History and a New Vow to Monogamy

There’s a therapist who said, (sorry I can’t find the link) something about how history begs us to remember that serial cheaters like my husband aren’t likely to all of a sudden be able to keep true to a vow of monogamy.

If that doesn’t slap you in your already stupefied face as a betrayed spouse, I don’t know what does.

I’ve searched many, many times to try to find statistics because they comfort me (usually) and I’ve not been helped by what I have found. Anywhere from 90-97% for those with behaviors of Sex Addicts relapse. That means very nearly 100% of people like The Player do their acting out behavior again. The main behavior would be sex outside of our marriage, but there are so many behaviors leading up to and related to sex outside of our marriage. Those behaviors would be considered “slips” like flirting/inappropriate language (which I argue leads to sex outside the marriage) with the opposite sex, drinking in bars to find people to flirt with to feed his ego and too close of hero type friendships with women.

The Player takes exception to these numbers – of course he does – because he says numbers and percentages don’t apply to everyone, they don’t know his intentions, and those numbers don’t know how much he “will never risk” his family again. He even said, “Those numbers don’t know what is in my heart.” The problem with this thinking is that everyone thinks they’re the exception (like me) but obviously some of us aren’t, right? Some of us – most of us if we believe the research – will be lied to again, cheated on again, hurt again by the people who beg us to stay and try to trust them again.

I want a peaceful and loving home for my kids. If I can somehow accept what he’s done, I will not hate to have an authentic person to share my life with even though I feel shafted in what I was promised by him for a quarter of a century. I’m not stupid. I go into our reconciliation with the best intentions but realize the odds are against me. The difference this time vs. last time I found out is that I now know he is capable (and likely) to cheat on me. I won’t be surprised. I also know I will survive. I will even thrive if we split up. I have as many safeguards as I can in place, with the big one being a polygraph exam annually, so number two is coming soon.

So, I’m moving on with serious trepidation and realistic expectations, I guess.

The Blindness of Assholes

A couple of months ago we took a family trip to our favorite spot. The place where all of the important things in our life together happened. We have recuperated there from tragedy, conceived one of our children there, and even named all of our children there. It’s where we have talked about retiring to someday. That’s how special this place is…

Until.

Almost a year ago at “full disclosure” I sat in silence as he said, “I didn’t and don’t want to tell you this. In fact, I called CSAT yesterday and asked if I had to reveal this or if I could reveal part of it because it’s bad, it’s really bad. I have so much shame around what I did. The last person I’m going to tell you about is Whore.”

The Player continued, “I know this is going to be painful because of who it is and what I’ve done. I’ve seen Whore very sporadically for 13 years on and off since a few years into our marriage and until a few years ago when I lost interest.” He took deep breaths. He started crying and said, “I took her to [vacation spot] when you thought I was there alone. I am so, so sorry.”

I shook my head, laughed/sighed in disbelief. “You what? You are an unbelievable asshole.” The CSAT told The Player to stop. No more for a few minutes while he checked in with me. I was in shock. My throat closed, I felt dizzy. Tears streamed from my face but I couldn’t put together a sentence. CSAT said, “Do you want to take a moment and take a break?” I shook my head yes. I stood up, grabbed my purse. He asked if I was returning and I said I didn’t know. I stepped outside to the parking lot and threw up a few seconds after the brisk air hit my face. Since I was already holding wads of tissue, I used them to clean my mouth. I got some gum and took a minute to decide if I was entering again. I decided I wanted to ask some questions I’d prepared. So I walked back in the room and sat back in my spot. I was calm. I was the kind of calm one should be afraid of and he was afraid.

He reached to hold my hand to comfort me. I looked at him like, “You did not just blow up my life AGAIN and want to comfort me, did you?” He pulled his hand back. “You can’t touch me. You don’t get the right to comfort me.”

“Let me get this straight. You took her to OUR place, our house. You fucked her on a trip I planned for you? A trip I encouraged you to take because of your stress? A trip I packed you for? Bought your groceries for? Are you fucking kidding me?”

He wasn’t kidding.

I find it hard to believe I will ever get over this particular betrayal. I’ve been back to our place but first with a friend and a short trip with him a couple of months later. I will not let those two assholes take my special place away from me. I refuse. I can’t lie though, it was hard to face it.

Those two fucking, fuckwad assholes.

Oh, and to add insult to injury he said didn’t invite her, she invited herself. He just didn’t say no. He knows (well, he says) it’s really bad and he isn’t trying to minimize how bad it is, but he wanted me to know that he didn’t want her there. He didn’t invite her. He wanted her to leave the whole time she was there because he really did want to be there alone and decompress.

What a shitty, weak, wuss of a man.

He better up his game in 12-step and figure that shit out. My “sponsor” (a woman who has been through a very similar story as mine) said he is too new in recovery for him to have even analyzed fully the relationships with these women that there isn’t even a way for him to address it with me yet. He better figure something else out because “I just couldn’t say no!” isn’t going to cut it for long. He is so blind to his behavior.

But hey! Let’s reconcile! Gross.

Hell no, mutherfucker.

So, I found myself pulled back into therapy with The Player. I take responsibility for letting it happen. I don’t even know how he did it, but he got me there for three visits/weeks in a row. The second and third times it was a waste of time, in my view. The second visit I stood up abruptly while they were ending talking about money and the next appointment to a stunned CSAT’s face. He said, “Are you leaving?!” I said I was and The Player asked me to wait in the parking lot because we’d driven separate cars.

As mentioned in the pervious post, we’ve had an ongoing disagreement with his saying the relationships with the whores weren’t “relationships” and that over the many years he knew them as friends he didn’t consider them dangerous friendships until they turned erotic or sexual until very much later. I voiced my strong opinion that even if he wasn’t getting fucked or using fantasy with/about them as an “escape,” then the relationships were fine. He argued they were “safe” even. He could do that now, just be friends with women because 1) He knows what he can’t do and 2) He’s “solid” in his recovery. He believes he could have friendships with women in the future and be “safe” from sexually acting out.

Besides him fucking other women or planning to fuck or talking about fucking other women (because DUH), I’ve found I have a deal breaker, or as I like to say, a “Hell No, Mutherfucker Requirement.” No way am I okay with him having women as friends. Ever. Not up for negotiation. Period. We had a lengthy discussion in therapy about this and the CSAT talked about it being impossible to avoid business contact with women. I guess he thought I was stupid because of course, I said, there isn’t a way to avoid women in business but I do see a difference in The Player doing business with women and The Player being the spontaneous, flirty, complimentary, “friend” that makes all the (homely especially) women swoon over him. I argued well, I think, that the reason he could insert his “dick in the vaginas” of several women, several times is because he laid the groundwork for it during the friendship years with the giggling and back and forth ego kibbles.

He wasn’t addressing the future personal friendship with women thing, not really. I felt like the CSAT and he were kind of ganging up on me about it, as the CSAT was saying The Player was “doing really hard, great work.” That’s all well and good and yahoo for him, I said, “I feel like you two want me to recognize how great The Player is by the work he’s doing but let’s not forget he got us into this mess.” It pissed me off The Player kept saying, “That’s not what I’m focused on right now in my recovery. I’m focused on fixing the why so I never get to that point again.” I was pissed off because he wasn’t doing something I needed from him in order to move forward. I said in therapy and directly, “I will NEVER be comfortable with you having female friends outside of our marriage! Never. If that is something you feel you need and deserve, then you’ll have to do it without me. You may very well be able to “handle” it because you’re “solid” but it doesn’t make me feel safe to reconcile with you. I feel like you are being selfish and it’s all about you – like it has been for some months now – and that MY needs aren’t as important. I’m telling you this is something I need and I’m hurt and pissed you don’t want to give it to me.”

So, the last blog post early July we had decided on weekly check-ins as was recommended by our CSAT. They’ve been going fine, he just shares where he is in recovery and if there’ve been any threats, slips or relapses since the last check-in. He’s been (he says) 100% honest about his recovery since November 2014 and I still know all the details. No more remembered instances of his dick landing in any vaginas since he was found out. I guess it’s good to have them somewhat structured instead of a free for all.

So, during our check in last week we talked about the pretend future friendships with women issue and he said he rethought it and it was a boundary he was okay with if it made me feel better and safe. He said he was wrong. If he felt he was getting friendly with a woman, we would address it right then.

In the few days after that I decided to tell him we’re reconciling. I feel I’m settling, but I was all along because I did want to stay because of our children. He’s done a lot of hard work and he has more to do. Limbo was killing me and hurting the way I was mothering, hell, it was hurting the way I was human-ing.

So, it’s complicated but he needed me to say “reconcile” and I needed to be out of limbo. So we both win in this shitty, fuckedupness of infidelity. Yay for me! I won back a cheater! I know, it’s sarcastic because that’s the way I am coping right now. In all seriousness, I am somewhat at peace with it all. I had to make some peace in order to stay.

On to the trials and tribulations of true (as much as I can believe he is in) reconciliation.

Round and round we go.

So we began our CSAT directed weekly “check-in” and it was as expected, I guess. It’s weird these check-ins because we’re basically saying, “Were you a good boy, The Player? Did you do everything that was asked of you?” I mean, I guess he wants to check-in so that I know what work he is doing, but fuck, this shit is getting old.

The Player told me where he was in his sobriety in working with his sponsor, if he’d had any acting out or potential acting out and the answer is no, he hasn’t. You know, he says. I mean, he’s a confirmed liar, right? I mean 20some years of lies and all of a sudden he’s going to be honest and trustworthy. He would say, yes, exactly that. He said he won’t risk me again, he won’t risk our marriage. He wasn’t thinking. He didn’t think THAT behavior and our marriage would merge.

The Player went on for a bit about how he is focused on why and on the prevention of acting out. Super, that’s a fucking good start, asshole. He also said he wrote a response to my impact letter and he hoped I was okay with it but he feared it wouldn’t be “right.” Whateverthefuck that means. I told him where I was in my recovery (still fucking pissed I have to be in recovery, but whatever.) and how I’m doing pretty well in staying out of his shit. The spying has stopped, the double checking has stopped. I had one occasion that made me uncomfortable as a result of him being out in a bar for several hours with a friend watching a game but I didn’t go down the rabbit hole too far. I told him I’m having one problem with his and my differences on his “relationships.” My problem is he doesn’t really see them as relationships. He saw them as sex and that his bad behavior started then not in the “grooming” of them to later become sexual partners because that wasn’t his intention in the years leading up to the sex.

What the fuckity fuck? You read that right. He doesn’t consider the flirting friendships with the later affair partners as “relationships” and doesn’t even find them that significant. He goes on and on with sentences that begin with, “In my recovery, I am focusing on the most important thing and that is how not to let myself get to a point where I flirt like that.” Really? Is that my new life? Wondering if my husband can restrain from getting ego kibbles from homely women he know will say yes?

This is so fucking far from where I should be or where my life was (I thought) or where I want to be.

So far our check-ins have only made me more pissed. As if that is possible.