POSA™ Blog
Your Questions Answered (Video): “Why Do I Stay?” The Biochemistry of the Loyalty Bond
In trying to shed light on the most common questions our readers and clients ask, we often find "Big Themes".
This week we will explore one such big theme, the "Why do I stay?" question which partners often ask themselves at different points along the way: right after Discovery, and if the shattered trust in the Betraying Partner is not being met with earnest efforts demonstrating remorse and repair within some time after Discovery.
(Video Length - 27:44)
This question of "why do I stay?" is often borne out of extreme frustration if one finds oneself giving the Betraying Mate chance after chance after chance, nothing much is changing and yet one inexplicably feels too stuck to move.
There are many vectors that can feed into that stuck feeling, so for our first video, we will be exploring the intense chemical bonds that can make detaching, creating distance and acting out of our own self-preservation so difficult to consider. These chemicals originate in the more primitive part of the brain and as such, are part of our survival "hardware". No wonder they're so powerful!
Our hope is that in better understanding the strong forces at work that may be keeping partners from feeling more in control of their own emotional states and choices, that over time, partners can begin making more empowered decisions for themselves and their families.
As we like to say here, Knowledge is Power!
Towards that goal, join us here in this first of a series of educational videos exploring "Why do I stay?"
Commenting Anonymously
Note that you must enter a name and email below in order to submit a comment. The name you enter will show up along with your comment (your email will not), so if you'd like to comment anonymously, please enter a name such as "guest" or use your initials.
If you’ve read anything that inspired you here today, please consider making a small donation to keep this site up and running and free of annoying ads
Comments 66
Dear Patience- Thanks for sharing your thoughts here. You obviously have a huge heart.
I wonder what would happen if you really sat with your sentence, "Unfortunately the cheating part is a part of him and whenever I dig, I find dirt".
That's the unadorned truth of the matter.
As I often tell my clients: "We don't stop loving them, we just have to learn to love ourselves more".
We really need to prioritize our health, even if everything else feels too "big" right now. Living with an STD, especially the kinds that can kill you or later, unborn children is way too high a price to pay; I hear about this all the time from my clients that contract them :-(
You might be interested in checking out a really honest blog post written by a favorite blogger of ours (and we apologize for any salty language used there):https://www.chumplady.com/2018/07/dear-chump-lady-what-if-there-was-no-sex/
Also read through the comment thread there- These women commenters have been in your shoes; there's much wisdom shared there and you might avert future heartache by considering what's being offered. I know how hard it is!
In the meantime, my wish for you would be that you could take even a fraction of the obvious care and big-hearted kindness you direct towards HIM, and redirect it towards yourself. I commend you for the part of you that IS starting to care about your own well-being here. Hopefully that leads you on the path to knowing the right thing to do...We are rooting for you, Patience....
The addiction is so strong , My heart ges out to you, we are dealing with a , why do we stay?nasty addiction
I, too, wonder why I stay, but I love my husband, but I am a wreck every single day..his is way more then I thought. And when we go out , he checks every single female he sees out from head to toe, front and back- I hate going out with him, I come home feeling like crap, angry and a mess. Today we have to go to the beach for a cook out for our granddaughter. I have been a mess over this for weeks, I even turn down over time at work. Because I have to baby sit him, he is retired now and things have gotten worse. And if I bring it up, he goes into denial , I can't talk to him about this because he says I am the crazy one. I hate my life right now.
Dear Lesa and TW,
I know how you feel. Been in this nightmare for a couple of years now. What I can offer to you, is to reach for thoughts that feel good. As your mind goes to the devastation they have brought to us, think about something that brings you joy. Try to stop the thoughts. Sometimes it works and you can get out of the spiral. In my experience, the denial will always be there and they try to make you think you're nuts. NOT TRUE. Lesa, when you mention the "head to toe" I think the same way. Every commercial on TV makes me feel like he's dreaming of them. My husband posts online videos of himself, pleasuring himself and receives the same back from women. Who the hell knew these kind of websites are out there.
Sometimes I wonder if and when the police will knock on the door.
Lesa and TW, please know my prayers and thoughts are with you both and somehow, someday, we will all be free of this nightmare! Stay strong!
Sending love and hugs to all.
Your thoughts and feelings mirror my own! This is devastatingly difficult. I long for my life before discovery. I have cried every single day since January 10, when i discovered his secrets.
Thank you for the video. Our brains are so amazing! Ive been doing the emotional roller coaster with my husband for 5 years. 4 years in I drew the line when he offered to pay an unspeakable amount to an escort and I found out and let me tell you this was probably escort #5 he’s been with throughout our marriage. It started with porn then moved to Craigslist personals and Skype, then escalated to escorts/prostitutes. I managed to leave him a year after we were married. I separated our finances, moved across the country and started over. I did all of that on my own. Once he begged for me back and actually threatened to kill himself because he couldn’t live without me, I agreed to go to a couples workshop to work on our marriage before throwing in the divorce towel. I agreed to give him another chance. I read his journal from when we were separated and he was hurting I could tell. Fast forward a year and a half and we now have a daughter. I’ve his issues again and he has attempted massage parlors and porn again but not knowing how successful he has been. I’m at my wits end for the last time but now we have a one year old and it’s not as easy to leave like I did the first time. It is way harder now but I told him if he makes one more stupid decision I’m done and he’s well aware of this. I made him read his journey from when he was at his lowest and he says it’s been helping when he gets his urges but I honestly don’t believe him as I’ve seen him try and look at porn while we aren’t around each other. HE DOESNT CARE so why should I? I keep thinking more and more how I’d be ok on my own if I start saving now. Actually doing it is a completely different thing I hope I can do.
I learned my husband has been addicted to
Pornograohy for over 38 years. I caught him 20 years ago and he promised it would stop immediately. seven years ago I caught him using porn again and masturbating, he promised to start an online course which he continued for only 6 weeks, then told me he was fine. One year ago I caught him AGAIN using porn and he started attending a 12 step program, put covenant eyes software on the computer and has an accountability partner. He connects with his accountability partner once a week. The accountability partner and his wife are good friends and fully trustworthy - my husband accused me of not being available for sex when he wanted it so it made it to hard to stay away from porn. I told our friends I have a strong sex drive (and I do) them my husband said that was a joke as he wanted sex more often and if I really was "all that sexy" why was I not available.
He is blame shifting and I am traumatized beyond anything I have ever experienced. I see a therapist (I was in 3 car accidents and have PTSD) who asked if I think my husband will follow through with his recovery. When I try to talk to my husband about my pain he gets defensive and threatens to move into the guest room. I suggested an in house separation but he gets angry and says he may as well leave. We cannot survive financially unless we pool our resources as neither of us can work due to injuries from the MVA's.
I am so confused as he says one thing to me and another to our friends who are his accountability partners.
My heart is broken and I have been told to forgive and move on!
Barbie-- Please know we see and hear your pain, the agony of ongoing betrayals and the deceptions that enable his behaviors to continue. Every single one of us has also gone through it, and I hope you can take some measure of comfort in knowing it CAN change. But YOU have to be the change agent here and stop looking to him to change. The only power you have is to change how YOU are in relation to what's going on at home. Fully acknowledging this will bring on much grief; surrendering to our own inability to inspire out mates to be honest and dare we say, faithful to us...it can test our very being.
My suggestion to you is to stop trying to convince him how hurt you are-
He already knows, because if you're like most of us, you've spent enormous reserves of your own energy attempting to enlighten him. Ask yourself: "And how is it working?"
If it's not (and clearly it isn't), don't redouble your efforts in that direction. Instead, redirect your energy towards making your own life saner and calmer.
You don't need him to agree to an in-house separation. You have the right to sleep apart because you don't feel safe with him emotionally anymore. You have the right to not have sex with him for the same reason. You are not his property to commandeer and bully into compliance.
If he doesn't like your new self-care/ safety routine, he can either change, or else you can figure out Plan B for your life. I'm not minimizing that initially, it may be harder, but let's not minimize how much easier life gets, simultaneously, when we remove ourselves from the chaos that a disordered man generates whenever he's not getting his way, or is held accountable to the standards he agreed to when you committed to one another.
Keep reading here-- You will see the accounts of many who faced similarly difficult situations where health and money were compromised....and my hope is that you see your well-being will come from freeing yourself from his abuse, whatever that looks like....
Please read an important resource that I believe will help you immensely:
Shannon Thomas, LCSW's new book "Healing from Hidden Abuse"
https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Hidden-Abuse-Recovery-Psychological/dp/0997829087/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1507056667&sr=1-1&keywords=healing+from+hidden+abuse+shannon+thomas
We're all here for you-- Please reach out and share with us how you are doing. ?
My boyfriend of 2 1/2 years is a sex addict. He doesn't insist that I do anything too graphic, however he looks at porn sites and hook-up sites. Last year while planning a birthday party for him I saw several pictures of women he had at his house and they were definitely prostitutes, prior to our committed relationship. He also likes going to Thailand and I saw pictures from 2 different trips when we were dating but not committed. I'm disturbed, because he wanted to post some things for sale on Craigslist and I saw that he had looked at a WFM profile. I emailed the profile and told her I found him searching and I would take care of him, she needed to take care of herself and be safe. I have a feeling that right now he is out doing something or at least contemplating.
He spoils me and we just started cohabitating a month ago. I'm distressed.
Hi Again Lori,
I forgot to mention this...my husband of 25 years, has chosen his addiction over all we've built: the home, the children, our marriage, the business we own, all of it. This addiction how now left ME in a place of fear and hopelessness.
Please listen to your intuition and again, re-read what Lili Bee said.
With love
Please Please Lori, Listen to Lili Bee. Don't get stuck with this person. Once in, it is extremely hard to get out. You're young and I promise, you will recover and feel better. PLEASE.
I'm stuck and it consumes me each and every day, from the moment I wake until I fall asleep. It is a terrible way to live. It eats at you until you have no self respect or self worth. I have to wait at least another two years before I can get him out. And trust me, I feel like a damn fool.
Please Lori, re-read what Lili Bee said...
Hugs and love
Hi CVA,
I feel your pain. I too feel stuck in a relationship. I've actually tried to leave two other times but would always go back because of my fear of raising and supporting a child on my own, my anxiety over how it would impact my child, my hopes that my husband would get better, and my immense fear of being alone. I reflect on these decisions now and shake my head. I mean all of my fears not only came true but have been magnified! Our finances have been impacted and we have so many more bills than I would have had if I had been the only spender. My son feels like he has lost his childhood since the discovery because I was so broken I couldn't be there for him. My husband hasn't been a real father to him but more of a friend. My husband has not gotten better in the 3 years since discovery and our marriage is the same desolate love and sex starved desert it's always been. As for my fears of being alone, well I have been lonely for our entire marriage. I always ask why I don't just leave and cut my losses but I find myself frozen...stuck. I know that one day I will get so fed up I will leave or maybe I'll get lucky and he'll leave. Either way, Ive started working on my own recovery and childhood traumas so that I will NOT get into another relationship like this one!
Hi Avey,
I know......I hate this place. My husband denies all of it. When I told him I saw the videos, he says he does it to relax. When I said I saw the videos of the women "receiving" his videos, he says, "you can find anything on the internet". I think he has no clue what he has done, what the damage is, none of it. He is content thinking we will live like this forever. He doesn't think he has an addiction. What he doesn't know is I'm saving money as best I can, going to see an attorney to find out what my options are, stuff like that.
I have to say, like you, I am as scared as I can be. I'm 58 and have a daughter in college. I can't earn enough to make it on my own, I haven't worked outside the home in 26 years, I'm not college educated. I was lucky to find a part time job, however again, it's not enough. We are self employed and when I ask him to leave, I have no guarantee he will work and pay support. In the past, and this is why I'm in such a hole, he went into a funk, didn't work or try to find work, and we used ALL our savings. Nothing is left. Nothing.
Please don't blame yourself for not leaving. We always hope they will get better and as you know, it is very hard these days to try and raise a child on your own. Remember, you were trying your best!!! Do not blame yourself for something HE did. I know how hard this is to do, quite frankly, I do it too. But, if you keep reading the posts here, you will come to realize we did nothing wrong. You will find the courage when the time is right for YOU. You are strong and will get through all of it. Remember, if nothing else, we are all here for each other. A terrible "club" to be in, but one with great support and love.
Try to keep moving toward the recovery we all know is there waiting for us. Do things you love to do. Remember it is not your fault and you are perfect!
I'm here for you Avey and will keep you in my thoughts.
Hugs and love
Hi Lori- What I've found over the years doing this work, is that our intuition is usually spot-on. We get in trouble when we override it.
Where you write, "I have a feeling that right now he is out doing something or at least contemplating"....Please trust your gut on this!
I spent weeks in the hospital (and almost died) from a wicked pelvic inflammatory disease not once, but three separate times over the course of a few years because I refused to believe my husband could have been cheating-- after all, we were newlyweds!
He spoiled me like crazy, so I simply couldn't connect the dots of me having contracted that horrible illness with his using prostitutes....it took years before I had confirmation of that, because he covered his tracks so well. But I found out. Too bad it was too late- I was left unable to have children and still have complications, decades later. My story is NOT unique, I hear stories like mine every week here...
PLEASE take seriously what your gut is telling you...and don't mistake thinking that you two have a good thing going on, so why would he look for outside sex...And do you mind if I ask you-- why are you ok with his being on hookup sites? Let me guess...he tells you he's just looking, nothing more...
We are all rooting for you here! I'm glad you found us....and I'm sorry you are struggling with any of this.
I believe that my husband is a cross dresser but I believe that he is a sex addict and more specifically a porn addict. He told me about this several years ago when I had gotten upset thinking that he was having an affair. I thought I could be ok with it and he did dress several times. But, then I found that I just could not handle it, that I didn't like the person he was when he was "female", this person was very different from the man I married and not anyone I would be friends with. At that point I let him know that I was not ok after all and that if he needed to continue dressing I could not stay with him. Things were bad with us for a while, then he told me that our marriage was more important and he got rid of all of his dressing things and told me that he was done with it.
Many sites say that there is nothing wrong with cross dressing, that the spouse (me) needs to accept this part of him, but I'm not buying that because he has told me several times that he won't. Things were calm for quite a while and then I discovered that he had secretly been shopping for women's clothes, and that he had created an online female identity that he was using to chat with men I guess. I found this identity on several chat sites and I read many of the posts and conversations that he was having and was shocked at what he was saying to these people. He told me that he has never met anyone in person and that any relationships have been only online. I do believe him about this, or at least at that time I think it was true.
I confronted him, we went to a therapist for a while, talked about everything, and then our schedules got busy and therapy ended, but he had agreed that it was an addiction for him, and said again that he would not do any of these things again. There were probably a few more times in between these two where I discovered things showing that he was dressing again or somehow involved with it and each time I confronted him he agreed that he would stop. Things seemed very good after we had seen this therapist, and he had been planning to do one on one work to deal with the addiction, but due to various things, he began working 7 days a week and making time for this didn't seem important and since things seemed ok I didn't push it. While we were in therapy I told him that I couldn't trust his word any longer and that I didn't know how to be in a relationship with someone I couldn't trust. I had told him there would be no divorce because financially it would be devastating for me and I don't want to be in that situation. I told him that our marriage as it was would end however and that we would be "roomies".
Things have seemed great for a year or more now and then last night when he was at work I opened his laptop to use it and found it opened to a page showing all sorts of tranny porn. I confronted him via texts and he has again said he will end it all. Obviously there is no way to believe him.
I am now struggling with how to handle all of this. This obviously is an addiction since it is something that he has said several times he will stop yet he isn't able to stay away from it even knowing that doing so will/could end our marriage. I am devastated that I will never be able to trust him or relax about this. I don't want to end our marriage, as we are or at least were good friends and enjoy doing things together. But I'm finding it hard to wrap my head around being intimate with him knowing that he was looking at the tranny stuff and obviously must have been turned on by it. I know I need time to process all of this and would like to get to where I can accept our relationship being very different. We just had our 11 year anniversary which now seems like such a farce.
I realize that this is quite long and I'm not sure if any of this makes sense or if anyone else will consider this an addition but many of the comments I had read seem very similar to my situation.
Thank you for this video. I came across it looking for guidance on whether I should finally leave or not.
I am one of the hidden victims of this illness, I'm a male who's female partner has the addiction. I understand most of the betrayers are male, but I hope everyone realizes it is almost worse being a male who has to live with this shame. Not only does my wife act out with other males, but females too! There is no such thing as a safe relationship for me, and I too feel trapped. I've been in SANON for almost 3 years, but still ride the roller coaster of emotions due to my spouse's periodic acting out. I do my best to set boundaries but then fail to follow through on consequences, hoping and praying she won't act out again. I'm tired and very very lonely.
Hi, I am so sorry your spouse has been with other woman. My husband has also been with men. I feel this raised the level of betrayal. This made me question- is he gay, is his same sex attraction part of the addiction, will I ever be enough? I am searching sites to find out if it is common for a sex addict to also have a same sex attraction? If anyone can help answer this, please reply.
Thank you
Dear AW,
Please know you are not alone. We all share the same pain and emotions.
Please continue to watch the videos. They are very helpful to understand this crazy roller coaster we are on.
No one can tell you if you should stay or leave. That is something you will find in your heart when the time is right. For now, try to take care of yourself and the answers will come.
For me, AlAnon is helpful because I never knew how powerful addictions really are. I question everyday how could he do this when I'm here and love him unconditionally. I live with shame everyday , but I am finally realizing this has nothing to do with me. This is a lesson VERY hard to understand and learn. I try everyday to "get" it.
As you continue reading the comments and blogs here, you will see there is hope. Hope that we will move on, hope that we will find love again, hope that this is not our fault in any way.
Stay strong, know you are not "hidden".
Sending love and prayers
I found this video at just the perfect time, when I had once again confronted my husband about his recovery and once again feeling like the crazy person in the relationship. This video made me understand so much about why I have stayed for 40 years with my SA, and is the first thing that has made me realize that I can implement boundaries and even my Plan B, and that I will be okay. Thank you Lili Bee for this absolutely PRICELESS website and your wonderful words of wisdom and clarity.
Please let me know where I can find the next video on Cognitive Dissonance.
I would also love to watch the follow up video on cognitive dissonance.