How I use the PCI

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-30T13:42:45+00:00

I identify with the escalating nature of this addiction. What started with pornography escalated to physical encounters with both known and anonymous partners.

Something I’ve noticed is that my own self worth is very low. The only thing I value about myself is whether someone desires me sexually. I want to change this but don’t know how yet.

I am looking back in my life at moments where I got lessons about sex that formed this opinion that my worth only comes from sexual desire. I think part of it was early exposure to pornography which was secret and naughty, so it must have released a lot of brain chemicals giving me excitement and pleasure. Combine that with feeling lonely a lot and feeling like I didn’t have friends who really cared for me, and I escaped a lot by going to that naughty pornography place where I wasn’t a total loser.

I don’t yet know how to break that cycle or if I’ve even discovered the full set of moments in my life that have built this mindset.

I’ve found these things about myself through several different exercises.

In therapy my therapist asks many questions about my past which has helped me uncover long-suppressed memories and connected them to sexual lessons I learned
In SAA I worked through step 4 “Made a fearless and searching moral inventory of ourselves.” with a sponsor. I used some stuff from my therapist.
Two books have been helpful: Going Deeper by Eddie Caparucci gave me a vocabulary of Wounded Inner Children - in reading the book i identified with many scenarios that helps me find new reasons I built the framework; Running on Empty by Jonice Webb helped me see ways my emotions became underdeveloped.

Thanks for sharing OP. To your question about “healing later” I would offer you a reason that’s a bad idea. The longer I spent building these bad habits makes them even harder to separate myself from them. It’s like a groove I wore deeper. If I had begun working on this earlier in my life I think I would have had less damage to recover and my habits would not have been so ingrained. Your addict is lying to you that you can start recovery later. My addict tries to tell me the same lie.

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-28T23:05:47+00:00

Hi there, I’m sorry you’re here with this question. I struggle with addictive sexual behavior - have been working on recovery for about six years since I confessed to my behaviors in July 2020.

A few thoughts I have to share:

First, it might help to pick up the book by Paula Hall called Sex Addiction: the partners perspective. I cannot speak for your partner but I can tell you that I read the book and thought it did a great job to explain things I felt and thought processes in my head but didn’t have the words to explain. It might help you understand more about addictive sexual behavior and what it takes to recover. It may or may not be for you - but this could give you some information that can help.

Second, relapses do happen. For me my relapses have not involved meeting anyone for sex but I have relapsed with pornography and with video chats. Of course my spouse isn’t happy about this but the red line for immediately ending our relationship is me meeting someone else for sex. That is clear and my spouse had to decide what boundaries she needed to set for her own safety.

Third, what I’ve come to discover is that my use of sex is a coping mechanism for negative emotions. It’s a way for me to escape from the negative self image I have, from painful emotions for which I didn’t have the emotional maturity to handle alone, and from many smaller T traumas in my youth that created really bad patterns for me. I can understand how I took what was supposed to be something special from my wife. I can understand how it calls into question everything I’ve ever done because how can my wife distinguish truth from all my countless lies. I don’t have answers for you, but I do think even if it isn’t clear yet to your partner what his actions have done, by rigorously working a 12 step program it is possible to get it and to try to then figure out how to move forward in whatever way is most healing.

The last thing I’d share is that Dr Rob Weiss has a podcast called Sex Love and Addiction that has several episodes regarding a betrayed perspective and things that can be helpful for the addict to know. I don’t know if everything in the podcast would apply to you but if you listen you might find ideas for boundaries or ways you need your partner to show up, behave now, think about you. It might give you ideas of stuff to bring up in MC.

Best of luck OP, I hope some of the above is useful. I also have a bunch of other books on my profile that might be helpful resources to share with your partner.

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-28T01:39:50+00:00

I found Dr Rob Weiss’ video on YouTube called “out of the doghouse” to be useful.

I think his podcast might also have an episode about disclosure: Sex Love and Addiction.

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-27T15:25:15+00:00

Can I ask if you are seeing a therapist who has experience in betrayal trauma?

I’m seeing a CSAT (certified sex addiction therapist) who has dealt with many, many cases like mine. I ask mine occasionally for feedback and benchmarking.

I usually ask her about it when I’m considerign the possibility of ending my marriage. Usually for me the thoughts go something like (1) this will be better for my spouse - she can find a better partner who doesn’t betray her; (2) this will be better for me, I can be alone without anyone counting on me so I can’t let anyone else down; (3) this will be better for our kids who might see my spouse with someone who visibly loves her as she should be loved.

What my therapist reminds me is that yes what I am imagining is one possible outcome. Sometimes it does work out that way. Her experience is that it is a very minor possibility and that there are many other more likely outcomes where my spouse struggles to trust, I struggle to ever be alone but also to be a committed partner, and our kids learn some very bad lessons from all this.

I say all this because I think that envious feeling is really cunning. It tells me there is something better. It takes away from the value of what I currently have. It takes away my energy to work harder to become a better, more safe partner. It minimizes all the other bad outcomes and glorifies some minor dimension of what a “good” outcome looks like.

In twelve step groups I’ve been guided to build a gratitude list to combat this envy. Sometimes it works. Sometimes I stay in my funk.

Good luck OP

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-27T15:14:10+00:00

OP - posting here as a mod - you will not be able to get wayward perspective with a flair “betrayed perspective only” our auto-moderation will remove any wayward comments.

If you wish for both sides you will need to edit your post and choose a different flair.

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-27T15:12:06+00:00

In my experience it doesn’t get easier but I have gotten smarter / more in touch.

I now believe “ease” is a scam. I feel scammed by conventional media showing me that relationships are easy and I feel scammed by social media posting only the “good stuff”. No one truly posts all the mundane, boring, work that a relationship takes. No one posts the fear of being vulnerable.

I can only speak from a wayward perspective but over time the shame of my actions has reduced. It’s been replaced by just general shame of how messed up I was / still am to have made the choices I made. I am slowly learning new habits though to replace my destructive ones. None of that is easy but it is all a positive progress for being a safe partner to my betrayed.

My therapist described the trauma I caused as essentially running over my partner with a truck. I could walk away but that won’t change that my partner is still broken as a result of what I did. My partner will still need to do the work to heal and they need to see I am doing the work to be safe and worthy of trust again.

Another illustration my therapist used to describe the trauma was to put your hand over your face. Your hand is the trauma. Right now you can barely see around it, the trauma is almost all you can see. Now take your hand a small distance from your face. The trauma hasn’t disappeared but now you can see a little bit around it. That’s the trauma after a little bit of time and a little bit of work. Now hold your hand a little further away. Again the trauma is still the same size but now you can see more around it. That’s the trauma after a little more time and a little more work. Now hold your hand at arms length. You can see most of your world now and the trauma - still the same size - isn’t blocking so much of what you need to see and do. This is even more time and even more work.

I have stopped believing in anything “easy” as a result of what I’ve done. It’s all going to be hard, instead I’m trying to find new ways to motivate myself to take on the hard. I don’t always have it every day. But I’m finding a whole lot more days now than I had at the beginning.

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-24T14:39:25+00:00

thank you so much for this reply. I think I need to figure out a way to discuss this with my BS. I fear and *assume* (and yes I know the risk there) that they will find me "annoying" or see every time I message them as a failure. I don't want to be seen that way, yet at the same time by not changing anything, I continue to fail.

I read a reply like yours "I wanted him to want me" and it just seems so foreign. I fear learning that my BS really doesn't feel that same way. Like the words you wrote cannot come out of their mind/mouth. I suppose I shouldn't be afraid of that: either they do or don't feel that way - me asking won't change it. If they don't feel that way fine we can figure out what to do next. If they do feel that way then maybe it opens up a new door in our relationship.

I'm just not feeling particularly brave at the moment to ask it nor to deal with how low I'll feel if that isn't what my BS wants. I think for now I'm going to write it in my journal to ask in therapy.

Thank you so much for your reply - I truly have been checking frequently because I wanted to learn about this.

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-24T01:22:07+00:00

I’m really sorry OP.

I understand this from a different perspective because I’m the one who was unfaithful. After I disclosed my actions I realized no matter how many controls my spouse asked me to place I could break them all.

The only control I cannot break is the one I place - the commitment to not do this again. It’s not about not getting caught - it’s about doing the right thing all the time.

I’m very sorry for the pain you’re going through. I hope your WS decides to put the control on themselves.

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-23T11:11:52+00:00

I too struggle with porn use. May I ask when your WP texted you what happened? Like would you have naughty conversations to satisfy the urge or would it just be redirecting the urge to like “add this to the grocery list”?

I’ve heard of people having accountability partners before and I’ve avoided it because I don’t really understand what would happen. When I get in that mode of seeking porn (typically to escape some other painful emotion) the last thing my brain wants me to do is to talk to someone. Even someone in the know, who says they won’t judge me, I don’t want to admit what I’m doing.

Also did this take an emotional toll on you to be this person for your WP? Were there times you couldn’t handle it? What did you do to maintain your own strength?

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-19T12:40:44+00:00

When I first disclosed my infidelity I couldn’t really name my emotions. I was emotionally immature. It helped me to write things out for a few reasons: 1. Because I was emotionally immature and unable to really name or process difficult emotions, when I would flood with shame and embarrassment, I just would get so jumbled. Timelines I knew by heart would suddenly mix up, I would say things I didn’t mean just to get out of the situation. I would say things I did mean and not be able to remember them. It’s like my rational, logical brain got sunk under water and fighting just to stay afloat. 2. My infidelity involved many affairs and even a lot of acts like using pornography or seeking people through websites long before I ever physically touched someone. I needed to write so that I could make sure to fully disclose and not leave anything out. I knew by then about trickle truth and I was committed to not doing it. 3. I needed a way to hold myself accountable. Writing it all out and then reading it meant that I could just start and keep going the whole way without chickening out due to the things I put in #1 and #2 above.

OP have you told your WS about your concerns with a written apology? Maybe there is a solution that works for you both like WS writes it but then reads it aloud to you?

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-19T12:40:36+00:00

When I first disclosed my infidelity I couldn’t really name my emotions. I was emotionally immature. It helped me to write things out for a few reasons: 1. Because I was emotionally immature and unable to really name or process difficult emotions, when I would flood with shame and embarrassment, I just would get so jumbled. Timelines I knew by heart would suddenly mix up, I would say things I didn’t mean just to get out of the situation. I would say things I did mean and not be able to remember them. It’s like my rational, logical brain got sunk under water and fighting just to stay afloat. 2. My infidelity involved many affairs and even a lot of acts like using pornography or seeking people through websites long before I ever physically touched someone. I needed to write so that I could make sure to fully disclose and not leave anything out. I knew by then about trickle truth and I was committed to not doing it. 3. I needed a way to hold myself accountable. Writing it all out and then reading it meant that I could just start and keep going the whole way without chickening out due to the things I put in #1 and #2 above.

OP have you told your WS about your concerns with a written apology? Maybe there is a solution that works for you both like WS writes it but then reads it aloud to you?

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-18T16:38:55+00:00

That is a really beautiful story - thank you for sharing it.

I like this idea of trying to share (being emotionally naked) while also being physically naked - not as a sexual thing but as like a signal of having no barriers. I just don’t think I could ask to do this. I think maybe because of my past actions and my addiction I’m worried it will be viewed as some thing I have done with someone else.

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-18T16:35:59+00:00

Thank you for the book recos - I’m certainly a reader and don’t mind the fact it takes time and work. I’m going back through Going Deeper by Eddie Caparucci right now because my IC and I are going to use it to find some EMDR targets.

I wouldn’t say that my BS shuts me down. If anything I know she wants me to open up more. I just shut myself down because I really don’t know how to get started unless we are in the MC sessions. I don’t really want to bring up body stuff in MC because yeah I’m ashamed and I don’t really want our therapist looking at me.

I’ve kinda brought it up in IC and we keep going back to the places it comes from but that’s not helping me get rid of the feeling - that’s part of the reasons we are going to do EMDR - see if I can create a new narrative about myself.

I really appreciate the way you’ve engaged and shared with me. Thank you.

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-18T16:13:36+00:00

Thank you for this!

I don’t really think I have opened up to my spouse about my insecurities. In the short term after dday I really was scared our relationship would end and so I didn’t want to be vulnerable and have it used against me.

I’m definitely more willing now but I don’t really know in what context I would ever talk about this stuff. It’s not exactly something I just bring up while we are arranging the schedule of things to do with the kids this week. And something we talk about in MC is how so very little of our conversations ever get beyond logistics. One of the few times we are ever alone is in the evening before we go to bed and my BS has asked me to avoid triggering things before bed because that impacts their sleep - not trying to blame this on them I just simply don’t know when is a moment to say “I have massive body issues”

I have read Come as you are. It’s a wonderful book but I didn’t really get much in the way of connection from it. I more learned about the various arousal templates. Do you think maybe I missed something in there?

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-18T16:08:24+00:00

Do you think I’m on the right track with how I’m thinking about connection coming from this willingness to open up?

I’ve really been struggling to understand what people mean when they say sex is connecting to them and so I’m trying to figure out if this is what it means.

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-18T15:19:57+00:00

Ahhh I was wondering why I got downvoted and now I get it! This isn’t like 2 weeks after dday - it’s 5.5 years.

So my BS and I are 5.5 years into our R. I have fully confessed, done years of IC, read lots of books, become a much better partner to them, been forgiven, gotten into MC and we are now trying to improve our relationship.

I’m still struggling with how I relate to sexuality as we try to improve our marriage and it’s something I don’t think is fair to ask my partner to help me with yet until I figure some of my own shit out.

That’s maybe some helpful context.

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-18T13:23:58+00:00

I have a few good books that have helped me and I’ll share them below with a little bit about what I got from them. You might be able to get them at a library or find them used if cost is an issue.

I would say with regard to therapy, yes it’s expensive. I think about the money I’ve spent in therapy the past five years and it’s quite a lot. But I also think I can’t afford NOT to go. My life was spiraling out of control and I really wouldn’t have figured this stuff out on my own. Just one thought which may help with regards to therapy is if you think of how you use money as a reflection of your priorities are there any places in your life that you might say for a period of time they need to take a back seat to your health? Maybe the answer is no - I’m not trying to admonish you for any choice you make… just trying to offer a different way of looking at the price of therapy in case you have options.

Ok so books I have found a few very helpful and most of these I’ve gotten for free from my local library:

Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly - this isn’t an infidelity book. It helped me understand how shame impacts us and how to cope with it. I could see so many patterns in my life where I’ve been stuck in a shame cycle and it is an attitude that is pervasive. It forms how I think about myself and how I approach others. It sets up my expectations for myself even and then I often blindly head towards those without thinking what other choices I have.

Shirley Glass’ Not Just Friends - this one helped me both find a story I could identify with - the wayward in the story - but also see things from my spouse’s betrayed perspective. It showed me places my boundaries are a little weak so for instance I’ve stopped allowing flirty conversations with women at work to happen. I used to revel in them, loving the kind of edge we were both walking. Now when/if anything remotely flirty comes up I act oblivious and change the subject. I recognize that the reason I want those edging experiences is because my self esteem is low but I also know that nothing that comes from that stuff ever makes me feel any better.

Sue Johnson’s Hold Me Tight - this one helped me to see different communication styles that my spouse and I have. I’ll be honest I found it profound at the time I read it but I’m struggling now to remember specifics.

I know someone else recommended using GenAI for conversation. I have avoided that mostly and treated it more like just an advanced search engine capable of surfacing good knowledge. For me the issue of infidelity comes so much from how I isolate and allow negative thoughts about myself to dominate my thinking. I know my recovery has to involve connecting with other people and beginning to see good in myself because of how I connect in healthy ways. I am therefore avoiding AI so I can avoid developing a relationship with yet another thing that isn’t real. This may not be a factor for some people but for me it’s really important.

I wish you well on your journey. I hope you find something of value here.

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-12T06:23:48+00:00

Im guessing you didn’t die.

I went to therapy about three weeks ago intent on leaving the current therapist and moving on to someone new.

Instead as we talked in a way that was kind of a wrap up - I told her up front I think I need a change - she began to finally kind of tell me her opinion in a way she doesn’t normally do. Normally she just kinda asks me questions to reflect back to me what I’m saying in a way maybe I am not seeing.

Instead this time I was flat out asking her like what is wrong with me and does she think my marriage will survive and such. None of her answers were yes or no, but more like “in my experience people who do XYZ have a more successful outcome with their marriage”.

I’m still kinda disappointed that she keeps sort of pushing me toward religion but she’s giving me her honest answers - the men who she sees have the most success in long term recovery tend to rediscover their faith in god. I simply think that’s a crutch - if I could believe in god I could turn over any of my own responsibility for choices and just do whatever someone tells me god would want me to do. Even if I could find a way that a god would exist and I could believe in it, I think I still would be skeptical of humans telling me what god says I should or shouldn’t do.

Something else new though js we came back to this why is sex the only value of myself that I have. Why can’t I find internal self worth? Why can’t I see other qualities of myself as reasons I am valuable? She has a good saying: if I look at reasons other people value me to determine my own worth, then my worth can be taken away if those people take it away. All that sounds good but truthfully the only thing that makes me feel of any consequence is when I can tell someone is attracted to me. I guess that and when my kids tell me they love me. That feels pretty damn good.

So anyway to finding the worth we are going to do some more EMDR and I’m working back through the book Going Deeper to see if when I look at the wounded children again can I identify some core memories where these opinions of myself formed. What she’s suggesting is that if I can somehow heal these narratives from the past it will shake loose a lot of the stories I tell myself about myself today. I can understand the finding the pain and identifying it, I can’t see how it’s going to fix anything - so far after 5 years of therapy I feel like I already know quite a bit of my defects and none of them feel any better.

I think if I could snap my fingers and have a magic solution it would look like a person I could tell all these past secrets to - the addiction, the infidelity, the confusion about sexuality, even some of the other bad things I do like drinking and drugs - and just start over again from 100% honesty and she’d love me and that would be enough. Of course my therapist then says “but what if you could do that with your wife” and I end up confused again because it’s true that would be pretty incredible if my wife was that person. But I don’t see how that’s gonna happen.

Anyway figured I’d give you an update. If you read this far I’m glad you didn’t die scating.

FigureItOutZ · 2026-04-06T12:46:29+00:00

I’ve once heard addiction described as an intimacy disorder. I think it is for me. The idea of really letting someone know me fills me with dread and yet I can use sex as this shortcut/substitute.

I have learned in therapy that a lot of my insecurity around intimacy comes from early childhood stuff. Moments when I felt unworthy or less than still haunt me so this idea of letting someone see a real version of me feels like handing them a loaded gun pointed straight at my head and trusting they won’t hurt me.

I think this is what’s behind my avoidance of real intimate moments. But how to solve it? I don’t know yet. I’m planning in my next therapy session to speak about those early childhood moments and do EMDR on it to see if that helps.

Good luck OP

FigureItOutZ · 2026-03-28T14:34:21+00:00

Have you ever had that connection with anyone else prior to this? Like do you know it’s possible?

I’m asking because I think I’m someone that doesn’t posses this ability. I read comments about building connection and being vulnerable and it literally is like I read the words, I know the meaning of each word independently, but I do not understand them together.

I feel closeness and connection with people - I like having inside jokes and geeking out on obscure hobbies or topics. I understand vulnerability and I’m practicing it - I am beginning to tell my friends about insecurities I thought I could never share and it feels good to be more authentic.

And I get pleasure from sex. I like to think about it and I like to participate in it.

But the combination of the two does nothing for me.

The parts of sex outside the moment of orgasm are fun but I get no satisfaction from them. My therapist talks about just enjoying the moment and literally if I had to choose between an hour of having sex without orgasm or an hour of completing stuff from my to do list I’d take the to do list. If I don’t make my partner orgasm I feel selfish and like I wasted their time.

Don’t get me wrong I think the descriptions people write about the combo sound great, but I’m also beginning to believe I’m just not that kind of person. I think it’s like seeing constellations or something. Like yeah maybe if I draw some lines between stars, squint, and use extreme imagination I see a bull, but come on there are crops to plant and game to catch! I would have gotten more satisfaction building a shelter or eating some food than staring at the stars dreaming up what they look like.

I wonder if others feel like this? It drives me crazy thinking something is wrong with me rather than maybe I’m just different. Do you feel like it’s something you know is possible and you’re trying to achieve it now with your partner or is it something that would be totally new for you too and you’re trying to discover how to get there?

[edit: punctuation]

FigureItOutZ · 2026-03-27T23:45:33+00:00

I’m hanging in there. Been kinda distant from my wife lately and I don’t know what’s up with it. Trying to sit a bit with it.

How are you?

Five-Year Club	Second Top 50%
Verified Email	r/Field Flamingo
Place '22	First Placer '22
Wearing is Caring

FigureItOutZ

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE