It all comes down to the lies
My other posts talk about how he's "in recovery" but I'm still hurting or still worried. He was clean for maybe a couple of weeks and then he started using devices at his work to act out multiple times a day, 5 days a week. After a few months, he escalated. He used whatever loophole he could on his home devices, and started to masturbate while I was home. He would kiss me goodbye in the mornings and then masturbate to OF girls an hour later. The addiction... will always come first. His fears, his shame, the intricate deception and gaslighting. The promises of love and safety, the fake recovery efforts, "building trust" being used as a manipulation tool.
But he's not a cold, calculated sociopath. He is a broken, broken person. He is a skilled manipulator and liar, he has his entire family convinced that he is the victim while I'm just the insecure girlfriend who should "be more understanding." They believe we are in a mutually toxic relationship... not that he is the sole perpetrator. I didn't even become "reactively" abusive. I just cry constantly. I've raised my voice a few times when he was telling me about how he looked up the very same OF girls he was paying for last year. He looked them up on leaked sites, and couldn't even get off to their images because he'd seen them before back when he was paying good money to see fresh content of his favorite fucking porn girls.
Oh but he went to church. He doesn't believe in God, but something devine came down and washed him clean. "I don't have to be a liar anymore." was what he kept saying. Well darn, that's some convenient fucking timing! Thanks for letting me know! :) I'll just deal with my world collapsing on itself AGAIN while you go have some kind of revelation.
He started telling his family, but he leaves my pain out of stories. He says things like "I hate the way my addiction impacted those around me" when I am the ONLY person he hurt. His mom thanked me... for supporting him in his struggles. When telling his oldest sister about his journey, she asked "well it's she going to work on herself too?". Like I somehow had anything to do with the turmoil that our relationship had become. Like my "working on myself" would be anything other than trying to make it through each day, remembering to eat at least once, try to remember the last shower I took, the last person I talked to that wasn't him. Like I wouldn't be writing out the details of an emotional breakdown in the middle of work, because if I didn't, I'd convince myself again that things aren't that bad.
I want to die sometimes. I've never genuinely thought about weighing the options between life and death. I'm planning on leaving him, but can't yet. He still says I'm the love of his life and he wants to marry me some day. And yet... when he inevitably falls for someone fresh and new, I know I'm going to have to check myself into the ER just to make sure I survive. I've been having panic attacks with no clear triggers or reasons. Just... my body completely shuts down and devolves into debilitating nausea and tremors for hours. Staying or leaving, I am starting to believe that either way will hurt too much. There's no good way out of this. No matter what I do, I will feel like I'm being torn apart and it won't stop hurting for a long time, and I'm just too tired. I'm... not worth all that.
Anyway. It's 2am so I'm probably just delirious.
I'm the most alone and isolated I've ever felt in my life.