Partner's of Addicts Stories

Every PoSA's story is noteworthy. We've selected a few that represent different trajectories of sexual compulsion, how it played out and how a partner responded to it in order to rescue her own sense of self, her own life, really. Just as having a chronically ill child impacts a mother's everyday life, having a SAC partner/spouse does also.

We seek to shine a light for you to navigate your life as well as possible. So although the details may be somewhat different, the essence of the resultant trauma upon you will have recognizable similarities. Rather than focusing on the particular details of the "outer" story, since no two outer stories will be alike, we invite you to find resonance with the PoSA's feelings, her "inner" story. Recovery means recovering your inner life so that your outer life can be animated by joy, hopefulness and beauty. These women bravely share their stories, so that their individual experiences become a shared knowing from which all may derive wisdom. We are deeply grateful for what they give us by doing so.

Zoe's story:

I met Bryce, a photographer, when I was modeling swimwear some eight years ago. There was instant chemistry between us and I accepted his offer for a date gladly. He took me to a swanky rooftop restaurant in the trendiest spot in Miami and afterwards, cuddling in a hip lounge over brandies, I felt he was possibly the handsomest and wittiest, warmest and most worldly man I'd ever been with. I did, however, notice a feeling not unfamiliar to me when I went out with "industry" types: other male models, agency people; many had irresistible appeal to other women and I worried about that with Bryce…it seemed the waitresses and hostesses all knew him in a way that might be a little too friendly for my taste. I shrugged it off as being one part my own insecurity and another part, as being because of Bryce's naturally magnetic personality. And besides, he was so attentive to me and didn't really flirt back with them, so why worry, right? On our second date, after dinner he suggested we stop for nightcaps at a nightclub he said was, "fun and hip."

He drove us in his Porsche to a strip club and wanting so badly to be the "cool" girl that he'd find irresistible, I suppressed my big anxiety about going into such a place with a man I liked. We sat there ordering cosmo's and when the strippers came by our table to offer him a lapdance, he asked me if I'd mind letting him watch me get one. I admit I was aroused at the idea of arousing him, so I accepted. The stripper did her lapdance on me and I could tell Bryce was on fire.

Between the pulsing music, candlelight and alcohol, and this beautiful young woman locking eyes with me for the four minute dance, I really "got" how men can get hooked on this experience since the girl makes you feel like you're the only one in the place who exists for her; you are the recipient of all her attention and seduction, albeit purchased attention. I had never thought of myself as bisexual at all, so I was pretty surprised that I found the whole scene a bit dangerous but a turn-on, too, and I'm still not 100% clear how much of the "buzz" was coming from knowing Bryce was excited, and how much it was the mix of those heady ingredients I mentioned.

Next date with Bryce pretty much followed that same pattern: beach day, dinner out and then nightcaps at another strip club where the girls all seemed to know Bryce. Should I be concerned, I wondered? Nah...he's just a "cool" guy with his finger on the pulse. Right? That's what I told myself to push away any doubts that started nagging at me.

Long story short, we dated for three months and then Bryce proposed, making me feel like the luckiest girl alive since I'd apparently won the lottery in some unspoken 'competition' for such a prized man who had looks, was crazy about me, had money, position, and a hip, if different, lifestyle. I accepted his proposal since he always made me feel like I was the only one who really mattered to him. We were married in a sensational beach wedding and within a year, we were pregnant with our first child followed by a second one the following year.

Motherhood and the changes in my body took me out of modeling but Bryce always made me feel beautiful. I loved being a mother and watching what an incredible father Bryce was. Since I was home a lot with the kids and Bryce got a few shoots to do in New York and Vegas, he went without me. I remember feeling a vague nervousness about his being around all these perfect-looking models in New York (my body not being model-perfect anymore was definitely bringing up my insecurities) and I wondered about him going to strip clubs alone in Vegas. No way, I thought...he'll behave...he's such a good father and we're his whole world. And he hadn't gone to any of the Miami clubs since becoming a father, had he?

At some level I think the thought of anything ruining my picture of us as the Perfect, Beautiful Family kept me from asking any questions that might've had potentially unsettling answers, so I didn't ask. But then I found a wad of receipts he'd forgotten to remove from his jeans before I put them in the washer, and they were for a restaurant, a strip club and...a hotel. All from the same night.

My world fell apart as I tried in a rage, to piece this horrible story together. When he came home, he denied having done anything wrong, insisting he took a male client out to help secure an important contract, and the strip club was right next to the hotel so he just went ahead and "treated" the client to a big night on the town, picking up his hotel check for extra " brownie points" with the client. I had no choice but to accept his story but something stayed stuck in my craw, so I had a male buddy of mine go to that strip club next week on the same night the receipt said Bryce was there with a "client" and sure enough, my buddy reported Bryce was there again, alone, getting lapdances with no fewer than four of the strippers. I was beside myself with heartbreak and confronted him while fabricating how I knew he was there.

He did not try to deny it and didn't seem to feel bad about it, either. Instead, he turned it around on me and said he'd so much rather go with me than go by himself but that I was too busy with motherhood for him to trouble me. I felt so relieved! See? He did want me! We went out the following night after leaving the kids with a babysitter and that night, with too many cocktails in us, I'm ashamed to say he sweet-talked me into having a threesome with one particular stripper who really seemed to catch his fancy.

The next morning, hung-over and with a stranger in our hotel bed, I felt awful that I'd allowed our marriage vows to be broken. Still, I pushed these frightening thoughts out of my mind by reminding myself this was the 'cost' of being with a worldly guy, a man who has 'spicy tastes' and maybe if I didn't fight him, this "accepting wife" act of mine would secure his devotion to me forever. We went to the strip clubs every few weeks after that and the threesomes became more regular, always fueled with way too much liquor, since there was no way I could do that "straight."

Then I found a receipt from one of his recent trips to Vegas that showed he'd dropped $800 at a strip club there. I knew that meant lots of lapdances and booze. I found a receipt from a jewelry store, as well, and when I tried to convince myself it was for a gift on our upcoming anniversary, it didn't "stick" with me. I decided I couldn't stand being plagued by doubts anymore so I hired a private detective to install a hidden recording device in our bedroom and told Bryce I was taking the kids to my mom's in Montana for a three-day getaway since she missed them so.

Sure enough, the device picked up an entire evening's worth of sexual activity between Bryce and a girl, right in our own bed. I was devastated that he'd do this in the first place, but even worse that he didn't use a hotel, instead desecrating our marriage bed. Of course, the worst recrimination I saved for myself: In my quest to be the Cool Girl, I'd unwittingly green-lighted his infidelity from the very beginning. I raked myself over some mighty hot coals over that and it took a long time to "get" that I still had a right to be angry at his cheating on me. I asked him to leave our home, citing the tape as evidence of his infidelity and he seemed absolutely crushed that his family was leaving him.

When he called me to beg me to forgive him a few weeks after I'd moved myself and the kids out, I mandated that he either go to a therapist with me AND quit the clubs and affairs, or the children and I weren't coming back home. Bryce accepted my conditions but for two years, I kept finding evidence of weak-to-non-existent recovery and relapses galore. He'd always offer tearful apologies with perfect-sounding explanations of why stress had gotten the better of him and that he'd now redouble his efforts to go to more 12-step meetings and stay in closer contact with his Sponsor.

After two years of barely-there recovery on his part, I finally decided to tell him I was filing for divorce since our love story was officially over with no chance of saving. He decided to use that as his alarm clock and recommitted himself to REAL recovery and he's been doing well in the one year since he started. I insist on polygraphs every six months which relieves me of the constant spying and checking. Still, it's been a horrible road to travel, knowing he'll always live with the temptations of the lifestyle that was so easy for him to access, and knowing I was complicit in allowing it from the beginning.

Today, we each work our own recovery programs and a huge part of my own work is in forgiving myself for my complicity. The trauma model from Your Sexually Addicted Spouse has really helped enormously towards that end, as I can see how much I gave myself away in an attempt to secure his love, and that I'd descended into a trauma state when I started getting all the clues he was being unfaithful. When newcomers at recovery meetings now ask me what prognosis I have for our marriage, I tell them that it's one day at a time. It's sad to hear those words come out of my mouth, instead of being able to say, "Why, of course I have high hopes for us!" I have to use discernment every single day of my life now. Maybe it's a gift, and I'll get to see that eventually.

Belinda's story

Ian is a computer program writer and told me about his 'unwanted' habit of using porn when he got stressed out, right from our first date. He is ten years younger than I am, and a product of the generation that grew up learning their A-B-C's on a computer so I knew that Internet porn was a staple for his generation. I never gave porn much thought one way or another although I didn't much like it. And I truly thought it's something single guys do but once they have a girlfriend they would naturally stop. This made sense to me. So I applauded his honesty in telling me. Still, I explained that I expected fidelity from him or we couldn't be a couple. He said he would really try his best to give up the porn when he got stressed, and come to me with his sexual needs instead, which in my naiveté at the time, sounded like a great plan.

That was a year ago. All I have found in this past year is evidence that he not only hasn't tried to quit, it seems like there's more porn than ever in his life. I know this because I've mastered spy techniques, something I loathe having sunken down to doing. When I confront his lies about still using it, he acts ashamed of himself and promises to try harder but that his work has been more challenging than ever. His list of excuses seems to be growing.

Today, I understand from reading about porn compulsions, that he is addicted to the chemicals that porn dumps into a man's brain, so that's why he's using more than ever. I feel trapped because we live together and I'm in love with him, yet the porn habit feels like it's a part of him. Worst of all, I feel like I unknowingly signed some secret contract with myself that it's my job to find him help! I cannot seem to stop finding him therapists, books, and I even spoke for hours to an intake counselor at a rehab place that we can't even afford! I frightened myself when I found myself obsessing on how to get the money for Ian to attend this rehab.

Meanwhile, our sex life is now non-existent. Partly that's because we're always fighting about his lying to cover up his porn use (despite his assurance he'd always practice total honesty with me) and partly because he claims to be too exhausted/stressed out from work to sufficiently relax into making love with me. I'm not stupid, though. I know it's because he's "spending himself" at the computer when I'm not around.

Whenever I try to detach emotionally to save my sanity, he decides it's time to get serious about recovery. I take the bait and off we go for another round of his abstinence for a few days, then right back into the porn cycle. If someone had told me one short year ago about the living hell I'd be in now, I would've called them a lunatic. Yet, that's exactly what my life has become, a living hell.

I am relieved to now have found some resources for partners of porn addicts to help me since I see I can't help him without being pulled down into his addiction. Besides dealing with all this on the personal level, I also feel such anger at how we're selling an entire generation of young men down the river with this Internet monster that's been unleashed.

Melissa's story

Oh jeez, where do I start? With what I eventually found out or that I thought my marriage of 23 years was solid enough? I was such a fool! It turns out that he was seeing one young woman before we even got married that ended up being one of dozens he saw throughout the years. A twenty three year affair! And it was one of many. Right up to and beyond discovery. I have never had full disclosure from him, just three years of lies and half-admissions. The only thing that I am absolutely certain of is that he spent all our savings and retirement on all these scores of women and his addiction. At 65, I face my last years with a failed second marriage, too in debt to divorce him and knowing that he is one of the SACs that will never, ever stop acting out. I feel stuck. We very nearly lost our house as a result of his financial irresponsibility and that may happen eventually because I simply cannot stop him. I may well die having never known a true love. I am wracked with grief every day.

Right after we married, my then-young daughter found porn videos in the boxes he moved into our home. He said that they must have belonged to a friend who shared a basement apartment with him before we married. I believed that. I met him in church, after all. It was a second marriage for both of us and I was so careful about who I dated and this one had all the right “answers”.

Imagine my shock when I began discovering the truth about him. It was three years ago when, while out of town on business, he accidentally dialed me from his cell phone with a woman in the car with him. I heard their entire conversation! From their talking, I could tell that they knew each other well and that he had paid to have her travel to his destination and stay with him for part of his trip and they were discussing what to have for dinner that night. She got out of the car to run into the store and I heard him call another woman to meet up with for the portion of the trip that the first woman was not going to be with him! He had gotten another cell phone that I did not know about and was chatting away with the third woman when the second woman got back into the car. What makes this all so weird is that he told the second woman that he was talking with me. As if there was not a third woman!

I listened until the battery on his cell phone died. I was sick and furious and shocked and beside myself with rage. I called the hotel. No answer. I called the cell phone that I knew he had. No answer. I called his work site the next morning and he called me crazy as a loon, shouting at me that I was making his life impossible. That day I discovered the porn on our computer at home. This had been an ongoing problem for a very long time. He had many hard drives full of his favorite electronic girlfriends.
Again, all of this was denied and although he did go to counseling with me, he never embraced recovery. He lied about that also. He went and visited various women instead of attending meetings. The discoveries piled up and up and up. There seemed to be no end to his acting out.

When I visited a lawyer to divorce him, I was shown that I would be leaving with more debt than I could ever repay in my last years. That is the law and even though his actions—not mine—have brought this debt about, I am responsible for half of it. I have come to expect only lies from him. We live completely separate lives in a house we can barely afford to live in.

This is not a happy story with a fairy tale ending. It is my story that has been the biggest eye-opener for younger members of our PoSA support group. When they see that they, too, could end up at 65 with nothing but debt and a broken heart, they begin setting boundaries for themselves and enforcing consequences. If for nothing else, I am glad that my story has prompted these brave, young women to advocate for themselves. Thanks for letting me share this harsh reality with others.

Angie's story

Well, I knew our real-life fights were getting worse and worse when I discovered my husband's virtual hidden life. He had an “avatar” in a virtual reality online game-type thing that allowed his persona to have sex with many other “avatars.” I could hardly get my breath when I discovered this! Fake people having sex with fake people? All online? I was stunned that such things existed. Along with this, I discovered the porn and emails that revealed he was attempting to actually meet up with one of these “avatars” in an upcoming trip. I confronted him in one of the most violent fights we ever had.

I insisted that he be seen by a psychiatrist and we did go shortly thereafter. Do you know that he actually believed at the time that the doctor would want to admit me to the hospital? He really thought that he was fine and I was the crazy one. As it turned out, the doctor put him in a day program treatment for alcohol, pot and sex addictions. I was left to flounder with a couple of visits to the doctor who admitted him and eventually found a CSAT because it was the sex addiction that most distressed me.

I went to N-Anon and Al-Anon and tried a S-Anon group as well. I did appreciate the language that these programs gave me for the things I was feeling about his actions although I never felt like I was a co-addict. I did find a support group that eventually broke away from the 12-Step model and became a PoSA group. My husband is still learning in his recovery after four years and together we have learned that the marriage will have to be rebuilt from the ground up. This is not an easy path, I may never receive the empathy that I deeply desire from my husband. He simply does not have that to give.

When I see newcomers enter our group, I remember the day I found out about my husband's secret life and it confirms that this world of porn and online sexual activity is hurting many relationships. If you are reading this, you are far from alone and there are many courageous women here to stand by you.