Today I was on the computer and saw something that made me take a closer look at Husband's email. I can't even remember what it was now. But I did that, and found that he started receiving emails again from an escort service at the end of May. It looked as though he hadn't received any since April of last year, and then he started getting them again about 4 weeks ago.
I've just spend the last 3 hours (when I should have been working) combing his email and other places for evidence of activity. I found one more from another site, but no evidence of correspondence.
But the fact of the matter is, anything he didn't want me to find out about he could easily hide. He could have other accounts in other names. I guess the best way I have of being sure is bank statements and pay stubs. This way I'll know exactly what's coming in and what's going out. Which would have alerted me years ago if only I'd been paying close attention. But I wasn't. Even now, I don't. Sometimes I go through the bank statement more carefully, looking for large amounts. But that's about it.
There's never going to be any way to be sure, and that's part of what I have to figure out if I can deal with I guess. I hate that my relationship will forever have this aspect to it. At this moment I hate him for bringing this into our lives.
I feel a lot of the same physical sensations I did the first time I found all this - my lips are cold, I'm tense, sick to my stomach.
The word that just popped into my mind is surrender. I'm resisting things. I have to look to see where I can surrender so I can get some peace back. Surrender to how life is, and then decide what I want to do in light of that I guess.
Husband starts his group therapy tonight.
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Did you broach this discovery with him? Not in the sense of giving him a chance to backpedal and make excuses, but of letting him know you are aware. Group therapy is great for him, but you need to feel safe in your own home, including psychologically.
I KNOW the feeling in your stomach, your face, your mind lurching from anxiety to anger to the lofty goal of surrender. I have been there more times than I care to count. My unsolicited advice is to let go of what gut-wrenching emotion you can, affirm your personal boundaries, and put him on notice. Emphasis on unsolicited.
You are in my prayers.
"There's never going to be any way to be sure"
You hit it on the head there. It doesn't matter how much our dis-ease tries to convince us that we have a fool-proof plan in place to "catch" him. The bottom line is that he is an addict and will do whatever he needs to act out if his addict decideds to rears his ugly head again. That's what I could neither learn to get over or live with.
That's one of the reasons I think it's so important to keep my focus on my recovery & learn to trust my God & myself. Neither will lead me wrong if I simply stop to truly listen.
Thinking of you...
I feel sick to my stomach on your behalf. Hugs, Woman A.
You are right. There is never anyway to be sure. I control all of the money, always have. And still he managed to get his mitts on $230 (which incidently I did miss and I did inquire about). $100 for one, $130 for another. 2 others were free. One he said bad things about on a review board and she gave him a freebie to shut him up. The other traded services with him. I can't control that.
Had Verizon printed phone numbers dialed with the bill, I would have figured this out a long time ago. The visits accounted for less than 4 hours total. He would talk to me on the phone until he hit the intersection where you make the call for final directions. He'd fuck for 20 minutes and call me back. He'd say he was at lunch with a coworker while really having lunch with a hooker he met on the TNA or TER boards.
But the addiction controlled him everyday he was at work. He was online cheating and saying nasty disgusting things on the internet all day every day. I can't babysit him at work. I assumed his boss was doing that. But alas no.
Despite the fact that I have controlled about 99+% of his life, he still found a way. That's the lesson. I have passwords to all of the known accounts but like you said he can get a new one. This I know because I have about 7 email addresses now as I pretend to be a hooker or a john on those boards - depends on what info I am gathering. He can get a throw away poon phone with a $20 bill at Target.
Fortunately for me my husband is lazy and so caught up in the destructive behavior that he made many mistakes. I caught all of them but never questioned them because he was always regarded as the guy who wouldn't cheat. HA HA. Now I know differently and now I will NEVER let an uneasy feeling get brushed over. I may not control his every move anymore but I am ALWAYS going to honor a gut reaction when I have one. That for me is where I find peace. I take comfort in that and in knowing that everyone in the family knows his secret so I've got other people watching him for me. Might not be right, but they can't help themselves and takes the burden off of me.
Sophie, Kellee, MPJ, Stephanie - Thank you for your words of support. There is such comfort in the care of others.
Sophie - I did tell Husband what I found and asked if anything was going on. We talked at length, and he said he'd done nothing. I have so many reasons to believe him, but the lies of the past raise doubts. The consensus in my group tonight was that an addict in recovery is a completely different person from an active addict in denial. So I've been taking the course you suggest - letting go, being mindful of my boundaries, and expressing my feelings to Husband.
Kellee - In response to your comment, I am reminded that it's way past time for me to begin my step work. I've done lots of reading, but actually working the steps seems like the best priority for me at the moment.
Stephanie - I'm working on developing and acting on gut-instinct, but it doesn't seem to come easily to me. But now, whenever something doesn't feel right to me I try to address it in that moment. I just have this fear that if I start trusting Husband again it will be so easy for him to lie to me. The odd thing is, I don't really think he'll do it - he's got so much support now and over a year of sobriety - but I'm so afraid of being deceived again because I was so blindsided before.
In my group therapy we close with a modified version of the serenity prayer that ends with "Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace." The concept of hardships as the pathway to peace is my anchor when I'm adrift in confusion like this.
maybe they are just e-mailing old clients randomly?
ugh. i could never deal with this.
One thing I have learned from visiting all of the "poon" boards is that as much as these girls talk about privacy and discretion, they are real hypocrites. Money comes first. My husband and many others have blogged in many places that several girls called them back to make a date a year later if there was space on the calendar and he was on the verified list of clients. So the emails are probably marketing to drum up business from repeat clients. I truly believe that - although I'd personally sit there and ask him to email back insisting they take him off the mailing list. I would also ask that he get a new email account (unless it is supplied by work and you can't explain to hr why he needs a new account.) Net, ask that he break ALL ties. New cell phone #, new email address.
And I know for a fact that these girls/women are greedy hypocrites. I called everyone of them myself so that I could tell them they are husband stealing whores and get closure. (See Rabbi Shmuley http://www.shmuley.com/articles.php?id=51) 3 of the 4 didn't answer but got my number off their caller ID and called me back using their provider names asking if I wanted a date.
Ive come up with a formula. 3 scales of 1 to 10 and then a sum. First on a scale of 1 to 10 how happy is your marriage, Second how happy do you think your marriage can be, and third, the chances the spouse will not have a severe relapse. If your sum total is less than 17 then one should cut and run.
Misery - This made me laugh...I don't know if that's healthy or sick! At times I'd welcome such an easy way to figure this all out, that's for sure.
If I think about it, those three things are DEFINITELY part of my personal equation.
I think I ask those questions every day.
Hi. Thank you so much for writing -- your blog has been so helpful to me. My ex-boyfriend is a sex addict, we don't really talk anymore so I don't know if he's pursued recovery. It's just come out, and it's begun to affect his friendships and his work. (ie he's losing friends and work opps because of affairs.)
Anyway, I wanted to comment about money. I've seen you write about growing up with not that much money, and feeling more...free? with money after being with your Husband. My ex spoiled me and bought me whatever I want, but it did make me uncomfortable, so I had us economize wherever we could. That said, he wouldn't even show me the electricity bill or tell me how much it was so we could make a plan to reduce our electricity use and set a target. I think if I hadn't so readily handed over financial responsibility, and if I didn't have so many money issues from my family of origin, I might have noticed something MUCH earlier. I've been going to seminars on women and money (one I recommend is Barbara Stanny) and reading lots of books by her and by Suze Orman. Having a blindspot or fuzziness around anything, including something as important as money is very dangerous -- and having clarity, knowledge and control of your finances is very empowering, and a very large piece of self-care. Best, Ruby
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