12 years of using escorts, and trying to stop!
For the past 12 years I have used escorts whenever I wanted to and was financially able to; most of the time. A six figure job and a life in a metro area gave me access to whatever I wanted for the most part. I used escorts through two long term girlfriends and with my wife. Im still married atm. I was never caught or even asked about it by any of them. I have a job that enables me lots of random free time and an excuse to be lots of different places whenever I wanted. I doubt I ever would have been caught. But… I told my wife about everything last month. I willingly turned my life inside out and upside down. Getting caught wasn’t a motivation as much as ending my own agony. And seemingly at her cost. I go back and forth daily about whether my truthfulness was self serving completely or has some righteous qualities as well.
For me, I had crossed so many preconceived redlines that there was nothing left to ponder, I knew I was an addict. And I severely worried where my addiction would take me. Behaviors were changing, getting riskier, getting bolder; yet at the same time I was trying to stop as hard as I could, I felt. I was also choosing to get more and more intoxicated (weed and alcohol) to get myself to a place where I wanted to go through with the act. And I would. It was a strange reality. Was I using to feel more alive, more excited in the moment or was I using to break down my own inhibitions. Sometimes acts were enjoyable, many times they were not, many many times I wound up in a ball on the floor of my hotel room, crying about my own stupidity, my own inability to control myself. Lost in shame and worry about stds. And yet again repeated my pattern over and over. For twelve years. Surely you won’t do this when you’re married. Surely you won’t when you have kids. And the list goes on…
I’m sober rn, and haven’t relapsed yet. In a couple groups and therapy. But, the sexual struggle is real. My hand is not going to be enough forever.
My question to you all. My SA hasn’t left yet. Though I think they only stays for our child and their stability. I can understand that. Of all the things, I can at least understand that. I offered all the support I can give her, like many of seem to do, even if she leaves. So, if you have a SA that has stayed with you, how do you get through the months of abstinence. Maybe years? This is all new territory for me. As selfish as it sounds I feel my recovery would be so much easier if she could somehow find it in herself to be intimate with me again. So I could focus that energy on them. We never had a great sex life before, however I did this far before I ever knew my SA, so it’s hard to attribute any of my problem to them. I have so much fear that our poor past sex life, our mismatched sex drive, and their now extreme distaste for me, will be a death blow to us. They won’t so much as let me hold their hand, so how and when will this ever build back into anything intimate. If that is the case, that they are never able to see me as her intimate sexual partner again, what are we doing besides co parenting and prolonging the inevitable? While that is righteous to put our child first, wouldn’t both our pain be lessened by a cleaner split? I’ve made my bed, and will lay in it, but I want happiness for us both, not prolonged misery. I’ve caused enough of that already.