The end of the string
This entry is not really about us sex addicts. Its about our partners. A lot of times we tend to overlook the partners of the addicts who suffer just as much (perhaps even more) than the addict. Perhaps I am not the right person to write this entry. Perhaps my ex should be writing this.
At some point, you realize that something is not right with your partner’s behaviour. It may be his (or her) attitude, his secrecy, his antisocial reactions. Then you discover a little bit of evidence. And that’s where the searching starts. You’ve basically found the start of the string. And then you start pulling on the string. You start looking for evidence. You start asking questions. And the more you search the worse it gets. The string starts getting longer. You discover emails, internet entries relating to his sexual behaviours. You start connecting dates, which makes thing worse. You link the dates with happy moments in your relationship, perhaps vacations, birthdays etc. He starts admitting to some of the problems, but not all. He goes to a therapist and you support him as much as you can.
You want to make things work. Perhaps get back together. But all this time, your conscience says leave him and get on with your life. And you can’t stop searching. You need to know the whole truth. You continue to find evidence. He continues lying, and trying to cover things up. Each time something new emerges, it a new slap in the face. And you know that if you continue, more slaps will come. But you can’t stop. You search deeper. Phone bills, email archives, anything that may give you the answer you are looking for. The string continues to grow. You reach the point where you start misinterpreting facts. But it doesn’t matter anyone. Because for you everything is related. You hope that one day you will find the end of the string. You hope to find a sign saying “You have reached the end – There is nothing left for you to find out”.
But will you ever the find the end of the string? It’s up to you. Because the length of the string is only as long or as short as you make it to be. At some point, most of the stuff you learn is irrelevant And there must come a time, where you are ready decide to stop searching.
I guess when you have been living for years surrounded by lies, you have every right to learn the whole truth about the person to whom you have been giving your love for so long.
Only then you can be sure that leaving was the right choice.
And believe me, the truth may hurt a lot, but it also helps partners of addicts to go away from the whole situation.
And I guess also that on behalf of the addicts it is not fair to keep hiding behind lies just because they need to show that they are better persons than they actually were.
As a good friend said to me a few days ago, in this situation maybe suffering partners need to be supported, loved and “spoiled” more than anyone…
And they deserve an apology. That’s for sure…
This was my life until I reached the “end of the string”. I find myself still searching, wondering if there are even more lies, though I think they have all been uncovered. My skin turned ice cold when I found out the truth, and life from that point on has not and will never be the same…
Can not even begin to tell you how much this was my life.
The end of my string came one day while rolling around on my bathroom floor sobbing after finding 3 more new numbers on his cell phone. I called each of those numbers and they were all 3 answered by unknown (to me) women. All of this while in the midst of an in-house separation & while the sa in my life was supposedly doing 90 for 90.
It finally had become crystal clear that the end of my string was when I realized that the pain of staying was far greater than the pain of leaving.
Thank you for this post.