Worthy
New Member
Hi all,
I am a new member to the community, and came here because I feel the need to share my story, and hope to get some responses from people who really get what I am going through.
I am a 32 y/o woman, living in Europe.
My boyfriend and I are currently dating for a little over a year and a half. Before that, we were already close friends for about 4-5 years, and I was in love with him from the beginning, and I couldn't think of anyone else being a better fit for me as a life partner. He wasn't in love with me at first (and told me that after I shared my feelings for him), and I even dated someone else for a while. But after that ended, he did start falling for me, and at some point we started dating.
After we were dating for 6 weeks or so, he told me that he was struggling for years with a porn addiction. It didn't really shook me, cause I always knew there was 'something' up with him (I could really tell he was carrying a burden). It wasn't holding me back, i actually thougth to myself that I didn't want him to fight this on his own anymore, I wanted to help him and support him in that.
Especially after coming to know that most girlfriends/spouses are being lied to for years about this, I highly appreciate that he told me, before he ever asked if I wanted to be his girlfriend. He wanted me to be able to walk away from it, if i'd want to. But, since I already knew him so well, and really loved him already for years, it didn't even cross my mind leaving him over that.
Although I still stand by that, I can now say I really underestimated what I got myself in to. I don't love him any less today, but boy, some days are tough. I do consider myself lucky for never having to wonder if he is looking porn behind my back, but hearing every time about him looking at other women (on screen, but also not able to contain himself looking at sexy women in public, and having sexual thoughts about them), that can be so hurtful.
Him closing off from me emotionally, in the days leading up to relapse (and already seeing what's coming from miles away) is so frustrating and leaves me feeling sad and lonely..
But the most challenging thing for me is seeing the steps forward, which at first makes me so happy and hopeful.. But then followed by relapse which makes me feel like my future is going up in smoke before my eyes. His addiction (in combination with some form of fear of commitment) makes it hard for him to commit to me. And he doesn't wan't to get porn into our marriage. Which I admire, but it sometimes feels like that doesn't make him work harder to become free, but just delayes the moment we can 'start our future'. I do know that it's not true that he is not working harder for us, he works harder for it than ever before, he is seeing a therapist, which he before never wanted to do. We have all kinds of filters and accountability software in place to keep him from slipping.. But I'm ready for our future, and this delaying us (and giving me fear that we will never get there) is hard.
On top of that, he still has the thought of some girl he met a couple of years ago at a conference (although he never really spoke to her) of which he thought God was saying that she was the wife He had for him (we are Christians). That also makes him withholding from taking steps towards our future, because he is afraid to choose wrong. The reason he never got with her, is that he never felt the opportunity to talk to her, and at a certain moment she had a boyfriend. He really thought he had moved past that when we started dating, but when we wanted to take some steps (looking at wedding rings and all, about a year ago we had some pretty serious plans about getting married within a year), the fears withheld him from doing that.
As if right now, it seems we are moving in the right direction with that, I've said I wanted him to figure that out, and talk about it together regularly. He talked about it with his parents, who got up with some scripture texts about what to do in situations of uncertainty, which helped him a lot. So I hope we now can slowly but surely move past that.
This evening were in a bit of a fight. This will probably be resolved by the end of the evening, as it usually does. But the thing is, that with all of this going on (plus him having easily tingly -so not just sexual- feelings for women, although not major, and not acting upon it) I get to feel super insecure at times. And at moments I just want to get a little reasurance that he will tell me about the situations when that happens, so he will keep up with not acting upon such feelings, but remains honest with me about it. Especially since he only really told me about the girl (of which he thought God had as a wife for him) after months of struggling with that thougths and feelings. And also in other cases where some minor 'butterflies' were involved, he didn't tell me untill I asked him for it.
It really causes anxiety with me, and I do understand that it can be overwhelming to him, when I'm acting out of emotion. But even when I'm calm, and like tonight just ask him to always be honest about contact with other women, he can act like I'm the one hurting our relationship with 'my problems', 'my anxiety', and ' not trusting him'.
Sometimes I don't know if I can still make it through all of this. But on the other hand, I love this guy more than I ever loved anyone. Without this specific trouble, we're absolutely perfect together. He goes great lenghts to make me laugh, and entertain me, he truly is my love and best friend, and snuggling up with him is the best feeling in the world.
If it weren't for all those other women he doesn't seem to be able to let go of... :-\
I am a new member to the community, and came here because I feel the need to share my story, and hope to get some responses from people who really get what I am going through.
I am a 32 y/o woman, living in Europe.
My boyfriend and I are currently dating for a little over a year and a half. Before that, we were already close friends for about 4-5 years, and I was in love with him from the beginning, and I couldn't think of anyone else being a better fit for me as a life partner. He wasn't in love with me at first (and told me that after I shared my feelings for him), and I even dated someone else for a while. But after that ended, he did start falling for me, and at some point we started dating.
After we were dating for 6 weeks or so, he told me that he was struggling for years with a porn addiction. It didn't really shook me, cause I always knew there was 'something' up with him (I could really tell he was carrying a burden). It wasn't holding me back, i actually thougth to myself that I didn't want him to fight this on his own anymore, I wanted to help him and support him in that.
Especially after coming to know that most girlfriends/spouses are being lied to for years about this, I highly appreciate that he told me, before he ever asked if I wanted to be his girlfriend. He wanted me to be able to walk away from it, if i'd want to. But, since I already knew him so well, and really loved him already for years, it didn't even cross my mind leaving him over that.
Although I still stand by that, I can now say I really underestimated what I got myself in to. I don't love him any less today, but boy, some days are tough. I do consider myself lucky for never having to wonder if he is looking porn behind my back, but hearing every time about him looking at other women (on screen, but also not able to contain himself looking at sexy women in public, and having sexual thoughts about them), that can be so hurtful.
Him closing off from me emotionally, in the days leading up to relapse (and already seeing what's coming from miles away) is so frustrating and leaves me feeling sad and lonely..
But the most challenging thing for me is seeing the steps forward, which at first makes me so happy and hopeful.. But then followed by relapse which makes me feel like my future is going up in smoke before my eyes. His addiction (in combination with some form of fear of commitment) makes it hard for him to commit to me. And he doesn't wan't to get porn into our marriage. Which I admire, but it sometimes feels like that doesn't make him work harder to become free, but just delayes the moment we can 'start our future'. I do know that it's not true that he is not working harder for us, he works harder for it than ever before, he is seeing a therapist, which he before never wanted to do. We have all kinds of filters and accountability software in place to keep him from slipping.. But I'm ready for our future, and this delaying us (and giving me fear that we will never get there) is hard.
On top of that, he still has the thought of some girl he met a couple of years ago at a conference (although he never really spoke to her) of which he thought God was saying that she was the wife He had for him (we are Christians). That also makes him withholding from taking steps towards our future, because he is afraid to choose wrong. The reason he never got with her, is that he never felt the opportunity to talk to her, and at a certain moment she had a boyfriend. He really thought he had moved past that when we started dating, but when we wanted to take some steps (looking at wedding rings and all, about a year ago we had some pretty serious plans about getting married within a year), the fears withheld him from doing that.
As if right now, it seems we are moving in the right direction with that, I've said I wanted him to figure that out, and talk about it together regularly. He talked about it with his parents, who got up with some scripture texts about what to do in situations of uncertainty, which helped him a lot. So I hope we now can slowly but surely move past that.
This evening were in a bit of a fight. This will probably be resolved by the end of the evening, as it usually does. But the thing is, that with all of this going on (plus him having easily tingly -so not just sexual- feelings for women, although not major, and not acting upon it) I get to feel super insecure at times. And at moments I just want to get a little reasurance that he will tell me about the situations when that happens, so he will keep up with not acting upon such feelings, but remains honest with me about it. Especially since he only really told me about the girl (of which he thought God had as a wife for him) after months of struggling with that thougths and feelings. And also in other cases where some minor 'butterflies' were involved, he didn't tell me untill I asked him for it.
It really causes anxiety with me, and I do understand that it can be overwhelming to him, when I'm acting out of emotion. But even when I'm calm, and like tonight just ask him to always be honest about contact with other women, he can act like I'm the one hurting our relationship with 'my problems', 'my anxiety', and ' not trusting him'.
Sometimes I don't know if I can still make it through all of this. But on the other hand, I love this guy more than I ever loved anyone. Without this specific trouble, we're absolutely perfect together. He goes great lenghts to make me laugh, and entertain me, he truly is my love and best friend, and snuggling up with him is the best feeling in the world.
If it weren't for all those other women he doesn't seem to be able to let go of... :-\