Brian and I have now decided to become separated. I really don't know what this means yet. I don't know how to feel about this either. I know that it will be hard for both of us but the distance that we have literally between us should help some. I feel lost inside. I feel like there is no one out there who knows what I am going through. I cant talk to any of my friends about the separation or what he has done because of the judgement that both he and I would face. I don't want my loved ones to know. He is a good man who has made some very poor choices and now has to face to consequences.
I need him to know how much he has hurt me and everyone around him. I am scared to have children with him. I never thought that Brian could potently prey after our own children. Having children is something that is really important to me and I need to figure out if there is any possibility that he might get better and be able to have our children.
My whole family is pushing me to divorce him. I don't know what to do or who to turn to for help. He has been banished from the family, never to visit, never to talk, never to see them. Its really hard to think that there will never be a family portrait with him in it. There will never be Christmas at my dads. There will be no birthday celebrations with him there. How do I pull through this? How do I place enough attention on Brian who did this to himself and my family who has done nothing?
I don't know what to do....
I need him to know how much he has hurt me and everyone around him. I am scared to have children with him. I never thought that Brian could potently prey after our own children. Having children is something that is really important to me and I need to figure out if there is any possibility that he might get better and be able to have our children.
My whole family is pushing me to divorce him. I don't know what to do or who to turn to for help. He has been banished from the family, never to visit, never to talk, never to see them. Its really hard to think that there will never be a family portrait with him in it. There will never be Christmas at my dads. There will be no birthday celebrations with him there. How do I pull through this? How do I place enough attention on Brian who did this to himself and my family who has done nothing?
I don't know what to do....
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5 comments:
Wow...how horrible!
Have you asked about prior happenings? Has he been with young girls before? Did it start out as something different and progress to this? Ask some questions because you need far more information. I would be deeply concerned.
Check out books by Patrick Carnes and go to the SA website. Also too, look at recoverynation.com.
Susie, my heart aches for you. I'll also recommend some literature: Mending A Shattered Heart by Stephanie Carnes has a chapter about pedophilia. It's often more complicated than you can imagine. Your husband is very, very sick right now and needs help. Is he part of a 12-step group? Is he going to therapy?
Also, it's very important to take care of yourself. I like attending S-Anon meetings, but there's also COSA. If you're interested, a lot of bloggers in this corner of the Internet are members of an online support group called The Junky's Wives Club. You can find it at:
http://jwclub.ning.com
There's a sub-group called Sex Addict Codies that could be very helpful.
More hugs to you.
--Margaux
Willow- There were no prior happenings and he realizes that he is sick and needs help. He wants to get better. This was his first attempt but I will make him do a lie detector test just to make sure. Thank you for all your help.
Margauxmeade- He is currently part of a 12 step program going 1-3 times a week and we are working on finding him a place for therapy. When I get back to the states I am planning on attending SA meetings myself and am planning on joining that online group that you are talking about. Thank you for all your help and support.
Susie,
When my husband and i first got preggers, it was accidental and less than a year after we realized he was addicted to porn. I didn't tell him this until years later, but there were a few months of the pregnancy in which I was sick over the idea that the addiction could possibly morph into inappropriate attentions to the child. I did consider having an abortion and pretending it was a miscarriage. However, his addiction to porn is based on his discomfort with intimacy with women, grown women. I have seen hundreds of the images with which he has gratified himself and every single jpeg was of women, over 21, and more of the Playboy centerfold variety than of the Hustler, Penthouse, or fetish variety. His taste in porn did not lessen his addiction, nor did it lessen the pain it has caused in our marriage. Likewise, it did not shorten his journey in recovery nor eased his struggle for sobriety.
But, he did not need to overcome pedophilia. Nor would I have stayed with him if he had had an eye for even just the "Barely Legal" set, much less minors. i was raped when I was 6, and I would probably have mutilated him if he was inclined to view children as sexual objects.
You are not even legally allowed to drink because you are but 20, yet he needs even younger females to satisfy his sexual appetites? Pedophilia is not an illness that improves with time, and it is a different illness than sex addiction. The vast majority of sex addicts are not pedophiles, but pedophiles are also sex addicts in that their behavior is compulsive, constantly escalating to feed the stronger appetite, and cares not for the consequences of their behavior on themselves or those they pursue, neglect, and abuse. His bold and overt attempts to lure your sisters into sexual activity -drinking, porn, and stripping, are absurdly strong indicators that this is not his first foray into "grooming" his prey. His encouragement of your 3 1/2 month departure may have been spurred in part by his desire for a window of opportunity to act out. MPJ (if you're reading, Mary, I hope I'm relating this concept properly), would agree that the fact that he got caught in such a lurid activity is proof positive that this action is far from his first. Sort of like Gov. Spitzer from NY who got busted for using the call girl. The fact that he got busted for a sexual act that had such outrageously negative consequences is the only indication needed to show that it was not his first toe-dipping into the water. NO ONE, jumps into the freezing cold lake of pedophilia and sex addiction butt naked their first time out. They dip a toe to see how it feels; they wade in to their ankles to see if they'll get caught; they walk up to chest level to see if their pulmonary organs give out if they push the envelope a little further. Each step makes them more comfortable with the next one. Each move makes them hungrier for the next.
Your husband did not go from humming along, "doot da doot da doo" one day, to texting his 13 year old sisters-in-law to see if they would let him screw them the next.
I don't mean to sound hurtful, Susie. I can assure you that I have an incredibly compassionate heart and my hand is extending to yours across the oceans of Space and the internet with each letter typed. I am being bold and blunt in my language b/c you keep writing that you don't know what to do. These are your decisions to make. I am certainly not capable of making them for you. But I can inform you. I can share all of the knowledge I have garnered from my 9 years of recovery with my SA husband. I can tell you everything I know about pedophiles and their acting out patterns and how they differ from the typical SA. I can share in the hopes that when you do make your decisions, they will be better-informed decisions.
I remember being 20 very clearly. It was an incredibly formative year for me. Your shoulders are not strong enough to carry this burden on your own. This is too much for those who even have twice the life years of experience as you do, and the fact that you are writing and reaching out speaks volumes as to your level of maturity and intelligence. How you found this little neighborhood in the blogosphere in such a short time also says so much about your real desire for support and commitment to "doing the right thing right", as my dad used to say. You should be proud of yourself for reaching out so soon after you have fallen into this quicksand. And as you learn to stand again (I'm assuming you are often crumpled on the floor in the fetal position as most of us were when we discovered our husbands had a "little problem"), you will be astonished that you had the fortitude to separate from Brian. This was a solid decision given the fact that he is?/was? headed down a steep hill of illegal actions that would have permanently damaged two young girls in unbelievable ways.
I read so many layers into the post immediately after this one. First, your mom passed away as a consequence of her secret addiction to OxyContin. Please accept my condolences. I am so sorry for your loss and for the barrage of emotional nastiness that has followed your mom's death. My husband's grampa did the same companion-seeking-months-after-grama-(wife of 50 years)-died program that your dad did. He also married a younger woman, although it was her 57 to his 77. It's actually not that uncommon, especially with older men. What is uncommon is the uncomfortable bit about him seeking out women so young. You sounded a bit grossed out that he was dating/looking for girls 3 years older than you. That would have grossed me out, too. Those two pieces to the puzzle of your family of origin could be helpful to you as you seek your way out of this awful maze. Being the child of an addict, however closeted, affects one's sense of emotional reality. Or in recovery parlance, sets you up big time for co-dependent behavior in future relationships. Your dad's eye for younger women (not not not saying underage) may have also subconsciously influenced your choice in Brian as a life partner. You may have felt a sense of normalcy in him that others would not have accepted.
Lastly, it sounds like your relationship with your soon to be mother-in-law, MIL, is incredibly difficult. Putting her evilness aside for a second, just a second cuz' it sounds like she is a piece of work, imagine that if you are now worried about the mere possibility of your husband molesting your as-yet un-conceived children years down the road, how much your soon-to-be MIL must be freaked out that your husband was making every plan and advance to molest her daughter-the child she carried for nine months and has nurtured from helpless infancy to her current life stage as a very young teenager just starting puberty. This girl's hormones may just be reaching a stage that would technically make her a fertile woman. Her mom is just coming to terms w/ the fact that her little girl is growing up. Soon-to-be MIL probably feels like someone has pulled her aorta our her left nostril with the discovery that a family member was grooming daughter for sexual activity.
She cannot tell you what to do or make ultimatums on your future actions. She can certainly tell Brian what to do b/c he has violated family, legal, and trust boundaries, however, you are not him. You most certainly did not cause this mess and I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that you wouldn't have married him if your Magic 8 ball had been working properly when he proposed. I'm glad you told her to stop emailing you b/c the communication was getting toxic, but please don't cut off your nose to spite your face and ignore any ideas she throws at you just b/c they are from her. Margaux is spot on when she says you need to take care of yourself right now and I strongly urge you to think about what you need and to go about getting it. The Junky Wives Club is a great place to yell, support, cry, grieve, laugh, and muddle one's way through the sticky morass of SA with a fantastic and diverse group of women (and a guy or two for good measure). I do hope to see you over there. It could be especially beneficial for you since you could write over there whenever you wanted and the time difference wouldn't matter. You could get real support from folks who get "it" without worrying about what time of day it was.
I hope you don't mind this ridiculously long comment. I wanted to email this to you, but I didn't see an email address. I am an Aries and therefore a bit of a bossy know-it-all, but you follow my blog, so I'm hoping you understand my POV a bit. I'm hoping you know how much I believe we are all connected and that when you wander around your hosting country at night and you feel the moonlight surrounding you that you remember that is my Moonlight, too, and it is my family's way of embracing one another when we are apart.
Please know in your deep deep heart, that what Brian has done is not your fault. You did not make him do anything, nor suggest by inference, omission, or subconscious action, that this behavior was acceptable. If he is an addict, he will eventually try to twist and spin and manipulate you. If you do have codie tendencies, you might find yourself questioning every word, thought, intent, action, movement, breath you and Brian have had since you met. Don't fall for any of it. You cannot control him. You do have the wonderful gift and opportunity to be able to help yourself right now. And your particular time-space continuum, your separation from home and every person involved in this, might be of real benefit to you in the therapeutic sense.
I'm sending you giant (((((HUGS))))) and a hope that your time studying abroad will be productive and interesting. I hope that your considerable intellect will be stimulated and that you find a bit of solace in working hard at something you love.
Please keep reaching out. There are a lot of us in this neighborhood you found and each of these women is so incredibly cool and insightful and unique. We are all in different phases of the recovery cycle and you will certainly find a little something in everyone you encounter here that will make you feel cherished, understood, and, best of all, not judged for anything going on in your life right now.
Sopie- Thank you for the increadibly long comment that contained plenty of good information. I had been dating Brian since we were both 13 so my dads dating really had nothing to do with my marriage. In fact I got married a few months after my mom died. So I was married before my dad started dating.
Brian is also a porn addict which is prob where all of this started. His porn choices were not of little girls so I dont really know where that manifested. I have been doing a lot of research online about his condition and many articles state that pedophilia often results from inappropriate sexual activity from an adult. Brian was raped from his brother for years and his mother doesnt believe him. Since then his brother has appologized and told his mother what he had done and she still didnt believe him. Now there is no excuse for what he has done, but this could be where this steams from.
Brian has always been the type of person that if he is doing something that he knows he is not allowed to do he tries to get caught. He grew up in a household where the man is to take care of the financial needs and to never talk about their emotions. The "typical man" is what he is always supposed to be. This is the way that he has always conducted himself so the way that he approched the situation could have been because he wanted to get caught. Still, there is no excuse for what he has done.
There is so much more that I could say I just dont know where to start.
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