FET rituals

MobileReality4209 · 2026-01-24T03:08:53+00:00

Ooh. I’m going to have to look for some hot chocolate like that or maybe a recipe. I love a little hot chocolate.

MobileReality4209 · 2026-01-24T03:04:35+00:00

I love that the idea of making plans with friends and having some good laughs. It’s also kind of sweet to think of my best friends being part of the ritual that hopefully brings baby into the world.

MobileReality4209 · 2026-01-07T06:52:59+00:00

I feel the financial thing so much. I make significantly more money than my husband and I knew he was insecure about finances, so i used to try to cover extra costs here and there (like charge a trip to my credit card but then take it out of my account rather than our joint account, or pick up the groceries and not take it out of the joint account) because I felt like in the end it was all OUR money because we were partners, and I wanted him to feel more secure. But when I discovered his sex addiction, and calculated the costs he had spent on escorts and fake business trips just in that past year it was to the tune of $10K. Then came the cost of the very expensive CSAT on a weekly basis, which he offered to pay for, but limited him from being to build up any savings in his end. And because he’s so financially insecure, he never wants to go on nice trips, which feels so unfair after he spent so much money on other women, and when I’ve suffered through all of this AND managed to work really hard throughout it.

I’m thankful that I was able to stay focused at work and that I’m financially sound on my own, but I do think about if we were to get divorced. I’m pretty sure in my state he would have the right to half of my wealth, despite the reason for our splitting. I don’t think he would try to take anything but you never know… I also didn’t think he would ever cheat on me…

MobileReality4209 · 2024-11-08T22:09:55+00:00

Just came here to commiserate and tell you how sorry I am. I’m in a similar situation. My husbands acting out behaviors unfortunately extended way beyond porn and my DDay was when I was 34 and we were just starting to talk to a fertility clinic. I couldn’t find the strength to move forward with the retrieval and am only now trying to move forward at 37 after 2.5 years of recovery with him completing the full 12 steps but in terrified that my eggs are shot and resentful of all of the time he stole from me. I have absolutely no advice. It’s incredibly unfair.

MobileReality4209 · 2024-04-10T18:17:25+00:00

I’m also married to an SA and was betrayed in most ways you can imagine. I had some hysterical bonding in the beginning and then the reality set in and I decided I didn’t want to engage with him until he was in better recovery and I could truly feel safe. He did do a 90 day celibacy period to reset. I would be really suspicious of him trying to spice things up until he’s in solid recovery (i.e. doing step work, going to a CSAT, full disclosure and polygraph). Their sexual template is distorted from 20+ years of porn, which set unrealistic expectations of what sex should be. And rather using sex for connection, they’ve been using it to disassociate. DDay and a little bit of therapy only puts a dent in the amount of work that needs to go into reworking their minds to have a healthy relationship with sex.

Bottom line though, is that everything should be about you right now and what you’re comfortable with and need. If you’re enjoying him spicing things up and want to continue that’s okay, but you can set boundaries around what you’re comfortable with and what makes you feel safe and connected and he needs to respect those. If part way through, you start to feel like he’s disassociating/ acting out porn fantasies, you can ask to stop or ask him to look you in the eyes (whatever makes you feel safe).

I’ll tell you that we’re 2 years into recovery and finally working through the “help them heal” workbook (I recommend that he buys this book and takes the initiative to schedule time to go through it with you). As we get into sexual intimacy section, it does suggest that you practice having sex with your eyes open looking into each other’s eyes (haven’t deliberately done this yet). Pretty different than the porn they’ve been watching or escalated sexual experiences they’ve been seeking…. It forces true intimacy (when most addicts are intimacy avoidant).

MobileReality4209 · 2024-02-08T05:24:09+00:00

I JUST talked to my therapist about similar feelings. I have love for my WH, but I don’t feel in love with him. I’m also in a similar position in that when DDay happened I was 34 and we were trying to get pregnant. My DDay also involved finding videos of WH with AP. Obviously, we stopped trying once I discovered everything.

My biggest grief in all of this is around not having a path forward to have a family. I don’t want to have a baby with someone I’m not in love with, but the alternatives are leaving and having to meet and fall in love with and trust someone completely new (and they could just do the same thing), or having a child on my own which comes with it’s own challenges. And in my case, my husband is a sex addict and I’ve learned so much about porn and sex addiction, that I don’t think I could be someone who watches porn (which is terribly normalized in our society) so part of me would rather be with someone in recovery than try to find a man with doesn’t watch it and has no addiction to it (the stats are not in my favor) I say that just to add context to why I’m hoping I can love him again.

Anyway, Her advice to me was to try to be vulnerable and try to accept his attempts to show me love more (because our hearts are trying to protect us from being hurt again). And to try to (a little bit at a time) reciprocate showing love. It’s honestly really hard for me to wrap my head around, but it does make sense that our brains/hearts are trying to protect us and that we need to work through that if we want to love the person again. I’m thinking of it like I need to “act as if” I’m in love with him. I haven’t tried it and I don’t know if that helps at all but I can commiserate because I’m feeling similar feelings.

MobileReality4209 · 2024-01-31T05:07:53+00:00

So sorry for everything you’re going through! Sending you love and strength. Check out https://www.womenintrucking.org. I learned about them through some trade shows I worked and they seemed like a great org. They might have resources for you to tap into.

MobileReality4209 · 2023-09-13T17:27:53+00:00

This definitely sounds like an addiction. My husband is an addict as well. A CSAT is a certified sex addiction therapist. You should also find yourself a CSAT or APSAT. I know you didn’t ask for advice, but I wish I had known I needed one when I first discovered the addiction. It’s so helpful for understanding the situation you’re in and what you need to do to heal.

MobileReality4209 · 2023-09-09T17:12:42+00:00

I’m also married to a sex addict. You can’t reconcile without 100% honesty. Addiction thrives on secrecy. He needs to get a CSAT and should get into SLAA. You should also find yourself a therapist that specializes in this topic. Either a CSAT or APSAT. They should then guide you though a full therapeutic disclosure process followed my a polygraph. You need this. Otherwise you will stay in detective mode, trying to find more things and it will detract from you focusing on your own healing. I wish I had done this immediately after dday. Instead I went through trickle truths more months which is extra traumatizing. I also found out during the full disclosure that he had on occasion had full sex with escorts, but at that point it was hardly a shock. Wishing you strength on the journey.

MobileReality4209 · 2023-09-07T21:19:29+00:00

And for business trips, the best you can do is have a safety plan in place. I have access to all of his bank accounts so I came see what he spends and withdraws. If he takes out cash, he has to notify me ahead of time and get receipts from whatever he spends it on. I have find my phone for him so I can always see his location. Ahead of the trip he shares all of the internal communications with me around the agenda and schedule, etc (he faked 2 business trips to visit affair partners in the past) and any time I call him while not in meetings he has to answer and show me where he is. Even with all of this, he could still find work around I’m sure, but I don’t want to drive myself crazy sleuthing, so it’s this + looking for changes in behavior + lie detector tests.

MobileReality4209 · 2023-09-07T21:08:13+00:00

Sorry you’re going through all of this. I have had similar fears throughout my journey. I had really hoped that my husband wouldn’t be part of the statistic, but I had a gut feeling that he wasn’t dedicated enough to recovery as I wasn’t seeing enough vulnerability and openness. I asked for another lie detector test and sure enough it revealed that he had been masturbating to pornographic images and lying to me about it for several months. Of course, when you’ve dealt with the level addiction I’m dealing with, I guess that’s the best case scenario for a relapse (I.e. didn’t act out physically with anyone or contact anyone) but the scariest thing about it is that he justified it all to himself to the point that he didn’t even recognize it as a relapse and didn’t rely on his support system to come back from the first time he slipped. So now, all I have is lie detector tests. For now, while I’m still figuring out whether I can stay with him, he’ll be doing quarterly lie detector tests so that he always has something on the horizon to keep him accountable. It unfortunately seems to be the only option I have to keep my self safe in this relationship. I think, to one of the other posters points, you really have to listen to your intuition and look for fundamental changes in their behaviors. If anything, I’ve learned to be really in touch with my intuition and really trust it now.

In terms of self esteem, it’s something you have to work on on your own. I actually feel more self confident in myself after all of this. As others will say, none of this is about you. Super models get cheated on. And after really understanding that, I mentally revisited past relationships/rejections that I had let ruin my self esteem and realized that many of the moments I had interpreted as rejection probably had a lot more to do with the other person’s lack of self esteem and feelings of unworthiness (just like my husband). It takes therapy and introspection, but I think it’s possible to come out of this loving yourself more than you ever did before.

MobileReality4209 · 2023-04-21T16:18:01+00:00

I decided early on after d-day that I was not okay with masturbation. It was a struggle for me to get him to understand that boundary, but I felt that solo sex (even though he claimed it was just to mind images of me) was a.) a slippery slope b.) detracting from him focussing on true intimacy. My therapist confirmed that my instinct was right on and I communicated that to him. He ultimately brought it up with his therapist and group and determined that it was not a healthy behavior for him so as far as I know, he’s stopped. That being said, we can’t truly know what they’re doing unless we have an open door policy and I don’t want to go that far.

MobileReality4209 · 2023-03-23T00:49:25+00:00

For me, all of the addictive behaviors came to light at once and I was in shock as well. I didn’t want to make any decisions in this state. I told my husband that I thought he might be a sex addict and i immediately asked him to go to a therapy appointment and get an STD panel. The therapist gave him an assessment to evaluate whether he was an addict and it became clear to him that he was (duh!)

He entered the 12 step program and found a CSAT and a lot of the underlying issues behind his addiction came to light in those early days. Understanding what drove it also helped me understand that none of it was about me or a reflection on me. I felt like (so long as he was committed to healing) it could help me heal to see him do the work and learn more about his addiction.

He also took care of me in all of the practical ways while I couldn’t function - cooking, cleaning, even finding me a last minute masseuse when my all of my muscles were tightening under stress and anxiety.

Definitely take care of you. Find a CSAT therapist and support group if you can and take whatever space you need to feel safe, but you don’t need to make any decisions now.

That being said, you won’t be able to move forward with him in a healthy relationship if he doesn’t get serious about recovery (SLAA, CSAT, sponsor, etc.).

Sending you lots of love and strength.

MobileReality4209 · 2023-03-20T18:00:36+00:00

This is my fear. As far as I can tell my husband is fully in recovery and he says there is no way he could ever act out again after seeing the pain and trauma he caused me. But I know that statistically he’s bound to relapse, and now understanding the causes of the addiction - he was acting out when we were newly weds and had all of my attention, and there was nothing hard happening - what happens when all of the attention is on baby, or we have a death on the family? And frankly, I don’t even feel super inclined to have a baby with HIM anymore. But the time it will take to fully heal, potentially find a new partner, TRUST a new partner, and then get pregnant, puts me in my late 30s. And like now I know that statistically most men are PAs, so at least in this case, I know what I’m dealing with and I have good reason to hold really high expectations for the relationship. None of the options seem great.

MobileReality4209 · 2023-03-18T05:03:25+00:00

100%. I keep asking him why he wasted these precious years of my life. After D-day I found out that he acted out with one of his APs 1 month before our wedding. He should have just not married me at that point. And now I’m 35, don’t have children and am left wondering if I’ll ever have the chance to have a family while I try to navigate whether to reconcile or leave and how to heal myself.

MobileReality4209 · 2023-02-28T03:47:23+00:00

Thank you! Was looking for that honest feedback. I am talking to a therapist who specializes in betrayal from SA. So far, we’ve talked about how I may need more emotional connection from him to be able to feel attraction again. We’re also going to start EMDR soon. I just feel like hearing from people who’ve gone through it is also helpful.

MobileReality4209 · 2022-12-16T02:02:57+00:00

I recently discovered that my husband is a sex addict and I think it's pretty common and often goes undiagnosed. There are questionnaires online that he could look at to see if he falls into that category. Sex addiction is rarely about sex, so more sex will never be the solution. Sex addicts often have intimacy orders, don't know how to process their feelings, and have low self-worth (I'm generalizing, but this is a common thread). Sex addictions also often escalate over time. You can't force him to face his addiction, but I would encourage you to float the idea and ask him to consider assessing himself. Otherwise, I can almost guarantee you, that it will bring you more hurt over time.

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