My personal rock bottom was a total collapse of my self esteem, the realisation that I'd lost the person I used to be ? call it an "identity crisis", body dysmorphia and self harm. A depressive breakdown. This was the total effect of having being totally excluded from my partner's sexual activities for several years, and I'm not kidding. I hadn't been touched or held or kissed in an intimate way for maybe 6 or 7 years. My husband had been a porn addict for 15 years, maybe longer, and porn had replaced our sex life (for him, that is). I had nothing. I remained faithful but considering I'd completely lost confidence in myself and become asexual after years of rejection, that was never going to happen. Losing all interest in sex was also part of the process of sinking to the bottom.
What brought me to the brink was the gut feeling that something in our relationship was changing. The distance created by porn addiction began to feel even more so. I could see my marriage disintegrating and my life falling apart and I felt powerless to stop it. He had done his own thing for years and ignored my feelings. I caught him out several times in the past but he carried on regardless. I couldn't go on living that way. I knew that porn couldn't replace an intimate relationship indefinitely and that something was about to give, if it hadn't already. It was all his doing, all his decision making, all his deliberate actions. Did I have a say in my own marriage? No. It was all about him doing what HE wanted. That feeling of powerless and my future being in the hands of someone else was terrifying. I realised that I had no voice because he had effectively silenced me through his lying by omission and his secrecy. I couldn't go on like this, and one day I broke down. I was an utter wreck. A complete fucked up mess.
The one thing I learned was that I had to be responsible for myself. I had to take control and implement my own regime of self-care. The aftermath of d day was far worse than years of my head-in-the-sand and his secrecy and lies. That's when I really found out about the extent his porn addiction, and worse, the ease at which he could lie. I had to go through the drip-drip-drip discovery process which is very distressing, as Paula Hall's book described. It was through her book that I really found out what recovery meant for partners. It's important to avoid codependency, and we do that by rebuilding our own lives rather than focus on the addict's behavior.
Every situation is different but in my case, the porn habit had gone on for years and I knew about it. I didn't like it but I couldn't stop him. I felt I had no choice and he was too smart to be caught out again. All that my previous confrontations did was teach him where he went wrong in covering up the evidence. It's also unusual for a couple not to have sex for several years, but there have been women here who hadn't had sex for even longer. I regret not taking action sooner, but then I didn't exactly "take action" by breaking down and shattering into pieces. I just reached breaking point after years of accepting a situation that was hurting me. As partners, recovery starts with looking after ourselves. Not the addict.
Have experienced depression, anxiety, anger, and just complete hopelessness in the past 5 months yet there have been days I have felt ok, and positive.