Journal Entry: February 26, 2014

Things with my therapist are not going well. I have cancelled an appointment with her and have no intention of going back. She wants me to leave “Ted Bundy,” I mean “B.” She was completely freaked out by my self harm and thinks staying with my husband is just one big, fat trigger. She may be correct, but it is really her approach more than anything else that is turning me off. Perhaps she is the victim of a cheater, and things didn’t work out for her so she doesn’t see things working out for anyone. I don’t really know, but she clearly does not believe either the sex addiction diagnosis, or the possibility that B can recover. Or she doesn’t think I will make it through even if he does recover. I actually have no idea what the deal is, but I am pretty committed to staying in my marriage for now. All the books say give it a year. Even though that seems like a crazy long time considering how miserable I am, I’m going to give it my best try… a year.

I’ll give him a year.

Both my husband and I are frantically scouring our city for reputable sex addiction therapists, couples therapists familiar with sex addiction, and finally, someone who has a mediated therapy group for wives of sex addicts. There is this “war” going on in the sex addiction community (at least from what I have seen so far in my research) regarding whether the partners of sex addicts are co-dependents (old school: i.e., generally aware of and enabling the acting out behavior, they most likely grew up in an addictive home and chose the addict because of it and there are 12-step groups for this, such as S-Anon) and the trauma model (new), which basically says the spouse is suffering a form of PTSD from the shock of the discovery of their partner’s betrayal. I refuse to even acknowledge the co-dependent model as there is no way I am taking responsibility for my husband’s disease. I did not know he was a sex addict, I did not know he was cheating, I did not encourage his behavior in any way, and I will not be blamed and I will not enter a 12-step group that forces me to acknowledge I am partly to blame for his sexual exploits. This week we were both referred to sex addiction specialists. I will start next week with a woman who specializes in the trauma model for spouses of sex addicts and has a support group starting up next month. A group of women whose husband’s have recently been diagnosed as sex addicts. I am hopeful that this group will be helpful to me and that I will not feel so alone. I hate the fact that there are other women suffering the way I am, but maybe we can help each other stand strong. B starts up with his new therapist on Friday. We are optimistic.

B received a clean bill of health from the STD clinic. We are grateful for that.

Good news/bad news for me at the doctor’s office when I went in for my testing/check up. No STD’s, but it seems I now have a stress-induced heart murmur, high blood pressure and elevated blood sugars.

And the “fun” never ends.