Some sex addicts don’t understand why their partners repeatedly ask the same questions after receiving the truth through disclosure or confession. I mean, it was a big deal for you to come clean. You may feel pretty good now that you don’t have to carry the weight of secrecy on your shoulder, right? Some of you may have even shared the truth in a letter – indeed, your partner can re-read what you wrote if there are still lingering questions. If you had known your partner would ask questions repeatedly, you might not have bothered to share the truth in the first place; you didn’t come clean to have to revisit a past you would love to bury. Your partner repeatedly asks questions for various reasons, which I invite you to explore in this blog entry.
When you shared the truth of your addiction, you dumped the weight of your betrayals on your significant other. Most likely, they didn’t know you had an addiction or the depth of your betrayals, so it’s fair to say your partner might be in shock, disbelief, or outraged. Everything your partner believed about life with you just exploded.
When I received a disclosure, I found myself asking my husband the following questions repeatedly:
- Why did you marry me?
- Did you mean it when you said you loved me?
- Were you thinking about someone else when we were having sex?
- Did you compare me to others?
- Were your compliments genuine?
- Do you think I’m stupid?
- Did you enjoy our date nights?
- What was real? What was fake?
- Can we revisit that timeline of disclosure?
It’s taken me some time to figure out why I kept asking the same questions repeatedly; I’ve come up with some explanations.
- I didn’t trust my husband. My lack of trust led me to ask myself, why should I trust him now? Could I trust him? Did he tell me everything? Did he sugar-coat the information to save me from more pain? If I asked the same questions and received the same answer each time, I took it as a sign my husband might be telling me the truth.
- I needed to examine everything. I put the relationship under a microscope because I needed to know what was real and what was fake; knowing this would help me digest the reality of the past. The past needed to read like a chapter in a book that never changed, regardless of how many times I pulled it off the shelf.
- Hearing the same answers to the questions I asked made me feel like I could stand on solid ground with the information I possessed. Although it was hurtful, consistent answers made me feel safe. I didn’t want to be traumatized repeatedly by changing lies or trickle-down confessions.
- I wanted to make sense of sex addiction. I thought asking the same questions would help me understand the addiction. If I could chew on the information and ask more questions, I would arrive at rational explanations for my husband’s betrayals. Most partners haven’t even heard of sex addiction or understood it until now; sex addiction has gone from a mystery to a painful reality for your partner, often very hard to understand or digest. Repeated questions could be your partner’s way of making sense of something illogical. We have a ton of questions; some of them aren’t about you specifically; they are about sex addiction.
- I was traumatized. It’s hard to realize you’ve been functioning in a sea of half-truths. You feel like your whole relationship has been one big lie. I was rattled, confused, and angry I was experiencing trauma. However, my husband’s consistent answers also made me feel safe, which can be a lifeboat when experiencing trauma.
- I wanted to feel a sense of power or control. I felt out of control; asking the same questions gave me little power, or so I thought. I could control if I chose to believe my husband’s answers; I could control when and how I asked the questions and what I asked.
- I wanted to ensure I fully understood the information my husband shared. The partner is often in so much shock or emotional stress they can’t digest everything the sex addict has shared, so they ask questions repeatedly to keep the information straight. I had to close my eyes and remember everything my husband shared with me several times, which usually led to more questions days and months after the disclosure.
In hindsight, I wish my husband would have said something like, “I know this is a lot to process, and I know you will have questions, and I just want you to know I am prepared to answer them as many times as you need to ask and for as long as you need me to answer them until you can trust me and know I have honestly shared the full scope of my betrayals with you.”
Some partners receive caution about what to ask the sex addict because the answers paint a picture we can never get out of our heads. However, if your partner knows the risks and still insists on asking questions, you must honor their wishes because it’s their right as the betrayed partner to ask questions. Please answer your partner’s questions without attitude, frustration, or impatience, whether it’s the third or 39th time your partner is asking them. Being on the receiving end of repeated questions can be exhausting and deflating, leaving the sex addict with little hope of moving forward. However, it doesn’t help the relationship to get mad at the partner either. Please express your frustration with your sponsor, therapist, or other recovering sex addicts who have experienced this and have a significant amount of sobriety.
To think you can share your betrayals and your partner will listen and act like all is good and they will never mention it again is unrealistic. Frankly, a positive or nonchalant response from your partner would worry me. In my opinion, these responses could mean the partner doesn’t care about honesty in the relationship, has some secrets they need to share, lives in deep denial, or is so angry they can’t begin to express it. I don’t know what’s scarier, an emotionally distressed partner or one that is cool as a cucumber.
Most partners don’t enjoy repeatedly asking their sex addict questions; it’s not the highlight of their day. After all, there is no joy in asking your partner questions such as::
•Did you binge on porn when I was out with the kids?
•How many women did you sleep with?
•How much money did you spend on your acting out?
•You mean you watch porn at work?
•So, when you canceled dinner, you lied to spend time with someone else?
•You’ve visited how many chat rooms?
•How much money did you spend on this addiction?
•How long have you been lying to me?
•Are you going to be arrested?
We ask these questions knowing we may not like the answers, knowing the answers may be different this time and painful. We ask these questions because we feel like we don’t have any other choice.
Coming clean to your partner is the only way a healthy intimate relationship can exist for the two of you moving forward. Still, it will take a while for your partner to digest your information, so your partner may ask you questions about what you’ve shared numerous times. Your partner may digest the information and still decide to leave the relationship permanently or temporarily, which is something you can’t control. Do you have to keep revisiting this awful chapter? Yes- you do if you’re going to contribute to your partner’s healing, but hopefully, you won’t have to do this forever. I know this isn’t what you want to hear. Unfortunately, this is part of the price for your betrayals.
Some may be reading this and thinking, been years, and my partner still asks questions repeatedly, and I am exhausted; when will this end? Please remember we are talking about trauma; if your partner has refused to do their healing work or has done it half-heartedly, it could delay their healing process. Besides, how long were you in active addiction? How often did you try to “quit” your addiction only to find yourself right back at it again? You may have given your partner trickle-down disclosures that delay your partner from relaxing in the relationship despite your sobriety. Consider asking your partner what you can do to help them heal. Whatever the reason for your partner’s struggle, please continue to be consistently honest because you can’t control your partner’s healing progress, but your honesty can undoubtedly help.
I finally realized repeatedly asking my husband questions wasn’t helping me heal well. This behavior kept me in the past, which I couldn’t change. Eventually, I got tired of asking the same questions and started asking myself one of the most critical questions in my healing journey What was I prepared to do with the information I had? I had to focus more on my healing and less on the past to answer this question for myself.
Once I realized I didn’t need to ask many questions repeatedly, my husband’s disclosure no longer had power over me. I could accept the painful truth without having to roll in it constantly, hurting myself often. Focusing on my healing was instrumental in getting to this place. I won’t lie; this was a horrible chapter of my healing process and for the marriage, but it was necessary for healing to occur for me, my husband, and the marriage, for which we are incredibly grateful.