I finally had to leave a couple of Infidelity Support Groups on Facebook that I was a member of for many years. The negativity was just too much and was frankly, stressing me out. In the words of Sweet Brown, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”
I rarely participated in any of these groups anyway because the overwhelming consensus on most of the post comments are always “Just leave”, “Once a cheater, always a cheater”, and “They never change.” I witnessed one incident where a woman wrote about how her husband got help for his sex addiction and now several years in they were doing well. Well, the crowd did not like that AT ALL and they picked this poor woman’s carcass like she was a dead deer on the shoulder of the interstate. One commenter even said that she didn’t want to see any stories of happy couples. OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE. How childish. And then the mods booted the original poster from the group about a week later. Yeah, these are not the kind of people I want to hang around with.
How can anyone possibly be able to make statements like “They never change” to someone else? You certainly do not know the circumstances, and you do not know the couple personally, or anything about them. Now, saying “They rarely change” could be a fair statement, and “It’s very difficult to get adequate help for this problem” could also be a fair statement. I certainly don’t have any information on the percentage of sex addicts that never go back to their self-destructive behavior, and even for an expert on the subject it’s probably next to impossible to get reliable stats. But Mary Smith on XYZ Support Group is the final word on the subject with her “Just leave. They never change” statement? Uh, that would be a big NO. Sit down Mary. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Many of these participants talk about Chump Lady’s Book like it’s the Holy Bible and it contains the Gospel According to Tracy. I’m not going to get into who Chump Lady is or what it’s all about because a quick Google search will reveal all on that subject. I do agree with most of what Chump Lady says when she talks about victim blaming therapists and how cheating is abuse and the narrative surrounding it has to change. I’m 100 percent on board there. But she insists she’s never seen evidence of a reformed cheater and her facts to back that up are the million-bazillion-gazillion letters she receives every day. Um, Tracy- you do realize that the tone of your website is going to discourage anyone who HAS reformed from even bothering to reach out to you, right? And if they do reach out you’ll just dismiss what they have to say as nonsense anyway. The mythical “unicorn” (reformed cheater) you talk about could be standing right in front of you showing you a copy of their DNA profile confirming that yes indeed, they ARE an actual unicorn, and you still would scoff.
It's a shame too, because many of the people on these support groups talk about how part of the thrill of being a sex addict is duping their unsuspecting spouse. I don’t know about everyone, but that was not the case with Mr. P. He HATED being an addict but couldn’t stop getting high off of the power he had over prostitutes, and knowing that he was raped as a child, it makes sense how one could go down that path and be ashamed to get help, because then you have to admit a man raped you. I would imagine the situation is similar for many men. Some people on these support sites have said to me, “Well, I was raped as a child too and I didn’t cheat on my husband.” So, ok- I’m sorry that happened to you but are you looking for a medal or something? Not every person who was raped becomes a heroin addict. Not every person who was raped becomes an alcoholic. Not every person who was raped commits suicide. Not every person who was raped becomes a sex addict. But some do. Everyone is different. I have a hard time accepting the fact that Mr. P chose to go down the path he did instead of asking for help. How much better both our lives would have been had he just opened his damned mouth and told me what was going on! But I can’t judge based on how strong I might have been in the same situation. Mr. P will be the first one to admit that he was weak. And some people are weaker than others.
Speaking of heroin and alcohol addicts, how shitty would it be of people to tell a wife who’s discovered her husband is a closet drinker that she should “just leave, once an alcoholic always an alcoholic, and alcoholics never change?” I can understand that a wife might not have the stomach to deal with a husband in rehab and may not want to take the chance on her husband beating his addiction, but it would be wrong to make a blanket statement about how a reformed addict is a “unicorn” and doesn’t really exist. The world is full of reformed addicts who never got high or took a drink again. We are talking about THE SAME THING, whether the drug of choice is booze, coke, heroin or prostitutes.
So that’s it for me and the Facebook “support” sites. I’m so done. What I haven’t quit yet, though, is the prostitute review boards and hanging out with the mongers, because believe it or not, those men are easier to deal with than some of these women on the support boards. A few of the guys there know I’m a woman and the wife of an ex-monger, and we chat once in a while. I stay there hoping I might get through to one or two and convince them to quit, or at least encourage them to try, and that’s where the most good can be done. And if that never comes to fruition, there’s always the gathering of intel on where these illegal massage places are and reporting them to the police.
On a side note, Mr P and I are loving our new jobs. Yes! No more psychopath boss.