Thanks to everyone for supporting me on this nightmare of train ride.
what follows is my poor attempt to put into words the feelings I have regarding my husband's affairs.
This is dated last week, and I'd appreciate your collective thoughts on whether it conveys the message without sounding accusatory. I am simply at this point relaying information.
Thanks in advance:
WH:
I am going into this knowing that this is probably the conversation that is going to make or break our marriage; and I have to be okay with that. This is not going to be easy for me, because I DO want us to work. I just don’t think you realize what all that means.
I think you are not being completely open and honest with your counselor and with me and more importantly with yourself. I feel like you are only showing me a superficial change, something that you are doing for “just right now” until time passes and the next crisis presents itself.
You told me I didn’t ask you to make love to me or touch me or hold me. I want to tell you why.
In short, it is because I don’t feel like any sort of physical contact between us is real, or about us. You see, your affairs and especially your use of porn is what makes me feel like our encounters are fake; I feel like I am held up to some sort of impossible standard because I don’t act like those women on the screen. It has nothing to do with looks, it is how I feel when we are together; and this has been going on for years.
When we have sex, you feel distant to me. I feel like you’re just going through it until I reach orgasm and then that’s it. Job well done, move along. It makes me feel empty and cheap and devalued; like I am just a means to and end; your gratification which comes from making me reach orgasm. I know this sounds selfish, and maybe it is but I want to feel more from you. Not moans or panting or “dirty talk” I want to feel a connection. I feel like there is no connection no intimacy, nothing to make it special; and it should be special. Sex with me is a privilege, not a right. I don’t say you should feel honored or lucky, but maybe… I don’t know… special? Sex is something I only ever shared with men I care deeply about. It has never in my life been a means to an end, or just sex for the sake of sex.
Your belief that we are all animals isn’t compatible with what I just said. I can’t believe that sex, my most intimate embrace can be reduced to scratching an itch. Animals fuck. I don’t. I make love. It may look like fucking, it may resemble fucking in its motions, but please believe that there is an underlying feeling that transcends its appearance and makes it more about a sharing of souls than insertion of penis into vagina.
Animals fuck. That’s all it is. Fucking. The reason they do this is to propagate; to pass on their genetic code. You have successfully done that. There is no more need for you to fuck according to the animalistic code because you have already ensured survival of the species in your children. Your animalistic obligation has been satisfied, so you can stop fucking. Yay! Go you!
So for me, it has to be about intimacy, connecting with me, and making sex an expression of love. Because that is what it is to me. It is what I believe it should be. I have sex with you because I want to give you something special that I don’t give to anyone else.
And I feel like you have taken that and made it cheap and common. You’ve taken a rare treasure and turn it into crap. Whit is what your affairs are. Which is what porn is. Your affair partners acted like porn stars because THEY WEREN’T REAL! Your affairs are porn with skin. You live in porno.
Think back to when we were first dating. Our sex life was very different. What were we doing different OUTSIDE OF SEX? There was intimacy in that there were cards, letters, compliments, you were going out of your way to make me feel wanted, needed, sexy, etc. I was the most beautiful woman in the world to you, you saw no one else, or so you acted. So you made me believe.
Now, I have to live with the knowledge that your penis has been inserted into ____ women, more than I will probably ever know about…. And this happened AFTER we were COMMITTED to each other.
I don’t believe you didn’t have sex with POWw, I don’t believe you didn’t have sex with POWv. I don’t believe you didn’t have sex with POWu, I don’t believe you didn’t have some sort of sex with POWt or POWs or POWr or POWq even if it was just oral or “making out”, or wanting to do it and talking to them about it. I think you are in your gut at this moment waiting for your next affair partner.
And I think your excessive use of porn facilitates that. You and I both know how often you’re online at these sites. It is an average of every 12 hours and this has been going on for years. If I drank as often as you watch porn, I’d be dead from alcohol poisoning. I want to cry every time I leave the house to take DS to school because I know within 5 minutes of me leaving, once you’re certain I’m not coming back for something, you’re online at xxxxxx.com. I want to cry when I leave you alone and the kids and I are at my mom’s because again, once you know I am going to be gone for longer than 20-30 minutes you go watch porn. It kills whatever desire I have to be sexual because I feel like that is your preference. If it wasn’t, you’d be doing something else. ANYTHING else.
I don’t feel attractive. In fact, I feel unattractive because you need this so often. I feel worthless, I feel ugly. I feel unwanted. I feel hopeless about us.
And it has to stop. SO I want you to quit it (watching) now. I want your word that you will addresss this with IC and I want you to get help with this. Because you are not just watching pornos, you are watching web cams (please don’t make this about how I know this, just accept that I know it based on past behavior), and text to fuck sites…. xxxxxx.com, the emails you get come from those sites. It wasn’t my email, I have your gmail synced to my phone. I am trying to relearn to trust you.
But the porn has to stop. It reinforces that animalistic behavior and it degrades what should be beautiful. The web cams have to stop. I don’t know if you are sharing your images, but I do know that you are watching women receiving commands and acting on them. It is cyber cheating because it is interactive.
You and I both know that you watch porn regardless of whether or not we have sex. You watch it almost every chance you get, and it makes me feel like crap. I feel again like I will never measure up to what you expect from sexually because I will never act like the PAID ACTORS on the screen. They aren’t real people expressing real behavior. They are creating a fantasy world just like the one you lived in with POWx POWy POWz the list goes on. And I can’t, I won’t compete with a fantasy because I will never win. It is impossible.
I need you in the real world. With me. A real man making a real connection with me based on mutual love mutual respect and mutual trust. That means you have to trust me with the truth. It means when I ask you “Did you have sex with ____” I don’t just mean insertion of penis into vagina. I mean any type of sexual contact including but not limited to kissing fondling oral sex etc. I need to know everything because that levels the playing field.
Right now, you are the only one who knows everything about OUR marriage. I feel like I have been in an open marriage for 18 years only I was unaware that it was open. I need you to trust me not to cut and run no matter how ugly the truth is. I am not going anywhere, provided you are completely honest. Logic dictates (past behavior) that there is more to your relationships with the women I have listed than what has bee disclosed to me so far. I hate this feeling. It makes me feel inadequate. It makes me feel worthless. It makes me feel like you don’t care.
I am your wife, and you claim to love me. Do you really want me to feel this way? You are the only one who can help me through this. Please, tell me the truth, the WHOLE truth and stop the online cyber sex. Porn is cyber sex.
I love you and I don’t want to lose you, but I feel strongly enough about this, that if you can’t/won’t give it up, I will leave you. I won’t fight a losing battle. I won’t compete with a fantasy. I will fight anyone for you, except you yourself.
Sadly, you have elected (by your actions) to fight against me for your perceived freedom instead of with me for our family.
I wish you well, and wish you healing.
Sincerely,
Blossom
ETA it would be safe to change it all to past tense, I just don't have the energy 
[This message edited by whiteflower99 at 4:09 PM, February 6th (Thursday)]
