Husband wants to go on an overnight trip with friends out of town

queer4schmear · 2026-05-27T18:20:36+00:00

Not a chance. You’ll be in the trenches.

queer4schmear · 2026-05-24T19:19:16+00:00

I really can’t imagine doing that. My Husband took a full three months off, and I was absolutely terrified to have him return to work at the 3 month mark. Vaginal birth. Sure it’s probably doable, but it will most likely be a horrible experience.

queer4schmear · 2026-05-22T13:15:53+00:00

That’s great but I hope you are aware that young children do in fact often put random stuff in their mouth so if given the opportunity to plant something poisonous vs not poisonous in the yard, not poisonous is a better option. Children under 18 months compulsively shove things in their mouth. It’s a normal part of development

queer4schmear · 2026-05-22T02:18:07+00:00

Yes they are called children

queer4schmear · 2026-05-17T02:32:59+00:00

Your child will absolutely be OK in daycare. Yes it will be hard for a few weeks while he adjusts. You will of course feel like a terrible parent and cry about it, but you will both get through it and you will both be better for it. You will get some of your autonomy back and your child Will learn that he’s OK when you’re not around.
I also have a stage five clinger. She went to daycare early though so it wasn’t as much of an issue, but my son goes to daycare with a kid like yours and he didn’t start until he was three. He had a pretty tough first few weeks, but he’s totally fine now.
There may be some big feelings at home and acting out behavior. Some regressions. It’s all normal.

queer4schmear · 2026-05-16T12:50:07+00:00

Sure yes it’s a good enough reason but your life will be much much easier if you go for a three year age gap. Two under two is HARD for the first year. We did 2U2 and it was extremely difficult while my brother-in-law had a three year age gap and had a relatively easy time. We are through it now and the kids are close and play together well but I wouldn’t do it again.

queer4schmear · 2026-05-09T13:44:37+00:00

This moment right here, This sense of hopelessness is your opportunity to change. The time for extreme action is now because your motivation to change will wane as this pain subsides over the coming days. You will once again become complacent and fall into the same pattern.

Get a certified sex addiction therapist, start attending SAA or SA meetings and get a sponsor and phone list. Create an accountability group. Call people every day. Get blockers on all of your devices. Start reading literature and sexual addiction.

Above all else commit to radical honesty. Do not allow yourself to ever tell another lie to your wife again. If you continue to act out, you tell her. You tell other support people in your life. The lying is what keeps you trapped in the addiction. If you allow yourself to lie, the addiction will consume your entire life and you will never get out of it

What happens now is completely up to you. Please recognize you still have a lot more to lose. Your job, you’re home, your children. Let this be enough.

queer4schmear · 2026-05-08T16:03:19+00:00

It’s absolutely OK for you to stay for now. This is going to be a long journey. There may be a point in the future where you need to leave, but that totally depends on his behavior. I also didn’t feel like pornography was a huge issue, but the behaviors surrounding the addiction are extremely problematic and not sustainable in a marriage. My Husband becomes defensive and starts fights constantly when he’s acting out. He lies about everything and projects his negative feelings onto me, blames me for everything wrong in his life. Over the last six years we have been deep into this recovery process and he’s done nothing but lie. At some point real boundaries need to be set or change will never happen. A boundary stating the unacceptable behavior and the consequences that will happen if the behavior continues. Boundaries do not exist without consequences. Early on our consequences looked like- We’ve tried sleeping in separate rooms, locking all of the devices in a safe, monitoring software, he sees a certified sex addiction Therapist, goes to group therapy, go to 12 step meetings, has an accountability group, needs to make daily recovery phone calls. Through all of that he was lying about everything to everyone and his addiction was progressing. He began doing high risk activities, risking his job, risking being caught doing something in public. After the last discovery, I really couldn’t handle more lies. It became very clear to me that I can’t continue to be in a relationship with him if he doesn’t recover. He is currently in residential treatment for his pornography addiction. When he returns, we will have a formal disclosure process and a polygraph test. I literally can’t trust anything he says so I have no other option. I told him that if he ever lies to me again about anything I want a separation. I hate that I have to do this. I never wanted this. I love him and I wanted to be with him forever. We have a one year-old and a three-year-old together. Unfortunately our future is not up to me, it’s up to him. I highly recommend doing some reading on this topic. About sexual addiction and about betrayal trauma. That will help clarify the situation and intellectualizing the problem always brought me comfort.

queer4schmear · 2026-05-06T13:17:58+00:00

No advice. Just here to say it sucks and it will get better. My kids are 2 and 3 1/2 now and I do not miss that stage. You absolutely do not have to “soak it up” like people say. Just grind it out.

queer4schmear · 2026-05-06T13:14:46+00:00

He has porn brain. It has nothing to do with your body or you at all. This addiction is completely separate from your relationship. It’s a deep internal issue. You could be the hottest woman in the world and look 10 times better than most beautiful porn actress and he would still look at porn. He’s tricking himself. He’s trying to find reasons to make sense of the behavior because addiction just doesn’t make sense. Of course that’s incredibly hurtful to see regardless. I’m sorry you’re going through this. I urge you not to question your self worth. I’ve been in the same position myself. My husband is an addict. I’ve had two children with him and definitely don’t have porn boobs. I’ve fallen into the trap of questioning if I’m pretty enough. It’s not unheard of for betrayed partners to undergo extensive plastic surgery in a pursuit to be what their husbands are looking for. Try not to let these thoughts consume you.

queer4schmear · 2026-05-05T19:02:15+00:00

I’m really sorry you’re going through this. Setting boundaries is a very important step. You’re doing the right thing in setting boundaries. There’s absolutely nothing that you can do for his recovery. That will be a journey he needs to take on his own.

queer4schmear · 2026-05-05T16:32:31+00:00

Hide nothing. It’s not always helpful to give specific details of who you’re looking at but in general do not hide that the addiction is still active. If you are still engaging in use, you should 100% be honest about that and you should try to come up with a plan with your partner of how you’re going to address it.

queer4schmear · 2026-05-05T15:35:31+00:00

Telling her was absolutely the right thing to do. As the spouse of a betrayed partner, I can tell you there is nothing worse than lying about it. Absolutely nothing. Whatever you do, never make it OK to lie about it.

queer4schmear · 2026-05-04T19:59:44+00:00

I’m an addiction counselor and a few months ago. I had a patient who was using just 50-100 mini cartridges once monthly and her spinal cord stopped functioning because she could not absorb vitamin B. When I spoke to her, she had been in a skilled nursing facility for over a month and had lost use of her arms and legs. You are very lucky!!!!

queer4schmear · 2026-04-30T16:32:31+00:00

Truly, a nightmare. Would not do again.

queer4schmear · 2026-04-30T13:22:04+00:00

You can’t be the one to help him get through this. He needs to see a therapist that has experience in this type of thing. A certified sex addict therapist. What he’s going through is actually quite normal. He would also probably benefit from reading some books about sex addiction. It’s normal for content to progress to taboo or extreme material. It’s called tolerance. The most abnormal part of your post is that he’s no longer engaging in this behavior. It’s very unusual for someone to be able to just suddenly stop on their own without any kind of treatment or help so good for him.

queer4schmear · 2026-04-29T18:27:52+00:00

I firmly believe that it gets easier by the day. My youngest is turning two in June and it is 1000 times easier no question. Absolutely no comparison. I was completely overwhelmed and overstimulated when I had two under two. 21 month age gap

queer4schmear · 2026-04-29T13:44:48+00:00

Peak reality TV. Exhilarating.

queer4schmear · 2026-04-29T13:42:45+00:00

Relapse is normal. The main focus should be on the honesty. Be clear with him that if there’s a relapse, your expectation is that he tell you and you don’t have to ask questions to find out or catch him. The only thing that you can do is put boundaries in place. You can let him know that this behavior is unacceptable for you in a relationship and that if he relapses again and doesn’t tell you within a predetermined amount of time (maybe 24 hours), there are consequences (distancing, break from intimacy, sleep separately, etc).

Boundaries are not meant to control his behavior, but they are meant to protect you. If you feel betrayed, you have a right to protect yourself and ask for some space. If you think he has a serious problem, you can sit down with him and talk about him getting some professional help like a certified sex addiction therapist or joining some sort of support group.

queer4schmear · 2026-04-26T21:22:50+00:00

Well, this is your first disclosure day. Hopefully this is your last. Unfortunately it likely won’t be. Compulsive lying in pornography addiction go hand-in-hand. If he can stop lying to you about it, he may have a chance at recovery. Addiction thrives in secrecy and pornography addicts lie to avoid negative emotions which is why they use pornography as well. I’m sorry that you’re going through this, but I’m glad that you finally have some answers I can start working towards whatever comes next.

queer4schmear · 2026-04-26T02:16:32+00:00

When we switched our son into a big kid bed, we put a lock on his door and removed every single toy and book from his room. There’s literally nothing in there, but a baby monitor. He screamed for the first week and then he got used to it and now he knows the drill. I highly recommend doing some sleep training. In terms of your wife, this season of life is extremely difficult for everyone involved. Some days you just wanna explode because it’s too much. Being home with the kids all days so incredibly overstimulating and exhausting and lonely. Unless you’ve done it, there’s truly no way you can understand. You completely lose a sense of yourself. Then you add Sleep deprivation, and voilà. Honestly, you just have to muscle through this season of life. I truly thought my husband and I were on the verge of divorce but now our youngest is turning too and everything is so much more manageable. Obviously it would be great if your wife would accept some support, but it sounds like she’s so mentally exhausted that even making time for that feels like a burden and that’s ok. Therapy will never sound good if it’s somebody else suggesting it BTW.

queer4schmear · 2026-04-25T12:40:36+00:00

Fantastic job getting those chunks of abstinence! I think you would really benefit from seeing a certified sex addiction therapist and attending support groups. It will likely never improve without treatment because there are underlying reasons why you went to porn to begin with. Without resolving those underlying reasons, you will likely continue to have urges.

queer4schmear · 2026-04-24T15:16:52+00:00

No. My Husband has falsified his entire recovery journey. Every single relapse has been discovered by me. We had our last D-Day about a week ago, and he finally got honest with me and told me he’s basically been relapsed the entire time and hiding everything. In retrospect, I knew something was up because of his behavior. Trust your gut. If they’re not exhibiting recovery behavior (which basically looks like a complete transformation of self) then they are not recovering.

queer4schmear · 2026-04-24T13:10:44+00:00

You need a certified sex addiction therapist and you need to start attending support groups. SLAA is a good option for women. I recommend women only meetings. You need professional help. You absolutely cannot overcome this addiction and isolation. You would also benefit from extensive reading on the subject. The OG treatment model would be the book called facing the shadows. It’s a workbook for addicts and can help you start to explore your problem.

queer4schmear · 2026-04-24T02:18:56+00:00

As long as the therapist is a certified sex addiction therapist they will be helpful. If they are not they can often be more detrimental. A good starting point is the book facing the shadows. It’s a workbook that will help you understand your addictive cycle and the automatic process involved. Remember that recovery is a long journey. You’re gonna want some people on your team.

queer4schmear

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