MaggieMay78 Posted July 17, 2010 Posted July 17, 2010 Hi all, I am new here, so I hope I'm posting this in the right place. I am 31 y/o and have been married for 5 years...living separately now for one. There were many issues that led to our separation, so I do NOT want to give the impression that pornography was the reason why I moved out. However, I am just curious to hear opinions/comments about this: Right after we got engaged, I found out that my husband had about 50 DVDs of porn he had made himself...burned them onto CDs from free porn sites. I found out that he was then trying to sell them on eBay for profit! He got kicked off because selling something like that (that he obtained for free, and it is copyrighted?) is illegal. Anyway, I had never realized until then just how much porn he had looked at. I was upset, but previous boyfriends had looked at porn and I never cared all that much. I decided to just "get over it." Fast forward to about 6 months after we got married...I had had several major surgeries, was in frequent pain, and very irritated when i found MORE porn that he downloaded from a file-sharing site. It irritated me even more because it was a difficult and vulnerable time for me. Unfortunately, many things that are downloaded from file-sharing sites could be from ANYWHERE...and from what i saw of these videos, i wasn't even convinced these girls were of legal age. Not that they were young children, but when you don't know the source and they look like videos your next-door neighbor could have made, i am not convinced they were 18 years old. at that point, I was FED UP, and stressed that if he was going to continue looking at porn, could he please limit it to people that we could be confident were at least of legal age...and videos made by legitimate companies, even if he had to pay a few $$ once in a while? I wanted him to stay away from the file-sharing amateur sites, and the "everyday" girls that might not even be 18...Not that i was thrilled about it, but i certainly thought it was a reasonable compromise. Then finally, last year, I find out that he was frequently on this site where men post pictures of their ex-girlfriends or other girls they have slept with. These are definitely NOT "porn stars" or actresses...they are the kind of girls you would see walking down your street or in the grocery store, Starbucks, you get the point. Some of them even had first and last names posted...and trust me, they were real names. What it is, for me, is that women are always hearing this: "It's just fantasy. Those women are airbrushed, have tons of heavy make-up on, plastic surgery, etc. You should not care, because all it is is a FANTASY." Well...when they are EVERYDAY, ORDINARY girls, it bothers me a lot more...it crosses a personal line for me that I can't fully explain in words. Can anyone else relate to what I am saying about this?? Thanks, Maggie
TaraMaiden Posted July 17, 2010 Posted July 17, 2010 How or why is this still such a huge issue for you since you've been separated for a year? Have you filed for divorce? Is what he's doing (and doubtless he is still doing it) affecting you directly? have you told the police or authorities that he's probably still doing this? What did you do about it at the time you discovered it? because what he was doing was illegal. How did you deal with that?
Author MaggieMay78 Posted July 17, 2010 Author Posted July 17, 2010 Hi Tara, thanks for your reply. I should clarify: I am not saying the girls in the file-sharing videos were "children" per se (under 18), because they definitely were not pre-pubescent. I don't mean to get too detailed, but I felt I should make that clear. It is difficult, however, to tell the difference between a 16-year-old and a 19-year-old, though...and I shouldn't have to do that job...that is why I preferred that he would just get his videos through "reputable" sites. Some of their faces looked very young and it bothered me a lot. as for the eBay thing, no, I didn't report anything like that. I shrugged it off even though i was disturbed at the time. I had a lot of other things going in my life at the time as well. We obviously had our problems, but in many ways, he has also been a good husband. Marriage is complicated, and our marriage has not been ALL bad...far from it. So although we are separated, no, I have not filed for divorce. It is not even a legally recognized separation...there is no such thing in the state I live in...we just live separately. He still wants to work the marriage out, and I am torn...so that is why I still care about all of these issues. Thanks again.
TaraMaiden Posted July 17, 2010 Posted July 17, 2010 Unless he agrees to ceasing all such activity, immediately, and going to MC with you, then I frankly see little point in continuing in a relationship where your husband not only totally disrespects you and your feelings and deceives you while you are seriously ill, but is also shallow and insulting towards other women, and sees nothing wrong in trafficking such material. He's in a different world to yours, entirely. I don't see how you can even be in the same book, let alone on the same page. TBH, in your shoes, I would have filed ages ago. I'm sure you have excellent reason to not have done so. But given the utter and complete sleazeball he is, I really can't see for the life of me what that would be. But that's just me.
sloudrou Posted July 18, 2010 Posted July 18, 2010 Hi Tara, thanks for your reply. I should clarify: I am not saying the girls in the file-sharing videos were "children" per se (under 18), because they definitely were not pre-pubescent. I don't mean to get too detailed, but I felt I should make that clear. It is difficult, however, to tell the difference between a 16-year-old and a 19-year-old, though...and I shouldn't have to do that job...that is why I preferred that he would just get his videos through "reputable" sites. Some of their faces looked very young and it bothered me a lot. as for the eBay thing, no, I didn't report anything like that. I shrugged it off even though i was disturbed at the time. I had a lot of other things going in my life at the time as well. We obviously had our problems, but in many ways, he has also been a good husband. Marriage is complicated, and our marriage has not been ALL bad...far from it. So although we are separated, no, I have not filed for divorce. It is not even a legally recognized separation...there is no such thing in the state I live in...we just live separately. He still wants to work the marriage out, and I am torn...so that is why I still care about all of these issues. Thanks again. At some point you have to make a decision and stick to it. By now it's fairly obvious that he doesn't really want to cease his porn use, that's his decision, and now it's your decision about whether you put up with it. If what he's doing really bothers you, you should simply move on and leave him to it, making sure you never contact him again (or allow him to contact you). If it's not a major issue for you, then you should just accept it as one of his imperfections and let it be. Personally, I don't see the point of taking him to conselling or therapy -- unless it's so you can assauge your conscience about "giving it my best shot". He isn't going to change unless he really wants to, and it's clear from this thread that he doesn't. So you need to either leave him and find another guy who isn't into porn (but might be deficient in some other area) or accept it as an imperfection and let it be.
AVR1962 Posted July 18, 2010 Posted July 18, 2010 MaggieMay, I feel for you....I had a similiar experience with the exception of buying. I dated my husband 2 years before we moved in together and it was then that I saw her had boxes of porn. His porn habit at the age of nearly 30 had him jacking-off in the bathroom eventhough we were having sex 4+ times a week as newlyweds (second marriage for both of us). He was infatuated by the younger girls he would see, unable to even hear me speak if an attractive 18 year old walked by. We've been together 21 years so all this was before computers. Computers just made it worse, porn shows at his fingertips, downloading files, IMing girls, lies, lies and more cover-ups of his activities. Finally 11 years into the relationship, I was out of town and one of my daughters caught him on the computer watch a flick with my youngest daughter in the room and that's where I drew the line and told him he either sought help or I was gone. He admitted to being a porn addict, admission went to all of our children, he did go to counseling and read a book on addiction. We took the steps like the counselor suggested. I trust him when he says he has been porn-free for 8 years. However, he still looks at 18 year old girls, our daughters are older thna the girls he lusts after. Recently I found all kinds of pics of busty German ladies at Octoberfest on his laptop. I think it is such a hook for pleasure that it is nearly impossible to completely set aside. It is an addiction that feeds the brain a stimilus just like drugs and alcohol. While an addict might switch from beer to wine it is still an addiction. I think for my husband he has justified the looking and the busty German ladies' pictures and sees them as innocent to what he was doing better but I know in the back of his head there are plenty of thoughts. I once had a good friend who was a pastor of a church, he said one of the toughest conflicts for men is the lust of women. It is something men have to work at and be aware of. It is a choice but because this gives them the pleasure they want, and many woemn will justify it themselves, the habit continues. One of the things my husband's counselor told him was it was not healthy for him or his marriage, and I do believe this is so. Personally, I would not waste any more time on your ex, wash your hands clean and move on. He has issues that he doesn't want to face.
dreamingoftigers Posted July 19, 2010 Posted July 19, 2010 Hi all, I am new here, so I hope I'm posting this in the right place. I am 31 y/o and have been married for 5 years...living separately now for one. There were many issues that led to our separation, so I do NOT want to give the impression that pornography was the reason why I moved out. However, I am just curious to hear opinions/comments about this: Right after we got engaged, I found out that my husband had about 50 DVDs of porn he had made himself...burned them onto CDs from free porn sites. I found out that he was then trying to sell them on eBay for profit! He got kicked off because selling something like that (that he obtained for free, and it is copyrighted?) is illegal. Anyway, I had never realized until then just how much porn he had looked at. I was upset, but previous boyfriends had looked at porn and I never cared all that much. I decided to just "get over it." Fast forward to about 6 months after we got married...I had had several major surgeries, was in frequent pain, and very irritated when i found MORE porn that he downloaded from a file-sharing site. It irritated me even more because it was a difficult and vulnerable time for me. Unfortunately, many things that are downloaded from file-sharing sites could be from ANYWHERE...and from what i saw of these videos, i wasn't even convinced these girls were of legal age. Not that they were young children, but when you don't know the source and they look like videos your next-door neighbor could have made, i am not convinced they were 18 years old. at that point, I was FED UP, and stressed that if he was going to continue looking at porn, could he please limit it to people that we could be confident were at least of legal age...and videos made by legitimate companies, even if he had to pay a few $$ once in a while? I wanted him to stay away from the file-sharing amateur sites, and the "everyday" girls that might not even be 18...Not that i was thrilled about it, but i certainly thought it was a reasonable compromise. Then finally, last year, I find out that he was frequently on this site where men post pictures of their ex-girlfriends or other girls they have slept with. These are definitely NOT "porn stars" or actresses...they are the kind of girls you would see walking down your street or in the grocery store, Starbucks, you get the point. Some of them even had first and last names posted...and trust me, they were real names. What it is, for me, is that women are always hearing this: "It's just fantasy. Those women are airbrushed, have tons of heavy make-up on, plastic surgery, etc. You should not care, because all it is is a FANTASY." Well...when they are EVERYDAY, ORDINARY girls, it bothers me a lot more...it crosses a personal line for me that I can't fully explain in words. Can anyone else relate to what I am saying about this?? Thanks, Maggie Porn and sex addicts always say stupid crap like this to justify their behaviours. One of the best books on the subject is Hope and Freedom for Sexual Addicts and Their Partners. Any guy that is that obsessed with porn is an addict, no doubt period. Check out the Candeo program as well to find out why and how this brain function that keeps them dependent on porn happens, its online. Lastly there is also thesexaddictedbrain.com. Trust me I know all about it, my husband is a sex addict and it has been hell since the discovery. Their addiction stops them from having regard for anyone, despite how nice etc. they can be when not it the throes of it.
LucreziaBorgia Posted July 19, 2010 Posted July 19, 2010 Well...when they are EVERYDAY, ORDINARY girls, it bothers me a lot more...it crosses a personal line for me that I can't fully explain in words. I can understand that. They aren't actors who signed releases and are paid for their work, and are doing it for a means of living. These are girls and women who may not even know their stuff is out there - you are seeing a side of these girls and women that is personal, not 'professionally naked'. Even if the girls do know about it, there is something a little to 'accessible' to the average guy. A guy isn't going to look at a video of Jessie Jane and expect to be able to call her on the phone - professionals are buffered by their publicists or managers - but with the amateur stuff, particularly where names and contact information is available, the girl becomes more immediately available - more real in a sense. That is a line that I see as very clear: looking at porn produced for that purpose by actors is not the same as looking at 'actual' girls (if indeed they are actual - even professionals are doing the 'amateur' thing now as a way to drum up business), or cybering with a person.
solitary_man Posted July 19, 2010 Posted July 19, 2010 OP, I don't think you answered the real heart of the question. Why do you care if you are separated? There are some of us in the world that don't consider separation to equal divorce... I can't speak for Maggie, but as a person who initiated separation from his wife several months ago, I still very much have a vested interest in her actions and behaviors because I'm trying to decide at this point whether or not I want to stay married to her. If I had reason to believe she was not willing or able to change the behaviors that led to my leaving, that would seriously impact my decision. just sayin'
halfofwhat Posted July 19, 2010 Posted July 19, 2010 I think the most important thing to ask is, how is his porn use negatively affecting your marriage? Is it taking away from your sex life? Is he less interested in you? Does he treat women in your every day lives any differently? I'm a porn user, and I have used porn for a long time. I can comment as to his current fetish with those "real women" pictures. His progression seems to be very similar to mine, where you start with all the pro porn and then work your way into the amateur stuff. Pro porn gets old after a while. The fake girls and their fake bodies are boring, and aren't very exciting. Amateur stuff is very real, it's real people having sex or doing whatever. It's real women with real bodies, getting naked in private (well, what WAS private at once). It's much more of a turn-on because it's so real. Does that mean he's going out and hooking up with real girls? Probably not. Porn is an escape, a fantasy (no matter how real it is). I can't tell you how to feel, but you shouldn't feel threatened. I can't speak for all men, but I know I crave variety, and I like women of all shapes and sizes for the most part. Just because he might be looking at women who don't have your body doesn't mean he doesn't like your body...he already has it and can experience it in another way, he might just want to look at other naked women too. We're horny creatures. Hope that gives you some perspective.
Stung Posted July 20, 2010 Posted July 20, 2010 I'm just a couple years older than the OP, and I remember that Rod Stewart song well enough to be able to sing the chorus because it was still all OVER my mom's radio station when I was little. Half of my friends named Margaret/ Maggie were nicknamed Maggie May and none of us ever gave it much thought. My best friend in high school was named Magnolia, and her mom called her Maggie May all the time because of that song, and my friend just rolled her eyes because she thought Rod Stewart was old and lame, but of course secretly loved that her mom had a sweet nickname for her. I had no idea the song was about a Mrs. Robinson scenario until just now, from reading this thread. You might be right about infidelity contributing to her separation, but that would be most likely be because infidelity contributes to a LOT of marital separations. Accusing someone who came here for help of cheating just because their screenname is Maggie May...it's a reach.
Stung Posted July 20, 2010 Posted July 20, 2010 Missing the point a little, I think. Look at your screen name, "stung." I don't know what that means, but I assume it may have some significance to you in relation to your relationship issues, the reason why you found LS and participate. Guessing, maybe you were hurt in a relationship and it was like you were "stung." Maybe not. Blindsided's name is another example--he was "blindsided" in a relationship. My own name vestigalvirgin is an exception because it is meaningless. I was trying to choose something that I could remember. I tried vestal virgin which for some reason I couldn't use, then thought I would be clever and make it vestigial, except when I signed up I spelled vestigial wrong. The point is we generally have reasons for choosing screen names whatever they are. Also as I have pointed out, it's not JUST her screen name, there's several other clues in her post. Perhaps you're right and it's just random. I guess we'll find out if she chooses to address it. Missing the point again. This is a relationship/infidelity website, the poster we are talking about is separated, she deliberately left out the reason she separated, and that reason is something "bigger" than her h's porn addiction. If it was her h's infidelity I imagine she would have mentioned that. What else is left other than an OM, that she would NOT have mentioned already? Well I did know what that song was about. I'm not sure it's fair to critique me because I'm more knowledgeable than you are about what the song means, nor would I necessarily assume that the person who deliberately chose the song title for her screen name on an infidelity website is equally ignorant as you were up til now. She might be, and I guess we'll just have to wait to see if she addresses it. Her response should be pretty interesting one way or another. Really? Do ya think "blindsided" was "blindsided" by infidelity? Were you "stung" by it? Um, no. I didn't miss your point at all, although I believe you missed mine. Sometimes a screenname is a pointed story unto itself and sometimes it is just a name, and your accusation came out pretty heavy handed for a song lyric that's used as an affectionate nickname by a lot of people. I did indeed choose the username Stung because it meant something, but surprise, it has absolutely nothing to do with what you think. I am lucky enough to have never been "stung" by infidelity, nor am I on this site because I have problems in my relationship. In fact the Stung moniker, in my case, doesn't reference anything romantic or negative at all. Misleading, sure, but there it is. As for Blindsided's name, I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that his screen name referenced infidelity or at least some other major relationship problem/dissolution, but before I presumed to make accusations based on assumptions about his past, I would ask.
Lady vs Panda Posted July 20, 2010 Posted July 20, 2010 I have never been in a duel to the death with a panda.
silverfish Posted July 20, 2010 Posted July 20, 2010 I have never been in a duel to the death with a panda. That's what YOU say. It's obvious that you subconsciously chose that name because you CHEATED on the panda. You see yourself in conflict with panda? You should be apologising to that panda, begging his forgiveness and cooking him a nice steak* dinner *edit : bamboo
Lady vs Panda Posted July 21, 2010 Posted July 21, 2010 That's what YOU say. It's obvious that you subconsciously chose that name because you CHEATED on the panda. You see yourself in conflict with panda? You should be apologising to that panda, begging his forgiveness and cooking him a nice steak* dinner *edit : bamboo You're right. I'm a naughty girl and simply can't be trusted with the heart of a noble panda.
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