Hi everyone,
After months of laying low,I'm back for some help.
Quick background on myself: married for 2.5 years, have 2 toddlers, one more on the way. My husband was addicted to pornography for a long time (please don't criticize me on the reference to porn as an addiction - it's just like alcohol - some can have an occasional drink and be ok, some go over the edge and become alcoholics; at least this is my opinion).
He lied about it, hid it, covered it up whenever he could. Promised to stop, did it again, promised some more, got even worse.
After years of dealing with it, he seems to be over the pornography. I have breathed many a great sigh of relief for this, but the baggage remains.
Some married women in my position, or perhaps those whose husbands are still using porn as their main outlet, may agree with me when I say that the dishonesty and betrayal that comes from lying is perhaps the worst part of the problem.
Now for my question: how do I get over it?
I am left feeling like I cannot trust my husband, like everything he says is potentially a lie.
I hate scrutinizing him, it tears me up not to trust him, but he is not the first man to have betrayed me, and I am skeptical to allow him to take steps to regain trust. I fear that I will just be hurt again in a worse way.
Maybe in the past I gave him back my trust too easily, and that could be very true.
I desperately want to trust this man, my husband, I love him very much and plan on spending many more years with him. I want them to be happy years.
But I can't escape the possibility that he might have lied to me about other things that I still don't know about (Did he have an affair with his lady co-worker? When he went into that college girl's room to do some computer repair for her, was she wearing gym clothes as he now says, or skimpy panties and a bra as he said before or nothing like his co-workers say...was there really another roommate there to prevent him from doing anything...did he do anything? etc...) and could lie to me in the future about something.
I realize that I cannot predict what he might do, and if I keep speculating it might drive him away. But the worry never goes away - I am constantly searching our computer for evidence of any illicit deeds.
I have woken up in the middle of the night crazy over the fact that I might have forgotten to check a certain folder where porn might be hidden on the computer, then gone and checked.
The strange thing is, my husband seemingly sincerely insists that he does not look at other women, that he does not find anyone else to be good-looking. It's so hard to beleive given his background.
He says that the reason for the seeming comtradiction is that porn is not real, and people he sees day to day are, thus he was safe to escape into the fantasy world, but would never do so in reality. I see porn as a possible stepping stone for some people, and fear that since he is not using porn anymore (hopefully) that he might find other ways to relieve his needs, like find a girl on the campus he attends.

So, to make a long story short am I crazy? I understand ther are no prophets on this forum, but do you think my continued obsession with finding out if he is lying, cheating, using pornography could drive him to do so? Whether it would or it wouldn't I need to find a way to build my trust in him, has anyone been here before and have any advice? Please help!

My H was heavily into pornography, primarily on the internet. It's done terrible things to my self esteem, and taken a LOT from our M and time together.

I'm trying to think back (and it's not too many months ago either!), and remember how I've managed to build my trust back. Hmmmm... I think it was by doing the 'checking' on the computer like you are doing. My H is addicted to burning cd's too... so I had taken it upon myself <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> to go through as many of them as I could, and DESTROY any that had nudie pics on them. That felt REALLY GOOD too! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Razz]" src="images/icons/tongue.gif" />

That also didn't help him to stop. (duh! of course not! It's something HE has to want to do).

My H's viewing of porn was a HUGE issue to me, along with a few other things. It seemed as though nothing I was saying was getting through to him. So I decided to write him a letter, outlining EXACTLY what I NEEDED from him in order for us to move forward in our M. It was kinda like a pre plan B letter, even though we had been in recovery for about a year.

There was something in that letter that FINALLY helped my H to "get it". Thank goodness!!! Because I really don't know what I would have done next, other than go to plan B until he met my demands.

That was in the spring. I check our computer periodically, and have found nothing that I have 'issues' with. It's been such a relief! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> I guess what's helping me to get over it, is the fact that my H is showing me ACTIONS to prove that he's not using his time on that crap (which is what it is to me - I think my view is similar to yours... some people may like it, so they can have it. I just don't want it in MY marriage! And you're right, it IS - or can be - an addiction).

One of the things I've asked my H to change are his computer usage habits. I experienced many triggers when he would be on the computer late at night after I would go to bed. That's EXACTLY what he used to do back when he was involved with other women and porn and chat rooms, etc. One of the actions that he chose to do to help me was to change that particular habit. Yes, he still gets his pc time, but we always go to bed together now. Are there any 'triggers' that your H may be setting off with you that could be changed?

I hope some of this may have helped you. Feel free to ask me anything to do with this if you would like. But just to let you know... I'll be out of town until Monday night, so I may not get a chance to get back to this thread until then. In the meantime, I hope there are others on here who will share their experiences with you.

Take care,
Karen

Why don't you get rid of the computer at home? Or take it out of commision for awhile. Don't tell me you can't live without it. We once all made it by in this world without computers so why not try anybody using it for a month or two and go from there? I would disconnected it and maybe store it at a family members house or a friends house. Too me it seems you need to get rid of the "tool" that allows your husband to do this and give you these doubts. If he loves ya and really has given it up he can give the computer up. If he comes up with excuses, but I need to check my email, but I need to do work on it.. ..Well there is your answer then and he hasn't quit.

I'm sorry to see you back here. If you don't recall, I posted back and forth with you when that incident in the dorm room happened.

I am very happy to hear of your H's progress with the SA. My Fiance has made a lot of progress too! As I recall your H is young, so he probably hadn't escalated before he realized what a negative effect the porn was having on his real life sex life and the woman he actually cares about. Still checking helps deal with the fall out from the secrets and lies. For me, I got spectorsoft's spyware. My Fiance knows about it, it helps him resist temptation when I'm not there. And it puts my mind totally at ease! About the computer anyway. And I know your H works on computers so you have to keep the one you have at home.

I doubt your H would turn to an affair instead of porn. They are very different types of sex. One on one relating with a real person is the opposite of porn.

I don't know how your H is about sex, but for my Fiance, when we first started dating he treated me like a very hot woman. Later, as he got to know me, he started apologizing when he'd get turned on or bought me something sexy because he wanted me to know he respected me and shouldn't think of me that way. We've gotten past that, thank god, now he's working on focusing on the woman he respects as his sexual turn on.

Hi - there are Internet service providers that do filtering at the server, with no password to bypass it, so you could look into those. If your husband is more savvy about computers than you, then the spy software and other methods of checking won't be very effective.

Although they have similar effects, I agree that affairs and porn addiction have important differences in how they are carried out. Affairs require social skills in both "connecting" and in covering up, while porn addiction does not. Another thing about porn, is that it's easier to think nobody else gets hurt.

Thanks so much everyone for your replies, it's a breath of fresh air to get feedback.
Topie, I'm sorry to hear you are in a similar position... It's so hard sometimes because of the type of problem porn is. It seems like my husband can change on a dime whether he is against it or not. About a month ago it sounded like he was advocating it, saying, "Every guy does it, I mean every ONE!" Maybe a lot do, maybe half do, but it has no place in my marriage. He did the CD burning thing too - AT WORK! Customers would bring in their computers to work on and files had to be backed up onto another computer. A few times he copied these files, movies, to a few CDs. He said he did it for "us" to look at "together" - which we tried, but I am too uncomfotable with that. Not only did he steal people's files, look at porn at work, but he put his job at risk. Good thing that stopped and he isn't working there anymore. We microwaved those CDs a few months ago.
I have recording software to track him, and I check up often, but I can't catch everything. He is a computer science major, and knows vast amounts more than I do, for all I know he could have deleted problem items, though I wouldn't know how he could, he's surprised me with his knowledge more than once.
Confused, thanks so much for replying. I would LOVE to get rid of the computer. I guess it would be reasonable to ask him to do his homework at the computer lab at school. I have tried breaking the computer before, but I realized before I broke it that not only would that not stop him from using it, but he would spend countless hours fixing it and who knows how much money. I sware the computer has gotten mre "presents" from him than I have! But since our home business relies on the computer, we can't really get rid of it - but I could severely limit his use, thanks fo the suggestions.
Willing, I remember you, you helped out a lot before, and I really appreciate that. I did a lot of thinking about why I think he might turn to an affair.
We moved about 500 miles from our home 6 weeks ago so he could attend school (it was the best one he got into). A very good friend of mine, she's like a sister, also attends this school, so I was very happy to move up near her. Though she is a great friend, she kind of has a "reputation" - she dresses scandalously, has cheated on her boyfriends, etc. In the 2 weeks after we moved, she called a lot and we went to lunch a few times. We live about 45 minutes from the campus and from her, but we would drive in before school started to take care of business and see her. It was kind of strange, but in the first week or so she offered that my husband could stay overnight at her house if he had a late class and didn't want to drive 45 mins back home, only to get up in the early morning and drive back. I thought it was a nice gesture to open her house, but I was uncomfortable with it. I tested my husband's reaction and he said he wouldn't want to do that. Ok, fine, I'm happy. Then the first week of class, she hadn't called me in awhile, she called MY HUSBAND - I wsn't home - to see how his classes were going, he said that's why she called, not to talk to me. I haven't heard from her since, and this was nearly a month ago. Just kind of strange to go from calling me a few times a week, to calling for my husband, to not calling me at all. He has 4 hour breaks two days a week, and she lives a few blocks from campus, so add it up and you might see why I worry. Also, I met him in 11th grade. At the time we met he had a "crush" on her. So I know at least he USED to think she was attractive. Now he is polar opposite, saying she is "gross" (childish, eh?), "discusting", and "ugly" (she is not, she is a pretty woman ... and likes to flaunt it). To me it sounds like he is overcompensating for something, like that he really does find her attractive, or worse, and is trying to hide it by being overzealous about her unattractiveness.
Then yesterday I checked his hotmail account. It had a pornographic email stating that his user name and password had been reactivated and he can use the site for free for a limited time. At the bottom it said, "This email has been sent at your request, or someone posing as you, or you are a member of one of our affilited sites". So.... I know no one is posing as my husband... Did he request it? Is he a member? There was a time that I wasn't monitoring his use, could he have slipped back into porn?
I found this yesterday and I have yet to confront him solely because I don't want to start a fight. It always becomes him accusing that I am just insecure.
Well, thanks again for any input. I can't help feeling like just the jealous, overprotective wife that he says I am.
He's not a fan of marriage counseling, but now that I'm not in school anymore, I think I am going to try to get into individual counseling. Should I insist that he go to marriage counseling too???

That email might just be a marketing ploy by the co that sells the porn. Maybe your H had an account with them long ago in the past and they are trying to get him to buy from them again. Do you have an agreement that he will tell you about such things? If not, he might not tell you just because he didn't do anything and he thinks telling you might upset you over nothing.

That woman sounds like bad news. Your H did tell you she called him. That's good. You know your H. Did he seem like he was flattered or like he was letting you know she's not a true friend?

My fiance and I have an agreement to tell each other about any encounters with members of the opposite sex. We got the idea from Dr. H's books. You might try something like that regarding women your H talks to at school, work, heck even at the grocery store. If, as Dr H suggests, many affairs develop slowly without the WS realizing it, talking about it with their partner will set the red flags a flying.

It seemed awkward for both of us at first, but it is a habit worth developing. The extra plus for me is when my fiance tells me everything I find my trust in him being restored. After all it's what he didn't tell me in the past that hurt. In fact the secrets and lies hurt me even more than what was hidden and lied about.

You're probably right about the email - it just kind of scared me to see it and I didn't know what to make of it. Thanks for helping me calm down.
My H did tell me about her call, but he didn't think there was anything strange about it.
We don't have an agreement to tell about encounters with the opposite sex, but I have tried. He gets really defensive when I ask for similar things. Even when I ask him things like why he was talking to an ex-co-worker about her broken marriage. I see these as potentially her trying to pull pity trips and getting my H to console her. When I ask him about it, he gets mad at me claiming that I jsut don't trust him. It's not that I don't trust him, it's that I don't trust HER. Fortunately that woman is now 500 miles away, but now I have worries about other women including this friend of mine (and frankly, I don't like hearing my H coming home talking to me and his family about how scandalously the campus girls are dressed when I am 8 months pregnant).
Is there a good way to approach an agreement to tell about such encounters? Maybe I'm just approaching it wrong, maybe I do seem overbearing, controlling, self-concious, etc... How can I make it more palatable?

Crl759,
I really feel your pain, as my H is doing the very same thing.He has for a very very long time. I can't trust my H either as he has lied to me so much through out our marrige. I today a'm still having problems trusting him,and i know what u mean about the fear as well that u are talking about. My personal feeling on if i can ever trust my H again is NO!!!. ONLY b/c everytime i do try and trust him and say to my self ok i a'm going to just try 1 more time that is when he lies again to me. It is a very hard thing to deal with. I really don't have no advice for u as i a'm myself a'm going through the same thing now. But i wanted u to know i care and if u need to talk to me here is my e-mail address, maybe we can also help one another. daddy_girl47963@yahoo.com please just keep posting anytime u feel the need as u know everyone here will help as much as possible. Cathy

Hi Dark,
I just realized something yesterday. I don't want to know that my husband won't cheat on me or won't do porn again, I want to know that if he did he would tell me.
I don't know what to do, if it's a matter of me just letting myself trust him again or if he needs to do something. But if it is him, then what can be done? There just is something not right about the way he acts, and I guess I'm fearing affair because there isn't a better explaination for how he acts and why I don't trust him.
I know some might say that it just takes time to rebuild trust, but in the mean time our marriage stinks. I mean, I can't feel totally close to him, I don't want to share things with him because I don't know if I can trust him, I get suspicious of everything he does. I know it drives my H crazy, he hates when I ask him where he was or what he was doing, why he is late getting home, and such.\
Yesterday I wanted to go to school with him so I could take the babies to a park nearby while he is in class. He didn't want me to come and said, "I bet you think I don't want you to come because you think I am going to go meet a mistress, don't you?" Well, no, I actually wan't thinking that at all. But it must be hard for him to always fear me having suspicions about him. Anyways, gotta go.

Hi again everyone.. I know I'm probably looking really needy right now, but if anything, I need to vent. Any advice would be super.
Last week my H and I were able to go out to dinner alone. My H told me I should contact this friend of mine previously mentioned in earlier posts, because I haven't talked to her in awhile. The only reason I haven't is because I was upset with her for calling my husband when I wasn't home and not calling back for me later. He said "she probably thinks you are an a*s." I was a little hurt by him being so harsh, and he eventually apologized for being harsh, but said I should still call her.
But it left me wondering why he would call me such a name about something that really isn't his business.
Today he is at school and he called me on a break and said he might come home early from his 2 hour class because I've been going in and out of pre-labor. He said that he has never stayed for the full two hours of that class, always leaves at 10 - after one hour of class. He is supposed to get off at 11 and be home at 12 (takes an hour to get home) the days of this class. He is always home at 12, except for maybe twice. When I asked him why he had been getting home at 12 if he is leaving an hour early, he said something stupid like that his instructor let them go early once and the rest of the time he just doesn't have 2 hours worth of work to do (which doesn't answer my question). Then he said he had to get to class and couldn't talk anymore.
I don't know whether it would be better to let this go or not. Either he made a mistake when he said he is leaving early every day (which I doubt, because it happens so frequently I don't see how he could make a mistake, and he was so clear about why he leaves early) or he is leaving early, doing "something" in the "extra" hour he has and coming home acting like he was at class the whole time.
I feel like I am trying to catch him at cheating, it's so frustrating.
If I confront this discrepancy with him, I know exactly what will happen. He'll say he made a mistake and get mad at me for not trusting me. He'll say that I am so insecure and that, basically, I am a bad wife for thinking he could cheat on me. He'll put on a pity trip, maybe he'll cry, because his wife doesn't trust him. Been there so many times.
He's such a good liar that I can rarely catch him, so even if he was doing something wrong in that extra hour he wouldn't hesitate to make somethig up. I always get "the feeling" when he is lying, but until he confesses (after A LOT of pressure) I guess I believe him. I wouldn't know the difference if he just made something up.
But if I don't say anything I'll never know - maybe this would be the one time when he would confess to something.
I don't know. Can anyone provide some wisdom for this foggy mind? Either this is a good guy that just has a bad past which won't allow me to trust him, or he is a no-good fool who is cheating on me after ditching class...
I just finished reading over my post, and I sound like a schoolgirl - the type that sits around and says things like, "I wonder if Johnny likes me, golly, I want to marry him!" Pitiful, eh?
But I can't keep living like this. I can never know whether my husband is lying, cheating, etc. I'm afraid that I'll just turn into a mental wreck (halfway there).

<small>[ October 07, 2002, 01:07 PM: Message edited by: MissGreen ]</small>

Hi CRL!

I have read all your posts and I can understand your frustrations! I am/was/but trying not to be one very insecure person!!!

I would like to make a suggestion. This is something that I have had to *really* work on. You should too.

What I see is that you are worrying... and even almost obsessing... about what your husband is doing every single minute of the time. You are spending a lot of time and energy on things that you cannot control. You are driving yourself crazy!!!

From what you have shared with us, I don't see any red flags. If I remember back to my college years (wasn't too long ago), there were MANY days when we did not stay in class the fully allotted time. There was SO much going on at that time. Sometimes we would stay to work on something... sometimes stay a little while to tie up loose ends.

Either way, you cannot be with him 24 hours a day and you really cannot expect him to tell you about every single female he sees each day ~ ESPECIALLY on a college campus. You must find some way to trust him or your marriage is doomed. You will drive yourself crazy and you will drive him away IF he is innocent of any wrong-doing.

What do you do during the day? Do you work or do you stay at home? I think you should try to find some *thing* (who knows what *thing*... but something) that can you can switch your mind to when you start having these thoughts... something that will help you focus on *Y*O*U*!!! And not about what he may or may not be doing. You could hypothetical yourself to death!

I think counseling is an excellent idea. You should really consider individual counseling as well. The IC will help you regain your composure and help clear some of your fogginess... help you to focus on YOU and not things you cannot control.

You mentioned that your husband lies... do you have solid proof? Or are these your *feelings*!? Like I said, I had to really REALLY work at my feelings of insecurity. And what I had to realize, and you should too, is that I can only control my actions, thoughts, reactions. I cannot control someone else's. You cannot control what your husband does all day... or who he speaks to... You can only control your reactions to the information you have in front of you. Don't react to *feelings* of *possible* lies or infidelities. You COULD be wrong and then that would make it worse.

I'm not saying let him get away with anything he wants. Of course you must have boundaries. But I am trying to say focus on the positive and quit feverishly looking for his wrong doings. It's almost like you want to will it to happen... so then you'll have peace of mind. Sounds really twisted, but I've been there. And the never ending feeling of anxiousness and nervousness and what ifs and ALLLL those ugly feelings are AWFUL! And served no purpose.

I don't know if I've helped at all, but I hope you can take something from my post.

Good luck!

Clear

p.s. I would accuse my ex of lying so much that he would agree with whatever I accused him of... just to shut me up. And I am NOT kidding! You must have a little faith in him... you must show him that you trust him enough to get past this... that you trust him enough to make the right decisions... or he'll be very discouraged. He'll have an attitude of "I can't do anything right".

(btw, I've been on both sides so I can relate to both people).

I have had a pornography addiction in the past. Mine started when I felt my XW didn't want me anymore. I was admonished for always wanting sex and had to teach myself not to be aroused by my XW. For me I needed and outlet and it was also a cry for help. I got caught several times, but nothing ever changed with me or her.

The porn stopped for me when I accepted my marriage the way it was, which was a disaster. That is when I started plan A'ing myself and I didn't even know what plan A was.

After our separation in May I delved into the porn again for about a week. It was a quick fix with know substance. I'm in a happy healthy relationship now and don't even think twice about it.

For me a kind word and a little bit of interest from my XW would have been all I needed. For me I was too embarassed and did not have a clue how to talk about it with my XW. I was hurting so bad inside, but she could never see that and I could never communicate it to her.

Hope this helps.

Hi Miss Green & Moving On,
Thanks for taking the time to write.
Miss Green,
I know I need to find some way to trust him, but I just don't know how to regain that trust. As far as I am concerned, he has lied to me and can lie again. The lies I know about are now jsut feelings. They have been about stupid things (like once he bought something expensive and said it was a gift for his brother. He then kept it.) ad semi-big things (like using porn. The night after I gave birth to our first son he went home to get some sleep while I was in the hospital. I later found evidence of porn on the computre from that night. He first denied it, when I showed him the dated cookies, he confessed. Made me feel even more like a piece of dirt that I was recovering from birthingour baby and he was at home looking at naked sl*ts.).
I don't want to know what he does 24/7. I want to be able to trust that he isn't doing anything. Like I said before, I want to know that if he DID cheat on me, that he would tell me, but I guess that's a fantasy.
I'm trying so hard to control my reactions. I guess that's where IC would come in. I'm new to our area, so I'm going to scope out the IC scene after posting.
I know he does hav the attitude of "I can't do anything right" like you said. This also comes from his childhood - his mom is very critical and he always feels substandard. I want so badly to bolster his self-esteem and I am quick to compliment him, but then my reactions to little things, suspicions etc, just tear down what has been built, if anything.
I try my best to keep busy and keep bad thoughts out. I graduated about 2 months ago, have 2 toddlers to take care of, having another in 3 weeks. I have a job that keeps me out of the house about 10 hours a week, I'm a reporter and I am able to do a lot of work from home. Keeping busy hasn't made the suspicion go away. It's there when I'm tryng to go to sleep if nothing else.

Moving On,
I am happy to hear a man's perspective. My H has had this problem since he was 10. Our sex life is great IMHO. I know he hasn't looked at porn in months, but the damage from the lies still remains. You said that some kind words and interest would have helped. I would truly love to know what kinds of things I can do and say to my H. When I try talking to him, he gets defensive and says that all I want to do is embarass him. He doesn't want to talk about the porn. We don't much anymore, mainly because his use is supposed to be over, but I know the temptation is still there. I want to head things off at the pass before he sees a tempting email and delves back in. How do I ask him about thigns and talk to him without embarassing him? Many conversations I have started about the subject are centered around what he is getting from porn that he doesn't get from me. He insists that it isn't me that is the problem, that it is him alone, but I find that hard to believe, especially based on what you ahve said about goig to porn because you felt your wife wasn't interested. I feel like if I was a good enough wife he would be happy with me. So what do I need to do? I guess IC would help there too <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> Please let me know some non-threatening ways I can talk to him.