Oh Shugabee, I’m so sorry!!!
My husband does the same thing, tells me it’s his fault and he’s " sick" than the next day its my fault because we don’t do it often enough… Know how much I want to be available for that when I know he’s thinking of the girls I saw on his phone??? Yeah, right! Then when it doesn’t happen for a few days he alludes to me needing to do it or be might be tempted. Feels like blackmail! The sad part, I don’t trust him at all, its crushing because a month ago this time in my ignorant bliss, I thought he hung the moon… In my eyes now, he is a liar, sneaking around, cheating, being a deceitful pervert. And in society’s eyes I shouldn’t worry because he’s coming home to me. Pfffffft! Gee great, he’s getting all hot n bothered elsewhere and masturbating to save me the trouble of what used to be an intimate and holy relation. The marital act for me has been gutted. I feel like nothing more than a tool for his pleasure.
I’m especially owly about him today because he got blackout, throw up on yourself, drunk over the weekend at my company Christmas party and made a fool out of both of us in front of all of my coworkers. He binges like that several times a year, its caused many huge fights, once in a while its even physical. That little stunt served him with his second ultimatum in a months time. I love him without question but damn, sometimes he’s hard to like! I went to confession about my part all this and all the orher things its caused me to do and found myself bawling in the confessional, pouring my heart out, and that’s never happened before. I feel a little bit better, now. I just feel, like you, that the end might be coming for us. I would give my life to save our marriage but it takes 2. I can’t do it if he doesn’t want to try. That and for the first time in our marriage I feel like I could’ve done better.
I am so sorry.
I want to second another poster’s suggestion to get to an Al-Anon meeting. Even in the middle of nowhere, there’s usually one going on; Google will help, or, barring that, contact the national office. (I once really needed a meeting when visiting my parents in their small town, population 1000 people, and found one in a neighboring small town twenty minutes away.)
You can’t control him, but you can learn to handle your feelings in a way that will be constructive both for you and your relationship, whatever might happen with that. Mind you, it’s perfectly okay to feel betrayed and hurt and angry–I’m not saying it isn’t! I’m saying that staying “stuck” in those feelings won’t do anyone any good,
especially you.
Seriously. Look up the nearest meeting, and go. Then go again in a few days, or the next week. It’ll help you cope with both the drinking and the pornography. They’re both addictions, and both connected to dysfunctional behavior.
As to the idea that women wouldn’t tolerate a group of men supporting each other–well, I can’t speak for everyone else here, but I can say this. When I run into an issue with my husband that isn’t being resolved between us, I take it to a very close friend who is a) Catholic, b) has a Catholic understanding of marriage (read: in the best marriages, there are at least little ups and downs, and that’s no reason to divorce), and c) will neither bring the subject up again nor hold it against my husband when she sees him. She’s been married for rather longer than I have, so between her faith and understanding and the fact that she has a really good marriage, she has solid perspective on Catholic marriage. In several situations, she’s given me solid advice on how to approach something that has built our marriage up. She’s not afraid to pull punches, and I appreciate that: if I’m acting badly, she’ll tell me so, or if what I’m saying is coming across as critical or harsh when I don’t mean to, ditto.
I find this particularly helpful because I don’t have any family role models for marriage; my parents stuck together, but they hated each other, and they used us kids as weapons. This marriage and parenthood thing is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life; it’s like re-inventing the wheel daily because I really don’t know what’s good and normal, only what I don’t want to do. Totally worth it, but really hard, and having someone give me pointers along the way when I need them (she never offers advice unless it’s specifically asked for) has been very helpful indeed.
DH doesn’t seem to need this tool, probably in part because he grew up in a very solid, functional family. However, if he did, I’d rather he go to, say, another married Catholic guy with a good perspective on marriage and say “Hey, this is going on, how can we work on it constructively?” than either get resentful at me or let the issue simmer until it explodes and really does damage our marriage. Wouldn’t hold it against him at all, providing that he, like I do, picked someone who’s discreet and sensible. Sometimes you need another perspective on things, and that’s okay! None of us should be expected to figure out everything by ourselves.
