You can't fix him.
But you can work on YOU.
Your self esteem has been damaged.
And you wonder what you did to get yourself into this mess.
Where do you go from here?
Time to roll up your sleeves and do the hard work of grieving, self-analysis, and boundary setting.
Read up on sexual addiction so you know realistically what you're dealing with. Come to terms with his deceit and your enabling. Take responsibility for your choices–but make sure you don't allow him to place the responsibility for his choices on you.
Say goodbye to the past, and figure out what you want for yourself for the rest of your life. What happiness do you deserve?
You want to come out of it on the other side with a sense of safety, security, gratitude and – dare I say it – JOY.
Recovery doesn't mean that "things go back to normal" or that you forget what it is to be betrayed and traumatized.
Your relationship with your husband is forever changed. Your feelings about relationships, sex and marriage have changed. Your feelings about yourself and your body have probably changed.
For me, recovery is the slow regaining of my balance, my sense of humor, my optimism. Taking responsibility for my choices in the present, letting go of the past, not wallowing in victimhood, not blaming someone else. Recovery is not being "stuck" in the fantasies of the past, but adapting to the new reality.
This is extremely difficult to do if your sexually addicted spouse makes no progress in his recovery, or, worse, he delays your ability to move forward by making divorce is a never-ending battle, with no compromise and no negotiation. The challenge is to focus on those things you have the ability to change: the things that relate directly to you.
It's disheartening when years go by and no progress is made. You try to talk about it, and friends get tired of hearing the same thing: "No, I'm not divorced yet. I'm working within the system, but the system is flawed. A mean, crazy, disordered person can get away with causing lots of plausible delays."
Recovery requires patience and persistence, as well as a dose of confidence. You will, eventually, get through this.
I will never be the same person I was when I woke up on July 14, 2010, because the things that have happened since then have made me reassess everything: as a woman, wife, friend and mother. I don't look at people the same way. I will always ask myself: is this person sincere or a fake? Do I need to protect myself in this relationship (whether a friendship or a romantic relationship or even with members of my family)?
I spoke to a woman the other day who was once an abused wife. It's been roughly 20 years since she got out of that marriage, divorced, and eventually married a truly nice man. She said, "I rarely think about my first marriage or my first husband anymore. I don't have to deal with him much because he is mercifully uninvolved with the children." I was glad to hear that from her, and hopeful that someday I might be able to say the same.
For the moment, it seems to me that Recovery will be an ongoing process through my life. I will carry the scars from this experience. Like the various scars on my body from surgeries and injuries, the scars are part of my life story, not something I need or want to erase.