I’m sorry to hear about what you’re going through. I know it’s hard. I have a sex addiction myself and struggle(d) in the same way your husband is struggling.
This is what I think:
- He’s avoiding meetings. That’s addict behaviour: it is behaviour that lets him avoid accountability. He would benefit from a meeting of SA, SAA, or SLAA. He might also benefit from a meeting in another tradition - there’s a list here: Resources for our recovery - but he needs to find a circle of people who understand, and with whom he can develop true accountability. Therapy is a useful tool but it is not an accountability tool in the same way that meetings are.
- Accountability - true accountability - has to be something he wants. Until he wants it, all the meetings and all the therapy in the world will do nothing.
- You’re correct to suspect that you policing or supervising him is not helping. I do not share the content of my meetings with my wife. She is aware that I go to meetings and what they are for, and she is aware I have a sponsor, but that is as far as it goes. My wife is my wife, not my recovery accountability person(s). Recovery accountability is a type of relationship that requires detachment (on the part of the accountability person(s)) that does not exist in a marriage or other significant long term intimate relationship.
Eric linked his thread for partners of people living with addiction (see above), and there’s lots of helpful info there.
Welcome to Talking Sober! 