I have questions about how to deal with internet porn when it is being accessed somewhere else besides home or phone.

Background: The book Love Busters should arrive any day. We have the Romantic Love workbook, Surviving an Affair, and His Needs, Her Needs, none of which we even worked on together (he refused) from 6 years ago when I found out about my husband's long-standing affair. Somehow we have hung on together, but it is not a healthy marriage. I got Dr. Harley's books after looking around for a while and too late to follow most of the advice. That relationship stopped (I think) but neither of us has healed. My husband had just one good male friend, who died two years ago. He does not make friends easily and has lost several in death. So, he still goes over to this family's house most Sundays; the widow lives with her single, middle-aged son. My husband helps out, watches TV, works in the shop which has tools ours doesn't, etc. I would be very much in the way if I were to go with him each time he does, and I want to go to church and be with our children. I really, really hate to insist he stop visiting them, but....A week ago he came home at *3 am* and I confronted him. He says he was looking at porn on their computer and lost track of time. Actually, this is not a lot later than he usually comes home from their house, and I know he has had porn binges there before. I have NO actual evidence that he is in another romantic relationship, but I am so fed up with his lack of honesty and independent behavior, plus the porn is really a hot button for me. It has ruined our sex life, been a problem for many years. Years ago when he wanted me to help with that, I put a filter on our internet and then got rid of internet entirely.

This time when I asked him to do something concrete to help us, he finally agreed to go through it and the books with me. I just don't know how to address accountability issues here.

1) Should I treat the family friend's computer like a lover as suggested in Surviving an Affair? As in go talk to these friends without him knowing, and tell them to their faces this is ruining our marriage? Ask them to change the password? Bust their monitor with a sledge hammer? I seriously doubt they are ignorant of what is going on, and they are not loyal to me. This couple knew of his affair while it was going on, and neither one told me. In fact, I discovered it from a text message his friend sent to him in which the other woman was mentioned.

2) Should I insist on him not going to see them any more?

3) Agree on some early hour for him to be home from there, and it is an issue only if he doesn't come home on time?

3) Calm down and see what he is willing to do when we get started on the books/workbook?

4) Should coming up with an acceptable accountability be his responsibility to show good faith effort? I am always the fixer and I resent that.

Welcome to MB. You need to get spyware put in place.

So he goes and visits with the wife of his friend that passed?

I'm sorry, but this is insane. Why on earth are you putting up with a single minute of all this?

Issue an ultimatum and tell him that if he does not cut off all contact with this woman yesterday, and that if he ever looks at pornography again, he will find his belongings packed and on the doorstep, and the locks changed.

Brain hurts and Sugarcane, Thank you for your thoughts. Yes, he visits in her and her adult son's home; there is a really nice shop to work in, etc. She and her son are both disabled and live really strange hours. When I have gone over there, most of the time she has been in her bedroom ( with her dogs) watching TV. The whole thing is just sad, and I feel rotten for their loss, but I know I have to do something to live a real life, not memories or fantasies or whatever.

Spy ware would let me know where he is for sure, but if he is really at their house, how would spyware work for accountability? That is why I am reluctantly thinking the only real way to build my trust would be his willingness to not go there any more. Though at this point I still don't feel right about an ultimatum.

The book came in the mail today. So I will see in the next few days/weeks if there is anything to his newfound willingness to work on things.

Read this and listen to the radio clips in the thread. Dr. Harley on the Scourge of Porn

Your question is about controlling porn use, but your situation is far more complicated than that.

Your H has already had an affair, which you did not recover from, and now you are doing nothing to protect against another one. You said you own Surviving an Affair, have you read it? Is the fact that he was not willing to do anything to recover your marriage or protect you OK with you? Did you just accept the status quo and move on, and if so why? The problem here is the fact that you have set the bar so low and are accepting crumbs from him, more than anything. You do not even know if his previous affair ended, much less seem to put your foot down about him being in another one (which this sounds like to any rational person). Are you prepared to start asking more from him, or are you just willing to live like this?

The porn is destructive, but he does not just have a porn issue. The book Lovebusters is not going to help you when it seems you are not willing to ask for more for yourself, and he is not willing to give it to you.

I did read Surviving An Affair, and much of what is on this site, but not till way after when the affair ended, or at least as far as I know it did. I do know some of the problem is that I have a low bar, and I have not forced him to stick to honesty or quit the marriage. I will make it a priority to reread everything. Thank you for responses. It confirms what I think, but find so very, very hard to do.

Hi Hope, I wouldn't take the time to read anything; rather I would do exactly what Sugarcane suggested and demand TODAY that he end all contact with this woman and stop using porn or pack his crap. NOW. You don't need to read a book to do this. I am concerned that you are so willing to tolerate this. I don't even believe the porn story, he is having an affair and getting laid when he goes there.

The book Surviving an Affair does not provide basic common decisions that you should be making on your own. You are a grown woman who should have put a stop to this a long time ago. Stop this TODAY.

The PRIORITY is to put a stop to this NOW. There is no recovery until that happens so reading a book will not help you.

Um wow, so he was up until 3am at his friend's widow's house watching porn? BTW guys don't usually just 'watch' porn (they umm you know). Also at someone else's house? Really sounds bad. As in, sounds like a bad excuse hiding an affair bad. If he were my wife, she would not go there again without me calling a divorce lawyer. End of story.

Am I misunderstanding the circumstance? Cause it sounds so weird, like fake weird.

She has her adult son with her apparently, so she doesn't need your husband for companionship.
As for her adult son, he can get his own friends.
As for their really nice workshop, good for them, your husband can get his own tools, not like he was up to 3am building you a headboard is it (and even he was, still not ok and a bullsh** reason to be there).

How are you doing hope?

Thank you for asking. A couple days passed after the book came and he ignored it. So I brought it up again; I realize now, after * I * read the books, he interpreted what I said as demanding and judgmental. I could have worded things a lot more gently, but mostly it was things that needed to be said. So he reacted and said some things I think he didn't intend to say, but which (probably, he isnt talking about it directly) made him realize how on the edge of disaster we are. One of them was:
Me: Are you or are you not having an emotional or a physical affair with __?
Him: I don't know about an emotional affair, but it isnt physical.
I stayed calm outwardly, thank God, but inside I was YOU DONT KNOW???? He acted like it was no big deal to say that. I pressed and got him to agree that if I back off and give him time, he will read the book and initiate discussion and be willing to work on our marriage.

Which left the ultimatum problem.

I am not going to insist on separation because of my religious beliefs, so I won't threaten that. I gave him a note, so it would come out right, saying simply and plainly that I was unwilling for him to go to her house again and to please respect my wishes. I included a copy of the reply from unwritten and was he ever mad! Immediately after I gave it to him, I went over to her house. I told her bluntly that I didn't want him to come over any more and what he told me he was doing after she went to bed. Her story fits with his: "I guess that was naive of me. I will change the password." So I don't know if I believe THAT or not either...But it seems to me hearing his story would tend to take the floating-clouds-romance out of a relationship, if that was needed. LOL.

He is about half through Love Busters but still reading. He does not talk about it, and neither do I. I am snooping, and I will do a full exposure if I find out anything else. Right now I am just as glad that he is reading before we start working on it. The last chapter is on infidelity and maybe he can hear from the book what he refuses to hear me say.

Emotionally, some days are better than others.

I don�t know why you would give him my reply, when it was directed at what YOU need to do and not him. It did not say for you to have him read a book. It said that if you are not willing to require anything from him, this is your life. Since you are unwilling to seperate for any reason, I guess the answer is that you are indeed not going to require more for yourself and this is going to be your life.

You seem to be waiting for him to have an epiphany, when the reality is that YOU need to have an epiphany.

I gave it to him precisely because you said I needed to stand up for myself. He thinks I need to butt out and let him have some "privacy." Sorry if you think I am waffling, but your post was a pretty good summary that he would not have listened to if it had been in *my* handwriting.

How is this different than plan A except I have not told the whole world? I made a plain statement of my wishes in the note, I am trying to be kind and meet his needs. To me, just telling him, "You must do this or I am leaving" doesn't even match with the longsuffering advocated as first action in Surviving An Affair.

I didn't have access to that several years ago. I am doing it now. I told him I want our marriage to thrive , I won't tolerate the same things continuing, and I am giving him a chance. Reading the book is like letting a counselor talk to him first before we start just fighting more. His outlook is so different from mine that I think it is good for him to think on it from Dr. Harley's view without having to go head to head with me at the same time. We'll see.

Hope, the problem in the marriage is your enabling, not him. Your conflict avoidance has made the problem considerably worse. He knows you are not serious so won't take you seriously. He has no reason to do so.


And this is the crux of the problem. There is no religion that I am aware of that prescribes you remain in an abusive marriage. Let's just be honest and admit this is an excuse to do nothing. There is nothing we can tell you to do that will overcome your enabling behavior. Nothing.

Enabling your cheating husband is not standing up for yourself.


Plan A lasts THREE WEEKS and then PLAN B takes place, a SEPARATION.



Reading a book is a distraction from resolving the main problem, your husbands affair and his porn use. You are trying to use REASON with a falling down drunk and it won't work. We are very familiar with the MB program and have saved our own marriages and I am here to tell you that you are wasting your time.

You can obtain a legal separation instead of a divorce. That will give you the same legal protection. No religion on the planet forces you to share your life with someone who is not treating you properly. The only difference is that you cannot remarry which is not a problem if your religion does not permit divorce.

But you know never to threaten, don't you? You draw your line in the sand and he finds out what happens when he violates it. They always do so be ready for that. Do not discuss it as that will give him the impression that there is room for negotiation, just quietly and firmly state that you will not tolerate abuse.