The disadvantage is that it is bad for your marriage and you know it. You can't even tell your wife you do this. It is really revolting to think of a man viewing porn and jacking himself off. I suspect you addicted to slapping the ole salami and anything that comes before your marriage will eventually destroy it. It is clear that your self pleasuring is more important to you than you wife's feelings.

The way I would put it is that you don't need to live on a strict diet of either one thing or the other because you can have junk food for breakfast if that's the only thing available or the only thing you have time for but that doesn't mean you can't still have gourmet food for dinner if you are willing to wait long enough and pay the price for it. Of course I care about what effect knowing about every time I view porn would have on my wife; that's half the reason I don't want to tell her the truth about it because what she doesn't know won't hurt her.

Lying is very hurtful to marriages. It is one of the most damaging lovebusters. I can see how it already creates an imbalance of power in your relationship. You sneak around like a boy in fear of mommy catching you and getting mad at you. You create that dynamic with your childish behavior and essentially become the child in the relationship.

The real reason you don't want to tell her is because you are scared of her. If you were concerned about "hurting" her you would stop hurting her.

And as long as you lie to her there can never be any true intimacy.

Unfortunately, there are very few what you don't know doesn't hurt you scenarios, especially in marriage.

What do you have to lose by actually living out the principles of the program? If your home is a prison now, why not risk it getting better by living out the program?

If it's still bad after you've followed the coaching and you are skilled as judged by another who knows the program, then you don't have to stay in the prison.

You hold the key. One of the keys is to really understand this program and become skilled in putting it in practice. If after you really use the entire program (and not just the pieces you find comfortable) thing are still not getting better, simply say you are not willing to remain in a bad marriage.

If she won't get on board, then send her from the team.

But as long as you are half-assing it, I don't think things will get better.

Apparently you want something different. The question is are you willing to do ALL the work?

You are right, she may not do anything. If that's the case, then you have your answer. You are not forced to stay with someone who will not be your partner.

But you are not even close to that decision point. You still have not decided to commit to being a trustworthy partner for your wife. Until you can be open and honest with her, and not think that you'll just hide things, things will not get better.

I suspect that even if she does not know the details, she probably can tell when you are off the reservation with respect to your agreements with her.

The way I would put it is that by NOT doing things that are offensive to my wife, by meeting her emotional need for honesty and openness, by never being disrespectful of her at all even when I disagree with her, and by meeting her emotional needs, she has become enthusiastic about giving me gourmet meals of my emotional needs much more often, and that's only on the increase.

They way I would put it is this;


The physical stimulation applied during masturbation is desensitizing your little soldier, and makes SF with a woman less pleasing.

Your brain is being overstimulated with novelty from the visual buffet that is porn, making not just your wife, but nearly any flesh-and-blood woman less appealing.

Your arousal associations are also being rewired to visuals that do not occur in real life situations; a view which you cannot take without first removing all of your vertebrae, as well as positioning that would be far too uncomfortable to be stimulating.


Know what, though? You won't figure these things out until you cut the porn use out completely.

Hi GrimReaper, just finished reading through your thread, and I have some comments based on my own experience with a failed marriage. I was in a similar situation as you are where I felt near-constant criticism and rejection, and I felt I couldn't be myself in my own home. It seemed as soon as I did something my wife wanted, she either found something wrong with it, or 10 more things got added to the list of things she wanted from me. Like you, I was a conflict avoider, and rather than apply POJA (which I didn't know about at the time), it was easier to just agree with her. But that strategy did not work, and I eventually ended up in the state of withdrawal. (Again, I didn't know what withdrawal was at the time, but now that I know about it, I know that's where I was.) I reached a point where, like you, the thought of ending my marriage didn't bother me. Divorce was inconvenient, but I felt no attachment to the marriage. If it hadn't been for my kids, I may have divorced sooner, but I wanted to wait for them to grow up. In hindsight, I should've addressed my marital problems sooner because remaining in the state of withdrawal for as long as I did (at least 5 years) made it extremely difficult to get out, and in fact I never did. Had I known about MB principles then, it's possible my marriage could've been saved, but at the time, there was so much pent-up resentment, I don't know if I would've been rational enough to apply MB principles; all I could think about was escaping.

I think you have three choices:

1) Maintain the status quo, in which case you'll stay in the state of withdrawal, and you'll either divorce, separate permanently without divorcing, or somehow co-exist in an unhappy loveless marriage. This is what will happen if you do nothing. This is what happened to me, and so I would advise one of the next two choices.

2) Divorce right now so you don't have to go through a long period of withdrawal.

3) Work on your marriage to bring it back to a state of fulfillment for both you and your wife.

I agree with the posters who commented on the hiding of some of your activities from your wife. Not only does she deserve to know who she's married to, you don't want to live in hiding in your marriage. That's conflict avoidance and a sure-fire way to withdrawal. Wouldn't you rather be in a marriage where you can be yourself? Where you can express yourself openly to your wife, let her know your deepest feelings, and know hers too? And through shared emotional intimacy, learn things about yourselves that wouldn't be possible on your own? Given your current emotional state, it might seem an unreachable goal to have that with your wife, but on a theoretical level, I hope you agree that it would be nice if somehow things could be turned around and you DID achieve that with your wife.

You've mentioned that your wife is not interested in reading books, filling out questionnaires, etc. She too may be in or near the state of withdrawal. If so, it'll probably be tricky trying to bring her back to a state where she wants to work on your marriage. If you can't, and she remains unwilling to work on your marriage, I think the MB advice is to follow the Plan A, Plan B approach. Before doing this however, make sure you thorougly understand what Plan A is, and make sure you're willing to follow through with Plan B if Plan A doesn't work; otherwise, you'll just build up more resentment. If you CAN bring her to a state of wanting to work on your marriage, it sounds like the telephone counseling available on the MB website is very good. I've never tried it, but I've seen nothing but praise for it, especially in helping motivate spouses to work on their marriage.

In the state you're in, you're probably in react mode, tip-toeing around your wife to disturb the peace as little as possible. A lot of your thoughts and actions are in response to hers. Trying to communicate with her has proved fruitless, you're losing hope and motivation, yet you're not willing to throw in the towel just yet. And you came to MB for help. You've received a lot of advice on this thread, many links to MB principles, radio archives, etc. I think you're looking for an "ah-ha" moment, something that will give you clarity to think through your situation. Until then, you feel stuck, not knowing what to do. I think your ah-ha moment will come with introspection; I think you should dig down deep inside yourself and find out what it is you want. What will truly satisfy you. Make sure it's what YOU want and not what you feel you SHOULD want or what someone else feels you should want. The answer might not come quickly, you might lose sleep over it, but with effort it will eventually come, and you'll know when it does. Once you know clearly what you want, it'll be easier to make decisions.

Hope this helps, and best wishes as you work through your marriage.

Please listen to these radio clips of Dr. Harley talking about if both spouses aren't on board to work on the M that it probably won't work. The xh was addicted to porn also.

Radio Clip on Both spouses need to work on Marriage
Segment #2
Segment #3

Dr. Harley says we must be in a marriage that we take extraordinary care for each other.

I don�t get this at all. The analogy is really flawed. You�re not hurting someone�s feelings by deciding what you�re going to have for breakfast.
I guess I don�t understand why you just don�t man up and tell her that you�re going to keep watching porn regardless of how she feels or respect her feelings enough not to watch porn. I think it�s much better to be honest even when you�re going to hurt someone�s feelings. And, really, are your hormones in control of you or are you in control of your hormones?
Your wife is creeped out by you watching porn. This turns her off and thusly bashes those feelings of intimacy towards you. I�d be willing to bet if you put half the effort into making your marriage successful as you do trying to sneak around not hurting your wife�s feelings, your marriage would improve substantially.
See, the sneaking of porn is just a small example of your marital issues. You have got to get out of this thinking of trying not to get caught and move into not doing things that would put you in a situation to get caught.
You�re looking at this like it�s just porn and not a big deal and it�s common for guys to watch and etc etc etc. But what you�re failing to see is you�re dismissing your wife�s feelings rather than validating them and removing the things that are hurting your wife. And what you�re doing is you�re basically saying how you feel trumps her feelings and because you don�t feel the way she does then her feelings are irrational.
Do yourself a favor. Take the next 30 days, and quit watching porn. Ask your wife to sit down and fill out the ENs and LBs worksheets. Then get to work not doing the things that irritate her and start doing those things that makes her happy. The worst that can happen is your marriage doesn�t improve and you can go back to watching porn. But maybe�just maybe some improvements will occur.

If my wife is not that worried about masturbation then where is the problem in that case? There is none that I can see. Where is the problem in the case of porn? Only in my wife's mind as far as I can tell. Basically if I continue to view porn more than ever the truth is that it will never do me any direct harm in terms of any real health problems or too much time or money wasted on this. That's why I don't believe the hype about situations like mine being a legitimate case of addiction because the reasons to stop are not particularly strong or consistent. In the back of my mind I know for a fact that it is really no big deal and no real harm will ever be done by it as long as my wife doesn't know about it. Sure, if my wife thinks it is important for me to avoid porn then that alone makes it important to me. That is fine, and I have been trying hard to play along with this little game the last few years. It is easy enough to avoid porn for a several months but as soon as I fail in this endeavor then it is hard to know what the best thing to do is at that point.

If you would stop using the back of your mind, and instead use your logical left brain, you'd realize the harm being done.

Are you just trolling? I am having a hard time believing someone could be this oblivious.

Then what is the problem with telling her the truth? And if you can easily avoid porn for months, as you claim, then why not just give it up? A problem drinker is defined as such when it becomes a problem in one's life. Porn is a problem in your life because it makes your wife unhappy. It is a problem in your life as evidenced in this thread. Why not just give it up?


Reality is not your friend. Your actions defy your words. If it wasn't harmful you would have no reason to not tell your wife. And if it was "no big deal" you would just stop. But you can't seem to stop. Porn use, dishonesty and masturbation is more important than your wife's feelings.

You would rather be a dishonest man and sneak around like a pimple faced boy than stop using porn and masturbating. It must be very important for you to sacrifice your integrity and your manhood.

I'm not joking around or trying to stir the pot simply for the sake of argument. To me these are serious questions. I get that it is not necessarily the most considerate or commendable thing for me to just go ahead and view porn and hide it directly against what my wife wants and it feels hurtful to her that I have done this. What I meant was that if you look at real drug addicts, compulsive gamblers, etc. then the harm being done is usually undeniable but with porn the reasons to stop are mostly about emotional reactions and personal opinions about it supposedly being wrong, disgusting, etc. So by comparison it doesn't make much sense to me to call most men that don't want to stop viewing porn permanently addicts. It looks like it has basically been taken for granted that men should be expected to stop when they could just as easily argue that the benefits outweigh any costs or risks involved without there being anything clearly unhealthy, unusual, or crazy about it.

GR,

You are on MB. One of the most basic concepts of MB is to not do something that hurts your spouse. Whether or not pornography is okay, in your opinion, does not matter - what matters, is that your wife is hurt by it and therefore is something that you should give up. It is not food, it is not water, it is not air. You can live without it, just like men lived before the internet or Gutenburg's printing press.

It doesn't have to be a universally agreed upon harm in order to harm. It harms your marriage. You know that. You just don't want to give it up, that's all.

You've made it clear in your first that you want to do the "bare minimum" in this marriage. If this is the case, and it has been MONTHS since you have posted this thread, I ask you... what is it that you want from MB. What. Because if months later, you still don't care that the internet porn or magazines hurt your wife, then we can't help you. You can 'enjoy' your mediocre marriage until your wife divorces you because you don't give a rat's bum about hurting her.

And no, I am actually not against porn myself. I am against hurting my spouse.

Why don't you email Dr. Harley? If you leave your phone number you can be a caller on the show?

Email your questions to Joyce Harley at mbradio@marriagebuilders.com.

The value of those emotional reactions is subjective.

To your wife, they are high.

To you, the value of your wife's emotional reactions is near zero.


I'm pretty sure Dr. Harley doesn't think that men who view porn are addicts, typically. He does have an article on sex addiction:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8120_sex_addiction.html

On the other hand, he does typically measure addiction by saying that if it's an area where you can't follow the policy of joint agreement, it's an addiction. But typically the problem with porn is not "can't." It's "won't."


Well, that is the approach Marriage Builders takes: argue that the benefits of limiting yourself to activities that your spouse is enthusiastic about outweighs the costs of giving it up. There's no "should." Of course, one of the benefits of giving up porn etc. is usually an increase in self-esteem. We usually feel better about ourselves when we are not doing things that we feel we have to hide from polite society.

Spouses of drug/alcohol addicts have the same reaction to their spouses, so there is no difference.


The definition of an addict is a person who is addicted. That is what you are. You have posted pages of exhaustive excuses about why you have to continue viewing porn and willingly disrespect your wife and wreck your marriage. A normal person would just stop doing it instead of going to those lengths. It is obvious you have an addiction problem.

my goodness. this may get me reprimanded, but i'm going to be frank.
===============================================================
many women don't like porn because seeing their lover enjoy watching strange men come all over some faking-it woman demeaning. and they know the acrobatics they see on screen will *not* produce mind-numbing orgasms in their bed.

your need for porn over her feelings makes your wife feel like [censored], and you wonder why she doesn't want to have sex with you?

she isn't thrilled about having sex with you, and so takes so "preparing," which you find BORING, and you wonder why she doesn't want to have sex with you?

and maybe, just perhaps, with all your masturbating, your wife knows she *needs* all that preparing, because she has to get to her orgasm in 60 seconds flat, or there won't be one, and you wonder why she doesn't want to have sex with you?

you sound like a 15yo boy going through puberty, needing to spurt all the live-long day. that is NOT remotely attractive. and still you wonder why she doesn't want to have sex with you?
=================================================================

sorry other folks, frankness over.

the porn is really irrelevant. you don't really care about your wife, or your M. and that's why she doesn't want to have sex with you very often.


and there you have it.

mel posted this to you when you first started posting:


and you still haven't had that light-bulb moment.

a long way back you said:


but i see no evidence anywhere of you addressing these. in fact, you have *avoided* them. Ws tend to respond nicely to having their ENs met, because it makes them feel safe and secure/cared for in their M. your whole thread has been ME ME ME ME ME ME.

what is your PLAN (sounds like plan FU)? do you actually want help? i don't think so. you haven't acted on any of the suggestions the good people here have offered you. instead, you want to play pseudo-intellectual conversation games (argue the devil's advocate), getting no one anywhere.

and so i leave you to your thread. good luck with your M.

GrimReaper, whether or not you're addicted to porn I don't know, but addiction can creep up slowly, and you may be on a path towards addiction. I'll bet most people caught in addiction never realize when they cross the line between compulsion and addiction.

These two statements of yours sound like signs of addiction:


In response to this statement of yours,

I think your reason to stop is because of what you say here (my underline):

Hiding secrets is stressful, and stress negatively impacts your health; you are harming yourself by doing something in secret. For you, however, the pleasure of porn outweighs the stress of hiding it, and you don't recognize the consequences. You're hurting yourself without realizing it.

Living in deceit can also be habit forming. You get used to living a lie, your conscience doesn't bother you as much anymore, and it becomes easier to lie about other things to your wife as well, including the ultimate, an affair.

Have you thought about what you really want to do with your situation? Have you thought about the three choices I mentioned earlier: do nothing, divorce, or work on your marriage?