When my husband and I visited the Galapagos Islands last year we visited the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz island. This Research Station is the home to ‘Lonesome George’, the last living tortoise of his species. When he dies the species will be extinct.
Thinking back on that trip today I realized that when I met my husband he was like Lonesome George. He had no friends, no social life, no intimacy. His life consisted of work and acting out. Sure, we would have conversations, but his mind was always somewhere else. He had been a loner since childhood and had built a wall around himself and his feelings.
From what he tells me of the Sex Addicts in his 12 step groups, most addicts are loners.
I am curious.
Is the man or woman you are involved with a loner?
The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved. ~ Mother Teresa
yes, mine is basically a loner too. his friends are me and whoever he is acting out w/ @ the moment. he thinks he has “friends” but does not share himself w/ any of them in any significant way. this is because his real self is always shrouded in secrecy.
Mine doesn’t have life-long friends. He is charming, funny, and very friendly at the social/ event, but nobody makes an effort to make a real friend with him. He asked for their email and tried to contact them. They just answered him politely then made no effort to stay in contact with him. I do see him being lonely even in the crowd. I suspect that goes the same for your man.
This is an interesting post. My SA is what I call a thrill seeking loner. I understand this is an addict personality: No friends, tho he used to refer to past sexual partners as friends–no longer. He plays hockey, snowboards down the back mountains, gambled (now under some control). He is a doctor, so is with other people one on one for work–does not seek out groups. Mostly activities requiring only him. When he is relaxed, he’ll go out with my friends. Funny, as I am an extrovert, HATED to be alone–as I have gotten older, I do appreciate being alone, but in general, I am just the opposite of him.
This is true for my husband as well. He has so called professional friends, but no real friends other than the women he’s been involved with.
My husband was the exact same when I met him- no friends, worked all the time and a sex addict(but I had no idea) I can truly say that in the 16 years I have been with him, I have never felt so alone at times. Despite having close family and friends but I carried this secret and tried to play perfect. I have a lot of repressed anger and guilt with my self for staying and I am now ready to leave even though he hasn’t acted out in about a year and a half. He is truly trying but I can’t trust him – he has never told me the truth when I suspected somthing, until he was caught. The last time our young children found his porn. They were young enough that I made up some lie about it not being his and they believed it. He was horrible to my first son but I stayed anyway (he is grown now) I have no steady income and cannot afford the house but I feel like the children are older now and I can’t stay anymore. He makes me feel so guilty for leaving and plays the pity story with me (poor him) and I even fear for his mental state (depression). I am so sorry to unburden like this but I found this site 3 days ago and it has offered me such comfort, I wish I had seen it 15 years ago and not wasted all these years feeling this way. My kids will not understand why we are seperating but I have to be strong and just do it, with the full knowledge that I will lose our home and will be raising the children alone. I guess I need to admit that I am scared and a bit insecure about being alone (I also have some pretty bad asthma issues) but I thank you so much for this support and any advice. I also dread the confortation and anger from him. (like it’s my fault) He always tries to say how I expect to much and he never does enough to please me, blah, blah… I just want an emotionaly present father and husband that is not gripy and ill all the time and who truly loves me and sees ME and wants to have sex with me (this is another big issue) he never wants to have sex and pays me any attention- it’s like I live alone anyway. He just supports us… Thanks
Dear finallywakingup,
My goodness, dear woman, I am sorry this SA has run over your life like a mack truck.
But now, you are going to take back your life. Yes, it’s scary as hell. I started taking it back sept 2009, and I still get scared. I too lost our family home. But I’m good. And my kids are young adults now. Your will do just fine. And don’t think they don’t already know anyway.
The really big learning is learning how to value and love yourself. I was really bad at it. I tried to look after everyone else before I looked after me. I’m getting there–slowly. You will too. We can get stuck in the rut of putting up with crap, and looking after others–and we’re almost to look after ourselves for fear it won’t make any difference. It does.
There are still problems. And maybe nobody will come and love you the way we all hoped someone would. But it’s your life and there are bright spots. And it’s better than before.
I really identify with your longing for your SA to see YOU, to want YOU. It’s still the piece that aches sometimes. But he never will. And staying won’t change that.
Meanwhile there’s a beautiful winter moon shining. You can turn up your favorite CD as loud as you want. The closet is all yours. And your home is your sanctuary.
much love you,
D.
The SA with whom I was involved with for four years – and still feeling like I will never recover from it – lives a parasitic existence. He has a very difficult time just managing the tasks of everyday living, doesn’t drive, and people, esp church people, tend to take him under their wing and do things for him. He calls them friends but I do not believe that it is authentic on his part. He doesn’t have true long term friendships and his pool of “friends” tends to be in flux. He seems to like the attention he gets by playing the role of “down on his luck/victim”. Because he can barely keep himself together without help, he is never in a position to do any “heavy lifting” for others and it just stays in that pattern. In spite of all of that, he tends to be well-liked and/or pitied by people but as Kay said about her SA “his real self is shrouded in secrecy”. Interestingly, he has “outed” himself to some and, while some can’t handle it, others stick with him and try to help.
Thank you Diane, I think I have read everybody’s story in here and I just feel so much better and stronger to know that I’m not alone. It was so bad and frequent 10 years ago, that I got to where I was just numb and didn’t even get angry anymore (on the outside) I just stuffed it down and tried to act like nothing happened and put on a good face for the children. Even after two arrests that he was cleared on. For harressing women on the phone. It’s like now I am finally coming alive again and am ready to move on- it’s funny that it has taken so long and nothing has even triggered this but it is like I am finished, finally. I haven’t told him but I want him to leave and give me at least 6 months to see how I feel. In this time I know I will lose the house but I am really okay with that. I just worry so much about my two youngest (ages 10 and 12). I was thinking tonight that I need to wait until after Thanksgiving ( I have a big dinner here with all the family) and not ruin the holidays for the kids but I just don’t think I can wait any longer.
Diane, you hit the nail on the head.
“I really identify with your longing for your SA to see YOU, to want YOU. It’s still the piece that aches sometimes. But he never will. And staying won’t change that.”
That is what stays, and what hollows us. That another, the most important to us and we were supposed to be the most important to them…that we never mattered and never will. We actually got in the way of what they wanted.
Try not to dwell on how we believe and act and applying it to them.
They just don’t have it. Never will for anyone.
You have to build all that back up again, and it hurts,but the horrible will fade….it just takes so damn long! But it does fade, and you get stronger and learn to trust again. Bringing back what you were before I have not been able to do myself very well. But I am more what I was before him than what I was with him.
It is no different than a train wreck, any tragedy in life is going to change you…and that is what has become of us.
My SA is definatly a loner. When I met him, he had a few drinking buddies form work, but thats it. No “friends” from what I can see. Oh he had plenty of aquantinces, but nothing meaningful.
Mine is a loner as well. No real friends. No one he plays golf with or anything like that and his “hobbies” all involve the mastery of a skill…nothing about or remotely involving building relationships. I am his only connection to social interaction.
Do they not have friends cause they are loners or do they not have friends cause they are just assholes?
Mine used to have friends when he was in HS and through his second marriage (or I am assuming he had friends as that is what the story I got so who knows if that’s a lie), but it appeared as though he was pretty social.. he was at that time just into porn and I believe it didn’t start to become really bad for him until right towards the end of his second marriage from what I can gather.. the internet provided all kinds of outlets for him and little by little he became a loner. Nobody in our neighborhood ever invited us to parties or anything and wasn’t until I left him did i learn that it had nothing to do with me, no one could stand him.
I heard him lie to his friends, his family, the butcher the baker and the candle stick maker about anything and everything. It used to drive me crazy. Seriously, if I was nothing more than a friend to that man and had to listen to his bullshit and totally fabricated stories over and over again, I would drop him like a hot potatoe. The only friends I’ve ever known my husband to have are his harem of women, if its not someone he can hang out with to boost he ego, he can’t be bothered. Plus, its hard to have a life, hobbies and friends when your every spare moment is spent hiding in the bedroom behind a computer looking for your next fix.
Absolutely. My therapist actually laughed when she asked me about his friends and family and I said that he didn’t have any friends. She laughed and said “oh no, not a loner too”. The only people he socialises with are his two younger brothers, one of whom shows nothing but contempt for him. Throughout his childhood, he says he remembers people wanting to be friends with him and following him around but him not feeling anything in return towards them.
Again, I have only know about my former fiancée but since intimacy is a foreign concept to him, forming friendships doesn’t serve any purpose. He used to describe emotional intimacy like an increasingly uncomfortable feeling that drove him to want to shed his skin. Nice huh.
He was socially inhibited and found it hard to even order his own food at restaurants or talk to people over the phone. He couldn’t check in at hotels or book us a table for dinner, and if he could get out of talking to people at all he would. Of course, picking up women, online and in real life, was the only social interaction he didn’t seem to have any difficulty with. He had no friends because he had nothing to gain from bothering to make friends and because he lacked social confidence where he couldn’t related to the target in a sexual way.
hahaaa! Sorry I’m laughing because the picture! So funny! My husband is a loner as well.
He has some friends, but never hangs out with them. He just keeps in touch with one, but it is rare to they meet each other, even to talk to each other. My husband is a little better now. How can I say that… Now he orders his own food in the restaurants…lol. He likes to go out and to be with people, but he doesn’t like to talk. He just wants to be there watching. When I invite some friends of mine to come to our house, he helps me with the dinner and he seems to enjoy it, but at the dinner he will be only watching. My friends don’t mind about that. What I feel about him is like he wants to be interacting with people but he can’t, he feels insecure and shy. However I can be embarrassed when we find someone we know in the street and the person comes to us to say hello so happy and my husband just stay quite without any word. This is very embarrassing. He doesn’t know how to have intimacy with nobody. He doesn’t like to give his own opinion about a question. He doesn’t like to talk about himself. When I ask something to him, if it is not about what we are going to have for dinner, he will always say : I don’t know. When he drinks he can be more friendly and talk to everybody. It shows that he want to talk to people but he doesn’t have courage to do it. I think it must be awful to be like that. He doesn’t like to talk on the phone too. Yesterday we had a huge fight. I was fighting actually. I’m so tired about all this situation so I asked him: What do you think we can do to make things better between us? What do you think about our marriage? He said the usual: I don’t know! So I asked: Do you want get divorced? And he: No! So why he doesn’t even try to talk to me? To communicate, to open his mind even if it will be just a little bit.
Again, I cannot get over how all of the topics mentioned on these posts describe my husband to a T!
When I met my husband, he had few friends, and they all lived out of town. I didn’t think much of it, bc I also don’t have many close friends. But after we got married, I noticed these friends would never really contact him, and it was that way all throughout our marriage. The only time he would spend time with friends was when he wanted to go sit in a bar with coworkers and get buzzed and flirt with other women, and when I had a problem w/it, then I didn’t want him to have any friends.
Once he became active in our church, it was like all of the attention he craved as a child and teen was being met. Here were all these people that loved to be around him, and were always stroking his ego, but it was all superficial relationships, where they never knew the real him. I always felt so bad for him that he never had any buddies that he could go hang out with, and his family never called him just to talk, unless it was the holidays.
He didn’t have a problem making friends w/women at his office, or at church, and once again, when I would get upset over these “friendships” he hid from me, he’d say I just didn’t want him to have any friends. He used to tell me all the time, I was the only person he had in his life, no one else wanted to be friends with him, and in the beginning I felt so bad for him, but after 15+ years, I began to wonder why it was so hard for him to make friends with other guys.
Now that he’s gone, he’s gotten involved with every social network site there is, has hooked back up w/old friends I wish he would have had this whole time, and has made more friends bc he has time to go do things whenever he wants, he has no other responsibilites now. He blames me, and tells me it’s my fault he never had any friends before, when I WANTED him to have good, HEALTHY friendships. It hurts that he can point the finger of blame at me, and everyone believes him. None of them will ever know the truth.
I also feel the same way so many of you do, which helps me feel a little better, but I still battle this one..he always had time for his individual hobbies, and anytime anyone else needed him for something, he couldn’t be there fast enough, but I was made to feel selfish if I wanted to spend time with him, or I wanted his attention. How ironic, he craved massive amounts of praise, and had someone that WANTED to be with him, but it was like once he felt secure I wasn’t going leave him, he wanted nothing to do with me, and spending time with me meant nothing to him.
Yes.
This is the greatest collection of stories I read … I accidentally stumbled upon it , yet most of these reflect my husband to a t … Thank you ladies . How do I join your group ?
Simply register. But remember, this is not a back and forth forum. Comments need to be restricted to the topic or article, not questions and answers between commenters. ~ JoAnn