Partner of a Porn Addict - 2

I am so torn up.

My day started out wonderfully. I got up, headed to church, and got a good dose of exactly what I needed. Let me add that my boyfriend, his son, and I normally go to church every weekend. But the few weekends prior to today we'd missed it. Coincidentally, today's service was about sexual impurity. Which oddly enough has been the biggest struggle in my current relationship of 1 in a half years. I knew I was in for a heart-wrenching service but I felt so grateful that it came when it did.

It took everything in me to keep from balling my eyes out, but I made it through. By the time the service ended I knew that I wanted to go celibate. I made this decision not only for myself but also for my boyfriend. His porn addiction takes a toll on me and my emotions on a daily basis and I hoped this might somehow help us both. I had recently told him that I needed him to come up with some kind of recovery plan and start working on his problem. After a year and a half, he finally agreed to do that, but he was reluctant. So, I was surprised when we walked out of church and he told me that he thought he had the answer. Then he continued on to say that he wanted to try celibacy. I was so proud of him and it gave me so much hope. I had previously asked him about the subject of celibacy, and he was not open to it before. We continued on with our day. I went and bought myself a purity ring, and he got himself a charm to add to his chain that signified purity for him. I was in a happy place and felt so much joy in knowing hat he was going to try.

Then after a good meal, some shopping, and some fun out in the sun, the hope finally began to fade. He explained to me that celibacy would give him time to work on himself. Now, this may not sound like something scary when you don't know what his definition of "working on himself" has been in the past. But those words killed me. In the past when he's said these words its meant that he's gonna "try" to get on Instagram a little less. Or he's going to "try" to stay off the explorer tab of Instagram. The reason I used air quotes around the word try is that he never makes it more than a day without porn. He just continues to go in a cycle where no progress is made. We even had an agreement that I would butt out of the situation. I wouldn't ask whether or not he watched porn, and if he did to just be honest with me and try to do better next time. That resulted in him watching more porn and completely turning me down for sex when I wanted it. So I asked him what he had meant by celibacy when he'd said it earlier. He responded by saying that we would abstain from sex with each other and just masturbate, and that he would try not to watch porn. He has tried this before, but it has always led to him watching porn. So it seems we're back to him trying the same old tricks that have never worked.

So here I am, awake at 2:01 a.m. writing because I can't shut my mind off. I want to have clarity and just walk away from the situation because my heart hurts so bad, but somehow I still love this man. Even worse, he has mentioned to me that maybe we should take a break and try again once he's worked on himself alone. While I think it sounds logical, I am so scared of that option. I'm not scared because I think that he won't come back. I'm scared because I know that at that point I won't take him back. He will have made me feel so unloved and unworthy by walking away. I would run from the idea of being held in the arms of the man who had repeatedly broken my heart with his selfish desires. I have such a hard time understanding how someone can do this to someone because of who I am, and what I hold as important. I am so hurt right now, but if we take a break, I know that I will become bitter. He will no longer just be the man who has a problem he doesn't know how to fix, he would become man who I am disgusted with. This is so hard for me to imagine because of how much I love him.

I feel like there are 2 different sides of him. The man I fell in love with who was kind, inviting, silly, and passionate. Then there's the man who feeds his own demons. The side I fell in love with comes out just enough for me to feel like he is worth going hanging on to. But this other side of him that is selfish, lazy, and cold makes me want to crawl up in a ball and just cry myself to sleep so that the pain will go away. Except, when I wake up, the pains still there. The crippling thoughts of him wanting other women still linger through my mind throughout the day. All I want to do when he gets home from work is give him a nice long hug and ask him how his day was. But when he gets there, I'm already mad. I could tell just by his tone on the phone earlier that he'd been satisfied by some other women in the bathroom at work through a cellphone screen.