Tell wife or not?

[BuddhaAwake]

Someone recently posted a question about whether to tell a new partner about his PIED. My situation is different.

I have been married for twenty years. My wife and I have not had sex in over a year or so (a fact I've used to rationalize my use of P). She is going through menopause, and I've been disabled with anxiety and bipolar conditions.

I tried giving up P on my own a few years back. When I shared this with my wife she was very hurt and felt that God prevented us from having children because of my P addiction.

I'm making another attempt to deal with this addiction through YBOP and Reboot Nation.

Should I tell me wife and have her be hurt and angry again? She has been very supportive of my mental health issues and is extremely overworked and over-stressed at her job.

Am I chickening out of discussing this this her, or is my concern valid? I feel bad reading YBOP and utilizing Reboot Nation behind her back, but is it fair to dump another problem/stressor on her? I can recover physically without her knowledge- as I said, we do not have a sexual relationship at this time.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated.

 

[cuppatea]

Please please please tell your wife. If she was doing something like this behind her back would you want to be kept in the dark?!?!?! I'm pretty sure the answer is heck no, you would want to know who you were married to!
There is absolutely no place in a marriage for lies and secrecy. I'm sorry to sound harsh, but I've been with my husband for 16 years and he has lied and kept secrets all that time, that is worse than the porn use. It's just not right. If she leaves you over it, well then that is the price you pay for engaging in a behaviour you knew would hurt her, stringing her along for any longer is wrong to her and if you want to see it in a selfish light it will do nothing for your recovery because you would have done nothing to address the deeper issues you have. Porn use I view as a symptom of deeper issues (and I know ybop disagrees with that and says anyone can get hooked, but not everyone does do they) and lying and keeping secrets is part of the deeper issues, until you can start being really truly honest, with yourself and with her you won't recover entirely.

In short you wife deserves to know who she's married to. Yes she may be hurt and angry, almost certainly she will be. But are you really concerned about her hurt and anger or you having to deal with her hurt and anger and the consequences of that? and all the bad feelings that will be invoked in you when you do tell her and suffer the fallout? Dig deep, are you reasons for not telling her actually more about protecting yourself than they are about her and her feelings?

 

[Emerald Blue]

I would agree with stillme. Marriage is a joint responsibility and if porn is an issue then it affects both of you. It's your behavior, it's your decision to use it, it's your decision to quit, but it is affecting your wife whether she consciously knows it or not. It's definitely affecting your relationship and you need to acknowledge that whether you keep your habit secret or not, your behavior has consequences.

There are a lot of factors that are affecting your relationship that may have played a role in your turning to porn and her possible loss of libido. If you have experienced infertility or miscarriage, then sex may also represent pain and loss. The menopause can affect libido and can make sex physically uncomfortable but these problems can be overcome and there are locally applied hormone treatments, lubricants, etc. The important thing for a woman is to 'use it or lose it'. Sexual activity and orgasm is very good for keeping the tissues healthy. However, do not underestimate the impact of emotional issues on a woman's sex drive. It's not all explained by the menopause.

You mentioned faith, and I cannot comment too much on that, but this may also be complicating her feelings. However, there is faith-based support for porn addiction out there. It might help your wife find a way forward in helping her towards her own recovery.

Your wife can also join this community. It's free and we've all been there and we know what it's like.

We all have differing views and experiences regarding relationships, sex, masturbation and pornography in this group and can offer various perspectives. The important thing is to kick the porn habit and start reconnecting with your wife, not just sexually. You need to communicate and spend time together. Sex doesn't just happen by magic just because you've done a 90 day reboot. It takes two so don't forget the other half.

 

[BuddhaAwake]

I appreciate the responses so far. I can honestly say that my concern is for my wife's feelings, especially when she's under so much stress at work.

I do find that keeping this secret is hard on me. I was thinking it might be selfish of me to hurt her to ease my feelings of guilt.

This is all very complicated!

In the end I think the final answer to this question is what has been recommended. I agree that a keeping a secret in a marriage (especially this big) is a poor choice.

Thanks again for the feedback. I intend to discuss this with her tomorrow after work.

 

[laalee]

Good luck hope it goes well,

I believe in honesty because it takes the toxic shame out from you.  You have to find out the truth and how it will affect your relationship I can only imagine how hard it would be for you.  But like i said on a you tube video a monk states about carrying things and how it ways us down mentally, physically spiritually.

 

[BuddhaAwake]

I just hate the idea of hurting my wife. She keeps talking about how overwhelmed she is with my bipolar/anxiety conditions forcing me into disability retirement, the excessive workload and chaos at her job, and her mother and father's poor health. She also has physical and mental health issues of her own.

I seem stuck in a Catch-22.

 

[Loleekins]

"I just hate the idea of hurting my wife"

I don't mean to sound harsh here, please understand, but the time for thinking about your wife's feelings was long ago. It was when you chose to immerse in porn routinely and integrate it into your life, and by doing so, integrate it into her life against her will.

I'm perpetually amazed that any concern over a partners feelings never comes until after the fact when the deeds are done and the fun's been had. Then ironically, the concern arrives to coincide with it having become a problem for the individual using (job loss, ed, std from hookers, etc), and the likely possibility that the user will catch hell from their partner over it all. This renders the "concern" highly selfish and manipulative at best.

My best advice to you is to examine and carefully consider your concern as I doubt the issues you are worried your wife is burdened with are new. Likely they have been going on a long time during your usage years.

Why am I saying all this? The state of mind and justifications for a chosen behavior or way of thinking are continual unless effort to adopt new ways of seeing things take place. Try seeing this issue with new eyes untainted by fear of now having to pay the piper, without making a high handed judgement on what she has a right to know about her own life (that got you in this mess to begin with). Remove yourself and the cost to you from this situation. Does she have a right to know now?

Once again, I am not trying to be harsh with you, I truly wish you and your wife recovery and moving beyond this problem, but until a change of head takes place on the part of the PA, little progress in the way of understanding how his very thought patterns and rationalizations enabled the whole issue to begin with will occur.

Best to you.

 

[cuppatea]

I'm quite a logical person so I'm going to boil your choice down to two things and make it very black and white.

The question you are faced with is.

Shall I continue lying to my wife?

Answer that question and nothing more, cos that really is what it amounts to. The rest is all just your rationalizations to say yes to the above.

 

[Farmer1016]

Buddha, I was right where you are so I can absolutely identify with your situation and the uncertainty you're feeling. Because of chronic PIED issues, we had not had sex for over ten years. Then I discovered, quite by accident, what PIED is.

You can read more detail here: http://legacy.rebootnation.org/index.php?topic=10511.0

I chose to tell my bride because I could no longer bear the burden alone. I attempted to recover on my own and managed a respectable streak of 125 days. The erectile issues and all of the swirling suffering that PIED brings was just too much for me to continue bearing on my own. I knew that with that constantly on my mind, there would be no way that she and I could really begin to mend our relationship. 

Since I told her, she has become by biggest cheerleader and a faithful guardian. Telling her was the hardest thing I've ever done and the absolute best.

I've discovered that I drastically underestimated her. I was convinced she'd leave me, or tell me to go. Instead, she has embraced my recovery and has promised to love me through this.

Ultimately, you have to choose what is best for you, your wife, and your marriage. I wish you clarity of mind as you approach these decisions.

 

[BuddhaAwake]

Thank you so much for all of your responses! I am not trying to rationalize to save myself grief. I guess my Catch-22 is really being caught in a corner with only one way out.

 

[Emerald Blue]

If you are going to disclose your behavior to your wife then I would say, tell her everything. Don't minimise. Don't lie. Don't drip feed her one tiny drop at a time. Don't give her an edited version that pretties up the true story. If she asks, answer her honestly. The truth is a lot less hurtful than lying out of fake concern for her feelings. You can't rely on never being rumbled. The truth sneaks out in unexpected ways.

She may have a lot to deal with but there's always going to be stuff to deal with in life. Is there ever a "right" time? I was in the situation of knowing my husband had been using porn for years and I had given up on trying to influence him. I had gone through a lot in the recent past and I had no more inner strength left. I reached breaking point precisely because of the distance and isolation his porn had put me through. He was off in his own private world and I could see the whole thing collapsing if he continued on that trajectory. I needed emotional intimacy but when porn entered the relationship it gradually fell away. When I had a lot to deal with I needed something that wasn't there. So think about that too.

 

[cuppatea]

Buddhaawake did you tell your wife? Just wondering how things went

 

[BuddhaAwake]

Not yet. I REALLY am concerned for her- not afraid for myself. If she were going to leave me over any issue she would have left long ago. She has been an angel of support as I've been forced into disability retirement over the past year and pour finances have gone to hell.

My wife was inpatient in a mental hospital last year, she's doing better but keeps saying how overwhelmed she is with everything on her plate now (her physical and mental health, my physical and mental health, both of her parents' physical health, and being way overworked at her job). She works until around 7 in the weekday evenings and works more hours over the weekend.

I swear I'm not wussing out- I just can't bring myself to throw this at her under these circumstances.

 

[Farmer1016]

Buddha, you're the only one who can decide what is right in this situation.

None of the rest of us are walking in your shoes.

I sympathize with you. I know how overwhelming it is trying to accomplish this alone.

Stay strong and stay focused. Things will fall into place for you soon.

 

[BuddhaAwake]

Thanks, Farmer. I have shared my porn addiction with my wife several years ago and weathered that storm. I had to tell her last year that my bipolar and anxiety conditions were making it impossible for me to work, and suffered the indignity of telling her my employer's official shrink declared me unfit to work and sent me off for disability retirement.

I've shared with my wife my struggles with alcohol and she was strong and supported me through days and weeks of white-knuckle sobriety.

I am not afraid to show my darker and weaker sides to her. I just don't see how dropping this bombshell on her now is fair. I probably should not have started this thread. I know others mean well and their advice is generally spot on, but my situation is such that I know I should trust my instincts.

 

[stillme]

Budda,

You do know your situation best. I would just caution that your wife my feel like "something" is going on. I thought for a long time that my husband was having an affair before I found out he was using porn. Just because she doesn't know what the issue is exactly, doesn't mean she doesn't know that an issue is there. My mind often took me to dark places when I didn't know exactly what the issue was. I was in the process of planning to divorce my husband before I found out about the porn addiction. He had no idea just how unhappy I was in the relationship. He thought he was keeping his secret well, but he couldn't hide the distance that was growing between us.

I am not sure of where you are in recovery of what you are doing for recovery, but I can say that my husband and I are in a very rough spot right now. The reason is because he is finally at the point in recovery when he recognizes just how deep his addiction went. It really does have the ability to change the person and they have no idea just how different they have become and how different they act towards their spouse.

While d-day was a crushing pain for me, it isn't like life was happy before my husband revealed the truth. At least now I know what I am dealing with. I can name it, I can get help for it, I can make decisions and control my own life, and yes - I can support my husband through his very difficult recovery.

It is a horrible situation all the way around unfortunately. And again, definitely don't take the advice of strangers if you know for a fact there is something else there that you aren't ready to reveal online. If there are other issues (emotional health, mental health, physical health, etc.) that could be thrown off - then it may be better to find a professional to talk to about how and when to proceed.

I would caution though - that you cannot assume she won't find out just because you won't tell her. My husband thought he had done enough to hide his evidence. But, women get very, very good at finding truth. She may just find out on her own.

 

[Emerald Blue]

I am not afraid to show my darker and weaker sides to her. I just don't see how dropping this bombshell on her now is fair.

Only you know your situation, and it does appear that your wife has a lot do deal with, and will continue to deal with. You need to decide what's best for the both of you right now. It may well be that YOU are not ready yet, and that's OK.

On reading, I came to the same conclusion as stillme. Your wife may discover the truth regardless of whether you tell her. She will very likely feel that something isn't adding up right now, but not know what it is. She may not be ready to deal with it but she may well sense that she will have to deal with it sometime. In my situation, I had too much too cope with but I sensed an increasing distance. I also had the idea that he was either involved with someone else, or that it was about to happen. I felt very alone, and that's when I cracked. OK, in my situation I knew he was using porn but until I recognised that I really needed someone I was turning a blind eye. I may not have been ready until then but it was needing someone when I was at a low point that made me make my feelings known. And very much to my surprise, he had wanted to quit for a long time, he was trying to quit and failing. For him, it was a relief. It wasn't easy but it was the best thing for both of us.

 

[BuddhaAwake]

Thanks stillme and emerald blue. I keep vacillating over what to do. I see my therapist Wednesday and will discuss it with her. I'm also thinking it might help if I went to my wife's next therapist appointment and told her there. At least she'd have professional help available on the spot if she crashes emotionally/mentally. On the other hand, it could be more embarrassing and hurtful to learn of it in someone else's presence.

UGhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[stillme]

If you have access to your wife's therapist, maybe it would be ideal to contact her therapist. Possibly even contacting her therapist with the help of your therapist. It does sound very hard. Just speak with your therapist for the best advice in how to proceed. I know this has to be hard.

 

[Farmer1016]

Mercy. No easy answers on this. And that makes it even worse to deal with.

My gut instinct is to not break this news in a therapy session however. I'm thinking that the presence of a third person, in essence a stranger, may possibly make it worse for her.

But, again, I'm just a casual observer looking through the window at what you've shown me.