Exposed: My Ex is a Sex Addict

Exposed: My Ex is a Sex addict

By Guest Writer Dominick Pizzio

With gay “dating” apps like Scruff and Grindr available on our phones it’s become easy for people to find anonymous sex and increase the spread of diseases by cheating on their unknowing partners.  They are able to hide behind low resolution pictures and promises of a clean STD status with no regards for anyone other than their own needs for sexual release. After two years of being blindly happy in a relationship I found myself being victimized by my boyfriend brought sex partners  into our relationship without my knowledge.  He used family photos, photos I took of him and vacation photos of us to lure these men into anonymous sex through social media without any care for my safety, my health or our relationship.

You see, I spent the past two years happier than I ever have been with the love of my life. Let’s just call him Ryan.  He was this amazing guy who only after a few months I saw myself spending my life with him.  He was kind, caring, attentive, honest, trusting and loving. Randomly he would bring me flowers and say I deserved them. He would hold my hand when he saw me stressed and he would have me lay on him while we watched movies. We went on family vacations and hikes and he always drove because he knew I hated to. That’s just the type of guy he was. Everyone that met him said they saw the love he had for me and my 13 year old daughter.  Almost immediately he slid into the parent role helping her with homework, going to all her track and cross country meets and even spoke to her class about his career. He clearly loved both of us.  Although we agreed to keep things light between us, six months in Ryan gave me an ultimatum to commit to a full relationship or go our separate ways.  How could I leave this amazing man?  I, of course, committed. I loved him even though I hadn’t told him yet.

This past October the veneer of our perfect relationship started to chip away.  He came to me and told me he had stage 2 Syphilis and that I needed to get tested.  He said it was from a guy he met before to me but that would have been a year and a half prior.  Things didn’t add up.  I was tested and clean but the question was still in my head.  How could we have had unprotected, monogamous sex for a year and a half and I not have anything.  I took him at his word. Ryan hadn’t given me any reason not to trust him before. We were planning on moving in together.  He was at my house every night for dinner and all day on the weekends, there was no way I could have known what was going to happen.   In early January he came to me and said his work was overwhelming him and that he loved me but he could not continue with a relationship and maintain his career. He said over the course of two weeks he fell out of love with him knowing he had this decision to make.  I was devastated.  I was dumped and with the engagement ring I bought was sitting just five feet away on the shelf.  After two days of crying I went to his apartment.  I was ready to tell him that it doesn’t work like this.  People don’t get stressed at work then abandon their family.  I mean, my now 15 year old daughter was calling him dad!  Then it happened.  The bomb was dropped.  Ryan said he was a sex addict and had slept with roughly 200 guys from Grindr, Scruff and Craigslist over the course of three years.  I was in shock and at that moment everything came flooding back to me.  I asked him why he would push for a relationship knowing he had this addiction, he said because ‘he didn’t want to lose his family’ and with me the addiction ‘wasn’t as strong as when he was with his ex.’  I asked him why he dumped me in such a way that would have left me no reason to think I should run out and get tested? He said he would have “eventually” told me but that I shouldn’t worry because he was “always safe.”  Safe to him, he said, was using a condom for intercourse but then admitted to swallowing their semen.  Apparently my idea of safe sex was totally against what he was thinking.

https://www.betterhelp.com/ advice/psychologists/are- online-psychologists-for-real/

I asked him when did he have the time for all this given he was with us most of the  time.  He said he would call in sick or go into work late and have these encounters in the morning or even leave work during the day to meet up with these guys.   Over the course of our conversation Ryan admitted to giving every aspect of our relationship to these men.  He had sex with them, he kissed them, he often stayed after and cuddled with them and talked.  There was nothing of us, our love, our life he kept just for us. He showed no care or concern for my health during our relationship and continued to expose me to these other men without my knowledge.

Anger started to build in me almost immediately. No not for Ryan, for myself.  I felt like this was my fault that maybe if I were thinner, more sexually adventurous, smarter or younger (I’m 40, he’s 28) he would have stayed faithful; so I begged him to stay with me.  I didn’t just beg, I cried, I couldn’t stand the thought of losing what I perceived was my happiness with a guy that was nearly perfect.  I knew for myself I could manage this with him.  I was ready to help in any way I could and be supportive in his treatment.  The problem is the next day everything seemed to change.  Ryan didn’t want to see me as much, he said I was a source of anxiety for him but wouldn’t say why other than he felt guilty.  In the real word I thought adults worked through guilt but it was clear he had no interest.  When he did come over he was cold, distant, almost angry with me.  Even the way he looked at me changed, it was as if he blamed me for everything forgetting that this was his addiction that impacted our family and not the other way around.

Things were different for Ryan than they were for me. He had known about his addiction for years, he had time to emotionally and intellectually deal with the breakup before even telling me. He had someone to confide in about his actions even if it were just to brag. I on the other hand was struggling with this new Ryan.   Over the course of three weeks the change in his personality changed me as well.  Where I was happy and loving and wanting to do everything I could for him I turned bitter from feeling suffocated by him.  I was starting to feel the hurt, betrayed, and angry over what he did but when I expressed those emotions he turned it around on me.  He made me feel like I didn’t have the right to show those feelings to him because it wasn’t his fault it was his addictions.  I was being emotionally poisoned and every interaction with him just seemed to get worse.

Within this period I found out I had adenocarcinoma. In my naivety I made assumptions that the man I loved would be there for me but that was far from the case. He made no offers to go to appointments with me or even be supportive in my treatments. He made it clear I was on my own both in his actions and words. Even then I couldn’t see that the Ryan I knew was gone.  Finally it hit me when he admitted to sleeping with yet another guy from Craigslist just two weeks later.  The man I loved wasn’t real, it was all smoke and mirrors to cover up his addiction.  I finally could let go.  I could finally hear our friends telling me he wasn’t working to get better, he was working to make it look like he wanted to get better.  Now just a few days out I feel the stress, the anger and insecurity gone from my chest.  I’m not focusing on him, his treatment or how I played into it, I’m focusing me, my daughter and getting through this.  He still claims what he did wasn’t malicious and I’m sure all addicts would agree with him but to me, if you admitted to yourself to having an addiction and did nothing to seek help then everything you did was in fact intentional.

To me Ryan will always be my first real love, I’ll always love him and likely always want to be with the man I thought he was.  Unfortunately, spending a month in the presence of a sex addict almost destroyed me.

Sex addiction isn’t like the others.  With alcohol you can avoid bars, not go into liquor stores and remove it from your house.  What can you do with a sexual urge?  No matter how much we fool ourselves into believing we can help someone, the fact is unless they are truly ready we just end up being dragged down with them. The destruction Ryan’s addiction left behind him was large.  It wasn’t just me losing a boyfriend/best friend or my perception of happiness it’s my daughter’s fondness and attachment as well.

For those of you in a relationship with a sex addict I suggest seeking support services like http://www.sharicohn.com/partners.html . For sex addicts ready to make a change there is Puget Sound Sex Addicts Anonymous as well (http://www.pugetsoundsaa.org/) or http://www.sexualrecovery.com/ to help you through the process of recovery.