I'm sorry to have caused you pain.

Today my husband asked me if I wanted to celebrate his four month porn-free anniversary.

I said that I didn't think his "anniversary" meant the same thing to him that it does to me.  For me it's the anniversary of the day I found out my husband was a liar and virtual cheater.  And it's not even the day he stopped lying because, if he has stopped lying, it was only 4 weeks ago.

I told my husband James that I felt that he wasn't sorry for the pain he caused me.  I thought he was sorry for how his addiction and choices made him feel about himself and that he was a little sorry about me but that I feel that his sorrow is primarily about how it affected him and made him feel.

I see myself defaulting back into my old patterns.

When James and I were engaged one of his high school girlfriends flew out to see him for two weeks and they made out.  Well, they actually did a little more than that but I only found that out 4 weeks ago - a week after he went through his inventory with me!  He didn't tell me the night he went though his inventory with me because "he didn't want to get bogged down with the Jen issue."  And he actually had other really great things to share with me like going to a strip club in February and walking Amsterdam's Hooker District for an hour or so in November.

But my old pattern was, when I felt Jack didn't feel sorry for making out with Jen, was to fight with him to try to logically convince him he should feel sorry for what he did and that it was wrong.  Then when that didn't work, I'd fight with him because I was angry and hurt.  Then when he got mad at me I would feel bad that he was angry and have sex so he wouldn't ignore me for days.  So, it was an incredibly emotionally healthy and effective cycle!

I don't believe James feels as bad as he should about the porn addiction and virtual infidelity because he doesn't usually act like he is or talk like he is.

I want to try to convince James that he was really bad for looking at porn et al. and that he should feel really bad!

I start a fight about how bad he is or about how bad he should feel.

He doesn't respond how he used to.  He takes responsibility for his actions instead of blaming it on me but if he can ignore what he did or how it made me feel he will.  Porn, Jen, etc. does not exist unless I bring it up.

I don't want to go through this cycle again.  It didn't work the first time.  I need to think about if I want  to stay married to someone who I don't believe really feels sorry about hurting me.

"What did you do today?"

My sister told me that last year when I called she wouldn't pick up the phone if she didn't have an answer to the question.  "What have you been doing?"  She didn't feel she could tell anyone the real answer to that question which was, "Oh, spending hours online on a forum for the wives of porn addicts."  So she wouldn't call me back until she had a non-porn related answer.

Last week I went to Europe with my husband on a work/vacation trip.  Now is not best time for us.  About a month ago my husband went through his inventory with me.  And I learned about a couple of new things he had not told me previously.  Then about a week later he told me more about an incident with his ex-girlfriend during our engagement.  He told me about something he had done with her that he has lied about for 22 years.  Something that he lied about directly to my face when I asked about it.  What I already knew about what happened has caused problems in our relationship because he refused to give up his relationship with her for years and shifted the blame for what happened to me for a couple of years.  And the crazy thing about hearing a lie for years is that you start to believe it even though the logical part of your brain says that what he says is ridiculous and it couldn't possibly be your fault.  The real damage was caused less by what they did then the aftermath.  The years of blame-shifting, lying, justifying, minimizing and refusing to give up the relationship.  We have only been able to really talk about our engagement and Jen during the last 3 months because he is less defensive and more humble.  But learning than he lied to my face repeatedly and that he was so strongly committed to keeping that relationship at the expense of ours for four or five years has made me feel a little dead inside.

I wasn't sure that I wanted to go with him to Europe.  Part of me wanted to enjoy him being gone.  But I had started making plans before he told me about Jen and I thought I would be ok.  And the trip was ok.  But the days he was working I just wanted to stay in the hotel room and not do anything.  But I felt I had to leave so the room could get cleaned less awkwardly and so I would have something to tell people at dinner when they asked me, "what did you do today?"  Because doing what I wanted to do - stay in bed all day and do nothing - isn't the kind of answer you can give without a porn related explanation.