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Please tell me if I'm wrong or over reacting but my husbands pornography addiction has left me feeling that there is no hope for our relationship. It started before we were married he would sneak and watch porn on his phone or the computer & masturbate. When I discovered him doing this and told him how it makes me feel he agreed to stop. We were recently married and Things were good or so I thought until I started noticing him taking his phone to the bathroom in the middle of the night after barging in sure enough its porn again. Our sex life is ok although sometimes its hard for me to enjoy because in my mind he's fantasising about the porn stars. I've asked if its a problem with me but he swears its not. I just don't understand why & he has no explanation. I tell him how much it hurts me but I constantly catch him doing it. I don't want a divorce but I don't want to be unhappy. PLEASE HELP!!!

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Originally Posted by strangernmyhouse
Please tell me if I'm wrong or over reacting but my husbands pornography addiction has left me feeling that there is no hope for our relationship. It started before we were married he would sneak and watch porn on his phone or the computer & masturbate. When I discovered him doing this and told him how it makes me feel he agreed to stop. We were recently married and Things were good or so I thought until I started noticing him taking his phone to the bathroom in the middle of the night after barging in sure enough its porn again. Our sex life is ok although sometimes its hard for me to enjoy because in my mind he's fantasising about the porn stars. I've asked if its a problem with me but he swears its not. I just don't understand why & he has no explanation. I tell him how much it hurts me but I constantly catch him doing it. I don't want a divorce but I don't want to be unhappy. PLEASE HELP!!!


Welcome to Marriage Builders.

You are totally correct in your feelings. Listen to these radio clips of Dr. Harley saying this exact thing.
Radio clip on porn
Radio clip on porn #2


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Originally Posted by strangernmyhouse
Please tell me if I'm wrong or over reacting but my husbands pornography addiction has left me feeling that there is no hope...I've asked if its a problem with me but he swears its not. I just don't understand why & he has no explanation. I tell him how much it hurts me but I constantly catch him doing it. I don't want a divorce but I don't want to be unhappy. PLEASE HELP!!!

I don't want to start a flame war here but the the reason your husband does this is simply because that's just the way most men are. It's not necessarily men's fault if they automatically like porn so blame God or Mother Nature if you think men should not be the way they are. I understand that many men will make a conscious effort to avoid porn simply because their wife doesn't approve of it and/or they think it's wrong so maybe that's why some marriage counselors think the best solution is for men to just stop doing this if it makes their wives upset because it usually doesn't take much to get them to promise to stop (whether they ever really do or not). I'm not saying you should just accept it and feel good about it but I wouldn't take it personally because it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with you from his perspective; it is mostly just a strong natural compulsion to do something that makes him feel better at least for a few minutes.

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Originally Posted by grimreaper
Originally Posted by strangernmyhouse
Please tell me if I'm wrong or over reacting but my husbands pornography addiction has left me feeling that there is no hope...I've asked if its a problem with me but he swears its not. I just don't understand why & he has no explanation. I tell him how much it hurts me but I constantly catch him doing it. I don't want a divorce but I don't want to be unhappy. PLEASE HELP!!!

I don't want to start a flame war here but the the reason your husband does this is simply because that's just the way most men are. It's not necessarily men's fault if they automatically like porn so blame God or Mother Nature if you think men should not be the way they are. I understand that many men will make a conscious effort to avoid porn simply because their wife doesn't approve of it and/or they think it's wrong so maybe that's why some marriage counselors think the best solution is for men to just stop doing this if it makes their wives upset because it usually doesn't take much to get them to promise to stop (whether they ever really do or not). I'm not saying you should just accept it and feel good about it but I wouldn't take it personally because it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with you from his perspective; it is mostly just a strong natural compulsion to do something that makes him feel better at least for a few minutes.


Grimreaper,

Have you read what Dr. Harley says about porn and the contrast effect?


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Originally Posted by grimreaper
[I'm not saying you should just accept it and feel good about it but I wouldn't take it personally because it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with you from his perspective; it is mostly just a strong natural compulsion to do something that makes him feel better at least for a few minutes.

grimreaper, people have all sorts of compulsions to do destructive/bad/inappropriate things, but it does not mean they should do that thing. I had a compulsion this morning to slap a rude cashier at McDonalds, but it would have been inappropriate to do so.

The important thing for this poster is to understand that porn is destructive to her marriage and she needs to persuade her husband to stop it. That is what we should help her with.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

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Originally Posted by grimreaper
It's not necessarily men's fault if they automatically like porn so blame God or Mother Nature if you think men should not be the way they are.

It's not necessarily women's fault if they automatically feel awful when their husband uses porn, so blame God or Mother Nature if you think women should not be the way they are.

Also, do those women a favor and let them know if you do this so they can decide if they want to endure that kind of hell or not.


If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app!

Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8.
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Well I for one USED to have a porn addiction. I tell ya .. its feels AMAZING being free of its clutches. What a hard habit to break.

Back in January I said this...

Originally Posted by MrNiceGuy
Hey .. great thread.

I used to have a porn addiction ... i feel that my use of it was directly related to the condition of my marriage. WHich (at the time) was absolutley horrible .. and the less my EN were met ... and the more i fought with my wife and the higher the stress levels were .. the more i turned to porn for gratification to relief my stress. Afterwards i would feel absolutly horrible for doing it and the result was even more frusteration. Its a HORRIBLE and VICIOUS cycle.

I am prooud to say I am porn free for darn nearly a year now.

THEN a few posts later I said this....

Originally Posted by MrNiceGuy
Originally Posted by itistoughlove
Can any men shed light on the after affects of porn? MrNiceGuy said it above he felt awful.

What was it about the experience that made you feel awful? Are men realizing they aren't connecting to their wives?

When a man doesn't connect to his wife how does he feel?

Does he just compartmentalize it or does it cause him to internally turn to stone?

Those are some GREAT questions. Let me shed some light on them for you.

You asked.. "What was it about the experience that made you feel awful?"

It was much like the "high" people talk about here when someone has an affair. The visual stimulation feels great... in the moment while your high on it .. but when your done with it the after effects leave you feeling depressed and even more empty than before. My excuse was the porn would tide me over til my wife desired me becasue of the rejection or her lack or participation but in the end I felt degraded, and disgusting..

I felt depressed from the lack of connection I wanted with my wife.

I felt like I had betrayed my wife.

I felt lonely and sad, because it was an experience I was not having with my wife that I SOO badly wanted.

I felt embarassed and guilty about my sexual needs like there was something wrong with me.

I felt weak for not having any will power to be able to control my urges or express them to my wife without fear of rejection.

Then I would tell my self after wards each time "This was the LAST time" But for some reason it never was and i hated myself for that. But would often find myself, especially after a week or 2 of tough times with my wife and no need meeting or not of the quality i desired, back at it again and then all those feelings above along with the feeling of worthlessness would kick in. BUT it always felt justified and normal at first! IT was always after the fact that the other feelings kicked in. NEVER During or before... only after.

This would set my mood off and I would be insensitive towards my wife and kids that day if i used porn. I would be feeling resentment towards my wife, because I blamed her for my porn use due to unmet needs. I would be filled with shame because I was not able to stop and because I knew it was wrong but I would always justifiy it because my wife would tell me over and over to stop pressuring her and to let things happen naturally on their own (but my emotional needs would scream at me every few days, where my wife could happily wait weeks). AND SO I also blamed god that my sexual needs were so strong as i tried to pray them away.

This cycle of disconnect created a sexual aversion in my wife for the longest time that fueled the porn to continue. However .. I knew that if I could curb my thoughts and desires long enough and get my wife on board with MB .. that we could turn it all around. And we are 100x better now than when I was engulfed in this disgusting behavior.

You asked ... "When a man doesn't connect to his wife how does he feel?"

I feel insecure .. I feel lonely .. I feel like a pay cheque. I feel unimportant to my wife. I feel unloved.

You asked ... "Does he just compartmentalize it or does it cause him to internally turn to stone?"

It gets compartmentalized at first .. it gets put into a "its no big deal box" but when the other factors come into play the "no big deal box" gets overfilled and the porn spills out of the box first before everything else does that ends up in there. I would only turn to stone internally when I didnt feel safe to talk about it .. or had a solution that i felt would be win win so it would get stuffed back into the "no big deal box" as often as I could .. but it would always pop back out again as if it was saying .. "HEY YOU BETTER DEAL WITH ME OR THERE WILL BE TROUBLE!" and there always was .. one way or another.

Wow ... I said all that? Sorry if i repeated myself a bit. Kinda good to get out. I am SOOO greatful for marriage builders and my AMAZING WIFE! Hopefully this sheds some light on it ... infact it even helps me. No one has ever asked those questions. They are loaded ones thats for sure.

MNG

And if you want to read the thread and see how the conversation unfolded ... here is the link to it..

Aunt Pep's Sex Advice thread

Hopefully that helps you in some way to understand the struggles and effects porn has and does to men.

MNG

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Originally Posted by markos
Originally Posted by grimreaper
It's not necessarily men's fault if they automatically like porn so blame God or Mother Nature if you think men should not be the way they are.

It's not necessarily women's fault if they automatically feel awful when their husband uses porn, so blame God or Mother Nature if you think women should not be the way they are...Also, do those women a favor and let them know if you do this so they can decide if they want to endure that kind of hell or not.

I agree that it's not very realistic to expect women to openly accept porn and be completely happy about it and I know that you can't always control or change the way you feel. That's the main reason I don't think this is a battle worth fighting for me personally at this point. However, I see many women's feelings about porn as somewhat less of a biological given than men automatically liking it and more of a knee-jerk reaction to something they didn't expect to happen compounded by common misconceptions about what this means that are usually either completely false or at least greatly exaggerated in most cases such as the following:

1. "My husband is a sick pervert with something seriously wrong with him."
2. "I don't look like those girls so my husband must not be very attracted to me or he wouldn't be doing this."
3. "I can't trust my husband anymore because he lied to me about this and promised he wouldn't do this again."

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Originally Posted by BrainHurts
Grimreaper,

Have you read what Dr. Harley says about porn and the contrast effect?

I read some of what Dr. Harley said about pornography including the following:

Quote
I'd be opposed to a particular husband viewing pornography if there was absolutely nothing wrong with it except that it made his wife feel uncomfortable. Any violation of the Policy of Joint Agreement should be avoided. But there are reasons to avoid it, even when a wife enthusiastically agrees to it. One of the most important is known as the "contrast effect."...If you compare one sexual experience with another, the more stimulating experience will make the less stimulating experience seem boring in comparison. If you compare one naked woman with another, the one who's more physically attractive will make the less physically attractive woman appear to be unattractive. That's why I caution men to avoid pornography because it's unfair to his wife to be compared to an 18-year-old girl who has been specially selected for her physical assets...Wanting to view pornography, and enjoying it when they do, is normal for men, and not usually a sexual addiction. But most wives do not, and should not, accept it. I feel that it greatly diminishes the value and purpose of marital sex.

Maybe some people have an especially hard time distinguishing fantasy from reality but based on this description I don't think I have ever experienced this contrast effect. Personally I haven't noticed much of a difference overall between when I was viewing porn frequently and when I stopped because of religious guilt-trips and fear that my wife would leave me over this. Also, how fair is it for wives to compare their husbands to fictional characters in romance novels, soap operas, or romantic comedies?

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Originally Posted by grimreaper
Also, how fair is it for wives to compare their husbands to fictional characters in romance novels, soap operas, or romantic comedies?

Absolutley NOT. Romance novels are porn for women as far as I am concerned (my wife would agree). Its just as explicit as viewing porn in its own way. Men are visual creatures and women are emotional creatures. Romance novels give them their "feeling" pleasures just as much as porn viewing gives men the "viewing" pleasures.

My wife noticed this in herself when she used to read racy novels but complain to me about my porn viewing. I brought up all the "emotional porn" that she reads .. and at first she didnt see it .. but now that she has stopped reading material that contains explicit stuff.. she "gets" it.

Now .. if you both were to read some erotica together. THAT i believe, is acceptable. SOme would consider the same with porn but i beg to differ.

MNG

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Originally Posted by grimreaper
[

Maybe some people have an especially hard time distinguishing fantasy from reality but based on this description I don't think I have ever experienced this contrast effect.

But its not some people, it's most. Keep in mind you have no clear perspective on this because of your personal bias. [you are a porn user] Dr Harley, who has long professional experience says it does have a contrast effect. After being on this forum for 11 years, I can attest to the hundreds of posts that describe trouble with porn. I can also tell when some woman's husband is spanking the monkey because he loses interest in having sex with her. Obviously, if he is doing himself, he won't have sexual desire for her and it ruins their sex life.

What woman wants to envision her husband sitting in front of a computer with drool coming out of his mouth slapping the ole salamy? sick That is just disgusting. It reminds me of some pimple faced little fat boy who can't get a date and has to resort self pleasuring. *puke*

And even so, this is Marriage Builders. This OP came here to get information about MArriage Builders, not some porn lover's personal philosophy.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

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Gr,

Did you listen to the radio clips on porn that I posted? What did you think about what Dr. Harley said?


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Great post Melody!

It IS a problem and the OP is right to be concerned! It will lead to all sorts of consequences for the marriage. Unfortunately porn is so easily available for free, I think it is a bigger problem now then ever.

Do you really believe this is an addiction? Addiction would most likely require professional intervention. Do you check his phone and computer history regularly? If so, how often is he viewing porn? I only ask this to help determine if this is actually an addiction that he can not stop on his own, or just a habit.

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Originally Posted by grimreaper
I agree that it's not very realistic to expect women to openly accept porn and be completely happy about it and I know that you can't always control or change the way you feel.

Did you know that according to Dr. Harley, it's nearly impossible to change the way you feel?

We frequently get posters here posting bad advice consisting of messages to people to try to change the way they feel, e.g., just accept it and learn to live with it. That's terrible advice and completely contrary to what Dr. Harley espouses.

Quote
However, I see many women's feelings about porn as somewhat less of a biological given than men automatically liking it and more of a knee-jerk reaction to something they didn't expect to happen

Not being women, though, it would be disrespectful for you or me to say something like this, because we can't read their minds. People can't always explain WHY they feel the way they do. And according to Dr. Harley, it doesn't matter WHY a husband or wife is bothered by a behavior; if they are bothered, it needs to cease, period.

Husbands especially seem to fall easy prey to the misconception that their wives should just learn to view their behavior in a different light.

Quote
1. "My husband is a sick pervert with something seriously wrong with him."
2. "I don't look like those girls so my husband must not be very attracted to me or he wouldn't be doing this."

It would definitely be disrespectful of a woman to try to read her husband's mind, too, but if she tells him how much it bothers her and he continues to do it, it's sort of hard to blame her for escalating the situation and trying to get him to stop the offensive behavior, because it HURTS SO BAD. And a husband viewing porn almost invariably does make a wife feel unattractive. You can't blame or judge a woman for her feelings. That may not be why her husband did it, but she is still going to feel unattractive.

Quote
3. "I can't trust my husband anymore because he lied to me about this and promised he wouldn't do this again."

That's an entirely reasonable and healthy reaction! A woman in such a situation will quite naturally start to feel like she can't trust her husband. Of course she can't -- he's a liar. That's her emotions kicking in to do what they were designed to do: protect her from pain. She will have to grow emotionally distant from her husband, including massive lost of trust and intimacy, to avoid the extreme pain resulting from her husband's extremely offensive behavior.


If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app!

Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8.
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I'm not saying you should just accept it and feel good about it but I wouldn't take it personally because it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with you from his perspective; it is mostly just a strong natural compulsion to do something that makes him feel better at least for a few minutes.
He's hurting her through his selfish actions, and she shouldn't take it personally?

We get our word for "Pornography" from the Greek words for "Picture" and "Prostitute."

Pornography = Picture Prostitutes. They may not be in the room, but there's not much difference. I'd slap my husband silly if he told me not to take that personally.

Last edited by Prisca; 05/23/12 10:13 PM.

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Stranger, you are not overreacting. Your feelings are spot-on. His porn use is destroying your marriage, and it must stop.


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Originally Posted by Prisca
Stranger, you are not overreacting. Your feelings are spot-on. His porn use is destroying your marriage, and it must stop.

I agree ... QFT!

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**edit**

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**edit**

Last edited by Fireproof; 05/24/12 09:13 PM. Reason: TOS non MB advice
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This thread has been disrupted long enough with personal philosophies. The purpose of this forum is to discuss and learn Marriage Builders concepts, not to share personal philosophies. Please help this poster with Marriage Builders concepts or refrain from posting.

Thank you, Fireproof

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