I think I'm slowly turning the battleship in the right direction. While I remain sober sexually, it's partly because of a period of anorexia that I'm experiencing. I know that all addictions ebb and flow, it's just that I don't remember the last time my sex addiction was in such a state.
My wife is pregnant nearly 26 weeks and she's not felt able to connect with me sexually since she's become pregnant. Ironically, she offers me sexual gratification of one form or another and I refuse. Why? I'd say it's not her. It has nothing to do with a lack of attraction, although we get frustrated with one another and that certainly isn't a time one wants to be close.
There are a few reasons why I refuse. One is that I don't feel attractive. I tipped the scales at 328 the other day. It was only once, but I felt every pound of it. When she and I got married, I was somewhere's around 258. In my book, and I'm no mathematician, that's about 70 pounds in just over a year. Forty of them came on in the last three months, when I started lithium. And which came first, the chicken or the egg? I went to the shrink because I felt I was heading down the wrong path emotionally and I needed something to help my labile moods. I was hoping for something that had the side effect of weight loss. Oh well...
Another reason I refuse is because of the type of sexual connection that's being offered. It's true my favorite type of acting out with hookers was receptive oral sex. It was also my template when I looked at porn. So
one would think that I'd welcome the opportunity for such an offer from MG. But, without getting too graphic, she feels I need to help her do this manually and this, to me, feels more like a masturbation session than a sexual encounter with my wife.
Then there's the fact that I'm just plain preoccupied with other things in my life. I remember back in my previous marriage during the pregnancy, the Ex was always uncomfortable, often sick and/or on bedrest, and I was acting out on the Internet like a fiend as well as drinking booze alone at night while she slept. The same was happening after the kids were born, until I got caught surfing porn at work and had to disclose this to her and the Rabbi.
What other alternative did I have? I had to go to hookers and porn shops, since my outlet of porn at home was gone. What incredible logic I used!
So nowadays, I'm eating better, I'm exercising more, I'm even starting to do my daily prayers again. It's just that it's a slow process and the results are so intangible. I've decided I need to go back to OA, although I really don't want to go to the Monday night meeting that I used to attend. The trouble is, that's the only men's meeting in the area and it's not comfortable for my lovely wife to have me going to meetings with lots of troubled women.
This past week, my Sex Addict group therapy had a bull session that revealed some frustrations different members had about how things were going. The last time we had one of these, nearly everyone in the group thought I was heading over a cliff with respect to dating, deciding to get married, and then continually breaking my sexual sobriety with my fiance by having sex before marriage.
In the most recent discussions, the guys had come to the conclusion that I'm not putting enough effort into our group and they seem to be wondering what's going on. Among the complaints were comments that I show up 45 minutes to an hour late nearly every week, that I often get interruptions during group with phone calls I have to take for work, and I don't seem to be engaged in what's going on in group because of my tardiness and my phone interruptions.
My response was not defensive. I do have work obligations that make it necessary for me to take those calls. I also have to drive at least an hour from work to attend group and the group is at 5:30pm, causing me to have to leave work at 4:30p at the latest, which I often don't do since I'm usually not done with my responsibilities by then. In health care and in the chaos of my life, I can't seem to get everything done in the allotted time. Part of it is because of the nature of the work, and the rest is because I've busted my a*s so much for so long that I can't hardly get up in the morning, nor go to sleep at a decent hour.
What sounded like an excellent suggestion from my therapist is the notion that I should consider changing to a compulsive overeaters group therapy.
And that's a piece of the puzzle that may help me on many levels.
So at this point, I'm sexually anorexic, and nearly opposite that with my food, although I've not been bingeing in recent days.
G-d, give me the strength to make one more day of good choices in all of my addictions. I'm glad it's only one day at a time.
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