Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2017 15:30:40 GMT -7
I've been married for 12.5 years. We have two kids, 9 and 7. I discovered my husband's porn use+masturbation about 6 years ago. It had been going on our entire marriage, and his entire adult life. Soon after I discovered it and we had our first conversation about it, he accepted Christ - as a direct result of the shame/guilt he felt about it. So while my heart was broken and I was reeling with the knowledge about his porn use, he was rejoicing about his new found life in Christ. He did not want to discuss anything because he said that was all in the past, and he was a new man in Christ and it was no longer relevant for him. He spent a lot of time reading the bible and going to classes at church, but this was all aimed at learning more about Christianity, getting baptized, etc. - not about healing our marriage. He apologized once for it, and assumed it was my job to forgive him after that.
He has never made an effort to heal the broken trust or work on repairing our relationship. I was just left to figure it out on my own. In the years since, I have tried to forgive and move past it, but I just can't. I see him as a totally different person. I no longer trust him or respect him as a man and as a husband. He allows his parents to treat me horribly, and has become more angry and tries to be controlling at times. This is not the man I married! I don't want to talk to him, touch him or even be in the same room with him. I avoid him as much as I can. I honestly have been counting the years/months until my youngest is 18, and I can get away from him. I have asked him to move into the spare bedroom, but he refuses. I can't because the bed hurts my back so bad I can't walk the next day. I don't know if he still uses porn, but I my guess would be, yes. A lot of the behaviors surrounding the porn use still exist, such as staying up late at night after everyone else is in bed to watch TV or be on the computer, drinking beer alone, then sometimes sleeping on the couch or in the extra bedroom.
I'm miserable and lonely. I feel forgotten and abandoned. I am a homeschool mom, and many days he is the only adult I see all day long. I can't seem to figure out how to forgive and move forward for my own emotional/spiritual/physical health, as I have accepted that I will never get an effort from him to help me heal and move forward. He obviously doesn't think I deserve the time/honesty/effort that would be required to heal our marriage, and at this point I'm not interested in working on our relationship. I don't think I can ever respect/trust him again, but I do want to forgive and let it go. I feel like I'm living through a never-ending divorce, and the next 11 years of doing this day in and day out seem so dark and hopeless. I feel so much anger towards him, for lying to me for the first 9 years of our relationship (dated 2.5 years before marriage). Anger for him standing next to me on our wedding day making vows to me that he knew he couldn't/wouldn't keep, and it was all a lie. I feel like he stole my life because he didn't give me a choice about marrying a man with a porn addiction, and now I'm stuck until our kids are raised. It feels like a life sentence to me, and I still cry almost daily about all of it.
I'm not interested in couples counseling, trying to reconcile, or getting him to change. I will not check up on his phone, TV, internet usage or try to manipulate him into going to counseling or a group. All I need right now is to figure out how to survive the next 11 years of marriage without being an emotional wreck. I guess I just need to figure out the forgiveness piece of the puzzle and how to resolve all of these leftover emotions. I have not been to counseling. We are rural and have no Christian counselors here. Pastoral counseling is not an option. I tried a mentoring relationship with an older woman at church, but that proved to not be confidential before I even shared about this issue. I have told no one except a Family Life phone counselor that I called the day after my original discovery. I'm open to *kind* advice about what to do from here.
Thank you!
He has never made an effort to heal the broken trust or work on repairing our relationship. I was just left to figure it out on my own. In the years since, I have tried to forgive and move past it, but I just can't. I see him as a totally different person. I no longer trust him or respect him as a man and as a husband. He allows his parents to treat me horribly, and has become more angry and tries to be controlling at times. This is not the man I married! I don't want to talk to him, touch him or even be in the same room with him. I avoid him as much as I can. I honestly have been counting the years/months until my youngest is 18, and I can get away from him. I have asked him to move into the spare bedroom, but he refuses. I can't because the bed hurts my back so bad I can't walk the next day. I don't know if he still uses porn, but I my guess would be, yes. A lot of the behaviors surrounding the porn use still exist, such as staying up late at night after everyone else is in bed to watch TV or be on the computer, drinking beer alone, then sometimes sleeping on the couch or in the extra bedroom.
I'm miserable and lonely. I feel forgotten and abandoned. I am a homeschool mom, and many days he is the only adult I see all day long. I can't seem to figure out how to forgive and move forward for my own emotional/spiritual/physical health, as I have accepted that I will never get an effort from him to help me heal and move forward. He obviously doesn't think I deserve the time/honesty/effort that would be required to heal our marriage, and at this point I'm not interested in working on our relationship. I don't think I can ever respect/trust him again, but I do want to forgive and let it go. I feel like I'm living through a never-ending divorce, and the next 11 years of doing this day in and day out seem so dark and hopeless. I feel so much anger towards him, for lying to me for the first 9 years of our relationship (dated 2.5 years before marriage). Anger for him standing next to me on our wedding day making vows to me that he knew he couldn't/wouldn't keep, and it was all a lie. I feel like he stole my life because he didn't give me a choice about marrying a man with a porn addiction, and now I'm stuck until our kids are raised. It feels like a life sentence to me, and I still cry almost daily about all of it.
I'm not interested in couples counseling, trying to reconcile, or getting him to change. I will not check up on his phone, TV, internet usage or try to manipulate him into going to counseling or a group. All I need right now is to figure out how to survive the next 11 years of marriage without being an emotional wreck. I guess I just need to figure out the forgiveness piece of the puzzle and how to resolve all of these leftover emotions. I have not been to counseling. We are rural and have no Christian counselors here. Pastoral counseling is not an option. I tried a mentoring relationship with an older woman at church, but that proved to not be confidential before I even shared about this issue. I have told no one except a Family Life phone counselor that I called the day after my original discovery. I'm open to *kind* advice about what to do from here.
Thank you!
I am an introvert, and I have never enjoyed group bible study. It is not a setting I enjoy, and in the past it has proven to be a bunch of old ladies complaining and turns into a gossip-fest in the name of "keeping so-and-so in our prayers". Again, not something I'm interested in being a part of. I am not the type of person to share personal stuff in a setting like that. I do go to get togethers for the moms in our Christian homeschool group, but they aren't scheduled on a regular basis.