I just added some...

.... more to my formal disclosure that I will be reading to my wife. Sounds like the date has been changed to Friday, March 18th. I've still not heard from my therapist. My wife said that her therapist made some comment about me possibly needing some time to make a few changes to my disclosure. That comment leads me to think that my disclosure has been shared with her therapist and now my therapist is going to ask me to go back through mine and be a little more honest.

This morning I did add some honesty. I came through with actual start date of my acting out with prostitutes. I also added sobriety dates of my acting out. There are different dates because of different types of acting out scenarios.

I feel very good about these changes. I know they will hurt my wife. I really have no doubts about that. But I cannot worry myself about it. I did these actions. I can either completely ignore her need to hear this disclosure and just quit our marriage now. Or I can accept that I have to tell her that she was right about me and then accept whatever the outcome is. I still don't see how the relationship survives after I do this disclosure. Yet I feel very strongly that doing this disclosure will be a huge release for me, freeing me from much shame and self-denial of my actions.

Here's my disclosure letter as of 8:15am on March 2nd, 2011:


I made a commitment to you when I proposed to you. That commitment was that I would be faithful to you in our marriage. I made the same commitment to you again when I said our wedding vows. Even in the letter from 1997 before we got married, that you recently found, this commitment was expressed. I know there were numerous cards that I gave to you expressing my love and devotion to our marriage. There was no reason for you to doubt my sincerity in any of those expressions of commitment. I never said, wrote or expressed that these vows included me having any kind of sexual relationship with another woman. Yet I have violated that commitment and trust in our relationship.

I’m really not sure where to start but I found myself hurting so much emotionally that I had to find something to fix the hurt. In my mixed up, crazy mind, I didn’t want to figure out what issues I had, I just wanted to fix them. I don’t like drugs so I reached for something else, sexually acting out. I’ve told you before that I have acted out sexually with prostitutes and visited massage parlors and a few strip clubs. After acting out the first time, I found that there was an emotional release for me. It felt good. From there I was searching for the next emotional release, believing that would be the cure-all answer to whatever issues I was trying to fix. It wasn’t.

An example of my addictive behaviors would be when I would surf porn sites online after you had gone to bed. I thought I could just spend a few minutes but would spend hours doing this. I never could figure out why I couldn’t just walk away from it. Occasionally there might be some chatting with someone online during this time. While I didn’t leave the house and go track down a prostitute at night, this activity would leave me tired, depressed and emotionally vacant. I never really put together my reactions to my actions and would find myself surfing mindlessly again another night, looking at more porn. The crazy addictive cycle was beginning it’s sickening spiral in my life.

As time went on I found myself anticipating you leaving the house to go to work, thus giving me the freedom to sit in front of my computer and start surfing for porn or prostitutes. Rarely was this a quick process, as I would be so engrossed in this activity that I would lose track of any sense of time, finding myself hours later still at the same spot. Instead of working and trying to build my business I stayed online, searching for “I don’t know what”. When I was finally done surfing the net I would then have to take another 20/30 minutes to clean up any trace of these sites from the computer. Every day I would make a commitment to myself not to act out and too many times I could not keep that commitment to myself. I’d wake up and want to do some work and drum up more business yet I was powerless over this addictive pull of the internet and sexual acting out.

By this time my addiction had taken control of me. I was feeling quite a bit of anxiety, shame and self-hatred which would lead me to start looking online for prostitutes. That would lead to a visit with a prostitute or a massage parlor. I would get a quick high out of that visit only to find myself feeling more shame, more anger, more self hatred and start all over again. During this whole time I would believe that the actual experience of being with a prostitute would fulfill any emotional holes in my life.

I told myself that you wouldn’t understand what I was doing and had no qualms with keeping this from you. Hell, I had no idea how I could even begin to explain what was going on. I was in emotional pain and I could not share the pain or my actions with you. But in keeping it from you I had to lie more. I had to tell you that I had a migraine, even if I didn’t. I’d tell you that I felt depressed or had work to do. I’d tell you anything just so I wouldn’t have to talk with you. I was so angry with myself and so utterly confused that I would just express this anger towards you. I would emotionally blow up about anything and then retreat into my own mind. I knew that you did not like me expressing this misdirected anger towards you. Yet I also knew that you would back away from me and give me space, even though that pained you. I know that you felt you were walking on “eggshells” much of the time when talking with me or just being with me. I honestly didn’t care. My addiction and own needs were too great for me to care about any one else. I only cared about me. I wanted what I wanted, when I wanted it.

Acting out definitely caused me to distance myself from you emotionally. I’d have no desire to share any thoughts with you. It didn’t matter if they were small, mundane thoughts about my daily activities or something more serious. This addiction gave me no desire to share anything going on in my life. I was too afraid of possibly sharing something about these ugly actions of mine. I buried myself further and further into my own mind and my own world, not wanting anyone to share anything with me.

I know that you were suspicious of my activities at different times. Once I slammed my computer shut when you wanted to see what was on the screen. I wouldn’t let you open my computer. You were right in your belief that there was some porn sites open on the laptop. Twice my laptops had to be replaced because of viruses caused while surfing porn sites. I lied to you about them but I don’t think you ever believed me.

You once asked me if losing my job at El Gaucho had anything to do with my sexual addiction and I said no. The reality is that in a big way it did as my sexual acting out was controlling my life and I could not keep my emotions in check at work either. This of course led to conflicts with my boss. The easiest way for me to deal with that was to run if given the opportunity. I was told to change or leave. I chose to leave.

While my serious sexual acting out occurred while we were married, there were relationships before ours in which I treated woman as sex objects, only there for my benefit. Once the sexual attraction was gone and the woman wanted to get emotionally involved, I would start to check out emotionally from the relationship. This was I believe the start of my addiction as I found myself only becoming concerned with myself. Not caring at all about others, their feelings or their needs, desires or questions.

Today I am sure that you are very confused about our relationship and whether or not I love you or even if I ever loved you. Yes I did love you when we got married. Yet I never found it difficult to tell you lies of omission or even outright lies if I thought it would put me in a better light. I did this even though you would attempt to call me out on it. But I refused to give in to your desire for the truth and kept on lying. An example of this is my numerous denials over whether I had sex with Debbie Long. Yes I did. Only once but I continued to lie to you regarding this since I wanted you to think that I wouldn’t have sex with just anyone. The reality is that I would if the opportunity arose. But I had to be whatever you wanted me to be.

I can only imagine how my emotional isolating and sexual acting out has affected your ability to believe or trust in anyone, especially someone in a committed relationship. While my life is void of examples, I know there are people in the world that are committed to their spouses and their marriages in a very positive way. You are right in believing that is the way a marriage is suppose to be. Two individuals totally committed to each other.

I know that the disclosure of my sexual addiction and acting out has rocked your world. It has caused you great emotional stress. I realized that I have caused you much confusion and suffering. Almost as bad is the reality that you cannot share these emotions with close friends or loved ones. You have been left alone on an emotional island. I never thought that my disclosure to you would cause this. I have not asked you to keep it from anyone nor have I asked any of your friends or relatives to be quiet about my past actions. In sharing information about this addiction, I have not try to hold anything back in an attempt to make myself look good. If you need to share anything about my addiction with your friends, for the sake of your growth and well being, then please do so.

I have made you question your reaction of my disclosure to you regarding my addiction. I thought that only an immediate emotional response would be appropriate. I could not understand how anyone could have any other reaction. Your desire to work through your thoughts and feelings at your pace has been enlightening. I want a quick resolution to things and you are able to take a slow, deliberate path towards finding your answers. I commend you for this. I know you’re feeling pain. I believe you’re holding back expressing all of your thoughts and emotions. Again, I must accept you working through things at your pace and not my pace. I cannot control your reaction or the timing of your reactions. They will happen when you wish for them to happen. I have to respect your boundaries and needs.

You have probably spent time thinking or even believing that you may have caused some of my sexual acting out to happen. Nothing could be further from the truth. Perhaps we did not have the most sexually active relationship that a couple could have. That did not cause me to act out. My addiction is not about you. There is nothing that you did to make it worse. My addiction is about my inability to deal with my feelings, thoughts and emotions in a healthy way. You’ve never been unavailable to me to talk about anything. I have not been open to talking to you.

Financially I can’t give you an exact figure as keeping track of what I spent would include me being responsible or accountable for my actions. That just doesn’t happen in the world of my addiction. But I would say I spent at least $50,000, maybe up to $100,000. That would include sex with prostitutes, visits to massage parlors, strip clubs, broken computers, hotel room rentals, loss of interest on money moved out of saving accounts, and loss of income due to loss of potential real estate deals.

Let me also clear up the date of when I first paid for any sex during our marriage. Previously I told you it was about 5 years ago. I lied. The reality is that the first time I paid for any kind of sexual service from a female was on Super Bowl Sunday in January of 2003. In the weeks prior to that I had spent time looking at ads in the back pages of the Sacramento News and Review. Then when the Bucs made the Super Bowl I felt my anxiety level just go through the roof. Super Bowl morning you headed off to Target to do some shopping and do some other errands, so I picked up the phone and track down a girl to give me a sexual massage.

As far as when was the last time I had sexual intercourse with a prostitute I would say that was probably March of last year, maybe April. The last time I paid a prostitute for any kind of sex would probably be April or May of last year. Since then I have only occasionally looked at some porn online, the last time of which would have been over three months ago.

I’ve also have to admit to you something that is very painful to me. I cannot understand why but a few times while you were at work I had prostitutes over to our house. I never thought about any potential danger this might cause. I barely gave it a thought and did it anyways. Actually I went even further and had a few prostitutes in our bed. Again, I really never thought about it or any repercussions it could have. I only thought about me and my immediate needs and wants. Today, each of those actions seem very incredulous and completely, utterly wrong.

In terms of trusting me today or in the future, I believe that you have every right to ask for accountability from me in my actions. Even though I do not have a drinking problem today I do believe that alcohol does loosen up my inhibitions and make me more vulnerable to acting out. So I would prefer not to drink. Whether I am working, having fun or just relaxing by myself, you have the right to ask me to account for my time and actions. I wish I could say with 100% confidence that I will never sexually act out again. Yet that would be a lie. I can only say that today I feel very confident I will not act out today. I only have the ability to fight today. I’ll fight tomorrow when it comes.

Writing this letter has been difficult for me. Reading it has been difficult too. It has probably raised some questions in your mind that you’d like to ask. I am open to answering them. Feel free to ask some today. If you like to ask some later, I’m open to that too. I am sorry that you had to hear this letter be read to you today. I know that it took a lot of strength for you to listen to me talk about my addiction. I’m proud of you.