A Close Friend Matches My Addict Husband’s Past “Porn/Fantasy” Woman. I’m Triggered Whenever I’m Around Her! What Can I Do?!

This episode, # 239, is in response to a very common and very painful, frustrating and limiting situation submitted by the betrayed partner of a porn/sex addict— My husband is currently in recovery, and I am unfortunately still in the depths of betrayal trauma. Unfortunately in the early discovery days (there have been 3 major ones over 20 years) I dug for the most amount of detail surrounding my husband’s outlets possible. At the time I did not know how damaging this would be for us both. I didn’t know gathering the details would cause further trauma to me. I found out that my husband has an ideal body type he has fixated on from early teenage years. It’s very specific and nothing like my body. Rationally I know that his porn of choice and women of choice have anything to do with me. I try my best to not see my difference in appearance to these fantasy women as shortcomings. HOWEVER, one of the biggest challenges we face in our relationship is that we have a mutual friend in our life, that is the wife of my husband’s best friend, who happens to match my husband's ideal fantasy body type. Every time we are around them I am hyper vigilant, watching his every move. I can’t relax and I don’t think he can either. It’s not fun for me to be around them anymore. I hate to even write this because they’re amazing people, the wife and I get along so well. Neither of them have done anything wrong towards me. We find ourselves in group settings often with them and the rest of our friends as well. So we never have a time where we hang out with friends without them there. I hate that I have feelings before the gathering hoping they’ll decide to stay home. I feel like a terrible person. I’ve also been so triggered that others have taken notice, and I have to brush it off and say things like I’m not feeling well. I feel like I cannot be authentic at all and I feel like I keep repeating d-day over and over again every time we are together. How can I be around this person, and separate what’s happened between my husband and I? Is it even possible? The wedge between my husband and I grows each time we hang out with them. I want to have fun with my husband again, I want to laugh with our friends, I don’t want to watch my husband, I want to enjoy life because our friends are such a huge part of it, but I don’t know how. First, let’s talk about “complex trauma/betrayal”—the unfairness of it; how it spills over into and impacts SO many aspects of a partner’s life; how the survival brain tries to cope . . . hyper-vigilance; personalization, etc—ALL legit! What can a betrayed partner in this very REAL situation, DO? Where is the EMPOWERMENT and PROACTIVITY? First, your feelings ARE legitimate! You’re in a relationship that you were led to believe would be faithful, loyal and exclusive. Through discovery/disclosure, you discovered that your porn/fantasy-addicted partner has a “favorite/preferred/ideal/” body type that does NOT match yours! Of course you REACT! Process & journal these feelings out; express them to your support system and when safe to do so, transparently express them to your addict partner—may need to be in writing first; then when safe, face-to-face—get it all out on the table. This is where you get to assess your willingness/abilities to come together as a TEAM to COLLABORATE! This takes INDIVIDUAL WORK FIRST—Addict: shame resilience/defensiveness/reactivity work; leading out, leaning in, empathy, etc; Betrayed Partner: sovereign, independent healing work. Be mindful of the “fallacy of fairness.” As a “team” NOTHING IS OFF THE TABLE! What will truly meet individual and coupleship authentic wants and needs going forward? Learn more about Mark and Steve's revolutionary online porn/sexual addiction recovery and betrayal trauma healing program at— daretoconnectnow.com