Should I tell my wife I am addicted to phone sex?

Tell her, and tell her that you could really use her help overcoming this behavior if she can find it in her heart to do that for you.

In my opinion, honesty is the best policy. She’s your wife, at the end of the day – in sickness & in health, she should understand that you have a problem which, even though it may anger/hurt her, she needs to sympathise with. Obviously it’s hard for you to quit and you need her help to do so. She should understand that and appreciate your eagerness to give up viewing it. Tell her, but make it clear that this is an addiction you struggle to give up.

Yes. She deserves the straight truth. If you can, seek therapy first, then tell her. I would make a phone call to schedule an appt to discuss what “good” habit you will replace this action with. Then, sit her down and let her know, A) You are serious about altering your behavior and B) You never meant to hurt her, but know you have to rebuild her trust.

My first reaction to this question was ‘shouldn’t she know?’, but ya, I think it will hurt her, and you need to get over this by yourself, so you might as well do it on your own. Just stop it.

Tell her. For your sake and hers. Unchecked, this can lead to loosing many things well beyond the satisfaction that you get from it.
You have awareness and have tried to stop on your own. Yes, you need some sort of help to do this. Even with talking to your spouse, you may need to seek out counseling to really put some tools in place to control this addiction.
Try to channel your desires, energy, money and time into what you do have. Know that it will create a trust rift. Accept that and do all you can to regain that trust. (this may be the hardest part)
You are on your way to helping yourself and it is ok to get assistance with it. Your SO is the best place to go for this. Be completely honest as you don’t want to leave any room for failure or for secrets to haunt you.
So in a nutshell: Get in touch with your feelings. Share your feelings (good and bad) in a mindul way. Be honest to yourself and the others that matter. Accept the consequences and the steps and hard work that are ahead.
I applaud you for your start in doing the right thing.
Sometimes we need to be humbled by our mistakes in order to grow.
Ask yourself the questions:
What character do you want to be know to have? One of secrets or one of integrity?

Secrets destroy intimacy, and having a secret ‘relationship’ with porn is about your fears of true intimacy and an addiction to dopamine from sexual arousal.

I suggest you do share this issue with your wife, and look into some recovery groups.

If you wish to build your self esteem and overcome this problem you must start with total honesty.

By informing your wife you are also holding yourself accountable for not keeping any more secrets.

There is a line ” you are as sick as your secrets” this applies here 100%.

The road to recovery begins with honesty.

You are being honest with yourself, but to really get serious about this issue you need to be honest with your wife ASAP.

Best wishes!

You can still avoid another dimension to your problem. Are you prepared to absorb her feelings along with your own full burden ? Stop now, say nothing and keep the peace.

Do not MAKE her accountable to hold you in check. This means that you are not accepting the responsibility as yours and might blame her if you fail.
You stated that you know she will forgive you. You need to go into this with the potential that she may not. You need to have and show remorse feelings if in fact you have them.

The accountability lands completely on your shoulders.

Yes if you truly believe that telling your wife will give you a good chance of getting out of this bondage. Yet you don’t want to hurt your wife and that makes sense too since the last thing you want is complicate things by worrying about her feelings after you tell her. But bottomline is you do know her and is the best judge on how she might react. If you have a good sense that down the line telling her will help, so be it, tell her. Otherwise, seek help from friends and other parties you trust and could help as well. To be honest, I think you’ve done difficult things already, cutting internet phone and internet…so you’re doing good, you’re on your way by yourself.

I think that telling your wife would be good for the situation. Although it may hurt her, it’s obvious that you’re trying to change your ways and I think she’d be able to appreciate that. Honesty is really the best policy, especially in a case like yours where your addiction seems to be affecting you greatly (at least greatly enough that you’re seeking our advice).

I don’t think that there’s a point in trying to keep it from her to spare her feelings. You’re taking steps to change your behaviour, and you say that your wife will forgive you. Imagine how she would feel if she were to find out in a way other than your telling her. I know that I’d very much prefer my partner to come clean about something than to find out in another way, and know that he thought he could “get away with it”.

I’m going to assume also that this is a paid service you’re using. If you’re spending a lot of money on it – and if that money belongs to both of you, and could be better used going toward expenses or a mortgage or whatever – I think she deserves to know.

Have you looked into any kind of counselling to help you get over your addiction? It might help. Also, it might help the two of you to get through this rough patch while you’re working on your own problems.

I also have to echo @blueiiznh‘s reply in that it’s not up to your wife to “keep you in check”. This addiction is yours, not hers. If you feel that telling her about it will help to give you the willpower to stop, then that’s great. But if you slip up and pick up the phone, it’s no one’s fault but your own.

Good on you for trying to get past this. I wish you the best.

If you are addicted to phone sex you should tell her. If you are not addicted then don’t. Phone sex in itself isn’t much but if you are addicted to it then you have some kind of psychological weakness your wife should maybe know about. If you can’t give it up you should tell her. She is going to find out some day anyway.

I recommend telling her because even the act of revelation of this habit to a person you love will lossen its grip on you – a lot of the time, these addictions are about secrecy and their taboo nature. Talking about it to someone gives you control over it and you can learn to distance yourself.

Sure, I mean what’s the worst that can happen? Actually on reflection, maybe not such a good idea. I know my wife would probably ram the phone down my throat, laughing hysterically along the way.

Like everyone else here: Tell her. Not only is honesty the best choice for the peace of mind of both people in the relationship, it can actually do you more good than harm. Working through these trials strengthens those basic needs, as well as makes for a more solid foundation for your relationship to grow and flourish.

She may be hurt initially from the honesty, but will respect you more for it, and will create ample opportunity for dialog on digging into what specific need is being met with phone sex that your marriage is not.

My ex was secretly addicted, fell asleep after a “session”, and ran up a $3000 phone bill. Believe me, telling her before something like that happens is the better choice. Even if you don’t do something so phenomenally stupid, if she finds out on her own, she’ll be incredibly hurt.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir is right on. This is already taking away from your relationship whether you know it or not. Some level of intimacy is being shared with someone outside the relationship you have with your SO. One may argue that what you doing is certainly far less that actually having an affair of an emotional or physical nature. But it certainly is a potential step in that direction of looking for something outside the relationship, thus not giving that attention to where it truly is needed.

I think that you should consider telling a therapist about your porn addiction and how you have now substituted phone sex.

In the course of talking to the therapist, ask about or discuss possibly telling your wife.

You need to know why you feel the need and what behavior to substitute. It is very hard to change a pattern like yours on your own.

Good luck.

You should tell her, and then start having free phone sex with your wife; All you need is two cans and a string.

If you would like to tell her (to assuage your own conscience, get it all out in the open and enlist her assistance) and have a very likely improvement in the quality of your mutual sex life (if not in the frequency of your orgasms), then you may also want to jointly check out “male chastity” and discuss that with her at the same time. You might be amazed.

To those who mentioned the expense of phone sex: I use a free chat line talking to other amateurs.

I haven’t told my wife yet because I keep telling myself that I can overcome this. I did get rid of the Blackberry…but I guess I have only substituted or settled for what was available. I was thinking of having the number blocked so I cannot dial it, but that may lead me to another outlet for my habit.

I am leaning towards telling my wife. I know that it will not be her responsibility to keep me from wrong, but if I taught her how to look at our phone bill on the internet at the library it would deter me from making calls.

My habit is mysterious to me; I will go for days, weeks, and at times a whole month without even thinking about it…then, bam! I am back at it. Does anyone have any resources I could check out?

Oh, and as far as therapy is concerned, I will probably not go that route. I do not have insurance and am not comfortable with the idea.

Dude, it’s better that she finds out b/c you tell her, rather than her finding out some other way. . . and how do you hide the bill?!

Good luck man. I love porn too, but I’ve just come to terms with it, and become happy. No reason (for me) to give it up.

I wouldn’t at this point in time. You are simply trying to assuage your own guilt by doing this. Get help to stop if you want to assuage your guilt, do not put the emphasis on her helping you to stop. An addiction is an addiction is an addiction and you are the only one who can stop it. If you are not able to afford counseling (and if you want to stop it don’t tell me about “not being comfortable”, you do whatever it takes to stop it, end of story) find an AA meeting or a NA meeting, and listen to how people learned to stop their addictions.

@mrrich724 I believe porn to be wrong so it is rough on my heart. We get a bill, but it doesn’t list the outgoing calls.

@realscape I still think that therapy is your best bett, but you may find this site useful.

@realscape oh, ok. Well good luck. And if you find it way too hard to do, reevaluate why you are making the decision to try and quit. If it is causing a burden on your relationships, health, work, finances etc., it is truly a problem.

But if it’s just something you feel guilty about b/c you were conditioned to feel that way, then maybe you have to reflect more. The reason I say this is because I was raised in a devout Christian household, and always Christian-schooled. When I learned about porn and masturbation, I felt really guilty, REALLY guilty, but I couldn’t help it.

Eventually I just accepted it as a natural thing and decided to just be happy b/c it doesn’t affect my relationships, it’s probably good for my health, LOL, etc…

I’m sure this could be a whole other topic on Fluther… but . . .

Anyway, my addition is I think you should tell her. Again, good luck.

I 2nd @blueiiznh about handling this yourself with what @Coloma suggested, addiction therapy. Nothing’s more irritating then someone dumping their secrets on you with them having no intention of following through with any game plan to stop the behavior and then expecting acceptance and/or forgiveness just because of “being truthful”.

@realscape Dude, how would you feel if the roles were reversed. What would you do or how would you feel if she was into phone sex. What if, just what if you called these free lines to talk to other amateurs and it was your wife?
I will find some resources, but you really need to get a grip. Or release the grip.
While there is nothing wrong with “waxing the dolphin”, you are at odds with what you are doing. As @mrrich724 stated, take a long hard look at what you are feeling and why you are keeping it secret.

I agree with @lemming: your wife should already know. If what you like is actually phone sex—and not just the feeling you get from calling a sex line behind your wife’s back—then you can have phone sex with her. Any wife worth her salt would be willing to go along with such an incredibly mild fantasy. In fact, most wives are just dying to know what turns their husbands on—it takes the pressure off them to have to figure it out without clues.

I also agree with those above who have said that you need to confess your past indiscretions. I call them “indiscretions” not because I think there is anything wrong with calling sex lines (or with pornography, for that matter), but because your need to hide it from your wife suggests that such calls are outside the boundaries of your relationship. Be honest with her, accept that she may be angry or consider it cheating (which it very well might be, though it wouldn’t have been if you got her permission first), and be prepared to work for her forgiveness.

I’m with @rooeytoo. I often think honesty is not always the best policy if will just cause pain. Why should she have to suffer for your behavior? I have never thought 2 people should share every part of their lives. You should make a good solid effort to get over this yourself or go to therapy.

I am not sure how or why, but I believe posting this question has helped me. Since I have posted the question, I have not called. I can think of five or six occasions that I was tempted to, but I resisted. The conditions were perfect: I had to do a job in the middle of the night. In the back of my mind I was thinking about it, but I didn’t. I do not want this to have control of my life, I want to avoid telling my wife, and in some small way I didn’t want to let the Fluther down.

As you can imagine, I am having a hard time choosing what course to take. You folks have argued both sides of the coin well. I am going to see if I can put an end to this without telling my wife, but if I fall off the wagon I will tell her.

@realscape Good luck!

@realscape keep the string alive.

@realscape I think that’s a fair compromise. Kick the habit on your own and don’t bother your wife with it, but try to get her forgiveness and her help if you find you can’t do it on your own. Good luck!

If I make it through this day it will be #3.

@realscape – Great to hear! Know that we’re all rooting for you – maybe that’ll help you get through if things get tough.

@realscape Lurve your way to keep it alive. Nice job man!!!

Day Four: picked up the phone a couple of times, but didn’t call. My mind even tried to play a nasty trick on me. “Just call to prove that it doesn’t control you and after you make a positive statement, hang up…” I didn’t listen to myself.

Thanks for the support, fellow jellies!

@realscape that’s great, were are all rooting for you!!

A week and four days! I haven’t even been struggling, but I am not a fool. My busy, busy circumstances have helped…the real test will be when there is a space of idleness.

That’s great to hear, @realscape! Keep it up :)

Great work. Finding other things to occupy your quite times will help.

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. That is what my mom and the nuns used to say.

@rooeytoo…and of course, “you will go blind!” I also picked up an old book off the shelf of an elderly friend that was written for young men. It said, about masturbation: ”...it will cause you to loose vital energy that is needed for proper growth…” Hugh?

I never knew anyone who went blind but it is a fact when you are bored with nothing to do, your head starts working on all the forbidden fruits that would taste sooooooooo good. You said it yourself you have been busy so less time to think about other things.