SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Karen:

I'll set aside my own failings in this area, and any moral standards that you two share (and I know this is probably impossible), it seems to me that the issue is much more volatile in a post adultery relationship. That is, it seems to me that even if he sees no harm in this, the fact that he is doing something harmful to your peace of mind is harmful in itself. It's self indulgent at the very least. It seems to me that a remorseful ws must go beyond whatever his own standards happen to be.

It also seems to me that the porn in this case, is a thinly disguised substitute for the cheating that already took place. Some seem to be saying that it may be acceptable if both spouses are amenable to it, and it is not hidden. In this case, it seems that a true about face has not been attained, and the message is "if I can't have someone else, I'll just fantasize that I can." I hardly see that as healthy or productive from any perspective. And I can tell you this: I'd give anything today if I had never failed in this.

Porn may not be a problem for a lot of people. But if it is hurting your spouse..it's a problem. If you're choosing porn over sex with your spouse...it's a problem. If you hid it,sneak it,for any reason,it's a problem. It can destroy intimacy. It gives men..and women..false expectations when it comes to real sex with a real person.

Karen,if you are not ok with porn,then that is ok. You don't have to accept it in your marriage..tell him the porn goes,or he does. He can either value you more than the whores on the screen,or GTFO.

[This message edited by confused615 at 9:02 AM, July 24th (Wednesday)]

My situation is this: I believe pornography is repulsive - I use that word because I can't think of a stronger one. That is my belief - not saying it needs to be anyone else's.

My WH looked at porn during the time surrounding his ONS. I cannot say definitively that the porn was a gateway - or if it was a result. He won't talk about it.

I have a feeling that my husband, too, believes that porn is not healthy. I think that is why he is sooo embarassed about having done it.

If your partner thinks it is bad, or sneaks to do it, that certainly damages the trust and connection in the relationship - in my opinion.

I also have to say that, even thought I feel about it the way I do, it would not cause me to leave if I find out he has looked at it again. He does know, however, that I will not have it in my home, or be any part of it whatsoever.

We all have to determine and enforce our boundaries - based on calm decisions and strong beliefs.

JMHO

[This message edited by WhatsRight at 12:35 PM, July 24th (Wednesday)]

Wow! I am so impressed and appreciative of all the responses. I know I need to confront him (again), but the other part of me doesn't want to let on how I know he reads all this porn. Isn't it sad after 10 years, I still have to check up on him?

I don't think porn is good for any marriage. When you catch your spouse watching porn it makes you feel unwanted.

Karen,

I have been married to my spouse for 23 years. I finally caught him releasing himself while watch porn. I was furious and he told me that he was sorry. I forgave him and just recently. I caught him again and threaten a divorce. I feel as though he might as well cheating. I can tell he watch porn because of his action during our most intimate time. I either stop or just remember the intimate times with my ex had which was more romantic. Is that bad to do?

[This message edited by loveejazzmin at 10:49 PM, July 24th (Wednesday)]

I was very naive to the.porn issue. We watched it together sometimes when we were dating and it was kind of a lil

boost sometimes for both of us. However, he watches alone now, its a secret thing. I used to think porn made guys horny...well now he would rather look at porn than have sex. I take it very personally. Seriously you have someone next to you that you have cut off sexually but you look at porn. The more I read up on it I understand this is what happens...intimacy leaves your body. I hate it now and when I see what he looks at, I feel sorry for those stupid little wanna be actresses and wonder what the hell happened in their life to make them do that.Then I look at my ws and want to kick him in the balls.

This was something WH confessed to after DDay. He travels extensively for work and always did it on the road, so I had no idea. Once I found out I did some research and what I discovered was not good. I was never a fan of the stuff, but didn't know it could be that destructive.

I would encourage you to look into this and then decide what you think. The website homewrecked mentioned is a good one.

Please don't feel you have to apologize for having your feelings or your boundaries about porn.

You know what's normal about porn? That everyone has differing experiences and feelings about it.

The reason why it's tricky is because it involves sexuality, and sexuality is one of those things when you're in a relationship where it's hard to tell where it's personal/individual and where it's shared.

For some people, maybe porn is on the personal side, which is why they don't share it with their partners. For me, porn crosses the line and impacts the shared part of our sexuality. I don't like that my husband is watching another woman have sex. I'd hoped that I would be the only woman he gets to see having sex from now on. Instead he's looking at some other girl's body and imagining what he'd like to do with her and getting a really good demonstration of what it would be like. I'll say it, criticism or not: I'm jealous.

Maybe in his mind it's harmless. When I found out a few years ago, he said all guys do it, and he said at least he's not sleeping with someone else. So what was he getting out of it? Simple enjoyment. Of course he enjoyed it. He's looking at a hot girl having sex, he gets to see what the inside of her special place looks like. Duh, he's enjoying it.

Sex is normal. Masturbation is normal. Fantasies are normal. Porn is ...common. Doesn't mean it's OK for everyone. Follow your heart.

[This message edited by silverhopes at 9:08 PM, July 26th (Friday)]

This is the craziest thing ever!!!!! After not having gotten on here for a few weeks, tonight I logged back in hoping to find some answers/support about porn use by a WS. I got CHILLS when I almost immediately came across this thread.

And now, after reading everyone's posts, I sit here struggling to hold back tears.

Although it's been almost a year since the last d-day, some recent things have happened that have majorly triggered me.

1. He started drinking again. 2. I found out he had told an old friend how he wished he'd dumped me for her blah blah blah. 3. He won't stop looking at porn.

In fact, he's been doing it after I go to bed for the past week. We fought about it (again) tonight. As I type this, I'm downstairs in the basement guest room because I know he's gonna do it again despite my tears and pleas. He told me that he felt like I was trying to control him and that all I've been doing lately is nagging him and making him feel like crap. What the FRICK????? I just had some new bombshells dropped on me, I'm upset, I'm certainly gonna tell him so, and he's blaming ME for making HIM feel bad??????

I am 24 weeks pregnant with our 5th child and have never felt more hopeless about true reconciliation than I do now.

He asks how I can expect him to quit cold turkey since it's something he's been doing since he was 10 years old. Says its a great way for him to relieve stress and it actually helps PREVENT him from cheating on me.

I am beyond frustrated and disgusted.

The only reason many women don't like it is because it makes them feel insecure. But almost all men do it and you can't really get them to stop.

And it's not cheating- that's absolutely ridiculous.

The first time I.noticed it I wasn't too

concerned, I assumed most men do occasionally. After reading some of the previous post it just hit me. My ws is a forber addict..23yrs sober but since rehab I've watched him become "addicted or whatever you want to csll it to several things. He can't do anything in moderation. When he worked out, it was for hours at a time, even when he started going to church, it was classes, bible study, Sunday morn church, teaching kids...not that there's anything wrong with that but he always jumps in with both feet and its inttense. So the porn got more vulgar and disturbing and now he's going on hook up sites.. its escalated ten fold. I really hate it. Looking at vaginas all fn say but can't have sex with his wife. At this point I am not interested but it still hurts.

ok..guiltyone..if it makes us feel insecure and it hurts us..then what? Our problem..not his?

If it's hurting your wife..would you stop?

The first time I walked in on H "enjoying himself" 15 years ago, while watching porn on his PC in the kitchen in the dark, I was surprised and hurt, but I convinced myself that it was normal and that he just had a weak moment. I did not scold him, but tried to be a modern woman and helped him finish. (Sorry if TMI) I had no idea he looked at it regularly.

Years later, we looked at a movie together while at a hotel, just to see what it was like. Afterwards I told him that I didn't want to do it again. Being with him was enough, and he agreed.

Years later he had an A, then two years after that I find he is looking at porn instead of coming to a family outing.

He admitted to me that he had struggled with porn ever since he got his first computer. He had tried to quit several times, and he always went back to it. He hated himself for being "weak" and not being able to stay away from it.

He is now off of it for good (so we both hope.) Our sex life is better, though not in frequency, due to our schedules, children being around, etc. but he seems much happier, and so am I.

His IC told him this week that porn use and infidelity are due to a low self esteem and a need for external validation. Horray!! He now wants to find out more about his FOO issues that have led him to have a low self esteem.

Many of the "actors" on porn are victims, diseased, on drugs, and exploited. Knowing that, who would want to contribute to that industry?

Porn is addictive, it is cheating, and I hate it.

Just my opinion...I know.

Karen - you are "feeding the disease" by spying on him and not being honest about what you know. Figure out a way you can sit down and talk about this in a productive way. Therapist? Clergy? You have to have your ducks in a row...it's not going to be fun!!!

Post-A, I will not tolerate porn. Completely disrespectful to me, my relationship, him, and every single person in the porn movie. I don't believe in it, it has been disruptive and destructive to the relationship, and it is not something I am okay with.

I don't care what other wives "allow" or are okay with. It is not something that is okay with me, the end.

I'm anti-pornography. Realistically--as the mother of two sons (one who has masturbated as his major source of comfort since he was a toddler)--I know that masturbation is normal. Pornography is a line-crosser, though. And I DO believe it's a "gateway" to sex addiction.

Unfortunately, I speak as the BW of a man who is a SA. A week after our wedding, while moving into our apartment, I found his last phone bill. It was $800 worth of calls for phone sex. I was hurt but naive. Like someone else on here, I tried to be modern and non-prudish. I believed it was because we weren't together yet and he had needs that had to be fulfilled. I paid the bills and never saw another bill like that, so it seemed a non-issue.

Within our first year of marriage, though, he got a letter from a friend about his old GF getting married. He tried to hide it but I could tell he was upset. That night, he left our bed (which woke me up). When he didn't come back, I got up and found him pleasuring himself to the snowy porn available on our TV. I cried. We were newlyweds; he had a beautiful, loving, available wife in his bed; and he chose that method of escape.

Over the years, I'd catch him looking at photos (usually only that) on the computer. I was crushed. He was in the military; he was away from me for 6 months at a time; he was surrounded by porn in that culture. But I didn't want it tainting our home.

About 7 years ago, he finally went to therapy (for adoption/self-esteem issues/anger issues) and found out he was a SA and a rage addict. For 6 months, we abstained sexually, so that he could dry out. He confessed to me that even when I thought "we" were making love, he was really just--crude, hurtful truth but his words--masturbating inside of me.

So, while he was healing, I was falling apart. I couldn't get past the fact that he'd intentionally hurt my feelings or make me angry so that he could have an excuse to act out. Which made him feel like a jerk. Which started the whole cycle (with many more parts than that) again.

If he was ever sharp or intolerant with the kids that day, I felt like being intimate would be wrong because he'd be acting out with me. I stopped trusting him to know the difference. I didn't want him to look at my body naked--the one that had borne (two c-sections) his four children. I didn't want to be intimate with the lights on. I felt insecure and inferior--although, realistically, I've aged well.

Against this background, he met a young woman in his own field, with a similar mathematical/scientific background, who was in a male-dominated world, who was aggressive, who was in a practically sexless marriage (although 2 children), who'd already had one A. They began texting (he'd always had boundary issues with women, was a compulsive flirter--but in front of me, so I thought it was harmless--and had been asked by me to discontinue several friendships that had become EAs although not called that then), she upped the ante to sexual innuendo, and he was ripe for the fall.

She was his soulmate. She completed him. She accepted his SA and loved him anyway. Until she dropped him (don't know why, exactly).

When that happened, his fantasy world was shattered and he acted out, hooked up with a prostitute locally, then with 2 escorts while on a business trip.

I found the e-mails describing what he wanted with the prostitute (the subject line? "lessons") and when the rendezvous was happening (the day before I found them), then watched $100s vanish from our account while he'd be away.

All of this? Because he has not found acceptable or positive ways to comfort himself aside from porn/sex. It all started with normal, teenage self-pleasuring, progressed through lingerie/swimsuit model photos in high school, phone sex in college, porn magazines in the military, videos while on business trips, computer/TV porn at home, then led to an affair and then even more illicit sex.

So, IMHO, masturbation is "normal," but pornography is toxic. No matter the reason, the porn use, to me, would be a red flag.

I'm so sorry that another woman has to go through the sort of nightmare I have. I wish you well whatever happens.

OW shared porn with WS while I was in ICU and OW was my nurse years before the A. Did my WS send her porn? I have no doubt....I did not know it then but did know he shared pics with guys friends.

When D-day occured one of our sons saw the sheer number of porn his father was sharing with many guy friends and was shocked. It had stopped with OW but Ws had kept many she had sent him.

WS said he was stopping with porn but did not...said he never thought about when he forwarded stuff on. It was a deal breaker to me then as he had made the decision to stop and did not. He no longer forwarded any but still got it until about 6 months from D day his friends were calling concerned he was not sending them any porn. He wrote a very sincere email to all and did not say not to send any more porn, but that he was focusing his life on his marriage, his wife and his kids. It has all stopped.

Did porn lead to the A? Don't know, but think it was part of the breaking down of appropriate boundaries between friends of the opposite sex. OW would send my WS porn her spouse sent her....and I kept the evidence...

"ok..guiltyone..if it makes us feel insecure and it hurts us..then what? Our problem..not his?

If it's hurting your wife..would you stop?"

If it is disruptive to a relationship, then it can be harmful. But that's still not cheating.

If it was cheating, then the majority of men in this country are cheating.

Anything doen to excess can be a detriment to a relationship-watching too much sports and ignoring your significant other, eating tyoo many twinkies, etc. That doesn't mean it's cheating.

Well, the concept of "cant get them to stop" is pretty much the foundation of addiction, guiltyone.

Yeah a lot of guys watch porn but that doesn't mean not watching it is unreasonable or that a happy medium can't be reached. If we want to look at the historical data, almost all men pick up weapons and smash each other with more regularity than rubbing one out to porn, but talking out feelings has a certain social advantage over sawing some asshole in half with a bronze plate because he's from the next city state over and you want his corn field.