What I wish I knew day one after d-day

I am "writing my way" through my own recovery as a partner of a recovering porn addict. One thing I like to do is reflect back on where I am. The reason is because, on bad days I can be hard on myself and it really takes me looking back on how far both my husband and me have come. So, I thought I would talk about those things I wish I knew the day after d-day. I would love for other partners to chime in. These are the things I wish I knew the day after d-day that I have come to realize:


1. Extreme emotions are okay. It is perfectly okay to be feeling HUGE feelings. Confusion, fear, frustration, anger, disappointment, desperation, despair, and more are okay. I am allowed to have all my feelings.

2. Extreme emotions are normal. There is nothing mentally wrong with me for feeling huge feelings. I am not going crazy, not going over the edge, and working through confusion and frustration takes time - extreme emotions are normal.

3. It is okay to not know what to do in the beginning, there is no need to make decisions quickly. While I am not quite sure of the "levels of porn", my husband never did anything in his porn use that would put our family in jeopardy. So, there was no need to make a quick decision. It is okay to not know if you want to leave or stay, fight or run.

4. Mourning the loss of what I "thought" our relationship was is okay. I was deceived. The person I thought my husband was - it wasn't quite accurate. I can mourn and be sad about all those times I thought I was loving one person, and it was someone else.

5. It is okay to still love him - deeply. Yes, porn addiction is bad. However, that isn't all that my husband is. He is an amazing person with many really great qualities. Is continued porn use a deal breaker for marriage? Absolutely and thankfully stopping porn was a top priority for him. But, even if it wasn't - he still wouldn't be all bad. I fell in love with a human being - not a perfect robot. Of course there would be flaws, but overall he is a good guy.

6. Porn use can be deal breaker. I am allowed to walk away based on porn use. I have that right. It isn't a small issue.

7. I would be more hurt than I ever imagined. Wow, that one is probably the hardest. Feeling ugly, feeling jealous, feeling rejected, feeling unloved - all happened. It's normal, it hurts deeply.

8. Rebuilding trust takes time - LOTS of time. I didn't know it was possible to love someone you couldn't fully trust. It is possible. You have to decide for yourself what level of trust is acceptable and how long you are willing to wait for trust to be rebuilt.

9. I have a lot less friends than I thought I did. Okay, this is actually the hardest thing I had to come to terms with. There was NO ONE that I could tell. No one who it felt safe disclosing what we were going through. I thought I had friends, but no one I knew could be trusted with this truth. It has been a lonely recovery.

10. It gets better. Now, better is relative because I got pretty low. But, I don't cry all day now and I find myself truly laughing - it is getting better.

11. It is okay to be the wife you want to be, even if it is a better wife than he deserves.

12. There is a time to be selfish - this is it. Get what you want out of the relationship or get out. You can't hold him up forever and forget about yourself. Allow him to rise to the occasion and be a better man and a better husband than he thought he could be. Sure, you will need to be his support through a lot of his recovery. After some point - it is your turn. You get what you need.

Wow! Truly amazingly well worded! Thank you so much. I feel like I go through a roller coaster of all of these all the time. It is nice to know I am not only "not alone" but possibly normal. (If you ever met me in person you would laugh hysterically at me using the word normal, lol) I am learning a lot about #9! I am amazed at the reaction of my friends. We have only confided in a few and boy has it really show me some things. Right after D-day I was trying to keep it together and go about my life as normal. I would go over to a friends house and then just start crying. They would inquire and as a result I have told about 4 different friends. I have greatly regretted that. 2 of my friends were actually supportive. One doesn't really talk to me anymore. The forth has been the worst. She is one of my best friends. She told her husband and this issue that my husband is dealing with seems to have brought out something in their marriage. They have made it clear they not only don't understand but they don't see anything wrong with porn! I think they felt we were judging them because we were saying for us its not good. Her husband has been upset with me because now he seems to see me as this mean overbearing wife and he thinks my husband is the victim in this! Even after my husband tried to tell him that he has it all wrong. It has been so sad to realize that our friendships will never be the same.
I so appreciate you processing openly and vulnerably. Thank you!

#8 has been a hot topic for me since d-day. It's very true to say that there are different levels of trust and it's not a static "thing" in itself. It's something that ebbs and flows, and takes on a very different meaning after d day.

Aquarius, your story about the other couple is very telling. When a woman partner of a porn addict comes out about the issue, the reaction is often along the lines of "stop whinging" and "all men watch porn" and that somehow the onus is on US to put up and shut up, to defer to the wants and impulses and desires of the man, like his "needs" are paramount and take precedence over our needs, which are assumed to be non existent. After all, they say, if WE were good wives we would always be available and always willing to dress up like hookers in drag and groan shit out like "ooh baby baby" or whatever, and if we don't, well they HAVE TO use porn. Because THEY have needs. And we have no grounds to complain.

That's a pretty common reaction when you distill it down to its essence. Men's orgasms must be catered for, and if we aren't always-on sex bots, well there's porn, and what do we expect anyway? If they don't have porn they'd be unfaithful, so hey-ho, let's be good little girls and accept this shit.

Haven't you ever noticed that when we witness this reaction, there's never any mention of OUR needs. They never think to ask, What about YOU? What do YOU need from the relationship? It's like we have to be passive little mice. And isn't it telling that this friend's husband sees you as overbearing and mean, and that he now some kind of victim because you don't want porn intruding into your relationship? No mention of how bloody selfish it is for a man to eschew his wife just so he can masturbate to dumb videos.

Anyway, this is all part of the partner's recovery process. Working out the life we want, the relationship we want. I suppose we also have to think about the friends we want. I'm going through a stage of working out my values in relation to my experience as a woman, and in relation to my sexuality. It's only now that I can see that this prevalence of porn has actually reinforced the sexism that previous generations of women worked hard to break down. That's one reason why I have to call out this attitude that if a woman is not happy about her partners porn use and wants him to quit, she's seen as behaving unreasonably, and he's being "pussy whipped" or whatever.