Hi all,
I found out 4 months ago that for the first approximately 3/4 of our 12 year relationship, my partner had been cheating. I first found out about inappropriate online behaviour- secret onlyfans (and similar) subscriptions, a secret snapchat account, other online accounts such as reddit- but found out a few weeks later there was also physical cheating with sex workers at brothels. My partner claims he only received oral, no full sex happened but I'm struggling to believe this. Due to it starting so long ago I wasn't able to track bank statements back to the beginning, but in 8 years I have proof of approximately 33 encounters. 11 of these were in the 9 months leading to him stopping (he says his cheating escalated after his alcohol and drug use increased, causing him to hit rock bottom and realise this isn't the person he wants to be. He said he also thinks 2 of these visits were for drugs only). Taking this year out, he averaged cheating between 3-4 times a year (sometimes once a year but up to 7).
We are both in IC, and my partner is currently working through why he did what he did. His therapist believes he has addictive tendencies- he also had gambling, drug and alcohol issues- but doesn't believe he is an out of control type of addict as he wasn't spending money that wasn't his, the frequency was low, he stopped "cold turkey" with no issues for 3 years before I found out. The IC believes a lot of his behaviour stems from an unhealthy relationship with porn when he was young and some childhood trauma from the way he was raised.
Sorry, giving the background so you have some context of what I'm struggling with here. I understand that addiction doesn't necessarily look the same for everyone, but I'm reading about others SA experience and it's not matching up with the story my partner has told me of his. From what I'm reading, things tend to escalate for SAs to continue to feel the dopamine hit but from what my partner has told me, other than escalating from porn to cheating, his behaviour seemed to remain fairly consistent. Claiming to be oral on him only, the frequency did pick up a bit towards the end but still not as frequent as other addicts. The online behaviour mostly seemed to be happening at the same time as the physical, not necessarily that the online behaviour lead to the physical.
Does this sound like addiction? I'm probably overthinking but I worry that my partner hasn't told me everything, that because it has been so long any evidence of more is likely gone so there's a chance he's trying to hide what he can get away with. He seems so genuine when he says i now know everything, that he has no reason to hide anything anymore and if there was anything else he'd prefer to come forward with everything from the past now so we can focus on our future, but obviously I'm here because of how easily we was able to lie for so long.
Sorry for the ramble, finding it difficult to articulate properly exactly what I mean but I'd appreciate any input on the situation.