Flashbacks!

[Lauralou82]

Really struggling today ladies.

My stupid brain has decided to start torturing me with flashbacks..

Images of my partner staring off into the distance whenever I performed oral - I now know why. I now understand the why it was the only thing I could offer him and why he used to ALWAYS request it. Because sex is always ONLY about his pleasure.... Which is also why he only reciprocated once and even then he made it clear it was a chore. I feel completely humiliated but I can't tell him that can I because somehow it would get turned around to being my fault.

Getting ready to go to bed together and him climbing into bed after a few drinks aroused and asking me "what am I going to do with this?" And me stupidly thinking it was because he was wanting to be with me when in reality he'd been "getting himself ready for me" (no joke that's exactly what he tried to get me to believe) and was just going to try finishing off with me to keep the peace. He takes no pleasure in my body or even just the fact he is with me.

I can't stop crying and I don't know if I can do this.... I can't tell where the lies end and I can't even tell if he really cares.

It's right what the other women have written on here - he is wired not to consider me needs or feelings and its extended far beyond the bedroom. The psychopathic traits comparison is true!

I know if he is serious and we get through this he will have to come to terms with not only what he was doing but also the effect on his personality and behaviour..... Yet if I'm not worth his attention how am I supposed to believe he thinks I'm worth going through that for.

I know this isn't going away and there's no easy fix. I know there's going to be waves of what I'm feeling now crashing over me out of nowhere for who knows how long..... I also need to know I'm not fighting for our relationship on my own.

Seriously considering asking him to go to his friends for the weekend just sonic can have some space.... And more importantly a couple of days relief from being unloved... Because that's how I feel when he's laying there thinking that putting a pacifying arm around me is enough to make all this go away.

What a sad feeling it is to have that arm around you and know that it is there to keep you at arms length and not bring you closer.

 

[Kimba]

I get what you are saying completely, I flashback still but not as much, resentment is still here in my heart and I still wonder if he tries to draw on memories stored away for our intimate moments.  I caught him out redhanded in a way, the  site he had visited  (september 2016) had left an icon on the desktop, completely gutted, and like what everyone on here has been saying, I felt like my relationship has been false a complete lie... Christmas was awful, so many triggers on vacation, Im not sure I can get over it completely, I just dont trust him, we have had a few conversations and he says he hasn't been anywhere near any of it, I did find some cookies on his phone but now I know it was from some gifs he sent on messenger to me, but we had a big fight over that at the time.  You will have your down days, and yeah you know what, its tough, let him know your feeling like shit, let him know everyday if that what it takes, try and get him to talk a little, when he starts try and just listen for a min, I know that whatever they say at this early stage you feel like rolling your eyes, well I did, I just felt like saying your a bloody Liar... and how can I believe a word you say.  But if you sift through some of the things he says he will start to give you bits here and there.  Put him on the couch, or send him to his friends,  let him think about consequences maybe... My partner finally admitted recently thats he's embarrassed that I caught him, to me that confession was Big! Finally an admission, its been tough and I dont get much from him, he would just like to forget it happened and move on, so would I, but unfortunately he's created a monster and it comes between us... My partner has not gone down on me for about 8 years, he told me he doesnt like it, I wont go into other stuff he said but he said he doesnt care if he gets none either ( LIE),  the site he was on the title was about giving head, plus I do do it as I want to please him and I still love him but its definatly changed between us and he knows it  :-I hope some of this helps you today, the human brain makes us go around and around in circles in our head but just know that, you have every right to demand more from him, he now has to step up and give u more, its a bloody shit this whole crappy porn shitty world...

 

[Lauralou82]

I've looked into this and its not a case of not liking it - it's the fact that there their brain is wired to there being no reward..... They don't even get pleasure from the giving aspect as the whole concept of giving isn't part of their sexual reward system. So sad.

 

[Kimba]

I call it Selfish... but yeah your right, the porn makes it too easy for them and its all clean and no smells or having to relate to someone and tell them you love them etc.  Its just them the internet and a box of tissues and maybe some Vitamin E cream  :

 

[Lauralou82]

Selfish is right! And it's spreads right through their personality too..... Whatever the need is if it's theirs then nothing else matters.

 

[Emerald Blue]

Indiepeaches, what you are going through right now is horrible. Even now I still have these shadowed following me around. I still ask myself, Can I trust him again? Does he still keep things from me? Is there more that I don't know? Does all that shit still turn him on? Or would it turn him on if it was in front of him? Would he tell me if he relapsed? Has he ever paid for sex? And on and on. This is the trouble when you've been kept in the dark for so long. One day you wake up and realise you didn't know WTF was going on in your own marriage. It was all a one-sided selfish indulgence. We were never part of their game plan. We were kept out by design. And then they fuck their brains up and they have to have it.

I accept that addiction is real. I accept that the brain's reward system is fucked up. I accept that they reach the stage when it's about "needing" rather than "liking". But before that point is reached, they have already taken decisions and acted upon them. I know that the degree of deliberation and planning is less extreme than for a real life liaison compared with internet porn, but even so, decisions are made IN THE KNOWLEDGE that we are rendered irrelevant and ineffective.

I am still haunted. My mind is still prone to hypervigilance. For example, at our Xmas dinner with our extended family, my SO mentioned a particular store that I'd never heard of. He insisted we went years ago but I didn't even know it existed. So later on I check out the location and guess what? It's on the same block as a fecking strip bar. He hasn't admitted to going there, and he told me last year I know "everything" about where he went etc. So what is this all about? My crazy hypervigilance? That I am imaging things? Driving myself crazy with irrational fears? Stressing over something that never happened? Or is my gut alerting me to something not quite adding up?

BTW, I haven't said a word to him about any of this. If I did bring up the strip bar being very nearby - it's on the same street - I can predict with 100% certainty he would say he didn't know the place existed. Even if he does know. Even if he has walked past it to check it out. Even if he looked it up online. Even if he knew about it but never set foot in the place, he'd still deny all knowledge. And maybe, just maybe, he'd be telling the truth. Crazy? Hypervigilant? Or... I know his history. I know he visited such places in the past. I know he's lied to me. And I know his visits to these venues in the past displayed somewhat compulsive tendencies.

But what can I do? He may well not know this place but this is the sort of thing that takes me back to the trauma of discovery and that horrible fear that you haven't had a fecking clue what's been happening right under your nose. And how easy it was. He made a fool out of me and he must have been laughing at how I never caught on. And if I did have any suspicions? Just lie your way out and if the questions get too much, just try a bit of gaslighting.

Recovery goes through these cycles. Right now I'm going through a sort of questioning phase. What do I know? What don't I know? How would I know which fears are justified or not? What's crazy and what does my intuition say? And what if I'm right about something feeling off but it's nothing I can point at? How do I ask the right questions? What if the answers are lies? It's overwhelming.

 

[stillme]

Flashbacks are definitely hard, but that is why the partner experience is accurately identified as trauma. You question everything you thought you knew about your partner and the true nature of your relationship. It is hard, very hard. I get flashbacks of my husband getting in to bed as if nothing happened, when now I realize he was jacking off to porn. I think about the times he looked me straight in the eyes and told a lie.

I think it is important, a good thing. It helps me realize that I still need to protect myself. One doesn't stop being a liar overnight. My husband's go to method of communication was lying for years, he has to learn how to be honest. He has to learn how to deal with reality - good times and bad, without resorting to escaping to fantasy. Not enough time has passed for me to trust him completely. I look at the flashbacks for now as my mind protecting me, not letting me get ahead of myself in his recovery or my own.

Hopefully as time passes, they flashbacks will get easier to handle.