I can see why you may feel like this. You may have an underlying feeling or an intermittent thought pattern saying something like, who is this guy?
When I didn’t know that my husband was addicted I often felt so confused about our marriage and where I stood in our relationship that I wondered so many things like this.
When sex addiction is present, in its many forms, you can feel like you don’t know the person standing in front of you. The guy that you were talking to the day before may have just cycled back into addiction and he doesn’t remember a thing you said yesterday. He could either be gaslighting you or he may honestly not have a clue about what transpired the day before. He is cycling and the most important thing to him is that he get through life and not be shamed for any disruptions to your lives.
Of course you are going to feel like you don’t know this person because you aren’t on these same wild cycles that he is! When you bring up this unevenness he can’t relate to you because he feels like everything is, to whatever degree, normal to him. He isn’t able to feel what you feel because he is in the outer limits of your reality. He has a normal that you couldn’t possibly, unless you are addicted as well, understand.
The man that you fell in love with, the man that you were able to feel his presence through sight, sound, touch is not there and in his place is this man that doesn’t have a clue as to what you are talking about.
When he sees your reaction to him he reacts like there is something wrong with you and this goes on and on. He’s learned this strategy to take the blame off of himself. Its a treadmill that exhausts you to your depths, year after year you have lost sight of who you even are anymore. The complex feelings associated with this multiple trauma can’t help but make you begin to wonder if there may have been a better life for you and yes possibly with another a man.
There is a healthy reality available to you! Once you begin to gain awareness through opening up spaciousness between you and your husbands addiction. Slowly with an incomprehensible amount of patience, and a drive to live you begin to gain a firm knowing that what you are going through is real and you are not imagining anything at all! From this place you can move forward and make healthy choices for your own benefit.
How his addiction has influenced your life is what you are left with.
It is difficult to begin thinking in terms of you alone without the unity thinking that you had in your marriage. It can even feel selfish but IT ISN’T. You are important! You matter! His addiction is HIS ADDICTION!
If he can’t find a way to help himself than he probably is no longer the man for you.