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I’m addicted to cheating on my wife [updated 2016-06-14]


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Please refrain from completely bashing, I am here for help not to hear how terrible of a person I am. I have been married to my wife for 7 years and together for a total of 10 years. My wife is 31, I am 37. I have been cheating for 8 years. It’s become -or maybe it always has been- an addiction to me. I need the rush and excitement of seeing another woman. I’ve joined numerous dating and sex sites, including paid ones that I hid in another bank account that my wife is unaware of.

 

I do not hate my wife, in fact, I love her. She is a great woman and takes care of our family. She has worked extremely hard to get where she is today in her career and life. She makes 6 figures and is in a high demand career; read: very busy. She continues to raise our kids wonderfully. She is a good partner but I would be lying if I said I was totally satisfied with the marriage. If I were, I wouldn’t be cheating. Her priorities are our kids, as they rightfully should be, our own relationship between the two of us as taken a back burner.

 

Between my wife’s high demanding career and my career that takes me out of town regularly, it has been the perfect set up for cheating. I am out of town for at least 2 weeks at a time. The normal schedule is 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. But there has been many, many times when I am gone for longer, sometimes up to 2 months. We have separate bank accounts so she has never noticed paycheck discrepancies. Not sure she would notice regardless, we make over $200K together and are never “counting pennies”. It is very easy to tell my wife I am working on-site longer and spend more time with OW.

 

I have had 2 solid relationships go on. One lasted a year and the other lasted 3 years. There have been numerous flings that last a few months and many hook ups. I am not proud to say, that I have slept with about 30 women during my marriage. I am not proud of it but cannot stop myself from doing it. I initiated marriage counselling but because I have never admitted my cheating it didn’t accomplish anything. To the best of my knowledge, my wife is not aware that I am cheating. She has had suspitions at time but I thus far have managed to convince her otherwise.

 

I don’t want to lose my wife and family. They are very important to me. When I cheated for the first time I thought that would be it. That I needed a little release and things would stay fine with the relationship (not married at the time). However it was like a quickly spinning deep hole that sucked me in and I couldn’t stop. I cannot get over the thrill of seeing another woman naked and touching her body and experiencing her. The thrill of not knowing if I will be caught. Having many women want and enjoy me makes me feel good. Watching another woman please me. I get turned on just thinking about possible other women I could have.

 

I know it’s wrong. I have tried to stop many, many times but I always find myself back in bed with another woman who is not my wife. I know I am a terrible person for doing this to my wife and family. I know the health risks I am taking and the risks of losing or humiliating my family. I know my wife and family deserve better. I want to be better for them. I have been going to individual counseling to try and get to the roots of WHY I'm cheating but so far it has not helped.

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.....Because I want to stop cheating on my wife. I don't want to hurt her anymore than I have, even though she doesn't know it yet. I want to be excited to go home to my wife, the way she is excited for me to come home. I want to want to make her happy the way she wants to make me happy. I want to fully be able to enjoy my wife in every way and no compare her to OW or think of OW while I am with her.

 

Sexually we are having a hard time because now (only with my wife) it's hard for me to finish or stay hard for a long time. I get bored. She thinks that it's her and that either I don't find her attractive anymore after having kids or that I she doesn't compare to OW I've been with. She doesn't know about the cheating, but she knows I was with about 25 women before we met and has always been self conscious of being good enough sexually. She is still very sexy she wasn't the type of woman to let herself get fat just because she was pregnant. She doesn't look much different than she did pre-babies.

 

Going home to my wife is just comfortable. I want to be as happy and excited to see my wife as I am when I see other women. She deserves that and I want that. I want to stop before it's too late. I don't want to hurt my kids either and have them think of me as a terrible person. Thus far I have been lucky not to have been caught or have health problems. I don't want to keep playing with fire. It's not as easy as, just stop.

Edited by Joh
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It seems to me you are a thrill seeker....maybe you can take up another sport or hobby that gives you that adrenaline rush.

 

Maybe you need to get to the root of the problem and what the underlying cause. Is there something in your childhood that may keep you searching for that elusive thing.

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You need therapy.

 

If you can't stop cheating you need to confess. Your wife deserves better and be able to make the decision on whether to waste her life with you or not.

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Hi, I guess I have a lot of questions. So do you feel like you are a sex addict? Would any woman please you in the traditional sense of matrimony and commitment?

 

I don't know you, or a lot of the details of your life and affairs. But based on the extent and sheer number of affairs, I can't see how this is fixable, to make you just want to be with your wife, to suddenly be faithful. It's not fair or safe to hide this from her. You love her and you know she deserves better.

 

How long have you been in IC? Are you completely honest with your therapist? What are their thoughts?

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MargoJones

If you really want to stop cheating you can always take SSRI antidepressants, like Zoloft. It helps a lot with obsessive thinking and it lowers your libido. No offense, but if you are unable to stop on your own, you probably have a neurological issue that could be helped with a good psychiatrist.

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If you really want to stop cheating you can always take SSRI antidepressants, like Zoloft. It helps a lot with obsessive thinking and it lowers your libido. No offense, but if you are unable to stop on your own, you probably have a neurological issue that could be helped with a good psychiatrist.

 

No medicine can help a person to grow a conscience.

 

OP - you say you love your wife - in my world, this isn't what love looks like.

 

Why don't you suggest an open marriage so you don't have to keep lying to the gal you say you love?

 

Heck - for all you know she could be having an affair(s) too - and she may be considering you're so busy being occupied with so many other women.

 

Your wife won't stay faithful forever when you're distracted - you know?

 

Or you could just divorce her = that would be a loving decision.

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If you love (and respect) your wife, as you say you do, confess your infidelity to her and let the chips fall where they may. She deserves to know and she deserves to have an opportunity to make her own decisions about how committed she is to your relationship and whether she believes there is hope for the two of you.

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dreamingoftigers

You're confusing intimacy with intensity.

 

Intensity is that thrill in your gut blah blah blah. That "oh look what I got away with" juvenile crap.

 

Plus, objectifying and compartmentalizing your behaviour.

 

If you want to, you learn another coping skill besides screwing strange. Your self-esteem is probably overblown or about as thick as film. See someone about that. (Counselor, not "OW.") But don't be all " sad-sausagey" about it like you have this 'sad sad addiction' where 'you can't help yourself.'

 

Addicts who want to get better take responsibility for themselves and their behaviour.

 

Your marriage has shyte to do with this. This is 110% you. And your poor choices.

 

Want better? Make better choices, no matter how 'bad or sad' it might feel in the short-term.

 

Your kids will HATE you. And yeah, they'll figure it out. Ask me how I know. And cheaters like you ALWAYS think they are so smart and won't ever get caught. And you ALL get SLOPPY. And you NEVER know who knows. My boss doesn't know that myself, my husband and now my family (because I told them about my sloppy cheater boss) all know. And oh yeah, I mentioned it to our Bishop at church. In confidence, as to why I was looking for other employment.

 

But overall: people know you cheat, you've banged 30, it's a freaking miracle no one has let that loose yet. What a joke.

 

You're on a timer and you don't even know it.

 

If you were a girl screwing around like this, you might have had better odds because guys don't share as much. But WOMEN TALK.

 

Addicted, please.......I am familiar with sexual addiction. Go see a CSAT and go to smart recovery meetings and learn to be honest if you are so "addicted."

 

What's your 'withdrawal' like?

 

Yeah, thought so.

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When any person seeks a different result - they choose to do contrary behavior.

 

Doing opposite behavior gives a new result.

 

Just keep doing it the same = same results.

 

It really is that simple. Are you capable of becoming decent?

 

I'd ask your IC to help you work on your ego - it's out of balance and you think too much of yourself and not enough of others. Ego will always ruin any relationship. Believe me, you're not that important. No one is.

 

It's too bad you're willing to harm your wife and family in order to strike your ego - work on that.

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.....Because I want to stop cheating on my wife.

 

The solution is easy - tell her what you've done. In fact, just have her read what you've posted here.

 

I'd guess the cheating would stop immediately...

 

Mr. Lucky

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I am not proud of it but cannot stop myself from doing it.

I think you mean, "I am not proud of it, but I feel that I need it, and so I do it."

 

You have the power to stop if you really want to.

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AlwaysGrowing
.....Because I want to stop cheating on my wife. I don't want to hurt her anymore than I have, even though she doesn't know it yet. I want to be excited to go home to my wife, the way she is excited for me to come home. I want to want to make her happy the way she wants to make me happy. I want to fully be able to enjoy my wife in every way and no compare her to OW or think of OW while I am with her.

 

Sexually we are having a hard time because now (only with my wife) it's hard for me to finish or stay hard for a long time. I get bored. She thinks that it's her and that either I don't find her attractive anymore after having kids or that I she doesn't compare to OW I've been with. She doesn't know about the cheating, but she knows I was with about 25 women before we met and has always been self conscious of being good enough sexually. She is still very sexy she wasn't the type of woman to let herself get fat just because she was pregnant. She doesn't look much different than she did pre-babies.

 

Going home to my wife is just comfortable. I want to be as happy and excited to see my wife as I am when I see other women. She deserves that and I want that. I want to stop before it's too late. I don't want to hurt my kids either and have them think of me as a terrible person. Thus far I have been lucky not to have been caught or have health problems. I don't want to keep playing with fire. It's not as easy as, just stop.

 

 

The help you need isn't going to be found on a forum. Intellectually, you must have some understanding that if you hurt your children's mother, you hurt them. Also, that all because you haven't been tagged with an STI yet....it doesn't mean your wife hasn't. STI's are more difficult to self-diagnose in a woman and do more damage due to the longer diagnose period. There is also HPV. If I recall correctly there are no testing methods for men and causes cancer in women. With your number of sexual partners, your wife is in grave danger....for her life. She needs to be regularly screened for HPV.

 

Admittedly, chances are high that your wife will want a divorce if/when she finds out the totality of your cheating. Rightly so. As you are currently, you are a toxic spouse with an almost certain probability of reoffending. Again, intellectually....you must know this...about yourself...and how a spouse would feel/act about a spouse who has cheated with 30 different partners.

 

If you want to protect your wife, you MUST tell her. She needs to protect herself. You have been living your life plowng through your wife's and family emotional, physical and mental well being. Give her the gift of truth. The truth will give her what you say you want for her...a husband who cherishes, loves, respects, desires and makes her feel good about herself.....its just that...you are NOT that husband.

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I haven't read the whole thread, but I do hope you are using protection and not exposing your wife to Std's.

 

You say you have the perfect set up for cheating with working away and your wife being in her job..... have you ever thought that she also has the perfect set up to cheat on you as well?

 

How would you feel if you found out she was cheating on you?

 

You need individual counselling . Perhaps you are an undiagnosed sex addict. See a professional to get to the bottom of it.

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Meh if you are away for weeks or month on a regular basis, it's isn't really a marriage. I think you two stopped bonding a long time ago.

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salparadise
She is a good partner but I would be lying if I said I was totally satisfied with the marriage. If I were, I wouldn’t be cheating. Her priorities are our kids, as they rightfully should be, our own relationship between the two of us as taken a back burner.

 

This is part of the problem––you are wrong when you say "as they rightfully should be." There is a definite order of priorities to a healthy family structure, and this ain't it!

 

1. Self - take care of yourself first or you cannot be a good partner/parent. It's analogous to the instruction on a plane - affix your own oxygen mask first.

 

2. The marital relationship - if the marriage breaks down, the whole family unit will be in peril. Husband and wife should always be primary to one another, no exceptions.

 

3. The family unit and home. This is the structure that facilitates the wellbeing of all family members. You cannot allow any one individual to undermine it.

 

4. Individual children. Each child is also a priority and needs attention, of course, but their wellbeing depends on the overall family structure, and the whole is a higher priority.

 

No medicine can help a person to grow a conscience.

 

OP - you say you love your wife - in my world, this isn't what love looks like.

 

 

I think the reason he's posting is that he does have a conscience. It's just not the dominant force driving his behavior. He has a weak superego, a strong id, and probably an under active prefrontal cortex that results in disinhibition. There maybe some kind of identity deficit too, wherein he boosts esteem by seducing women.

 

There seems to be fundamental disregard for societal rules. The moral development stage is pre-conventional in that he does not conform to societal norms out of a sense of moral responsibility - because it's the right thing to do, but out of the fear of consequences. And as he said, he does not fear the consequences much.

 

He says he loves his wife, and I think it is probably true even though it's common to hear on LS that love and sexual fidelity are one in the same (I don't agree). He recognizes his deviation, is bothered by conscience (has remorse), has a strong desire to change, and has taken action (therapy). The question is, is that possible? I don't know the answer.

 

OP, if I were you I'd study up on Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development and discuss this with your psychologist. If you could manage to grow from pre-conventional to post-conventional and put a principled conscience in control of the id, it might make you appropriately inhibited. But I really don't know if that's possible.

 

I kind of relate to how OP may be feeling. When I was married I was tempted many times, and I reasoned that I could've gotten away with it too. The difference is that I felt that giving in to temptation would violate my principles and fundamentally change how I felt about myself. The principled conscience and social contract (with my wife) was strong enough to allow inhibition to dominate. I felt pangs of conscience for being so tempted, whereas he gives in to the temptation and is bothered by conscience to some degree.

 

OP you realize that this thrill-seeking, adrenaline rush diminishes your ability to have a fulfilling sex life with your wife, right? It's like an addiction wherein your receptors become desensitized and need more and more stimulation.

 

You must be quite the charmer to be able to just bed women wherever you go - how much of this is just the challenge and ego trip that comes with the successful seduction? Is the sex itself gratifying, or does it end up being something of an anticlimax after you've closed the deal?

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SummerDreams

In my opinion your wife knows about your infidelities. It's not logical that you have had 25 women before marriage, you are away from home for two weeks without her knowing your whereabouts all the time, you can't stay hard during sex with her and you are a saint. I guess she is not stupid since she has such a successful career. So I guess she knows or at least suspects but chooses to ignore it either cause she knows she can't make you change or because she doesn't want to spwnd her life trying to stop you from cheating or simply because sex is not her priority and your infidelities spare her the sex she doesn't care about. She seems like a smart woman in my opinion because she knows that if she admits she knows about your infidelities she will have to divorce you, she may need to slow down or stop her career to take care of the kids while you will be the weekend father living your life free. Right now she has you all tied up until the kids grow up. I won't be surprised if, the day your youngest turns 18, you go home finding your suitcase outside the door. But I guess tgis is how you two enjoy life so why change it?

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You remind me of the men in my family. You have a sex addiction & a ego problem. If you really want to quit, you're going to have to treat it like any addiction, you come clean & go to intense therapy. Though from my experience, even that won't ever take away the desire of wanting to cheat, you'll just be able to manage it. Kind of like, once an alcoholic always an alcoholic just in recovery. It will take full dedication & are you really able to give a 100%? Thats the only way it's going to change & from what you explain, you're wife isn't doing anything wrong, I think the not being "satisfied" is the what you tell yourself to ok the cheating. Sometimes it's not the relationship that's broken, it's you (the cheater). In your case that's what it sounds like.

 

The only thing that stopped the men in my family, was age. They just got too old to do it anymore but it's also a cultural thing that their wives stayed with them & they knew that so it was easier to get away with it...not all wives will stay. Good luck

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Loveisforlovers

Your not stopping because your getting away with it. Tell her the truth or let he find out on your own. If it's been 8 years she is prolly cheating on you too and good with covering it up. But stay for the family she seems smart. When you feel the feeling of losing each other it might rekindle your sex life. You should four play and act like different people, go out on more dates, have sex at places you wouldn't usually have sex at. But first tell her or snoop if she is ****ing someone else.

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Tell your wife what you've done. Believe me that will be the biggest deterrent to your current behavior.

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dreamingoftigers
In my opinion your wife knows about your infidelities. It's not logical that you have had 25 women before marriage, you are away from home for two weeks without her knowing your whereabouts all the time, you can't stay hard during sex with her and you are a saint. I guess she is not stupid since she has such a successful career. So I guess she knows or at least suspects but chooses to ignore it either cause she knows she can't make you change or because she doesn't want to spwnd her life trying to stop you from cheating or simply because sex is not her priority and your infidelities spare her the sex she doesn't care about. She seems like a smart woman in my opinion because she knows that if she admits she knows about your infidelities she will have to divorce you, she may need to slow down or stop her career to take care of the kids while you will be the weekend father living your life free. Right now she has you all tied up until the kids grow up. I won't be surprised if, the day your youngest turns 18, you go home finding your suitcase outside the door. But I guess tgis is how you two enjoy life so why change it?

 

 

 

Most of us implicitly trust our spouses, especially if we ARE decent spouses.

 

Plus she's concerned about his PRIOR partners and brings that up. This IS NOT a woman comfortable with outside interference and has been seeking reassurance.

 

It doesn't matter of the wife is 'smart.' Does that mean he gets to embezzle from her too? Do some identity theft? Leave trip lines around the house? "She's smart, she'll figure out he left trip wire all around."

 

There's no decent reason to give him some tacit permission to abuse his wife and family.

 

Plus I have NEVER met a BS who turned 'a blind eye' to it in the name of 'lifestyle' in real life, EVER. I swear it's a myth. I don't even see (having been the daughter of a cheater and later married one, thanks family cycles. NO, I DIDN'T KNOW! I 'must have been stupid.') How ANYONE could be happy with that for themselves.

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The solution is easy - tell her what you've done. In fact, just have her read what you've posted here.

 

I'd guess the cheating would stop immediately...

 

Mr. Lucky

 

Pretty much sums it up.

 

What stops you from doing that today, instead of posting here?

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dreamingoftigers
You remind me of the men in my family. You have a sex addiction & a ego problem. If you really want to quit, you're going to have to treat it like any addiction, you come clean & go to intense therapy. Though from my experience, even that won't ever take away the desire of wanting to cheat, you'll just be able to manage it. Kind of like, once an alcoholic always an alcoholic just in recovery. It will take full dedication & are you really able to give a 100%? Thats the only way it's going to change & from what you explain, you're wife isn't doing anything wrong, I think the not being "satisfied" is the what you tell yourself to ok the cheating. Sometimes it's not the relationship that's broken, it's you (the cheater). In your case that's what it sounds like.

 

The only thing that stopped the men in my family, was age. They just got too old to do it anymore but it's also a cultural thing that their wives stayed with them & they knew that so it was easier to get away with it...not all wives will stay. Good luck

 

 

Totally true. AND you clearly had this issue present BEFORE your marriage, so it really isn't linked to the state of your marriage. (My husband at one point tried blaming his addiction on the marriage, it didn't fly when I pointed out that if anything, he took about a half-decade break from his addictions when we met and then later married. My father blamed various things external over the last forty years for his drinking. But he was already an alcoholic BEFORE he met my mother and then at least before, say, my brother was born and diagnosed (I was about seven when that happened, he was already a full-blown alcoholic with a rage problem).

 

It MAY BE somewhat linked with socialization and loneliness, but that isn't something that needs to be pinned on your marriage.

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