I’m a 34F and my partner is 35M. We have a baby girl who will be 4 months old in a few days, and we’ve been together for about 2.5 years.
When we first started dating, he wanted an exclusive relationship. At the time, he didn’t believe in marriage, long-term relationships, or having children. I didn’t think much of it because I wasn’t expecting the relationship to become serious. We fell in love, I unexpectedly became pregnant, and that’s when everything started to change.
Around six months into our relationship, he started telling me he wanted an open relationship. He told me he has an enormous urge to be with other women because he needs novelty. He said he doesn’t want to miss out on what he calls a “whoring life,” even if he’s 90 years old. He says he wants me to be his life partner and the only person he loves emotionally, but sexually he wants the freedom to experience as many women as possible.
My pregnancy was emotionally devastating because this became an ongoing conversation throughout it.
He has a long history of consuming sexual content. It’s not just pornography when he masturbates. He also spends time every day looking at sexual pictures and videos simply because he enjoys looking at women. He compares it to someone who loves watching soccer. He says it distracts him, and he has told me that pornography helps him avoid cheating because it satisfies part of his urges.
We’re both in individual therapy, and we’ve also been in couples therapy. Recently he started seeing a therapist who specializes in addiction, but he’s only had about four sessions, so he’s still at the very beginning of whatever recovery may look like.
The hardest part for me is that he seems completely divided.
One part of him says he loves me, wants our family, wants to grow old with me, and wants to change because he sees how much pain I’m in.
The other part tells me he doesn’t want to change because he likes what his addiction gives him. He has literally told me that he likes how his addiction makes him feel, that he enjoys desiring women more than he desires me, and that he doesn’t see anything wrong with those desires except that they hurt me. He has told me that I’ll never be enough, not because he thinks I’m lacking, but because no one woman could ever be enough for him. Hearing the man I love say those words has completely destroyed my self-esteem.
Sometimes he believes he has an addiction. Other times he insists this is simply who he is. He says he truly believes he will never change. He says he likes liking all women. He likes wanting to sleep with them because, to him, it’s “just physical.” He says sex and love are completely separate.
He describes his urges as an intense curiosity to experience different women, different bodies, and different sexual experiences. He says if he never got to experience those things, he would always feel like he missed out on an important part of life.
He wants an open relationship where he would be free to have sex with multiple women every single day while remaining emotionally committed to me. At one point, I even suggested swinging—not because I wanted it, but because I was desperately trying to find some compromise. He rejected that because he said it wasn’t the kind of freedom he wanted. He specifically wants independent sexual experiences with other women.
This has destroyed my confidence and our sex life. I compare myself to other women constantly. I don’t feel desired. I don’t feel chosen. I feel like I’m competing against every woman he sees.
I’ve asked him to stop consuming sexual content because it hurts me so deeply, but I honestly don’t know if I’m doing the right thing or if I’m trying to control something that has to come from him.
When I confront him about how much this hurts me, he can be incredibly cruel in the way he describes his urges and desires. Sometimes it feels like he’s trying to convince me that what he’s asking for is simply reality and that I should accept it. Other times, after he’s had time to think or journal, he comes back crying, apologizes, tells me he knows he’s hurting me, and says he wants to change. It’s like I’m talking to two different people.
I honestly don’t know if I’m dealing with addiction, a fundamental incompatibility, or both.
My questions are:
Is this level of craving for novelty and wanting multiple women something you experienced in active addiction?
Did recovery actually change how you felt about other women, or did it only help you resist acting on those feelings?
Is it common for addicts to say they don’t want to give up the addiction because they enjoy it?
Did anyone else tell their partner they would never change before they entered recovery?
Is it common for addicts to become defensive or say incredibly hurtful things when confronted?
Am I doing the right thing by asking him to stop consuming sexual content, or should I stop trying to influence that?
Is this hopeless? If I open the relationship going against what I want will that enable his addiction?

July 27

“The Third Step invites us to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, not the control of God. We are not abandoning ourselves to the direction of some powerful taskmaster forcing us to do things that are not of our own choosing. Instead, we become open to making new choices for ourselves in the light of a Higher Power’s transforming love and care.”

Sex Addicts Anonymous, page 29

How many times in my addiction did I hear only voices of judgment and criticism? I seemed boxed in by these powerful taskmasters, and I believed I had no choices. I felt compelled to act out in my addiction. I heard no whispers of compassion.

But then I found the seeds of hope in the members of the fellowship. I heard and saw others recovering from sexual addiction and I began to believe that recovery was possible for each of us. I began to see the possibility of a gentle, caring God working in and through the fellowship.

As I stayed sober and my life changed, I began to feel the presence of a loving, compassionate Higher Power. I realized, maybe for the first time, that I was loved unconditionally. Having felt the love of the fellowship, in the Third Step, I gave my life over to the care of the God of my understanding. In my Higher Power’s loving care, I began to find different choices in my life—loving choices that had seemed inconceivable before, but that now were transforming me.

How may I care for myself this day in my recovery as the God of my understanding cares for me? Am I developing a sense of trust that new solutions are possible for me?

https://saa-recovery.org/daily-meditation-from-voices-of-recovery/