This addiction destroys lifes
First post.
I can't stop recycling these thoughts. I guess if I share them here they might warn at least one person, besides just torturing me on repeat.
I had a wife. I also developed an addiction for sex workers for years. Thought I had it totally compartmentalized. I then started seeking not only sex, but limerance (it rarely is only about sex), then repeated workers, then just one, then it turned into an affair. My wife discovered it, she eventually discovered the addiction too. I'm not sure what broke her the most.
A relationship of 20 years, gone.
3 years later I wake up every day in misery. Dreaming of my wife every other night doesn't help. Short after I lost my job and have been unemployed ever since. Seems unrelated but isn't, even beyond karma. I live with my elderly parents now.
I continued with the addiction, but recently stopped because of the lack of money and the reclusiveness of the depression.
I know the addiction was just a small component and that a series of despicable conscious choices came next. But I guess it shows how it can snowball.
I did seek help years before all of this, but I sabotaged it repeatedly with this concept: "I don't want to just stop the actions, I want to stop needing them". Foolish.
This is getting long and I haven't rambled on the extent of the loss, the regret, the guilt, the hurt to my parents, the self-pitty yet.
I'll end with this fantasy I have: I want to write down every little memory of the joyful life we built with my ex-wife, hand them to her, give her a hug and then... be gone for good.
Even as a last act, validation is all we seek.
I can't go on.