Triggered

Is it just me, or does anyone else ever get triggered by the recollections of other spouses and partners of sex addicts?

There is an online group that I started visiting shortly after discovering my husband's sex addiction that has been hugely responsible for getting me on the path to healing, for which I am truly grateful. I still visit the page once or twice a week to catch up on the comings and goings of everyone because I am inspired by these other members and there are often little kernels of wisdom tucked into their posts. However, once in awhile I read a few back-to-back posts from other wives or partners of sex addicts that are so heart-wrenching that I am reminded of my husband's betrayals and the amount of pain I had after discovery. When this happens, I can usually snap out of it before I start pain mining too much. (Pain mining is the act of digging for more reasons to feel pain about my husband's sex addiction. For more info, check out my book.) BUT...sometimes I am truly triggered by these heart-breaking posts.

For example, recently I visited the site and read about a spouse who felt triggered by something and irrationally confronted one of the sex addict's acting out partners. Most of the time, I can simply read these recollections written by other spouses and partners of sex addicts and leave it at that, but once in awhile these posts trigger me to do something stupid. After reading this post, without really thinking about it, I found one of my husband's old acting out partners on Facebook and typed up a private message to her that was completely off-the-rails. Thank God, I came to my senses before I hit the "send" button. It scared me, though. If I had sent that message, I would have opened up a whole new can of worms and would have felt like I had a major slip-up. As it stands, I do feel like I slipped, but luckily, no one was affected by it (except me).

I haven't been tempted to do something stupid like this in a long time, which made me realize that maybe I have been neglecting my recovery. I've been super busy, lately, so I have not been doing much reading and I haven't attended a phone or online meeting in well over a month. It's scary how quickly my healthy behaviors and thought patterns can wane when I don't make time for these things on a regular basis. The fact that just reading about another spouse's slip caused me to slip doesn't sit well with me.