'I thought he was just late to my birthday dinner. Then I discovered his secret.'

This is Part 2 of Maya's story. You can read Part 1 here.

"One thing that still sticks with me is the night of my birthday, when you were taking me to a surprise dinner.

"What I found signified not one breach, but hundreds. Such a total disregard for the sanctity of our relationship. It undermined any sense of trust we had."

Leo* was running late for Maya's* birthday dinner when she decided to take a look at his laptop. What she found shattered her.

"He'd been trying to coordinate meetups in hotel rooms," she said.

It was then that Maya gave Leo an ultimatum. Either he did something about his addiction, or he lost her. So, he began therapy.

"Often it'll be the client that rings us and says 'My relationship's failing'," addiction expert Tabitha Corser told Mamamia. "It's usually marital issues or the breakdown of a relationship that we see people coming to us."

Watch: What causes sex addiction? Post continues after video.

In their sessions, Leo insisted that he "never actually followed through and met up with anyone in a hotel room."

"It was all about the thrill of what could have happened, because this gave him such a dopamine rush," Maya said. "It was just one more, one more. We had this real lack of connection because he was living in this unrealistic world."

According to Tabitha — the founder of The Whitehaven Clinic, a rehabilitation centre dealing in addiction treatment and recovery — to rebuild connection, couples dealing with addiction need to focus on "negotiated boundaries."

"What's right for one person might not be for the next," she said. "Some couples use porn as their own sexual experience, others are completely against that. So it really depends on your own boundaries with your partner."

In Maya's case, her therapist suggested she write Leo a letter about her own boundaries and what she was prepared to accept. 

"He agreed to put an app on his phone where anything suspicious, pornography and sex-wise, I would receive an alert about it. I could monitor everything he was doing," she said.

"If I kept catching him out, there were things that I had to say to him, 'What was your trigger? What have you done?' I'd ask him to leave the house."

At first, Maya saw some "improvement and accountability." But it was fleeting.

A relapse.

Years later, with the couple busy raising their daughter, therapy was put on the back-burner. And relapses grew common.

Maya "became obsessed with trying to catch him out."

"There were dozens and dozens of sites that he was on," she said. "He couldn't help himself. He was an addict. My support for him really dropped because I felt like, 'What trigger is it going to be this time?'"

As they grew more disconnected, Leo's addiction worsened.

"Often, with guys that have been caught and insist on continuing to watch porn, there's a lot of anger around it," said Tabitha. "Anger that the relationship's not working. So, 'I'm really frustrated, I don't want to create arguments with my family, I'll just watch porn and feel better'."

Maya, meanwhile, started looking for validation elsewhere.

"Because I felt a lack of connection, and it damaged my self-esteem so much, my ex-fiancé from many years ago, we started to get back in contact because we were very connected emotionally," she said. "I was confiding in him because I felt I could trust him. I just wanted some attention."

When Leo found out what Maya had been doing behind his back, "it annihilated any sense of trust" that was left between the couple.

The breaking point.

Then, a year ago, came a breaking point.

On the day Maya embarked on a trip with her daughter, she realised she had forgotten something and returned home to retrieve it. When she walked into the house, she caught Leo in her lingerie. 

"That was just absolutely devastating," she said. "He was incredibly ashamed, and I was just disgusted because the lingerie he had given to me as a gift."

Leo returned to therapy for two sessions. But he never booked a third.

"Perhaps if our bond and connection was stronger, and we hadn't had so many ups and downs, he might have remained consistent," said Maya. "I think if we had maintained some professional therapy, there would be more accountability, but because our relationship broke down in the process, it's not there, and I don't think I will ever be able to get it back."

The addiction caused Maya and Leo to separate temporarily. But when she saw how much her daughter was affected by the split, Maya changed her mind.

"I have had to deal with my own issues surrounding the relationship and the reasons that I would choose to stay," she said. "A big part of that has been our daughter. [Leo's] a wonderful dad, and I've been at many crossroads before of: am I going to leave, and what implications is this going to have for our daughter later in life?" 

At the moment, Maya and Leo simply "cohabit". There are good times and bad times, but the trust is completely gone.

"I don't know if you can ever get that back, because there will always be that trigger for him that he could delve back into it," said Maya. "Even to this day, if he's in the shower, once or twice a week, I'll sneak his phone and have a look to see if he's been looking at anything dodgy."

Maya knows that Leo has tried to "break free" of his addiction, and holds an "incredible amount of shame" about it. As do many addicts.

Because porn and sex addiction is "really stigmatised", Tabitha explained that many people avoid seeking help for it.

"When somebody comes in and talks about porn or sex addiction, they're telling you things they probably couldn't tell most people," the addiction expert told Mamamia. "They're talking about sexual encounters that can be quite extreme… roleplaying, fetishisation, group sex. Often there's a lot of shame around those sorts of activities."

Despite the stigma, Tabitha is seeing more porn and sex addicts than ever "because we've got so much more access to everything" online. And if it isn't treated, it's only going to get worse.

"After being in a relationship for 10 years with someone who is a porn addict, it's a hamster wheel," said Maya. "The extent to which his addiction has dominated his life is just phenomenal."

It is for this reason, Tabitha said, that addiction must be addressed "when it's a whisper, not a scream."

This is Part 2 of Maya's story. You can read Part 1 here.

*Names have been changed for privacy reasons.

Feature Image: Getty (Stock image for illustrative purposes only).