His LTA included emails & sexting as well as the sharing of pornographic images. The email & sexting started out with these types of images being shared back & forth between the AP. It progressed to more & more vulgar images, then physical contact and personal image sharing.
I confronted and he didn't deny it. It feels like I am reliving all the pain of Dday all over again. When I explain that, he gets it. He said he didn't realize the correlation and understands how I would be upset by it. He says it was a stress relief during the time 2 months ago that he knew his current job was ending (downsizing) and he was stressing over finding a new job & providing for the family. He says he didn't want to burden me with his worries over that because he knew I was already really stressing over it (loss of medical insurance & income).
I have told him that I feel this may be the deal breaker.
Last year, there was an issue that came up concerning PlayBoy. There was one of those little postcards in the mail to get it for $1.00 or something. There was a point in our marriage where I enjoyed reading PlayBoy ("for the articles" I know really stereotypical, but I did). However, when WH showed me the card, I kinda freaked out internally. I just told him I felt that was not an option in our house anymore after all that had happened. That was all that was said & he pitched the card.
I guess I feel he should be highly aware that searching for that kind of stuff online is NOT acceptable. This feels like a betrayal all over again and I am ready to walk.
He swears it will never happen again, this was "normal guy stuff" and he never thought about how I would feel about it.
Well, he never thought about how I would feel during A either.
Anyway, ranting I think--just wondering if I am overreacting here with calling it quits.
I guess these are the things I would consider- Did you ever explicitly tell him that looking at Porn, obviously not attached to the affair, was a no no, or do you think you maybe expected him to just get that? Not saying he shouldn't have if that's the case, but men are pretty clueless most of the time and don't tend to make connections that women do (no offence to men intended). It doesn't seem like he tried to hide it, since he used your joint FB account to do it. He also didn't try to hide it that he was doing it when confronted, which could give credence to the idea that he just was clueless. Doesn't mean that being clueless is a reason not to end things. I guess my thinking would be... Am I looking for an excuse to leave? Perfectly ok if you are, obviously you are done. Am I just terrified of being hurt again so I just immediately built a wall and decided it was easier to end it all then carry on like this? Again all reasonable thinking, R is then hardest thing I've ever tried to do and certainly isn't for everyone and I've definitely been there in my flights of rage and pain. Do you still love him and want to remain married to him? Is he in IC?
Anyway, I've posed more questions then answers but I find it helps me to find my truth by asking and then answering questions then relying on blunt emotion! I hope I've helped a little and I hope you work out what's best for you! Sending you hugs!
Used porn since early teens. Met my wife, we used it in our M. She had experience with it as a teen as well. I continued to use it solo too....my wife knew about this, but did not know the frequency. My wife used it solo but I did not know the frequency. My solo use was much more than hers.
Somewhere along the lines my wife's feelings towards porn changed. She did not convey this change within her to me.....at least not in a way that I understood. It got confusing. As we work in MC and mature internally....we CAN see more clearly that my wife did reach out to me as best she could.....and I listened as best I could. But our failure to communicate and expose our deeper feelings to each other , paired up with some FOO issues that had intimacy blockers all their own woven into them, resulted in much hurt and disconnection in our M.
As we went through this process there was the "should" phase. I noted you said your husband should know not to do as he does. It is possible he is just ignorant and he needs to mature.
If he is like I was...he looks around for his bearings. He sees many other men, possibly even his Dad, doing what he is doing. He most likely even knows men that look at hardcore porn or chose adultery....so he reasons he is normal. Like mist men, and "better than some others".
So I recently found out my WH has been looking at porn on the internet. When I say porn, I am talking searching our joint FB account for Sports Illustrated swimsuit models (simply found in the activity log) and magazines like Esquire, GQ, and Maxim not necessary the heavier porn you can find on the internet, but...
Caution.......this is dangerously close to you saying "he hurts me, but not that badly". A destructive mode of operation.....and one my wife chose in our pre-A M sometimes.
I'm not blaming my wife for my poor, selfish, destructive, immature choices. But her thinking anything like "who am I to tell my husband he can't look at that?" Is not healthy. It's unfair to expect another to validate your feelings when you start with a partial invalidation if them yourself.
We cannot grow past what we don't know.
Had I really been aware of how hurt my wife was I would like to think I would have changed.
Yes, I should have known. Like you, she was an active participant in porn at some point in our marriage. You read articles by yourself, my wife watched porn my herself. But at some point that changed. When feelings change you owe it to yourself and your spouse to express those changes.
Express them clearly and in ways the other understands.....have him repeat what he hears back to you to make sure you are both on the same page. Then you have given your husband a gift. He now has the opportunity to stop hurting you and reaffirm his vows to you.
Complacency and selfishness are key blockers to change....these, two were a factor that kept me blind to my wife hurting.
Now, after much therapy, prayer and 12 step programming......I fail to see how any porn, light to hardcore, is anything but destructive to mature intimacy and a healthy M. But I was NOT this guy for 30 years of my life.
God is with us all.
[This message edited by blakesteele at 6:41 AM, May 4th (Sunday)]
For me, porn use also kept me from feeling and healing pain. It wasn't until I stopped using it that this shocking revelation happened. It occurred about 6 weeks out from stopping.
I should also say I stopped using porn about 5 months after DD #1.
My wife was not the driver for this choice. In fact, she could take or leave what I was doing.....still grieving the loss of her AP and disengaged from me.
It was during this time that I realized the only part if this mess I could control is......me.
So as part if the 180 I started examining each part of my life. When I got to porn use i thought it would be a quick evaluation and back to normal for me.
I was wrong. Thank God I was wrong!
Please be open and honest with your husband. Don't judge or condemn....just tell him his actions hurt you. "All guys do it" and "These magazines are at the check out stations at the grocery store" may be a likely response. Refrain from getting into debate mode. Instead, find a way to restate how his actions hurt you.....stop short of telling him what he should do. He is an adult, you are not his mom. But he may take several passes until he accepts what you are feeling.
This is hard to do. My wife and I still wrestle with avoiding "battling lawyers" mode where "he said she said" and "exhibit A and exhibit B" arguments start when we stop trying to feel and express feelings.
I will say a specific prayer for you both right now. I know you love him.....I suspect he loves you.
Give him an honest chance or two to let him show how he can love you right now.
Peace.
For me, isolation is a trigger point.
Odd thing about porn.....while it is sexual in nature, often times the stimulus underneath it is not sexual at all.
I appreciate your openness with your husband on how his current actions roll emotions inside you back towards those of your DD. I also appreciate his accepting your feelings as he did.
Keep working.....this is how you will process through this trial.
Peace
I guess these are the things I would consider- Did you ever explicitly tell him that looking at Porn, obviously not attached to the affair, was a no no, or do you think you maybe expected him to just get that? Not saying he shouldn't have if that's the case, but men are pretty clueless most of the time and don't tend to make connections that women do (no offence to men intended).
No. I never expressly told him not to look at porn on the internet. The Playboy discussion as brief as it was I intended as a blanket statement, "porn" in general.
Am I looking for an excuse to leave?
Am I just terrified of being hurt again so I just immediately built a wall and decided it was easier to end it all then carry on like this?
Definitely the second. I am terrified of going through everything all over again. Terrified that I chose poorly and never should have put in the time & effort over the last 2 years.
Do you still love him and want to remain married to him?
So I recently found out my WH has been looking at porn on the internet. When I say porn, I am talking searching our joint FB account for Sports Illustrated swimsuit models (simply found in the activity log) and magazines like Esquire, GQ, and Maxim not necessary the heavier porn you can find on the internet, but... Caution.......this is dangerously close to you saying "he hurts me, but not that badly". A destructive mode of operation.....and one my wife chose in our pre-A M sometimes.
I see your point. I think I added this more as a description of what the "porn" actually was. I know many people who would not actually consider this porn. I used to be one of them. As you point out, it's at the supermarket checkout line.
Thanks for the prayer. That is where I am turning my focus this morning. Guidance from God and time to step back a bit from this situation and find peace.
After DDay, he was supposed to not view any porn, but then he got sneaky. And resentful when I would call him on looking at actresses photos (scantly clad, of course), bathing suit shots, the odd girl next door in daisy dukes shorts, etc. Because THAT wasn't porn, even though he was using it to keep his masturbation options open. That was normal, you see. All guys do that.
He came home with "The Chive" from one of his places of work, saying this was the neat thing that his workmates watched and would I like to watch the Friday Kitty videos, or this, or the other thing. Completely trying to avoid the fact that he was using their scantly clad "Chivettes" selfies to get off on.
Until the day that I found him in the bathroom, pants around his ankles, watching porn using private browsing so I didn't see it on his history where it would "upset" me.
That's when I threw him out of the bedroom, threw his clothing down the stairs, and banished him into the office until we could work out finances enough for him to move out and me to get the house sold. And it wasn't until that point, where I was, and fully intended to divorce him, that he finally wised up that (I hope and pray) that this would never be OK with me. His choice keep looking at that shit and be divorced, or be married to me and give it up.
He gave up the right to do "normal guy stuff," when he made the decision to commit infidelity. And as long as he wishes to remain married to me, his definition of normal guy stuff had better change, or I will divorce him. No ifs, ands, or buts.
D-Day, June 10, 2012
I do believe he loves me & I love him. As you said, I relied on a "should" mentality instead of making certain WH was aware on my full thoughts on porn and what my definition of porn actually is. I did not draw a clear boundary on this issue.
As is indicative of our relationship, communicating his emotions is difficult for him. Stress levels have been very high since his employer announced his position would be terminated. In hindsight (and perhaps why this is so agonizingly painful for me), this just reinforces that he will turn back to old habits of coping when things get difficult.
This is my true fear: nothing has changed.
After all the counseling, pain, time & effort, when the going gets tough, my husband detaches and moves to this world of sexual fantasies & escapism.
Now I am torn. I really do want to help him, but not at my own expense. So, the walls are up for now...and we will see where he goes from here.
Given your male insight & porn use, do you feel I am reading too much into this? Could it just be as simple as stress relief?
I still don't feel it has a place in my marriage and will communicate that with him for future reference as applicable. But as for the coping mechanism, do you feel that has potential? Or I am just reaching for justification as a means to protect myself from additional pain?
I understand only I can know the answer to that...i find writing things out help me though.
Also, thanks for having boundaries! That surely means there is hope for some, if not my marriage specifically!
My destructive choices have humbled me. I posted on this topic because of the realization of the pain I invited into my M by using porn. I don't know your pain revolving around this particular sin, but my wife does. I have seen some of the pain expressed from my wife, so I have seen the pain....just have not felt it. So it is with much heart ache that I read most posts associated with porn.
This is a fear of all of us on this site....that we will experience this painful trial and not much will change. It is a valid fear.
Specifically with your husbands use of porn....he, too, is most likely concerned about this happening too. Sin is bondage. When you recognize your own sin you feel enslaved by it. As you gain this healthy view you desire to be free from it. Once you are free from it you will have some fear it will return....that you will weaken and choose it again. This is a BS's worst nightmare....to have another DD after R has started.....to have a spouse chose actions that lead to another A or A-like actions. Your husband made some recent choices that liken back to his pre-A state that led him to his A. I totally get why this would be unnerving and alarming to you. Am glad he was open to examine this too! It shows he is really desiring to change. That's a good first step.
My first 4 weeks of being porn free were scary......temptations were great.....I worried and feared all kinds of things. None of those fears materialized.
Then something changed inside me around week 6-7 of being porn free. Its like coming out of a fog of my own.....I felt strange. Peaceful. Clear sited.
Then something dreadful happened that I had not fully expected. I saw my actions in the light of truth....and it was ugly.
Then, through fellowship with others and therapy....I made another shocking discovery. My use of porn was not "just sex", it was an escape I reached for when I felt isolated.
You mentioned for your husband he uses it as just a stress relief.
It temporarily cured my isolation feelings, it temporarily cures your husbands stressful feelings (which, by the way, is my go-to accountability partners temptation trigger point too).
Regardless of why or when I used porn, or your husband used porn, it is still unhealthy.
I will feel isolated in my life. Your husband will feel stress in his life. A healthy person knows how to choose healthy choices when this happens. I am learning to do this just this....and it is getting easier. I pray your husband finds his way to this truth.
Everymans Battle book was a key to starting my journey away from porn. There is a work book and weekend intensive course if he is so inclined.....but the book was really the turning point.
Undefiled was another solid resource that pretty much hits home that, regardless of your past experiences....it is still your responsibility to find your way away from sexual sins.
It is a good sign that he knows his trigger point...that it is stress. Now he will be better equipped to prepare for the inevitable entry into that common aspect of life. He can see it coming and should have plans in place to reduce the temptation to use porn and increase his desire to back fill that void with something healthy.
That's for him to find out what that is....therapy and reading helped me find ways to do just that. Left to my own accord, I doubt I could have found my way out from the darkness.....I am ignorant and weak. I am gaining wisdom and strength through fellowship....reaching out.
Do I think your husband has potential? Don't know him. But, I used porn for 30 years. My wife knew about it (mostly, but not all the time)...I invited it into our marital bedroom. I am 14 months porn free today.
3 years ago I would have argued the point that porn was okay, healthy maybe even. I chose to stop using porn when intimacy with my wife was at an all time low and I was as isolated feeling as I was at age 12 when my parents D and Dad disappeared from my life.
I ramped up my porn use after DD....for 2 weeks it seemed to help. Then.....it just fell flat. Like I had crashed hard after a wild weekend. I looked at myself and thought.....what the hell are you doing???? This is who you are? This is really who you want to be??????? I looked at my relationship with God and saw it hurting too....not because of Him, but because of my own choices.
So I stopped when no one in this world cared or bothered to even really notice when I quit. (quitting was a singular choice but, like many other choices written about on SI, it was just the start of a process....and it continues today)
If a man like myself can do it.....surely your husband has potential to learn better and then choose to do better...right?
I am pleased you appreciate my boundary. It was one of a very few I have had since being married. I believe it was the only thing keeping me from choosing an A before my wife.
Boundaries In Marriage by Henry Cloud is a must-read for all. It shows how boundaries actually free you, allow your relationships to grow exponentially in healthy ways. I am working on other boundaries now.
I would love to report that I chose to stop porn for my wife....a gesture of honoring and cherishing her. I did not. At the point in time I stopped my wife probably cared as little for me as she ever has in her life. And I had serious rage towards her, was so hurt by her actions....daily, hourly crying was a part of my life then.
I don't believe in coincidences. We are all where we are for a reason. I am not saying we deserve what we have or that we deserve better....I am fully realizing that my broken M was not just a result of my wifes affair.
Our M was broken before her A. It was broken not because of porn either. Something inside each of us limited our M.....got us to where we are at. Our broken M was a fruit of what we individually chose.....and the pattern of choosing as we did was well established before we married.
What we are trying to learn is how to do M in healthy, interdependent ways.
22 months out now. We still struggle. The pain on both sides is tremendous.
Fear is still present.
Fear is a feeling.
Feelings are indicators, not dictators. Destructive things happen when we put feelings in control of our lives.
Your husband will feel stress, he may worry about how he will provide for his family. The healthy thing is to NOT hide this fear from his wife, nor is it to use porn to take the edge off that fear (helping him deceive himself that his fear is not there or that it is not as bad as it seems).
I would venture to guess that if he came to you today and said something like
"I am worried I will lose my job and not be able to provide for you as I have in the past" you would not laugh at him, belittle his manhood, or do anything but share in his struggle.....support your husband and show compassion for a man who wants so much to provide for you that when he gets a hint that he will fall short of his own expectations that he express's this concern to you.
Long response.....I hope it provides some comfort to you. I appreciate you working hard to find compassion and choosing love for your husband.
I pray your M will survive this. I see from your post and introspection you are going to do what you can to change. Clarifying what you consider porn and your zero tolerance will give HIM an opportunity to choose better....an opportunity for him to chose to honor and cherish you instead of retreat and turn to self-gratification. If he does....wonderful!!! If he doesn't....you have done all you can with regards to this specific issue. Take due comfort in that. You lists of "what ifs" will be much shorter if your M does not survive this. Plus you are learning to choose healthier too!!! Much less resentment in your current choice.....that will serve you better in all your relationships into the future. This is a very good thing!!!!!
Change occurs when the pain of same is greater than the pain of change.
I am proof of that. My wife is proof of that. Our long-standing coping mechs became to painful to withstand any more.....so we are going about changing them.
Keep the faith.
I have added you both to my prayer list.
[This message edited by blakesteele at 3:16 AM, May 8th (Thursday)]
Thanks for the book recommendations as well as your insights.
I met with my WH to talk last night. Apparently, he has been meeting with a member of our church this week for prayer and guidance. Our pastor connected the two of them. This individual is about the same age as my WH and was a youth ministry leader some years ago--before we joined the church. Apparently, he fought a porn addiction which started as a teenager. It lost him his job and very nearly his wife & children. He & his wife R after what seemed to be a very public separation and have still not financially recovered from the situation. It is worth noting this individual did not have an A with another person.
However,WH came back with some ideas he is eager to try. Church Member told him that temptation is everywhere and feeling temptation does not make him a bad person; it makes him human. Acting on that temptation is what he must stop and that takes effort and vigilance. (This seemed common knowledge to me, but WH found it a revelation. Apparently, WH struggled with feelings of unworthiness because he was feeling tempted which increased his stress and seemed to push him headlong into looking at porn. Pointing this out seemed to relieve WH).
Also, it was pointed out that he should no longer have access to our joint FB account. The app should be removed from his phone and I should be the only one with access to the password. We should only look at the joint account together and make any updates, etc together and I should choose the friends we keep. Doing this 1-2 times a week was recommended.
The thing is, we turned his FB acct into a joint account after the A. I don't really do FB and couldn't care less about it to be honest--my only interest has been what he is doing with it. WH says he thinks we should just shut it down completely. I don't think this would be a bad idea, but part of me wants the opportunity to track him and people he associates with at work, etc. I really think this is a poor character trait I have taken on as a result of his A and I see this as a personal insecurity issue for me, but I haven't been able to shake my want to "hang on" to this opportunity to check up on him. Even if he doesn't have access to FB, others will still have access to post or message him. The church member also advised WH not have full television access since we have cable tv. He encourages a passlock on anything with a rating higher than PG13 or TV14 which only I would know.
This church member also states he still does not know the passcode for the cable tv in his own home and has some sort of spyware on his phone to alert an accountability partner (not his wife) of any internet activity with details. All this 7 years after the fact! And he is comfortable with all that which is a sign of growth, I suppose.
I am not sure how I feel about all that. Makes me think I would be a warden and my WH a prisoner, but I suppose that is only if he harbors resentment over the restrictions...idk
He then told he would look at our female friends' photo albums on FB in hopes of seeing them in revealing clothing or bikinis on the beach or to identify other women in our friend's photos. He would then search for these women (who weren't FB friends) to find out if he could see any of their photos on FB. If he couldn't tell or if it looked promising, he would send them friend requests. And a lot of women would friend him ( under just his name in the past & presently with our joint account) just because they had mutual friends and didn't know either of us. This one hurt! It screams "I am searching for my next AP." And I wonder if our joint account didn't gain him more friends because it seemed safer to friend the couple than the individual male.
We talked about it specifically; it makes me very uneasy to consider R. It wasn't helpful for him to agree it should make me uneasy and made him uneasy too. That's because it was pointed out to him this week (by church member) that it was because of his lack of boundaries that he became "friends" with AP which opened the door to all the rest. He explained since he didn't have any boundaries, he didn't even see how many boundaries were crossed leading up to the actual A until it was too late, not until after Dday and a few not until just this week.
He is also reading Not Just Friends which he has pretty much had from the library since shortly after Dday (um, pretty sure he will just be buying it at this point). I tried to make reading that a requirement of R and MC thought I was being too harsh on WH with all my demands. I see I have been holding resentment that he has not read it all this time. It is now a requirement of me considering R along with several other things which we both discussed in detail.
At this point, I am holding onto my values, but not losing sight of common sense. I have survived thus far and will continue to do so. I have put myself back together through far worse than this. If our M fails, I plan to be confident I put in the work necessary to save it. As you said, less "what ifs."
I pray daily that WH finds HIS path regardless of whether we walk it together as one or not. I do love him and he will always be a part of my life (we do have two children together). I am stuggling with this thought...it feels like I have a "but" coming. Instead it just hangs here
I take it that leaves me in limbo for now, again waiting to see evidence of actions worthy of making a decision.
Leaves me in limbo for now. We will see how much he wants to change...
Gotmegood--I see we are feeling much the same way. It is very hard to try to believe anything they say after you've heard it all before. That's where I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah, It'll never happen again. Well, I've heard that before & here we are. So, who becomes the bigger fool: Him for doing it again or me for letting him get away with?
I have the gray area here: I didn't expressly tell him what I considered porn. I think a technicality, but none the less, men in general don't read between the lines well as RomanticInnocence states. As with BlakeSteele, our communication problems contributed to our initial marital issues and apparently require more work. If he is willing to put forth the effort, so I am, but I cannot be warden/parole officer long term. That is not my idea of a marriage.
