Dear "Addi" - I'm thinking of Leaving My Wife

Question:

Hi Addi, this is not a question but more of seeing myself in your story. The sad part now is I have entertained another relationship outside my marriage. And I gave all my thoughts and energy to it to the extent that I'm playing with the thought of talking with my wife and letting her know of my affair so I can be let go and be with this girl. It's a difficult situation just thinking of it and much more difficult being in it.

Regards,

Addi's Thoughts:

My friend, I have been where you are. I have felt those urges. It's the urge to continue enjoying what I have on the side for it gives me what I want and need without judgment.

Somewhere in the middle of my relationship with Alice (the other woman), I began to believe that maybe I actually had feelings for her. After all, she had professed to love me hadn't she? She had talked about her dreams of a future together. I was always anxious to see her, and It seemed I was spending more and more time with her.She built me up and told me how wonderful I was.  She talked of how she had never met someone like me before. All of that had to add up to something more than just my pornography addiction spilling over into real life.... Right?

Wrong!

At the beginning of this post I said "I felt those urges."  I intentionally used the word 'urges' instead of the word 'feelings'. Let me just say that perspective is everything and let me explain what I meant by that with an experience.

I attend a gym that has both a sauna and a steam room. I never quite understood the purpose of a steam room. But being that I had never been in one before I decided.. hey.. what the heck. I donned my swim trunks, opened the steam room door, and perched myself on the tile bench.

When I entered the room it was actually kind of clear. No steam at all. This was nothing like I had imagined it to be. I could clearly see the opposite wall and it was obvious that I was completely alone. I sat there waiting for a few moments when suddenly a rumbling sound came from under the bench and a giant gush of steam forced its way into the room. Within less than a minute the room was completely filled with steam. 

My initial reaction was..... wow... this feels great!!  The hot steam felt wonderful as it tingled against my skin. The heat filled my lungs as I breathed it in. It was hot at first but I soon began to enjoy the way it relaxed me and made me feel comfortable.

I opened my eyes to survey the room and to my surprise,  there was nothing to survey. The room was so completely full of steam that I could not see 2 inches in front of my nose let alone across to the opposite wall. 

I was uncomfortable with the lack of visibility... but the heat in the room and the pleasure I was enjoying from the steam put me at ease and I let my self soak in the experience without concern or worry. 

After a few minutes I heard the door open. A small amount of steam escaped, but not enough to see who had entered.  Whoever it was simply took a seat on the bench opposite from me. I could see nothing. I could hear them. I knew they were there but, so thick was the fog that my vision was completely blurred.  Whoever they were did not matter.... they were not interfering with my experience. I just continued to enjoy my steam bath unconcerned with anything else around me.

I let the minutes pass and as time went by,  I started to get a little bit uncomfortable.  The steam would refresh about every 5 minutes keeping the room full and warm. The heat which at first was something I loved and wanted suddenly felt too hot.   The hot steam which was refreshing as it filled my lungs, began to feel wet and suffocating. The claustrophobia had almost completely set in and all I wanted was to get out,  to see clearly and to breath again. 

Somewhere in my head I started to challenge myself.  " Don't be such a wimp... you can sit here a little longer, " I told myself.   "5 more minutes... you can stay 5 more minutes!"   I would accept these little challenges and push myself to stay longer and longer.  Each moment I sat there though, I became weaker and weaker, zapped of my strength and unable to move. Eventually I gave up on the challenge and raced for the exit filling my lungs with clean fresh air, escaping the heat, and watching my vision clear as I emerged from the fog of steam.

Now,  I don't know much about your situation  but I am assuming that you also have a pornography addiction.  In my case,  pornography escalated off of the screen in various ways until I eventually found myself in an affair.  I did not start the affair because I was in love with the woman. I started it because I thought it would finally satisfy my cravings. I was seeking to feed my lust.

I began to feel comfortable.  I began to enjoy what I was receiving.  I even went so far as to start buying her presents and to let it feel like I was dating again.   In the moment, it felt good.  It felt like I wanted it to continue and never give it up. I breathed it in and it felt cleansing.   I even felt that I could finally be myself with someone that didn't judge me, who laughed at my jokes and who began to rely on me. 

Through the course of the relationship,  I said things that I thought she wanted to hear.  She said things in return. And even though I knew in my heart this was all a product of my lust, I began to feel what I thought was affection and that I might even have feelings for her.

But again, in my case I was wrong.  It was the warmth and comfort of the steam that lulled me into the deceit. Lust and Love have a way of looking and feeling the same to an addict. We can feel lust and mistake it for Love so easily..... especially in the fog of addiction.

Through the fog, I had a hard time seeing my wife and my children clearly. They were always in front of me... just on the other side of the room.... but the fog was so thick and the room was so comfortable that I began not to care about the repercussions of my choices and to ignore the guilt and shame.  I instead put all my attention into this new and wonderful feeling that was present and warm and relaxing and comforting. 

"And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security....and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell." (2 Nephi 28:21)

I had become comfortable and had allowed myself to become blinded by the fog so as to ignore that which was right in front of me.... my eternal family.  There were moments where the fog cleared enough for me to see what I was doing and who I would be hurting and I would think to myself,  "what are you doing? You need to stop this!"  But then a little voice in my head would say, "no,  its not time to let this go yet.  Stay a little longer."

  Satan is very persuasive.  He suggests little things that seem to make sense while we are in the midst of the fog.  Things like, "You used to love your wife but so much has changed since then, maybe you have just grown apart...?"  Such lies are easily swallowed when we are in the cloud. 

My friend, I believe that you are right in the middle of that steam bath. You are feeling the warmth and the comfort and perceived joy that comes with the excitement of the new thing. But your vision is clouded right now by the fog of lust. Before you make a decision that will alter your lives forever, I would suggest you change your perspective.

Escaping the fog of that steam room was the greatest blessing of my life. I needed perspective. I needed to be able to see clearly before I made a decision that would alter my life and perhaps my eternity.

What started out as enjoyment and pleasure quickly turned into something that was anything but. A relationship built on lust is flawed from the start. In my experience,  Lust will never become love.  Satan wants us to think otherwise.  But love takes work and time and effort while lust comes easy and offers nothing but instant rewards that fade into guilt. Love strengthens over time because we choose to go through the trials that strengthen it. Walking away from those trials doesn't make them go away. What is perceived as a better, easier, more kind and loving direction... is almost always Satan's slight of hand. 

As I put distance between myself and my affair,  it became more and more obvious that I was deeply, deeply in lust. Even now, after 6 months,  I can see more clearly than ever before that I was clearly intoxicated by the drug and cared little about the ramifications. Oh how I wish i had considered the ramifications.

Now though.  free from the cloud.... out of the fog.... I can honestly and truthfully say I love the fresh air that I find myself breathing.  Again,  perspective is everything.  It is often difficult to see things clearly when you are so close to it.

I think it is interesting that in Lehi's dream he talks about the mists of Darkness that covered the people that had fallen in sin. They thought they were on the path to the tree but became blinded by the fog and were lost in the mist.

After 25 Years of addiction and having been hit with every kind of temptation that Satan could throw at me, I am grateful now that my vision has cleared and the fog has lifted. With the lifting of the fog comes clarity.

My Advice: 

Don't make decisions in the fog. 

And if you think you're not in the fog,  oh my friend,  yes you are. Just like me, you are living a secret life. Just like me, you have been lying and deceiving your wife for weeks, months or years. You have convinced yourself that getting her to let you out of the marriage is a solution.  All of these things are evidences that there is nothing but fog in your view. 

It also means that you have slowly cut yourself off from the influence of the spirit. It wasn't until my secret life was exposed that the fog began to lift and the spirit found its way back into my life.

Get some distance from the fog.  Confess to your wife and Bishop. Do it with the intent of trying to make things work. Give it a few months of sincere effort and fill your life with light and get out of the darkness for a while. 

Finally, don't be persuaded by the adversary's biggest lie of all: "You are worthless and un-savable, so what does it matter now?"  He will beat you down with lies of despair but they are lies.  Get past them and know that the Atonement still holds the key to rescue.

Good Luck My brother.