So over the last 8 years my addiction has hurt my girl in so many ways I never understood until I could admit what I was doing was wrong and actually a big problem…it has affected our sex life greatly because she no longer feels like she’s what I want which was never the issue it was a quick easy Coping method for when I was feeling angry or depressed…the longer I’m sober the more attractive I find her she drives me crazy but so many times she gets sad or mad when she thinks about the girls I’ve watched.she feels like she will never be enough which I understand but what I want advice on is how to we repair and heal the damage I’ve caused? How do we repair and gain back the normal intimacy from just kissing and more or loving each other with cuddles
It takes time and it takes outside help.
I went through the same thing for years. Porn use isn’t really a coping method for anything; it’s media that takes your normal human instincts to connect and be intimate, and it makes them into something where it’s just an orgasm and a screen, no connection at all. Porn is hollow and it leaves you hollow.
The hollowness is the missing intimacy.
The trick is that intimacy is never physical. The physical stuff is like fruit on a tree. If the tree isn’t healthy - if you’ve been neglecting the emotion work that goes into a marriage; the emotion work is the trunk and the roots of the tree - then the fruit won’t grow.
My wife and I contacted a relationship counsellor early in my sobriety, starting about three years ago. We’ve been through several counsellors, some ok and some really good (the one we have now is really good; the really good ones, we stick with them). All of them have helped us understand emotion communication and healthy, intimacy-building relationship work. We’ve learned skills and we’re still learning (and yes, our sex has improved, and she’s feeling better).
Also, I encouraged her to join a group for partners of porn and sec addicts. She joined the group at the clinic I was attending for my recovery. Her group was all women whose husbands had sex and porn addictions. It was enormously helpful for her to find that support from other people who were in her shoes. It made her feel less alone.
Feeling alone. Your partner, she feels alone, I guarantee it. Finding a way to connect with other people (not you) who can validate her experience and help her find a path forward, is helpful.
There’s a good set of links here. There are links that will help you, and her. The links for groups like “S-Anon” are groups specifically for partners of sex addicts. Those groups are where she can find a sense of empathy and understanding.
I would encourage you guys to get a counsellor to help you work through this. Be sure the counsellor is familiar with sex addiction and its impact on relationships. It is important the counsellor understands.
Hi @Tensa787 Chris, I can relate to your question. My partner is a sex addict who is now over two years clean off his acting out with affair partners and one year clean off lying and deceiving me. During this one year we’ve gone from angry and hurt, fear-of-loss and stress sex in the beginning of his recovery, to too hurt to think about it for a long time, to wanting to move on but being faced with the sexual and intimacy anorexia that accompanies SA, to building the kind of intimacy @Matt talks about, that are the roots and the trunk of the relationship tree. Great image. These roots and trunk are still being built and will never stop being built and strengthened as long as you live your relationship, the way I understand it.
Like I said, it’s been a year for us since Disclosure. And only recently have I been able to really feel the pain his actions have caused me in the intimate setting of the bedroom and in his presence and have bawled my eyes out for the first time in months about it. That was an important step for me and us. One that we could never have rushed. It needed the trust we had already built in this last year, to even get where we are.
You remind me of someone who thinks that their sobriety from their porn addiction will entitle them to sex with their partner. This my friend, is not so. She needs to get on her own journey to comprehend and feel all that pain and nourish herself. And you need to be there every step of the way. You need to earn back the trust you obliterated.
You say your porn use went on for 8 years. That is 8 years of trauma for your partner. How long have you been sober for and what are you doing to work your recovery aside from just abstaining? I’m not asking to judge but I can assure you your gf will be looking for external objective things she can see you committing to and continuing to do, because you have broken the trust she has in your words and promises to stay clean.
Lastly, this is her side of the problem as you have yours. Both need to be addressed. Look for help, programs, councellors and therapists alone and together. This is very important. Your partner needs to come to understand again that sex and intimacy is also her right, her desire, her life, not just dependent on whether her partner is looking at porn the now or is clean off it. She needs to make her own sexuality hers again, and that will take a lot of time.
Dr Rob Weiss has two podcasts, Love Sex & Addiction and somthing with Betrayal where he answers questions. I strongly suggest that you both listen to both podcasts. They are very informative and helpful. They provide perspective on each other’s experience of this whole thing.
There is a book set called Married & Alone and Intimacy Anorexia by Dr Doug Weiss, one for the addict and one for the partner. These also helped us a lot.
Good luck. And let your gf know she is not alone. 