[uncharteddvs]

At times I loose my self respect.age 64 Off and on for 10 years I have felt this. My wife went on a sex addiction starting over the internet and leading to phone sex and 6 sexual one night events for 3 to 4 years. Finally she came clean with this behavior and wanted to leave me. We worked it out and are still together. However, I still get flash backs like when I was in the Marine reserves and cannot seem to clean it out of my mind. It really hurts when I talk about it and leaves me thinking I did not do enough to keep her satisfied. I am 64 now and still have these episoses. I have discussed this with her off and on which makes her upset that I have not moved on. I take zoloff, xanax, and for my epilipsy lamotrigine. My bother has had many sexual incounters that I lost count of. My father puts him on a pedistal. Where I am just the intellegent geek of the family: Eng. with a masters. I feel like I do not have the courage to do anything like my brother and my wife have done. I feel like I have fail in basic life requirements for healthy marital relationships. I have possibly 15 to 20 years of my life to live. I do not want to live them like this. Believe it or not, talking to my wife helps, but I dare not inter into the discussion the above thoughts.

[Ygrec23]

Originally Posted by uncharteddvs

At times I loose my self respect.age 64 Off and on for 10 years I have felt this. My wife went on a sex addiction starting over the internet and leading to phone sex and 6 sexual one night events for 3 to 4 years. Finally she came clean with this behavior and wanted to leave me. We worked it out and are still together. However, I still get flash backs like when I was in the Marine reserves and cannot seem to clean it out of my mind. It really hurts when I talk about it and leaves me thinking I did not do enough to keep her satisfied. I am 64 now and still have these episoses. I have discussed this with her off and on which makes her upset that I have not moved on. I take zoloff, xanax, and for my epilipsy lamotrigine. My bother has had many sexual incounters that I lost count of. My father puts him on a pedistal. Where I am just the intellegent geek of the family: Eng. with a masters. I feel like I do not have the courage to do anything like my brother and my wife have done. I feel like I have fail in basic life requirements for healthy marital relationships. I have possibly 15 to 20 years of my life to live. I do not want to live them like this. Believe it or not, talking to my wife helps, but I dare not inter into the discussion the above thoughts.

It sounds like you feel that your wife and your brother are somehow better than you are. I don't think most people would agree with that. Many people would think that their sexual escapades were awful and nothing to look up to. You may be in a family that has doubtful values. And those values seem to make you feel badly. You're probably a lot better than you feel you are.

Since you're 64, you only have a year to go to get on Medicare. Medicare will pay for you to find a therapist and go to therapy. Then you can talk with a trained professional about whether it's really good for you to stay with your wife or not. A therapist will also help you change your life to something more comfortable for you than it is at present.

Do you have any friends to talk to? Anyone to whom you can tell the whole truth and talk about it? It sounds as if you have trouble with self-esteem and may well be depressed too. I'm not a professional, just another member of PC, but those are topics you'd want to talk over with a T when you get one. You have plenty of life ahead of you and it's good that you've decided you don't want to live it the way you've done in the past. You just need some help to do so. PC can help. A T can help. Friends can help. You might want to start by reading about relationships in the relationship forum and depression in the depression forum. Take care!

[madisgram]

warm welcome to pc, uncharted. ygrec had some helpful tips. i might add one more re your ptsd Post-traumatic Stress forum here at pc. there's a subforum combat ptsd Combat PTSD forum. hope this info may help.