marriage_destroyed? Posted July 12, 2005 Posted July 12, 2005 i'm thinking about leaving my husband and i feel sick about it. right now this minute i hate him yet i can't image getting the strength to leave we have 3 kids. his obsession with pornographic pictures is destroying me. i hate that he makes decisions to lust over women when he knows that i see it as having an affair. i am embarassed and have no one to talk to about this because of that reason. i have told him videos don't bother me because i can see that watching sex will get people in the mood. the still pictures kill me. he thinks about putting his d*** inside them. it makes me want to die. i'm so angry. and hurt. he says that he'll stop but he has said that so many times. i have only recently started to trust that he doesn't do it anymore. this evening i found out it wasn't true.he's such a liar. oh my God i don't know what to do.
shygurl Posted July 12, 2005 Posted July 12, 2005 Hi there, Sorry you're going through this. I don't understand - how can you feel that him watching porn videos is okay but "still" porn is different/worse? If anything, I'd think the videos would be even worse because they're more graphic and 'real' (3D). How often does he view porn? How long have you been married? Has this affected your sex life? Could he be actually addicted to porn? (It IS an addiction)
Zaira Posted July 12, 2005 Posted July 12, 2005 Every man and every woman lusts, it doesn't mean they are going to action it. It depends on how his obsession with porn is affecting your relationship (beyond you feeling it is cheating). If he is being faithful and loving etc etc towards you and your children I don't think leaving him for a porn obsession is sensible option for anyone involved. He should respect your feelings more, I agree. Is he trying to decrease it/stop? Would he go to counselling? Is there some way you can compromise?
Sal Paradise Posted July 12, 2005 Posted July 12, 2005 If you knew about this before you were married you have no right to ask him to stop. Unless its a REAL ADDICTION (and not a perceived one) then thats one thing. More than likely this your problem and not his.
Craig Posted July 12, 2005 Posted July 12, 2005 Well you've come to the right place. Here are some other threads on porn posted by other LS members and guests. http://www.loveshack.org/forums/search.php?action=showresults&searchid=1406286&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending&norepliefalse I'm not quite sure if I understand your reasoning when you say videos are okay but stills are not. Good luck, make yourself comfortable, because you have a lot of reading to do if you look at all the threads on porn.
LucreziaBorgia Posted July 12, 2005 Posted July 12, 2005 he thinks about putting his d*** inside them. Has he told you this? Or is this something that you are afraid that he is thinking? If you would end your marriage, and rip apart your children's lives because you don't like nude photographs - maybe you should consider some serious counseling before you do something like that. It sounds like you have some serious self esteem issues, and should these not get fixed your marriage is likely doomed anyway: nudies or not. Insecurity finds outlets - if you shut one 'trigger' off, another will pop up in an unexpected place to replace it. Porn and nudies aren't destroying your life: your insecurity is. Don't let your insecurity be the thing that ruins your life - go talk to someone about this.
Author marriage_destroyed? Posted July 12, 2005 Author Posted July 12, 2005 I'm answering some questions, and clearing some things up: no i didn't know he was into this before we got married. he had a couple of nuddie rags and when i said that i didn't like them he threw them out. i had a converstation with him about what he thinks about and YES he thinks about putting his d*** in. that's not my insecurities. we have had problems and things really seemed to finally be getting back to where they should be. we have been together for over 10 years. xrated videos and the like don't bother me because it is the act of sex that turns him on not putting his d*** in them. this site that he was on had the women's biography and everything...he was rating them. LucreziaBorgia your post was completely off. and maybe just because i'm very sensitive right now i found it hurtful. My husband broke promises to me, he lied to me and he lusted after other women. He knew that this could severly hurt our marriage and he choose to do it anyway. He said he loves me and our family and doesn't want to be with out me. My response was your family and love for me were non-existant when he was lusting for those women.
MWC_LifeBeginsAt40 Posted July 12, 2005 Posted July 12, 2005 Do you have a digital camera? How about taking a nude shot of yourself and emailing it to him? I am kidding of course. You could tell him if he ever wants to see or put his d*** in yours again he needs to stop looking at other women's and dreaming of putting it in theirs. Again, kidding. Even one session with a marriage counseller can't hurt, even just to talk about things with a neutral party so he can see how serious you are about how much this bothers you. While I'm not opposed to looking at porn, he is being disrespectful to your feelings because you have asked him to stop and have told him how it makes you feel.
tiki Posted July 12, 2005 Posted July 12, 2005 How about throwing the computer out the frggin window if it's the culprit???!?!?!? http://www.loveshack.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=56604& ^An alternative to the porn. It should stop, IMO. You've gotta let him know you're considering divorce because of it.
LucreziaBorgia Posted July 12, 2005 Posted July 12, 2005 Originally posted by marriage_destroyed? LucreziaBorgia your post was completely off. and maybe just because i'm very sensitive right now i found it hurtful. I did not intend for it to be hurtful. I'm just asking you to look at things that you can work on as well to help the situation. Saying that you want to die, and want to divorce isn't going to help your situation any. Refuse to be a victim, and take some real action to start things going in a better direction. Getting some therapy, and counseling and working on your self esteem to bolster your emotional strength WILL help. Once you are stronger you will be able to take on what is going on with your husband, and be able to work toward some real progress. Hopefully the two of you will be willing to go to marriage counseling to figure out what led you here in the first place. Stopping the porn/pics won't do any good. You will have to get to bottom of why it is a problem in your relationship in the first place. Figure that out, and perhaps the awful symptoms of it will clear themselves up.
lindya Posted July 12, 2005 Posted July 12, 2005 My husband broke promises to me, he lied to me and he lusted after other women. He knew that this could severly hurt our marriage and he choose to do it anyway. This porn is concrete evidence that your husband finds other women's bodies attractive, as well as your own. It follows that he has fantasies about those women. There is nothing unusual, unnatural or unloving (to you) in that. There doesn't seem to be any indication that he's having an affair with a flesh and blood woman; someone he could develop a relationship with, fall in love with and sacrifice his relationship with you for. He's simply looking at some pictures. You might not approve, but providing he's doing this in private and isn't spending vast portions of the household budget on the porn, it isn't necessarily any of your business. What we do in the privacy of our own minds should be of no concern to anyone else unless we choose to share our fantasies with them. Clearly if someone retreats into their own fantasy world to the extent that the partner's needs are being consistently overlooked and neglected, then this is a problem that needs to be addressed. All other things being equal, however, we all have a right to our private space and fantasy time. Married or not. The more you resent your husband's fantasies, the more he will retreat into them. Where else is there to escape?
ltomlinson81 Posted July 12, 2005 Posted July 12, 2005 It sounds like it is your own insecurities that are tearing the two of you apart. I agree on the suggestion of counseling.
Author marriage_destroyed? Posted July 12, 2005 Author Posted July 12, 2005 Originally posted by lindya This porn is concrete evidence that your husband finds other women's bodies attractive, as well as your own. It follows that he has fantasies about those women. There is nothing unusual, unnatural or unloving (to you) in that. There doesn't seem to be any indication that he's having an affair with a flesh and blood woman; someone he could develop a relationship with, fall in love with and sacrifice his relationship with you for. He's simply looking at some pictures. You might not approve, but providing he's doing this in private and isn't spending vast portions of the household budget on the porn, it isn't necessarily any of your business. What we do in the privacy of our own minds should be of no concern to anyone else unless we choose to share our fantasies with them. Clearly if someone retreats into their own fantasy world to the extent that the partner's needs are being consistently overlooked and neglected, then this is a problem that needs to be addressed. All other things being equal, however, we all have a right to our private space and fantasy time. Married or not. The more you resent your husband's fantasies, the more he will retreat into them. Where else is there to escape? it's not in his head it's on our family computer that our children use. he does this while we are all home late evenings when he gets side tracked playing games. it is hurting our family and our marriage not because i am insecure because he is LYING. we are going to counseling tomorrow. he says he is addicted to internet porn.
LucreziaBorgia Posted July 12, 2005 Posted July 12, 2005 we are going to counseling tomorrow. he says he is addicted to internet porn. Its good that you two have agreed to taking the first steps toward a better marriage for you both.
lindya Posted July 12, 2005 Posted July 12, 2005 Originally posted by marriage_destroyed? it's not in his head it's on our family computer that our children use. he does this while we are all home late evenings when he gets side tracked playing games. it is hurting our family and our marriage not because i am insecure because he is LYING. we are going to counseling tomorrow. he says he is addicted to internet porn. That's a problem. I can totally understand you being upset about your children finding this stuff if he hasn't been careful about getting rid - and even if he has been careful, once someone starts downloading porn from a pc, it's very difficult to get rid of it completely. I'm really glad to hear the two of you are going to counselling. Best of luck with it - come back and keep us posted.
Author marriage_destroyed? Posted July 13, 2005 Author Posted July 13, 2005 i spoke with my therapist for a bit over the phone. he totally validated my feelings, which made me feel an ounce better. he said that my husband is addicted to porn and that he needs to seek help. he said in most cases the addict was sexually abused/molested as a child or saw inappropriate sexual behavior as a child. i told my H about it and he said that he can't think of anything like that, that could have happened to him. i don't know. my therapist said that my H should go tomorrow with out me...he needs work done on his addiction before "we" can fix our marriage. i love my husband dearly and i love the feeling of being with him...i guess this will take time. i just want it to be over and pick up the pieces. i just want to love my husband again.
RecordProducer Posted July 13, 2005 Posted July 13, 2005 I consider myself an extremely jealous person. I get jealous when my BF is watching another woman, because I think it's disrespectful towards me. I told him not to do it when I am around. I don't care if he is staring at girls or watching erotic material when he is not with me. When I was pregnant my ex-husband would masturbate on sexy magazines. I was completely fine with that. It's more a matter of how your mind is working than his. Because I believe that ALL men like to watch nude women. Photos, videos, live shows, nude beaches... it doesn't make any difference. The mutual thing is they love naked female bodies. Even if you would force him to stop watching the pictures, he will fantasize about women. We need to draw a line where our partner's privacy begins and our control stops. We all have secrets we keep from others. Some keep them more selfishly or more successfully than others. Erotic fantasy is a part of every sexually normal person. Just because you might not have any erotic fantasy, doesn't mean that those who have them are sluts and perverts. Looking at pictures is not cheating. Your husband may see a cute woman and think to himself "mmm, she's soooo cute." God forbid if you (or me) would find out! Many women would be jealous. Some wouldn't and they're blessed. The more tolerant the happier you are. If he is faithful to you otherwise, it's really an absurd that you divorce him over such a benign thing. I suggest that you ask him to practice his hobby only when you're not around and keep the evidence well hidden from your eyes. Show understanding if you catch him doing it and ignore it. You will see that things will get much better when you remove the problem from your head. It will be easier and healthier for your marriage than to make him stop doing what the core of his being needs. The reason why you feel this way is probably because you think that you can't compete with the porn actresses or because your husband is not as affectionate or sexual with you as he used to be or could be any other reason. After solving this, you might want to work on your marriage in order to improve it. You can start right away by being cheerful and affectionate with him. Is the therapist making more money if he works for more hours with you? Of course in that case he would have to convince you that something is very wrong with you.
Author marriage_destroyed? Posted July 13, 2005 Author Posted July 13, 2005 he will be sending my H to someone different. Why do you think it is ok for my H to lie to me?
Pocky Posted July 13, 2005 Posted July 13, 2005 I suggest you research porn addiction and how it affects the individual, the spouse and the family. I think you need to understand as much as you can about this problem in order to bypass any assumptions you might have that will only confuse and irritate the situation. It's not as simple as just masturbating to other women - there are some physical and mental hurdles that will have to be overcome if you both are going to move forward. There is a book you might want to read that will give you some insight into what your husband might experience if in fact he is addicted to porn: Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction by Ph.D., Patrick Carnes . You must understand that you are a key player in his road to change. Everything you do will contribute to his success or his failure. While you may think that he is the only person responsible for dealing with this issue, he's not. You may unknowingly contribute to his continued porn activities. Sometimes we don't even realize how our behavior affects another person. Do some research and prepare yourself. The more you know and understand the more control you'll have over yourself and what happens. Good luck.
RecordProducer Posted July 13, 2005 Posted July 13, 2005 Originally posted by marriage_destroyed? he will be sending my H to someone different. Why do you think it is ok for my H to lie to me? MD, you have given him three options: 1. to stop watching nude pics; 2. to tell you the truth and disappoint you and fight with you; and 3. to lie to you. He has picked the least painful option. I am not on his side, I am trying to help you see things through different glasses and realize that nothing is as terrible as it seems to you. Please take a look at a thread I just started because of you and the other women who are bothered by the same thing. http://www.loveshack.org/forums/showthread.php?postid=531387#post531387 Don't let your marriage be destroyed over this. It's not worth the pain.
Author marriage_destroyed? Posted July 13, 2005 Author Posted July 13, 2005 Originally posted by RecordProducer MD, you have given him three options: 1. to stop watching nude pics; 2. to tell you the truth and disappoint you and fight with you; and 3. to lie to you. lying is unacceptable. He has picked the least painful option. I am not on his side, I am trying to help you see things through different glasses and realize that nothing is as terrible as it seems to you. Please take a look at a thread I just started because of you and the other women who are bothered by the same thing. http://www.loveshack.org/forums/showthread.php?postid=531387#post531387 that thread has nothing to do with lies and betrayal in a marriage. Don't let your marriage be destroyed over this. It's not worth the pain. not only is part of our marriage destroyed but part of me is too. I'm in pain now.
Moose Posted July 13, 2005 Posted July 13, 2005 not only is part of our marriage destroyed but part of me is too. I'm in pain now.This is total BS. Listen to me, have you seen a cute guy lately? Have your eyes wondered to some guys tight butt? How about a cute guy's chest? HAVE you noticed a nice guy's smile? I bet even you have fantasies about men other than your husband. Chances are, you have. You're just as guilty as your husband then. You may not of masturbated to any of this, but, you did take notice, and perhaps even lusted after it. You're just as guilty. Nothing is destroyed, misunderstood, perhaps, but not destroyed! You're married to a man. You're going to have to learn to deal with HUMAN nature and grow out of it. Don't ever put him in a position where he's making empty promises you know he won't keep again, and you'll not be disappointed when he breaks them. Did your vows included, "For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do we part"? If so, you have an obligation to work this through. NO, your marriage isn't destroyed, far from it. Your problem is that you don't know how to deal with your husbands natural tendancies.........there are things you can do to help keep him from hurting you.
FolderWife Posted July 13, 2005 Posted July 13, 2005 I had the same exact problem as you. Porn was ok, until we got the internet...then he sat on the internet whacking off all the time, and we never made love. When we first got married, we had a healthy but somewhat akward sex life. A month into our marriage, however, I gave into pressure from my mom and got the internet so she could email me. Big mistake. Our sex life DIED. I went a few months in complete ignorance...he claimed that sex wasn't important to him. I thought he was just a man with a low sex drive...I didn't like it, but I could live with it. It wasn't until he wanted to get a new computer, that I discovered how much porn and dirty pictures he was looking at!!! So my husband doesn't want to have sex with me, but he's so sexual that he looks at naked women EVERY DAY. After a month or two of that pain, it FINALLY occured to me that he was masturbating to these images, and THAT'S why he couldn't get an erection with me. It wasn't that he didn't need sex, it was that he wasted his erections on PORN! That hurts so bad when the man you love and want would rather beat off to pictures of other women than be with you. What saved our marriage was getting rid of the computer. He promised a thousand times to stop, but same as yours he never did. Even after the computer left our home, I was still really raw about porn. I wanted NO PORN in our home..NONE. He ordered pay per view after a couple of months, and after I found out about that and destroyed the tape that he recorded it on, he borrowed videos from his uncle. But I didn't find out about them for at least five months. He waited a month after I found them *and he destroyed them* to order porn through the mail *and he went behind my back and opened a po box to have it delivered to* as soon as he got them, I found them *by now I knew how he acted when he was sneaking porn...he was very vicious, so I knew to look for it.* He waited about a month and a half before he went down the road and bought some more. I found it a week later, and brought it to his attention that he wasn't fooling anyone, and that I was SICK of his lies. The thing was, however, that once we smashed our computer, our sex life improved...even when he'd sneak a video in behind my back. So I was willing to meet a compromise. He could have his movies, as long as he stayed sexually interested in me, and could get an erection at least twice a week. So far so good...it's been seven months. So really, I was ok when it was just videos. It was the internet that made it too excessive. I mean, when you think about it, it makes perfect sense: If you're in the mood to masturbate, and you'd like to have a good masturbating session, you'd get out of your seat, put in a porno, and fast forward to the dirty scenes. If you're reading your email on the internet, you're probably going to have at least a hundred dirty emails a day. If you like porn any little bit, you are going to click a link, and then you're hooked! Every time you play yahoo dominoes, or log on to your favorite message board, or simply check your email, you are going to have a million pictures of sexy naked women at your disposal. The internet no longer becomes a communication tool, it becomes a sex toy! He will log on to look at dirty pictures. He doesn't have to pay for them, he doesn't have to go to the store and buy them, they are just there EVERYWHERE for free! It's not the internet, it's the free porn store! My husband would use porn maybe once a month...if that before we got the internet. Once we got the internet, it was EVERY DAY. it made me hate porn, and thus put a huge wedge between us. So live without email etc...get rid of the computer...it will most likely save your marriage.
Moose Posted July 13, 2005 Posted July 13, 2005 FolderWife, good post. I agree that porn will ruin marriages if it's used in excess. But to expect husbands, hell, men in general to stop completley, to promise to stop, then you're asking too much of him when it's all around us. Even when you don't have a puter at home. It's on the billboards, newspapers, TV........it's a part of life. Used in moderation, ok.......go nutts with it.....not ok......is the society creedo. Personally, if I had the power to, I'd do away with it all. The temptation is too great to even some of the most strong willed people. I equate it with trying to stop drinking. Do you realize how hard it is for an alcoholic to stop when there's ads all over the friggin' place? I should tell you all about it sometime.
Author marriage_destroyed? Posted July 14, 2005 Author Posted July 14, 2005 folderwife thank you so much for your post. it meant more than you know. we never had trouble in our sex life, just our personal one. actually our sex is out of this world for both of us. i kissed him today. a good deep kiss. i am happy i was able to do that.
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