Hi Everyone this is my first post.
I am recently re-married (2nd marriage - recently had our first anniversary. We are a blended family with 4 teenage girls. We have a few problems associated with the girls but for the most part our issues are trust related.
My ex cheated on his first wife and she divorced him.
When we decided to marry I was the happiest I had ever been in my entire life. We got engaged and decided to buy a house. While the house was being built he moved in with me as he had already sold his house. One day I sat down at his computer to leave him a love note and a chat message came through from his online lover. I am sorry to say that things have never been the same. He has sworn it will never happen again and I believed him and we married. Since then we have jointly decided that he would work towards an advanced degree and relocate to a warmer climate. I would free up his time and do anything household related and when he graduates I will retire. He is somewhat worried about money so he books up his time working\teaching\studying etc. and spends a lot of time on the computer. He has been VERY into the online porn thing. This has been upsetting to me and I have asked him to stop on MANY occasions. He swears he has but from time to time I find evidence that he has not. He has 2 different free email accounts, 1 of which he has not told me he has. He goes home in the middle of the day and has checked him email. And he turns off the history so nothing can be tracked. We have tried watching the porn together but that was not a good idea. The stuff on the internet tends to be very degrading and I find he incorporates some of what he sees into our sex life. THIS IS A BIG TURNOFF. So, I again asked him not to watch that stuff. He now has a job where he is out on the road and his time is not accounted for. He has a history of meeting "people" for "coffee". As time goes by I have learned that he will lie at the drop of a hat to get himself out of any and all scrapes, minor or otherwise. Also things in love making dept have gone sour and things don&#8217;t work the way they are supposed to. Also, he has the highest sex drive I have ever seen &#8211; he would do it 4 times a day every day if I went along with it. There is no way I can keep up the pace that I keep with my work, kids, dogs, and house if I stayed up late every night to accommodate his needs. About 2 &#8211; 3 times a week is all that is reasonable for me.<p>I am reading a book called &#8220;Relationship Rescue&#8221; by Philip McGraw Ph.D. &#8211; he says I have to make myself happy and the rest will follow. So, that is what I am doing. I started a diet and weight loss program, exercising and taking care of myself. The trust issue lurks in the back of my mind but if I can make myself happy then he might give up all the stuff he is doing that has been making me unhappy. I have lost about 15 pounds in the last 2 months and he seems to be responding better to me. I was not terribly over weight before but definitely look better without the extra weight<p>Does anyone see anything here that I don&#8217;t. Thanks for you help!

What I see here is a little mixed up thinking in my opinion...I agree that you should work on being happy yourself but please don't think that that will make any changes in anyone but yourself. Of course, the attractive you feel, the more attractive you are.<p>It sounds as if your h has a porn addiction and individual counseling may be in order.

After the first several times we had the porn discussion and it became apparent it was something he couldn't stop, I suggested that very thing about addiction. He said NO WAY - I can stop any time I want. But, since then I have found evidence. When I go on a quest to find this evidence I find myself very stressed out and I am driving myself crazy trying to catch him cheating or whatever. I have decided to let him have his privacy - if he needs this outlet maybe I should just let him have it, as long as he is not cheating, which of course I wouldn't find out about if I stop checking up on him. Anyway I have promised myself to stop checking up and just go on with my life. Does this sound like an ok idea? Or just asking for trouble?

It sounds as though you are just going to let him do what he wants. Is this your husband or your boy friend? I know the answer to that question. I'm just trying to help you open your eyes. Men think they can just do what they want. And thats not the way the ball bounces. I have suspicions that my husband has online girlfriends young and old. I just don't have all the proof. I have some proof but not all. He has his cake and me to so to speak. He goes into the porn sites at night while I am sleeping. Then he sleeps half his day away. Instead of spending his time with me and our two daughters. He seems distant to us. And he's always on edge. So I know how you feel totally. I have come to the conclusion that if things don't start looking up for us soon. I am either going to get us into counseling. OR I am going to seperate from him. He has made me feel like a failure as a wife because he likes the online porn and believes that cybersex is not cheating.
I am also trying to diet. BUT I am not succedding because of depression that has started to set in. I need to get this crap resolved or I am going to go nuts. So I say watch him like a hawk and don't let down your gaurd because this is why marriages end because PEOPLE don't talk about what is bothering them. I talk to my husband all the time but I am going to really have to put my foot down on this problem real fast. Good Luck and God Bless.<p>Mrs_Debra<p>[ February 14, 2002: Message edited by: Mrs_Debra ]</p>

Mrs_Debra
I know what you mean - I been through so many ups and downs with this. I was determined to catch my husband cheating and the porn makes me feel really insecure. He too stays up late doing this and he looks like the walking dead because he has a major workload with all the work projects he has committed himself to. He is started to get burned out in a big way. He has become an expert in covering his tracks now so when I do check I find so little it makes me wonder if maybe he really is stopping or just hiding it better. How long has this been going on for you. For me its been about 3 years, but the problem was at its worst about 3 months ago. He was totally into IT and did not seem interested in me. This is my second marriage - we do not have kids together- we have 2 kids apiece from our first marriages. 2 months ago I decided to give him "enough rope to hang himself" and stop checking. Then I decided to lose weight to show him what he wasn't going to have if he decided to do the wrong thing. I too normally have trouble losing weight but not this time. I am determined to be in the best shape of my life. I want to focus on me and improving myself, trying to forget about that problem, at least for a while. Then, when he thinks I am no longer focusing on his actions I am going to install a program on the computer that tracks activities and records key strokes. Then I might know the real truth. . . and I will be ready for it. . .

If you want to find out what your significant other is doing on line, visit www.spectorsoft.com and spend $70 for the software that tracks EVERYTHING he/she does -- without him/her ever finding out! Also, I strongly recommend that you review Dr Harley's Basic Concepts, because doing anything to "make yourself happy" is NOT in-line with building a healthy marriage - UNLESS it also makes your spouse happy.
Here's the link: Spectorsoft Homepage

Hi PatriotChamps
Thanks for the link. . . about 3 months ago I did purchase this very software from Spector. It did appear to be invisible to the user but it was very unreliable in recording activity. It seems that unless you boot up the computer and immediately start "surfing" it "goes to sleep" and does not record. It only recorded 1 session out of many. . . I guess because he boots up and then does something else for a while. There is a new version now which I am considering although I find it a bit annoying to have to be spending hard earned money on this type of thing. Have you tried this program as well?

NMT - my wife and I purchased 2 licenses for the spector software (1 for home, 1 for work). We just purchased it, therefore we have the latest release -- it seems to work just fine ...

seems kind of unfair to lump all men in the same catagory Mrs_Debra. Based on what I am reading on this website and others, it works both ways. My W seems to think that I should let her do exactly what see wants when she wants and I should be just fine with it. She also seems to be angery that I am trying to save the marriage. So should I say that all women are like that? I don't think so.
Just an observation.

I say get out while you can. Looks like is precious porn is more imortant then you. I know what your going through except my husband is trying to stop. Well thats what he said. and deleted all of his stuff off th computer. And trashed pratically all of his videos. It will take a while before their all gone. Confront your husband and tell him it you or the porn. Then lose wieght and he'll see what he missed.