On this video 22 minutes in, a husband says: “Lust within my marriage has been a struggle for me. It says in our literature that sex is optional. I’ve had to give up the desire to initiate sex with my wife. The insidious nature of the disease for me was that throughout the day it sets an expectation for me that something was going to happen and the way I would interact with my wife was based on that. I thought there should be conversion charts on the back of cleaning products — I vacuumed the rug, I cleaned the bathroom, this should equal so much sexual activity. I’m a good guy. I’ve helped you out. This expectation that things should happen is still part of the disease for me.”
“I’m learning in the program how to love other people, which is to not expect something in return.”
“Because my fantasy has been a problem for me, when I’m with my wife, I need to keep my eyes open because as soon as I close my eyes, it makes me half a second and I can be somewhere else.”
Another guy: “I hit bottom six months ago. My denial broke. I began the 12 Steps. I’ve been abstinent since then.”
“I too can play a tape and it can start in an instant. My brain is doing something I don’t want it to do. My brain has become unmanageable. Step two. There’s a tape that’s going to start playing. I know that if I turn that over to God immediately, that tape is not going to run. Step three, I start saying the Lord’s prayer. My brain cannot say the Lord’s prayer and run a tape at the same time.”
Another bloke: “Any time you feel you are entitled to your wife’s body, you are setting yourself up for problems.”
“I’ve given my wife her privacy back. We used to get dressed together in the bathroom. I don’t do that anymore.”
“I invite our Higher Power into the bedroom before we have physical intimacy. I pray on my knees before we have physical intimacy. Praying out loud for me has been a wonderful tool.”
“Not only do we keep our eyes open, I look only at her face. If I look at other stuff, I’m not celebrating our love with this woman that I adore and I’m getting close to the precipice of my addiction.”
Another guy: “When she would call me during the day and she was thinking about me and getting excited, I said please don’t do that any more because women are different and come nighttime they can change their mind. Women can change their mind at the drop of a hat. You tell me on Sunday that we’re having sex on Saturday, I’m thinking about it all week. I said, don’t tell me we’re going to have sex until we’re about to have it. I can’t handle it.”
“I don’t have to have sex today. I say that every day.”
