By KM
I feel like it’s been extremely beneficial for me and our marriage that my husband has included me in his recovery. JP never believed in “stay on your side of the street”. I’ve never read about or heard another wife who said it was beneficial for her addict husband to work his recovery while leaving her in the dark.
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By KM
It’s been 13 months since my husband confessed the extent of acting out in his addiction. I refer to that as our “informal disclosure”. We had never heard of Formal Therapeutic Disclosure at that time and I didn’t have a therapist, so I was left to muddle through the range of emotions that followed. I thought I was going insane. I was overwhelmed with anger and sadness. I couldn’t sleep, barely ate, couldn’t concentrate, and had almost constant intrusive thoughts.
Continue ReadingAs I have progressed through my recovery I have become a different person. I have made changes in my life that have led to a healthier way of living. A little over a year ago I was tired of the way I was living and the trauma that I was causing my wife. I chose to stop watching all television. I got rid of all social media and limited my use of the internet. I didn’t know the long term affect that it would have on my recovery.
Continue ReadingBy JP
I am not alone nor will I ever be. My journey through recovery has showed me that the opposite of addiction is connection. I chose to isolate myself a long time ago when I was a child. I developed a false belief that I was alone and I could never ask for help. I developed a false belief that asking for help was a sign of weakness. A year ago I found myself alone in a crowded world.
Continue ReadingBy JP
When I started this journey last year, I didn’t understand my addiction. I thought is was as simple as me being a bad person who wanted to watch men and women have sex. I didn’t have the capacity to understand the full extent of my addiction and how it hurt my wife. Fortunately my wife kept pushing me to get to the “why” of my addiction.
Continue ReadingBy JP
A year ago I did not have the ability to forgive myself. I hated myself and the awful things that I had done. I finally saw the price that my addiction had cost. It was in the pain and trauma that I put my wife through. I finally got the bill for my addiction and my wife had to pay it. How could I ever be forgiven for what I had done? There was not enough pain and punishment for my sin.
Continue ReadingMy wife is the most beautiful woman in the world. My addiction tainted my view of my wife and kept me from seeing her beauty. My addiction kept me in a place of shame and darkness and I couldn’t see my wife for who she was. My first major step was by letting go of my illusion of control. Once I brought out my addiction to the light it began to lose power. I started to tell the truth. It was painful to tell my wife how much I manipulated and lied during our marriage.
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