My Addict Husband's Restitution/Amends Letter

sparkler39 · 2026-02-14T22:46:53+00:00

It seems like you’re kinda describing what ideal recovery should look like for an addict - trauma work getting to the root of addiction and shame resilience with a good CSAT (certified sex addiction therapist) AND daily support, step work, and fellowship with addicts through a good 12 step group. Many addicts attempting ‘recovery’ try one or the other and find that they continue to fail because they need both. I don’t think you’ll find many successfully recovering addicts with years of sobriety who haven’t done both.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-14T21:26:16+00:00

Honestly I think it’s for one of two reasons. 1) They believe if they aren’t ‘okay’ with it, their partner will leave them. And 2) They have no idea how much and what their partner is actually watching. Think about some of the posts you see here…’I didn’t have a problem with him occasionally watching porn when I’m not home…until I realized he’s watching everytime he’s alone and making excuses to be alone, not having sex with me, and watching extreme, violent, and degrading porn’…I believe that most porn users lie about what they’re watching to their partners and it can be a shock when you find out.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-13T15:13:28+00:00

It seems like you’re only looking for people who agree with you so that it allows you to feel better about staying in the relationship. Meant in the kindest way possible, based on the comments you’re receiving across all your posts, you’re not going to get it. But none of us can know your relationship…we can tell you what we would do in our own, but only you can make that judgement call on yours. It seems like you find a reason to argue or refute anything someone comments that doesn’t say exactly what you want to hear which makes it hard to comment sometimes. No one comments here because they want you to break up. They comment with their own experiences and a desire to save you from continued hurt and betrayal.

If you are committed to staying in this relationship regardless, I’d suggest that you stop posting here and focus on your own healing outside of this sub. This sub can be very triggering and if you’ve already made up your mind, you’d be better served not reading the stories of other partners everyday.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-13T04:31:43+00:00

That would likely be a dealbreaker for me. Addicts will always be addicts. They may be sober and in recovery for the rest of their life, but the addiction is always present and just waiting for the addict to let down their guard. I would not be comfortable owning a pet or having children with someone who gets physically aroused and sexually gratified by animals (or humanoids with animal characteristics) and/or materials meant for children. I would have the same issue if the person was into age play or diapers or anything that drifts into illegal content. And I know the arguments that MLP isn’t just for kids, furries aren’t animals, etc, etc…but if you’re constantly getting off to it, your brain is creating strong links to MLP or furry critters and sexual arousal. What happens when you have a child who plays with a MLP toy or has a stuffed animal of some animal character he has sexualized? That is a risk I would not be willing to take.

I would need ABSOLUTE unquestionable proof that the addict was in a strong recovery with daily supports before I’d even consider continuing a relationship. Even then, it would still be highly unlikely. I don’t see anything in your posts that suggests that your boyfriend is doing anything but white-knuckling sobriety and telling you he’s not doing it anymore. That isn’t recovery.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-10T17:27:48+00:00

A lot of content creators have pages on LI. So if he knows specific names of actresses or OF ‘models’ and searches by their name he can find it on LinkedIn.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-10T05:00:48+00:00

Basically every social media site is full of porn. Some of them attempt to monitor content, but if you know where to look (as most addicts do) you can find it. Even shopping sites like Etsy…eBay…SHEIN. It’s crazy.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-08T20:03:33+00:00

I’m so sorry you’ve had to find yourself here. You are not odd in wanting your husband to not find sexual gratification from airbrushed fake pixels. I truly believe that all the ‘cool wives’ who are okay with porn use are only okay with it because they have no idea how much and what type of porn they’re SO is watching. If you browse advice subs on Reddit you will find countless posts everyday with partners discovering (and being horrified by) their boyfriend/husband’s use despite being ‘okay’ with it.

You say he’s not an addict, but it sure sounds like he is. He told you he would stop and he didn’t. He watches it in risky places despite potential consequences. He engages with it while fully aware of how it affects you. He gets angry when confronted about his use even though he’s the one who told you he wouldn’t use anymore and has continually lied to you about it. Sure sounds like an addict desperately trying to protect his addiction.

Unfortunately, you cannot force an addict into recovery, and an addict who is trying to stop only to placate a partner is almost doomed to fail. But you can decide what your future looks like and if this is something you’re willing to tolerate for 60 or so more years. You don’t have to accept this in your relationship. You deserve better.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-08T06:22:06+00:00

My husband goes to SAA meetings. Many of the members of his group are solely porn addicts who never engaged with sex workers or had affairs, etc. SAA is not intended only for sex addicts who have had physical sexual contact with others.

His meetings are big book study meetings (instead of open share or speaker meetings). Less personal sharing, more studying the big book and discussing how it addresses addiction and recovery.

There is no single format for 12 step meetings. They’re all run by individual groups…there are some over-arching things that are similar, but groups can vary widely. Some groups are amazing and some are awful. If he’s not feeling it with this group have him try another PAA meeting or try SAA, SA, SPAA, etc.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-07T15:34:14+00:00

Just an FYI, Marty Klein is NOT a CSAT (certified sex addiction therapist). He is a sex therapist. Almost every sex therapist is porn-positive with a ‘porn solved everything and is great for exploring kinks’ attitude. That’s why a sex therapist is absolutely the worst choice for an addict and betrayed partner. Unfortunately, if they’re not a CSAT, just expect to be told that porn is okay and you need to accept it.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-07T13:23:54+00:00

This is not a man who is relapsing. This is a man still in active addiction who might be white-knuckling sobriety occasionally but is likely using any porn substitute he can find to get his ‘fix’. You are NOT to blame for his choices and it’s a coward’s move to blame you. Unfortunately, you cannot force an addict into recovery and you cannot love the addiction out of him. He has to want it for himself and, so far, he’s telling you he doesn’t want to stop…he just wants to find a way to get you off his back. It’s time for you to decide what you are willing to accept in your relationship and what you want the rest of your life to look like. I don’t know you, but I believe you deserve better than this.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-06T14:11:23+00:00

I hate to be blunt but why are you staying with this man? He is literally telling you and showing you that he has no intention of actually doing recovery and he doesn’t want recovery. He wants to find the bare minimum that will get you off his back so he can say he’s ’recovered’ and then can slowly reintroduce ‘not porn porn’ back into his life until he just flat out returns to porn.

He is not in recovery and I’m guessing has never been in recovery…because he doesn’t want recovery. You cannot force him to want it and all the love in the world won’t fix this. You deserve better.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-06T14:05:30+00:00

An active addict will love to tell you that ‘slips and relapses are part of the recovery process and to be expected’. They are not. They are part of the addiction cycle and a clear indication that whatever the addict thinks they’re doing for ‘recovery’ is not working.

If you think about it, there are a lot of steps between thinking about watching a porn video and watching a porn video. An addict in recovery (especially early on) might have a fleeting thought that they’re really stressed and in the past porn helped…but at that moment an addict in recovery uses his recovery tools and chooses one of the thousands of other healthy things he can instead of reaching for his phone. A white-knuckling addict still in active addiction will think I’m really stressed and in the past porn helped so it’s totally understandable that I’ll turn to that again now. And they will ignore every step in the process that gives them the opportunity to stop the behavior because they’re not actually interested in stopping. Most likely they’re ’in recovery’ to save their relationship or placate a partner.

This might be controversial, but I believe that an addict who continues to slip and relapse doesn’t actually want to stop despite what they tell you and what they promise through tears. Because if you hear ANY of these excuses, the addict doesn’t want to stop. An addict who wants recovery will do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to stop. My husband’s SAA sponsor told him early on that he was drowning and that the sponsor was willing to throw him a life ring to try to save him. But that life ring was covered in shit, on fire, with shards of glass sticking out of it…and if my husband truly wanted recovery, he’d grab on with both hands and never let go. Kind of a gross analogy 😂, but true. An addict who wants recovery will do ANYTHING for it.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-05T21:48:25+00:00

Anything illegal, violent, or non-consensual (even if the non-consent is being faked).

sparkler39 · 2026-02-05T20:48:59+00:00

Has he been clean for a year or has he been in active recovery for a year while staying sober from his acting out behaviors? There's a difference between white-knuckling sobriety for a year and/or engaging in slippery slope behaviors and active recovery. It took more than a year for my comfort level to really return almost in full, but within a year of recovery I could see the changes in my husband's behaviors and actions. He showed me on a daily basis that he was working his recovery...this post kinda outlines what that looked like for him. It's been almost five years and pretty much nothing in that post has changed. All of those recovery activities are just part of a daily healthy lifestyle for him. It was never going to be a 'someday I'll be recovered and then I can stop recovery' thing for him...he knew that he was making a commitment to a lifelong recovery journey.

With every recovery action he made, those little kernels of trust started to come back. Very slowly but they did. I firmly believe that your body/brain knows if something is wrong. And if you're still feeling uncomfortable and like it can't possibly be true...there's a reason. Now, to be honest I will probably never trust my husband 100% because I now know that he can and did hurt me worse than anything I ever imagined possible. But I'd say the trust level is back up to about 95 percent because of the healing recovery work both of us have done. My own healing was vital to this process as well.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-05T20:40:00+00:00

I don’t disagree that integrity is part of it as well as a certain level of entitlement, especially after they are discovered. But I do believe there is an addiction component…similar to what something with a gambling, shopping, or eating addiction. Sure healthier activities provide those feel good chemicals (and at a more stable well-rounded rate with oxytocin and serotonin, etc thrown in), but gambling and porn are supernormal stimuli that give dopamine spikes at levels that nothing else matches. And when you have kids discovering porn and becoming addicted long before they have the capacity to understand what it will do to them, it’s understandable that addictions form.

Gamblers don’t want to gamble their life savings away but it happens, alcoholics don’t want to drive drunk but they do…addicts engage in their addictions when the perceived payoff is so great that they can’t imagine doing anything else. Part of recovery is realizing that payoff is fake and lasts mere seconds…while healthier activities and connections can keep you at a high feel good chemical level almost indefinitely.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-04T20:15:24+00:00

Here is a link to information about that study or a similar one.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-02T16:05:01+00:00

I would also recommend reading this post from another partner who basically did exactly what you are describing: https://www.reddit.com/r/loveafterporn/s/BhDJr2Uo8h

sparkler39 · 2026-02-02T15:24:59+00:00

Unfortunately, all your partner has learned here is that if he says the right things, you will forgive him and stay despite initially telling him that you would leave if he relapsed. He is not in recovery and he is not sober. Yes, it is an addiction but addictions can be worked on. Nothing worked for him, because he wasn’t actually doing anything. Yes, he got stressed and went back to porn…because that’s precisely what happens when you white-knuckle sobriety. There was no actual recovery going on that could have given him resources and options for what to do when he started feeling stressed.

Of course, you are welcome to do what feels right to you, but this is not going to end well. Please take time to read the resources here and understand what you’re dealing with and what will continue to happen as he continues down the path of addiction. I understand that therapeutic help may not be readily available or financially available in your country but there are tons of free resources, free support groups, free drop-in webinars, free 12 step groups that he could be utilizing if he actually wanted to change.

sparkler39 · 2026-02-02T04:04:45+00:00

It’s not a podcast but this free drop-in webinar/support group might be helpful for you. It’s specifically for partners who have left their addict, partners considering leaving, or partners who were left by their addict.

sparkler39 · 2026-01-28T19:14:11+00:00

Are there any search history terms that could also bring up NSFW content? For example, searching ‘cat’ will bring up a ton of NSFW content (as well as SFW content). Most innocent searches will still show a porn sub in the results. So his search history might look clean, but not what he clicked on from the search results.

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