July 31, 2023

One night, James told me that there was something he had done, something in his past, that he had not told me. He told me that, if he were ever dating a girl and got serious enough that they were at the point of getting engaged, he would tell her – and he would understand if she did not marry him. 

This is when alarms started ringing in the back of my mind. I started telling him that I did not want to pressure him and that I understood that some things are personal, and that we had not been dating long, but I also felt I needed to know. 

I continued to share more vulnerable pieces of myself, hoping he would open up about himself as well. He did. 

The first thing he told me was that he really struggles with porn, but has done various things to try to get off of it, and is still trying to get off of it. I will share my thoughts about porn in a later post. For now, I will say that the porn in and of itself was not a deal-breaker for me, considering that he was actively trying to wean himself off of it. 

About a week after he told me about the porn, he finally mustered up the courage to tell me the secret he had not been able to get out of him for weeks.

First, I will say that I don’t think I have ever seen such an outpouring of shame and emotional torment coming from another person. He was sitting on the floor sobbing, until he finally got out what he needed to tell me. 

He told me he had had sex, in its various forms, with several prostitutes, and had been to an adult/ Asian massage parlor. The last prostitute had been about a week and a half before he and I started talking. He had not done anything with anyone else during the time we had been talking and dating. 

My journey after this moment has been a long one. I am planning on writing more about sex addiction, what I found out about it, and the rough moments of my breakup and my healing at some point. 

For now, I will say that, when James told me about his actions with prostitutes, I knew that I was facing something big. This was much more than a messy sexual history. My mind was churning, and freezing, as it tried to compute the words my beautiful boyfriend was telling me. Those words did not make sense. Those actions were not simply mistakes or bad choices. They were actions that went greatly against his values and who he was as a person. They were actions that he – the man I knew – would never have wanted to do. The bitter outpour of anguish in front of me also proved that. I had that feeling of being told something that puts you into a form of shock, where you know the information is significant and will hit you later, but you are in a state where you cannot fully take it in. Like when someone tells you someone has died. What he told me that night meant the death of him as I knew him – my boyfriend who I already loved deeply, who was stable and healthy and a source of joy and comfort in my life. It meant the death of our relationship as I knew it. 

I tried to comfort him, and alleviate the shame. We hugged and I said goodbye. Maybe kissed – I can’t remember all the details of that night. 

I want to pause here. I was able to comfort him and try to alleviate his shame that night because he had not been unfaithful while we had been together (like many men with sex addiction), and because I was in shock. If you are reading this and have experienced unfaithfulness from a partner (due to sex addiction or otherwise), my heart goes out to you. From the dose of pain that I have gone through, I can begin to imagine, and know that I can never actually imagine, the torment you are probably going through or have gone through. One of James’ top qualities was his honesty, and if the truth had been that he had been with other women while we were together, well, I don’t know what I would have done when he told me. 

As it was, I drove home. 

Then I started to come undone. Unravel. As if chunks of my emotional well-being were falling away in pieces like rocks falling off a disturbed hill. Like I had been dropped in the middle of a stormy emotional sea, with no direction regarding which way was shore or safety. The black hole of emotions and endless questions had started. 

It didn’t make sense. What did this mean. How unhealthy was he. Why would he do that. Would I have to break up with him. I loved him. 

I had an emotional breakdown. My little brother was in town from college, for Christmas break, and was there to support me in the ways he could. In some ways, there is nothing anyone can do to support us in situations like these. But those people and their support are still vital to our healing. 

I did not sleep much that night. I put in sick the next morning for teaching. There was no way I would have been able to function at work. I don’t want to remember the feeling of that day, sitting in my bed scrambling to email patched-together lesson plans to a substitute teacher at maybe five a.m. I don’t want to remember that hope to sleep, that hope to be okay, but the reality that was pressing in like closing walls that things did not feel like they were going to be okay. 

I and my brother went to a state park and ran through the woods. “Running through woods” therapy became a go-to during the next months. Again, being in nature and exercising was one of those things that is both vital to healing and also something that does not feel like it is enough. If I was able to outrun the anxiety and pain at all, well, that method was effective only until I stopped running. And even as I ran, the anxiety and pain was still there, chasing me down and nipping at my heels. 

Fast forward six and a half months, to where I am now. The process of healing has been rough, ragged, and not linear. But by now, I also am able to look back at where I’ve been and see mountains that I have climbed. 

I don’t know how many mountains there still are ahead. I would be happy if there were none, and I could rest in a shady spot for a while. That’s not always how life goes, though.