Not to long ago, I posted in the "Living Together..." in the "Mens sexual behaviors" thread around the 5th or 6th page. I could really use some support and advice. Could some of you read my original post and I will be back to add the more recent details in a few hours. I have to run some errands before my son is ready to take his nap. Thanks

Here is nnt's original post from the other thread. I believe it date's back to mid October:

needtotalk's original post

Well, I was beat to it by a minute.

NTT,

I don't have advice, but I'm looking forward to what other posters have to say on the topic. My H also had a bout with porn that really, really bothered me. He says that he has given it up and lets me snoop freely (passwords, history on the computer, etc). I have not found anything since January (when we first found MB).

I'm still on guard about it, though, so am curious to hear what others have to say about your sitch.

Cat

ntt,

First, some questions:

1) Is your husband ususally respectful of your opinions and feelings? Is this situation different? Or is he ususally so dismissive?

2) Do you know why you have low self-esteem? (I'm not suggesting that with healthy self-esteem you would or should accept his porn use. Just that it plays a role in how you approach the situation)

3) You say he has done little to reasure you. What is your sex life like? What has it been like in the past?


Now, a couple of quick suggestions:

1) Stop screaming at him about this. Try not to be accusatory. No wonder he's defensive. It doesn't excuse his lies. But we all get defensive (and even lie sometimes) when we think we're under attack. In my opinion, you have a better chance at getting him to see your point of view if you remain calm and thoughtful than if you shout him down. If it's too hard to keep the "edge" out of your voice when you talk to him, try writing him a letter. But again, try to keep the tone as matter-of-fact as possible. Don't put him down or call him names. Just explain how his porn use makes YOU feel.

2) Go to the home page of this web site and do a search for "pornography". You'll find an article on addiction to porn. It's in the form of a letter to Dr. Harley, and his response. Print it out and ask your husband to read it and talk with you about it. (You mentioned that you had ordered one of Harley's books, but didn't know if he'd read it. I know I've always had better luck getting my H to read brief articles than whole books!)

Here's the thing, though. This advice comes from me -- someone who tried UNSUCCESSFULLY to get her husband to give up porn until it turned into a major crisis. In my case, I had a couple of teary confrontations with my husband early on in our relationship. That didn't work. He begrudgingly said he'd stop, but kept using off and on, and lying to me about it.

Then, when I was pregnant with our first child, I "caught" him taking care of business down on the sofa one night while I was alone up in bed. I was even more upset this time because of his previous promises to stop. Plus the fact that my sex drive had actually increased with my pregnancy (sounds odd but I've heard it's not all that uncommon) So I was a more than willing partner at that time. This time, I wrote him a long letter, explaining as calmly as I could how it made me feel. He came to me and very humbly and sincerely promised to stop.

I'm not sure whether he did stop for awhile or not. But after our first child was born, I went through a period of time when I didn't want to have sex, and I think that's when his really heavy use began... and continued for the next 5 1/2 years... until the crisis. Our sex life had become so bad that I thought he no longer wanted me and that I had lost my libido.

Then, I had an affair. A few weeks after the affair ended, I told my husband that I didn't love him anymore and wasn't sure I wanted to stay married to him. We started marriage counseling. He told me he had been using porn and promised to stop (but I didn't realize at that time that it had become a daily thing). Three weeks later, I told him about the affair. A few days after that, I was trying to explain to him why my brief affair was so powerful, and why it was hard for me to get over it and be intimate with him again. I explained how, in the months leading up to the affair, I had felt so unloved and unattractive... so devoid of my usual sex drive that I wondered if there was something medically wrong with me, or I were gay, or fridgid!!! ONLY THEN DID THE LIGHTBULB GO OFF IN HIS HEAD. Only with the knowledge that so much damage had been done to our relationship that I had turned to another man and wasn't sure if I could, or even wanted to, come back to him... only when he was faced with the loss of his family... did he 'get it' and tell me the whole truth and take full responsibility.

He now says he has completely stoped, will never start again, and will get help if he needs to. And I believe him.
I just wish it hadn't taken such a drastic and dramatic turn of events for us to get to this point. I don't want to be pessimistic or make you feel discouraged. I just don't know if it's possible to get some men to stop unless they 'hit rock bottom' somehow. The fact that your husband seems so drawn to this type of thing and has been hiding it and lying to you about it is not a good sign, in my opinion. Reminds me too much of my situation.

Hopefully, some of the wiser and more experienced folks around here will post with more constructive thoughts and suggestions.

My heart goes out to you. I know how difficult this can be.

I have to sign off, and won't be able to check back in until Friday. But I'll be thinking of you.

Take care and be good to yourself.

--SC

Thanks for bringing over my original thread. I'm fairly new and I didn't know that I could do that.

Anyway, here are the more recent details. After talking to a few people I decided to try to be ok with the few magazines and videos (see the old thread if you don't know what I'm talking about) as long as H was honest about use and I knew where they were, and absolutely NO strip clubs. I don't believe that the frequence of use is really all that much. He says that it is not even once a month, and it is probably true.

He ended up with a day off from work due to bad weather and I was at work and my son was at daycare. I was in tears at work talking to one of my co-workers who knows of my sitch because I was almost in a panic that he was home alone. Then I checked my cell and found that he had left me a really nice message. I felt eased.

Of course, when I got home I checked the place where I had put the mags and video to find that they had been moved. I crumbled, and accused him of looking at it. He said he just looked to see where they were (I kind of hid them for a while, childish, I know, but I put them back in the place that we had agreed on) and didn't actually look at them. Well, his track record of lies made it near impossible for me to believe him and the earlier nice phone call, to me, now felt more like a guilt call.

I became obsessed, I knew the exact position of each mag and the video. I checked them everytime he wasn't around. I even wrote down the pages that the subscription inserts were in. They were moved once more and he did have a legit reason. I knew that I couldn't do it. My accusations and obsession and his continued lack of affection were causing ill feelings for both of us. I finally told him a few days ago that I cannot be in a relationship this way. I didn't feel like he cared at all about what it was doing to us, and I didn't know if I even still loved him because of the severe lack of trust. I told him this and he asked if I wanted a D, I said that neither one of us could afford it so we'd just have to live together, but not be together. Evidentally, that struck a cord. That night he told me that he threw that mags away. Of course, he did it while I wasn't home, so I don't truly know if he really did, and of course, he quickly looked at them first. And the video was still in it's place. This all happened on Sunday. I should have acknowledged his try but my defenses and lack of trust didn't let me.

Last night was one of our better nights. I calmly (like you said SC), but sobbingly, tried once again to explain why I am so deeply hurt and why I can't let go of the past (because it keeps repeating itself!). He got a bit defensive when I asked about the video, claimed he may never even watch it, and didn't see why I was so against it. So, I said, if your not going to watch it why keep it? "Well, what if I want to watch it someday?" I broke down crying and stopped talking to him. Then, something amazing happened. He said, "How about we throw it away tomorrow, deal?" He said he was being selfish, and that we were married and it was only right to if it bothered me that much. It is the first time I've felt like he "got it". My defenses were still very much up when he said this, so I didn't show the appreciation I should have, but I called him today to say that I was sorry for not showing it and that he finally did what I have been asking him to do: He showed he cared and wanted to try. I thanked him.

Answers to SC Q's
1)No, he usually dimisses my opinions, something that we need to work on, but I don't know how.

2)Low self esteem- I think I was born with it! I can't really remember a time that I whole-heartedly loved myself. Don't know how to fix, or even if it can be fixed, that.

3)Sex life used to be great, no complaints. After his father died (who did have an A, and the article of what it teached children fits my H to a T) in 2000, only a month after we were married, things slacked off. I figured he needed time to deal with everything. About a year or so later was when he admitted to occasionally looking at porn. Since then, it goes up and down. I've never been the type to deny him SF, and actually have been initiated several adventerous, but intimate, encounters.

HI NTT. I'm glad you posted here again. I know you read what I posted about this subject over in "other topics," but that is really only the tip of the iceberg.
First, you HAVE to realize, as hard as it is, that it is NOT your fault your husband is using porn. I know that is extremely difficult, and doesn't make the hurt any less. I have gone through all the same emotions of looking for a cause within myself that my H had such a need for it, so much so that he refused to quit or get help until getting caught at his place of work made getting help unavoidable. I realize that I was not lacking in anything, that I was not missing something he needed that made him use porn. It was his issue. The thing I have the hardest time dealing with right now is that I, his wife and mother of his children, was never important enough to get him to stop or seek help. I was just never important enough.
Even after he was caught at work, I was totally there for him emotionally. I put all my feelings of hurt and betrayal on the back burner to once again help him through a crisis. We were in the process of relocating, and my H promised that we would go to counseling and deal with my issues as soon as we got to our new location. Didn't happen. We settled in, and then it was we didn't have the money or he didn't have the time. Once again, I wasn't important enough.
My biggest advice to you is to not let this go!!! It sounds as if your husband has a problem with this, and if you both don't seek help, it will destroy your relationship. I dealt with this problem for more than a decade, dealing with the constant lies, the promises of never again, the being blamed for it. I have also found out that he visited a couple strip joints during our marriage. This has robbed our relationship of any and all intimacy. I have so much hurt and resentment due to this, it feels insurmountable. If only he had listened to me, if only I had forced the issue, maybe we wouldn't be where we are now. I do not want you, or anyone else, to be in the situation I am in, or to feel the way I do.
If I can be of any more help, or if you'd like to know more, please let me know. I hope my post isn't too depressing, I just want you and everyone else to realize the seriousness of this problem and what it can do to a marriage if left unchecked. Hopefully your H will wake up in time to keep any more damage from being done.

NTT,

As a person who is very active with porn (and so is my wife) I suggest you sit down with him calmly and, with an open mind, ask him what it is about porn that he likes. My wife and I have counseled many people with porn addiction and there are three common concerns or thoughts on spouse's minds:

1) Spouse feels threatened, but not necessarily offended, by porn because they feel unable to compete.

2) Spouse is offended because it goes against their upbringing.

3) Spouse does not understand or "get it".

Please understand that I am in no way trying to support or condone porn. Any kind of addiction that interupts the household is destructive and needs to be addressed, but it helps to see it from their point-of-view. By seeing it that way you then can figure out how best to address the problem.

My H likes porn but its just once inwhile. At first I didn't care for it I thought just like you he liked looking at other women and not me manly after I had kids. So I started watching them with him and I got comfy with it cuz I knew he wasn't watching cuz he didn't like my body but he like just watching other do it. My husband and I are vary open about it. He tells me what he thinks about the women and I tell them what I think. It just a big turn on for guys and there is nothing no one can do about it. Just like most guys fanisy is doing it with 2 girls. Talk to your H tell him you want to try watching one with him and ask him why do you watch it what turns you on when your watching it. He just may tell you. But honey I'm telling you it has nothing to do how you look or anything else. Just like the one lady in the movie Coyude ugly says They have little toddlers in their pants. Cuz of that they still and always will think like a teenager. I hope you can get by this and I hope I have helped some.

Hello,
I wonder if you and your husband are Christians? If so, there is a very good book called "every Man's battle" there is also a companion book for the wives of men sturggling with pornography.

I suppose my views might differ a little from some of the above posters. My FWH and I had watched some porn over the years. A few mgazines, movies, etc. With the internet that became easier to access. I especially enjoyed fiction as I love to read. Fantasy was a big deal for us. Although I enjoyed it, there was always a measure of guilt or unease associated it with it. I know this sounds warped, but it I am being truthful. Anyway, over the years, it seemed like the fantasy became more important than the normal sex between us. It was almost like we had to have the fantasy for sex to be good.

I had really grown to hate that. I wanted it to be 'just us' in bed. On d-day I was crushed. Devastated. The one major thing that I set as boundry was no more porn, erotic stories, no more fantasy of including anyone else. Sex would be between the two of us only.

I can honestly say that over the last few months our intimate times have been so much better than anything we ever 'imagined' during the previous years.

Since this is a serious issue for you, please consider going to counseling together.

Read up on the site- A number of the posts in the fourms deal with pornography.

blessings

Update- H had not gone through with our "deal" by the time we went to bed last night, so I CALMLY made mention of it. He, almost enthusiastically, said "Let's do it now!" I said it could wait until tomorrow, that him showing he cared and was willing to throw it away to give me some peace of mind was what I really needed and wanted. He got right out of bed, took it out of the cabinet and broke it in half. He did this with a smile!

I gave him a hug and a kiss and thanked him, the most touching that we've done in several weeks. We feel asleep with his arm wrapped around me, that hasn't happened in years.

I'm still scared to let down my guard, though. I'm still afraid that he is going lie to me down the road. I think that this time he really understood how hurt I was. Maybe by trying to accept the mags and video I showed him that I wasn't trying to control him. I just couldn't do it, and I think, I HOPE, that he understands. The difference between this time and the last time 4 years ago is that this time he got rid of it willingly, last time I really believe it was just to shut me up. Those of you who have gone through this, am I kidding myself. Does the trust ever return?

BT- I love the fact that your H also views this site. Which one of you found it and viewed it first. My H doesn't know that I visit this site. Does your H find it insiteful? My H is not really into reading, so SC is probably right about the book. I don't think he'll read it. Maybe the shorter articles on this site would hold his attention better.

Those of you who have said to accept it, I tried and I cannot. He lied about it (3X's) and has caused a huge rift between us. We now have a serious trust issue to deal with and it would trigger my ill feelings.

Suggestions on building trust?

NTT,

It's normal to feel scared to let your guard down. What else is your H doing to make you feel safe?

Happy Thanksgiving!

He says that he is going to be open and honest. I told him that that is easy to say, but I want him to SHOW me. So this will be the real test. That is why I'm thinking about having him look at this site. I'm hoping that it will help him understand that being open means telling me EVERYTHING, and not just the things that he thinks will upset me.

Other than that he really isn't doing much. But we are also just starting to talk again, so we'll see.

That is really the issue now, though. I need to feel safe and secure in our marriage, and, right now, I don't. He knows this. He also knows that I don't have any trust in him. So, this is where we need to start working. We'll see.

Have you done the EN questionnaire? My H didn't know how important honesty and openness were to me until we did it. Perhaps your H does't see that it's more important to you to have O&H as opposed to other needs he might be trying to meet?

NTT,

I'm so happy to hear that things are turning around and that you and your husband are talking.

Again, I don't want to discourage you, but I have to ask, does his sudden turnaround make you at all suspicious? Did he tell you specifically what you did or said that made him suddenly see your point of view? The reason I ask -- when I discovered my H using porn again when I was pregnant, and wrote him that long letter, I really thought he "got it" then. He told me that my letter had finally made him understand how I felt, that he knew he was wrong to keep doing it... blah, blah, blah... and that he would stop for good. Maybe he did for awhile. Probably. But the first stretch of time where I wasn't available for him (after the birth of our first child) he went right back to it. And from then on, it got worse and worse.

I don't know. On one hand, I want to advise you to trust him. MB isn't big on trust. If you've read any of the stuff on affairs on this web site, you know they advise you to snoop on your spouse even if you don't think there are any trust issues. Personally, My H and I refuse to live that way. Even after all we've been through, we don't snoop on each other. Our MC agrees. He points out that neither one of us was able to maintian an intimate relationship with the other while we had our, shall we say, extracirrucular activities going on. So, the reasoning goes, if we're both being intimate (emotionally as well as sexually) with each other, we can trust that nothing else is going on. (Some people may be able to be more duplicitous, but we don't seem to be wired that way).

On the other hand, look what happened when I let my guard down! My husband got rid of all his tapes, too. But who needs them with the internet! He even said, "It was so easy to just erase the page from the history when I was done." (I did the same thing whenever I checked my secret email account on our home computer during my affair.)

I'm so sorry if I'm sending you mixed mesages. I think trust is good a good thing. I don't believe in snooping. But my story suggests it's not wise to totally let your guard down either.

Let me ask you this, do you think your husband has an addictive personality? If so, I'd be a little more nervous about him getting lured back in. If not, a little less worried. In my case, my H also drank and gambled. Never to the level that any of it was a big 'problem' in-and-of itself. In other words, he didn't seem drunk or spend so much money gambling that the bills went unpaid. But collectively, all those things sort of took over his life. As he put it, "I couldn't wait to get my family out of the way every night so I could feed my addictions." And as our MC pointed out, keeping all those things just barely under control was even more exhausting than if he had just gone hog-wild! But I digress. My point is, if your husband has addictive tendancies, it might suggest he'll have a harder time giving up the porn than he's indicating.

By the way, I think Cat's suggestion to try to get your H to do the EN questionaire is great!

--SC

SC-I am still suspiscious. I am going to print out the questionairre, but another problem is he doesn't tend to take things as seriously as I'd like him to. I'm not sure he'll put the effort needed for the questionairre to really be useful. It's worth a shot.

He does and doesn't have addictive tendencies. He has tried to quit smoking several times, but without real success. He drinks every night, but not to the point of getting drunk. When he does get drunk, he's a nice drunk, not violent or verbally abusive. He doesn't SEEM to be being controlled by anything.

I think it's more of a matter of control. I know that the last time (4 years ago), he felt like I was trying to control him. I wasn't, but my extremely emotional way of dealling with it probably made it seeem that way. I'm sure that I came acrossed like it was my way and my way only. This time I tried to be okay with it, but I just couldm't. This time he willingly, at least he made it seem willingly, got rid of the items. This time we talked calmly about it. So, I have hope that THIS TIME will be different. But I'm still sceptical and suspicious. I really don't think he is addicted to it, but the fact that he lied so easily to me is very scarey. He was looking into my eyes when he lied. I know that I cannot tell when he is lying, and so does he. Big trust problem!

I'm going to give him the questionaire tonight and ask him to fill it out by Sunday. I figure if I don't rush him and let him do it when he actually feels like doing it, then maybe he'll put more thought and effort and truth into it. If I ask him to do it tonight instead of watching hockey, I don't think he'll be as subjective. Does this sound fair?

What if he blows it off? Suggestions?