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Help - I am at my wits end
Hi - I don't seem to be able to stop mybehaviour. I've been married for many years and on the face of it my relationship is good. But from my point of view most of it is a lie - for the past 5 years I've been living a secret life which my husband knows nothing about. This mainly involves me either flirting with other men, sometimes giving them phone numbers, maybe meeting them afterwards and then emailing them. More often than not after a short while the conversations become sexual though I've only had a sex with two of them. But the nature of the emails makes me feel disgusted with myself and though I hate myself I can't stop my behaviour. Sometiems after I've met them I realise I don't like them at all, but then within a few days I'm back emailing again. For the past six months I've also been seeing one of my ex work colleagues and I've been having an affair with him. Again, it's not like I'm really attrracted to him - I just seem to need the validation. If any of the people I'm in touch with don't get back to me then I think it's because of my failings - that I'm too old or too ugly and how could they possibily have liked me anyway. My latest thing I've enrolled on a dating website just to see how many hits I get from younger guys. Despite my feeling that it's absolutely pathetic to be so reliant on strangers finding me attractive I still get a kick out of their emails. I'm worried sick my husband is going to find out what's going on and that my marriage will break up, although having said that I no longer know if it's what I want really. Everythign is so mixed up! Has anyone else got any experience of this kind of thing, and if so, do any of you have any suggestions? Thanks a lot for listening.
hi VolanoThanks for your
hi VolanoThanks for your share. you certainly have done the right thing by writing on this forum. I know exactly where you are coming from, its very similar to my history.I have spent many years chasing other women, being totally engrossed in romantic intrigue, flirting and other sexual behavours. I have a low self esteem, which constantly needs topping up. In the past this used to be by flirting, emails SMS text messaging or having sex. I went around in circles trying to stop txting people, then getting hurt when they didnt reply. If they did , I would then try desparately to break the relationship off before it destroyed me ( I too am married ). I love my wife, but found it really hard not to seek clarification from others that I was loved, and needed. Eventually I found SLAA over a year ago and have been going regularly to SLAA HOW meetings since. Since then, I have had a few wobbles, but have been generally much better. My recovery is directly propropional to the number of meetings and how seriously I am taking it. If I go, I remain sober. And thats fantastic. Before now, I have never had sobriety and being able to share (as outlined by spender) really makes a huge difference to the amount of emotional baggage I am carrying.If you want to start having a better self esteem, then delete all numbers, dont txt them, dont email NO CONTACT with anyone else bar your husband. Thats tough, and the withdrawal will be horrible, but in time (may be a couple of weeks later ), you will so much better that you managed to not give in to temptation.Do try and get to a SLAA meeting, they really have enabled me to sort out my life, to come to terms with my addictions and to be able to off load to other like minded addicts.Prof.
Hi Volano,Firstly, you have
Hi Volano,Firstly, you have done exactly the right thing by sharing on this site and reaching out to the fellowship.By doing this you have arrived at the first step of the 12 step program, ' Admitted you were powerless over sex and love addiction.' YOu are realising that YOU on your own can't control your behaviour; otherwise you'd simply stop; you have realised that it may take something bigger than you to make sense of these compulsions.I strongly suggest you find a meeting to attend and listen to the stories of the people in the meeting; look for the similarities and not the differences, if you look around on this site at the other peoples shares, you will begin to see that despite gender, that peoples stories have common themes of desperation, pain and anguish over this tenacious, powerful, cunning and baffling dis-ease called sex and love addiction. It's also a progressive condition which WILL get worse if not treated.The power of the addiction is partly down to denial; if you deny you have a problem then you have a 100% of that problem, if you surrender to the fact that you have a problem and have a desire to stop acting out a pattern of sexual and romantic intrigue, then you have much less of that problem.I hope this makes sense to you, i realise you are in a lot pain at the moment but try and take one day at a time, find a meeting and remember you're not alone.God BlessSpender Don't act out and the answers will come.