August 11, 2023

Before I get into more of my and James’ story, I will share what I am currently feeling. 

I am currently having a breakdown. I am going to write out the pain. I feel that broken feeling inside my chest. I have that feeling of squirming in my seat and my body because I can’t get away from the sadness and anxiety, and the sense of loss. 

I was doing better yesterday, and did pretty well today until now. 

My sister lives in a city that is extremely far north, and even though it is the middle of August, she just sent me a message that she drove through the worst and most terrifying hail storm she has ever experienced. The hail stones were giant, and smashed out the front and rear windshields of some of the cars around her. She was able to find refuge under a bridge for part of the time. 

I have an over-active imagination, and, after my sister’s messages, I started imagining how awful it would be to be caught in a storm like that while out walking. My imagination then morphed into the idea of a boyfriend being with me, and running for cover under a tree, and him leaning over me to protect me. 

I couldn’t get away from the mental image of that imaginary boyfriend being James. 

Because for all his brokenness, I got the distinct impression that he would have protected me in a time of danger like that, and sacrificed. James was a good person. He also loved me. When we would walk next to a street, he would gently pull me to the other side of him so I wasn’t the one close to the traffic (something that actually bothered me a little and we had to talk about). My point is, if we had actually been in danger, I really do feel that he would have stepped up to the plate and taken the hits for me. 

And if he didn’t struggle with an addiction to sex, he might be in the running to have a shot at some day being the world’s greatest husband, and the world’s greatest dad. He treated people with a very intentional kindness and consideration that I have not seen in very many people. He showered love on me through so many distinct actions. 

But the current reality is that he does have an addiction to sex, that is putting his future at risk, although I do believe that he can overcome this if/ when he decides to do what it takes. 

To pick up the story where I left off: After James told me about his prior issues with prostitutes, we took the break that I described previously, that lasted almost a week. 

I couldn’t handle the break. I was in turmoil. 

We all have pieces of us that are broken and unhealthy. We are all sick in ways, and all learning to heal. I certainly am. But during that week, I was struggling under the gravity of this vague feeling that – although I couldn’t put this into words at that point – my loving, kind, amazing and beautiful boyfriend was struggling with an emotional health sickness that could destroy me. 

Addiction. What an ugly word. I have gone through such an emotional and mental storm, for seven months, due to that word. I wish James could understand that I have been through so, so much. It is as if, in the middle of a warm and cozy summer, giant emotional hailstones began to poured down, relentlessly thundering over my mind and my heart. And that storm feels like it has continued (sometimes temporarily letting up and sometimes a heavy downpour) for seven months. It feels like I have painstakingly had to build my own shelter around me. Like I have had to find my own supplies and my own way to keep from being pummeled in the middle of it all. On nights like this, it feels like my shelter might still have a hole or two in it that needs to be tended to. 

During our break, I called him on the phone. Told him I was struggling, and cried. I asked him questions. Asked him why. 

He was willing to answer any question I threw at him with a shocking amount of honesty. I could tell he was really trying. We talked on the phone shortly after we started our supposed break, and he told me that he was actually eight days off of porn at that point. He read off to me the days he had watched porn during our relationship, because he had been keeping track and trying to break himself of the habit. I asked him about the sex workers. He told me what had happened in each situation. 

But he struggled with telling me the why. The day we started our break, I asked him if he had done those things because he was lonely. He said something like “not just loneliness, because of all sorts of emotions, anxiety, anger….” 

I did not understand. I felt the anxiety. I did not know what any of it meant. 

Finally, after struggling for a week, I broke things off. I told him that I would still like to try to get back together, though, if possible, but that I didn’t know if it would be possible. I told him I would give him an update by May 24 – a few days after school had gotten out. I told him I needed more time to have passed since his interactions with the sex workers, and that I needed to see that he was able to be healthy on his own (instead of the dopamine from our relationship / his interactions with me numbing the emotional pain enough for him to avoid his previous coping mechanisms), and that I needed that much time to process through things. 

We still had a few conversations/ interactions after I broke things off. At some point (either during our break or after the breakup), I was on the phone with him. He said he had not expected that there would still be a part of me that wanted to date him.  He also said these words: “If I ever have the privilege of dating you again, I’m never letting you go.” Those words gave me hope that he would fight for our relationship and the chance for us to get back together. 

My therapist suggested I take a break from him for the rest of the month. I told him I couldn’t talk to him for a while, and took sixteen days of space. 

During that time, I grappled to find answers. I started with Quora posts by people who had partners who had also had sex with prostitutes, and were seeking answers. I learned a bit about prostitution, and found out that some people really enjoy having sex with prostitutes/ sex workers and have no moral qualms with it. 

The Quora posts were a dead end. Finally, after maybe two weeks of mental chaos and shots in the dark, I stumbled upon the term “sex addiction” and the Begin Again Institute in one of my somewhat random Google searches. 

The Begin Again Institute is an organization that hosts very expensive, short-term sex addiction recovery camps. It also has a lot of free articles about sex and porn addiction on its website, though, which was a place for me to start understanding what James and I were up against.