You Are Not Alone

For years after I discovered that my husband had an sexual addition I felt so isolated, so alone. I didn't want to talk to anyone because I was too embarrassed, too ashamed. It felt taboo to bring it up to anyone, so for years I suffered silently and alone. The one thing I want you to understand if you are the  addict or the spouse of the addict, or maybe even both, you are NOT alone. There is a whole community out there waiting to support you and help you walk this road to recovery.

I'm not going to try and tell you it will be easy to pour your heart out and expose the dark underbelly of your relationship, because if it was we wouldn't be writing this anonymously. The shame is still there, the difference is that we are learning to work through it. Well, we are trying to learn how to work through it anyway.

Addiction is a disease, it's not something you can just "quit" on your own, you need support, you need understanding, you need love. Please don't be afraid to reach out. I will never forget the first time I shared this with anyone. We had been married probably 15 years by then. I had spent the entire weekend with a friend and kept feeling like I needed to tell her. It took me clear until Sunday afternoon to share with her. I told her that I didn't know why I felt I needed to share with her but she thought it was so that I had someone I could talk to. I'll never forget the text I got the following Wednesday that she had found pornography in the history of their computer. We had several conversations that day. Her stomach was in knots and her heart hurt with the anxiety she was feeling. That night after confronting her husband, he confessed that he had looked that one time out of curiosity but that it hadn't happened again and to my knowledge it hasn't. That was about four years ago or maybe a little longer, and that experience has still stuck with me. I knew on that Wednesday why I had shared our story with her, it was so she wasn't alone and so she had someone to talk to.  It has made it a little less frightening since then, to share our story at other times when I have felt inspired to do so.

If I could tell you anything, it would be find someone you trust that you can talk to. You'd be surprised how many times it turns out that you have this in common. I have only met one person in recent memory, who didn't have a story to share with me about how pornography has had an effect on their family in some way or another. I am willing to bet that she just doesn't know how it has impacted those close to her.

I believe that pornography is a plague that is corrupting our society so insidious and so covert that it is infecting our society faster than we can comprehend. There is not one sector of our society that is immune regardless of race, religion, socioeconomic status, marital status or age. It does not discriminate. Please just open up to someone that you trust. Let them listen, let them care and let your healing begin.

With a more hopeful heart,

T.