, my daughter's feelings for me fluctuate a great deal. At one end she hates me for what she has found out about me and what that has done to her; ruined the last semester of her Yr12, her 18th birthday. At the other end, there is something because I'm the one who does practical things for her.

The other aspect is that what my daughter found was the entry point into 30 plus years of lies and deception, not just a mistake, but hypocrisy and deciet. She has seen her mother change so much due to the shock of what I have done.

My daughter might come to accept that I have made mistakes, and may come to forgive me and love me again. But that is going to take come time (and conselling).

Thank you for replying.

[tim55]

Hi Geoff,

Well here I am. Unfortunately I didn't get an invitation to lunch with my family. My wife suggested it to the kids and was howled down.

Church was a mixed occasion. My wife and I shared a long embrace. But not a lunch invitation. I went to a community lunch run by the YMCA and a local church, supported by Oz harvest. It was a good occasion and in the end I had a reasonable time, despite breaking down a couple of times when people asked me about myself and what was going on in life.

While there are little white lies, but my deceptions have gone well beyond that. My wife has known I was not honest for a long time. She is over it and will not allow anything to slide and at the moment is not prepared to work with me as I turn myself around.

So today has been okay. Not a Christmas I have experienced before, perhaps one that I will again in the future. I would prefer not to, but as you, I think, have said the future is yet unknown.

Thank you for your good wishes and I hope you have had a Merry Christmas today.