One woman on navigating her partner’s porn addiction and forgiving his three year betrayal.
*Suzie’s story…
I don’t ever look at Facebook but in April 2020 a woman messaged me to say ‘your husband has been having an affair with me for three years.’ I didn’t see it until February 2021 and only then because I was trying to sell some furniture on Facebook Marketplace. She wanted me to know he had cheated on her with another woman too.
My husband had met this woman on Illicit Encounters, which is a website for married people who want ‘fun’ with other people. She sent me photos to prove their relationship was real.
I found out he would meet her once every six weeks and they’d go to a hotel, have lunch and then sex. It wasn’t an affair where they’d go on dates or send presents to each other. They would text each other though.
I was shocked and completely devastated. I messaged her back, but she didn’t reply. Then I found her on Linkedin. She told me my husband had finished the relationship with her and it seemed like she contacted me out of revenge. She was hurt so she wanted to cause him pain.
Call it naive but I didn’t have any suspicions he was having an affair. Perhaps I should have done. He had a one night stand when my daughter was four years old and I had a just had a still born.
His reasons
My husband said he signed up to Illicit Encounters because it felt safer than going to a prostitute. I think the site should be banned, but, as we know, sex out of marriage isn’t illegal, just immoral.
When I confronted my husband he instantly said this was his problem not mine and admitted to having an addiction to sex. He was going on porn sites three times a day. He said he wasn’t getting fulfilled sexually so he looked to get his kicks elsewhere.
He immediately committed to therapy and through the sessions we began to understand the root cause of his infidelity was his lack of relationship with his father. It had made him feel unwanted, unloved, and not good enough. His father had had an affair when he was young and left his family to continue that relationship. After that, his mother stopped his father having a relationship with him, not telling him when his father asked for contact. My husband thought his father didn’t want to see him and that really affected him.
Through our therapy sessions we uncovered that he was afraid of fully loving me, of losing me, so he didn’t want to put all his eggs in one basket. This meant he outsourced the sex part out to others.
As a result we didn’t have much sex and so I felt like he loved me but didn’t fancy me. During therapy I came to understand it wasn’t because he didn’t find me attractive, but because it felt like too much of a risk to share that side of him with me. The therapist thought he had a Madonna/whore complex, holding me up as sexually untouchable. Then he felt what I could give him wasn’t enough to satisfy him and that in turn made him ashamed. He said it was never about leaving you, it was about having sex with other people.
He’s always been sexually complex. I remembered when we first got together he said something that rang alarm bells. That he couldn’t imagine having sex with same person for the rest of his life.
His reasons for the first affair were different. He felt he did it because there was so much grieving around our still born, but he didn’t have so much support, and he wanted connection.
But through it all he didn’t ever blame me.
Why she stayed
I think it’s really important to say is the only reason I was prepared to stay was the fact he was so 100% committed to doing the work, the therapy. He said he ‘Couldn’t bear to lose my family and I will never do it again.’
We didn’t do the work after his first affair. We went to Relate and the woman said ‘Do you want to make it work’ and we said yes and that was it really. I knew this time, if he didn’t confront his issues, he would reoffend.
I also spoke to the woman he had the affair with and said, ‘Can you just corroborate some facts – I’d like to know if what he told me is true.’ And it was. That gave me reassurance.
This was all happening in the height of Covid. We found a therapist in Bali and did online sessions together, and then both of us apart. He still follows the 12-step programme for sex addiction. He continued his therapy for three years and still meditates daily and we walk together often.
When I told my parents they said “Are you sure you want to stay?” But I did and do.
We’ve been together 30 years. We have two children. I know he loves me. That’s why I’m still here.
What their relationship looked like post discovery, and now.
In the immediate aftermath it was horrendous, there has been terrible heartache and pain. As as this all happened during Covid we could only really go for walks. We’d talk and I’d hit him, saying ‘I hate you, how can you do it to me or the children?’
When we were intimate, I’d find it really difficult.
I couldn’t talk to many people about it because I didn’t want lots of friends judging me, him or my decision to live with it.
I was angry about why I had to do the work (therapy) too.
As it gets further away it does get easier.
We are 5 years on. Somedays I don’t trust him at all. He’s got two phones – one with banking on for business, but occasionally I’ll question if it’s a burner phone. He reminds me his phones have no passcodes and I can see everything if I want to.
I still feel uncomfortable when people say ‘Did you hear about so and so and so having an affair.’ And I find watching TV programmes about infidelity triggering.
The saddest thing for me is the catastrophic effect it’s had on the children. That’s not easily fixed.
But honestly, I don’t think about it much anymore. Or about the other woman. I know he wouldn’t jeopardise our lives with another affair.
*Note for the purposes of anonymity not used Suzie’s real name.
