Sex sells. I know this first hand. I modeled for bikini calendars. I did photo shoots in lingerie and tiny bikinis to sell men's magazines. I worked at promotional events in barely-there, cleavage-showing outfits in order to attract male clientele. I was that woman in the magazines that boyfriends and husbands would lust after. I didn't care because I was getting paid... and to be honest it felt good to be desired even from afar, from men I would never meet.

Until I married a sex addict.

Maybe it’s irony… or karma. It doesn't matter what I call it. It equals pain. Crushing, drop me to my knees pain. The kind of pain that rips apart my self-esteem and destroys any vision of the life I thought I would have. It didn't matter anymore if other men desired me. I just wanted my husband to desire me and only me. But he didn't. He doesn't. He desired the other women in bikini calendars, magazines ... and ultimately online porn.

In all of my modeling days I never had the desire to have sex in front of a camera. Playboy maybe, but never porn. BUT I never thought there was anything wrong with porn either. I thought maybe the women wanted to be looked at and admired the same way I did. I thought they were "empowered" and could make their own choices. Little did I know. My reasoning was that since I worked hard for my body (and at the time I wanted to show off my hard work) that maybe that was what porn actresses wanted as well.

Until I married a sex addict.

Perspective changes when you're in pain. When you've been betrayed by the one person you gave your heart to, by the one person you thought you could trust with anything.

As a little girl I always loved playing dress-up and pretending like there was a prince who was coming to save me because he found me to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Maybe that's part of what drew me to modeling — the longing as a woman to be pursued, to be fought for, to be desired. It's not that I was living in a fantasy or wishing for the fairytale happy ending. I want to be precious to someone and found beautiful enough so no other woman is needed.

But you don't get that when married to a sex addict. At least not until he's in recovery.

Here's the MAIN irony, the #1 head scratcher of it all — I was (maybe still am) the object of other men's fantasies, just not my husband's. Other women occupy that place in his mind, not me. I give him the real thing both visually and sexually not because I'm trying to "win" his attention over porn. That's just who I am and who I've always been.

You may think I sound conceited or full of myself but I'm really not. I have flaws. All women do. I'm simply stating facts. I’m desired, wanted, and fantasized about by men I've never been with nor ever want to be with. But the man I desire, want, and am sexually attracted to fantasizes about other women.

It's a rude awakening to really think about my life and modeling coming full circle like this and kicking me in the ass. I want to go back to sleep and forget the last few years ever happened. But I can't. I have to face the wreckage of my choices and of his choices. I have to have hope that maybe one day soon I'll be the woman who occupies my husband’s thoughts and fantasies. I don’t want to share it with other women.

This article was written by one of our clients. Her husband is also one of our clients and is being treated for his sex addiction.