SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

A man is going to be a man.

This doesn't give men very much credit.

I am opposed to porn, but am biased bc for fWH it was the entry drug.

I'm sure it doesn't constitute that for everyone, but why even take the chance? Why even bother with it? We have had many debates on here as to whether it is "bad", but my argument would be, how is it "good"? What is so great about it that makes it worth overlooking the questionable aspects? It seems like if there was ANY possibility that it could have ANY negative impact, then it would be wise just to avoid it.

And in any case, this surpassed that with the online dating site. Can't see how that could be construed as ok in any possible way.

Porn as in mags and video has never been an issue for me personally. Webcams, chatting, or dating sites are a big no no not okay for a married man! I would personally be furious and I consider it a form of cheating.

Hmmmm...after reading other replies the progression thing makes complete sense. I often wonder if my WS wasn't addicted to porn. He started out on youporn which didn't really bother me. He'd delete the history because the kids would get on my computer too. That was HIS explanation. Later he moved to Facebook and searched pages like "older women dating younger men", "cougars", and "milfs". All three were hookup pages but he claims he only looked at pictures. May be the truth, I never found evidence it wasn't. However he would do this everyday for hours at WORK. He later began sexting a coworker who lo and behold was older! It took months for him to admit to me he was into older women even after I uncovered all that. He has since sworn off porn altogether, his choice completely. A positive step I hope. After all this it does change my perspective on how harmful just porn may be.

We know that women hump everything in the house that isn't nailed down when we are away. You hump the corners of tables for goodness sake.

Maybe YOUR woman does, or maybe that's the porn watching talking. I know I don't behave in such a manner; quite frankly, that's just gross. Pretty sure most other women don't either. You might want to refrain from making sweeping generalizations.

I think we're each on our own journey with this topic. But one of my deepest regrets is that I didn't do something more proactive while my WH was deep in his porn use. I should have kicked him out and divorced him.

It started with porn. After he retired, he began spending most of each day and night with porn. He would go to bed in the morning, not dress and when I would come home from work he was still on the computer in his pajamas. He was also going to strip clubs secretly. I tried to explain how damaging the porn was to our M and my self-esteem but he wouldn't listen; just get angry, rage, and accuse me of being "controlling." I just wanted a functioning M and sex life and I didn't have either. After Dday, it was revealed that he was masturbating to the porn with cialis. No wonder our sex life was horrible and I felt used on the rare occasions he wanted sex. In retrospect all of this was incremental over many years and I guess I developed a lot of coping mechanisms to sublimate the pain.

I think the porn helped him decide he wanted a young woman and that I wasn't desirable. After years of this, he went to a "dating" site and the A started. The AP made herself available so he now had "living porn". (He actually didn't look at porn during the A.)

Since Dday, he hasn't looked once at porn. Our sex life is mutually gratifying and our new M is wonderful. It's sickening that it took such destruction to cause him to change his behavior. I'm still on the fence about the M because he hasn't been willing to seek help with the reality of his choices. I can say that I will leave if these behaviors occur again.

Every Mans Battle.

I mentioned this book before in this post, and mentioned it in other posts as well.

The title of the book is very appropriate.

"Men will be men". I hear this and it makes me cringe.

It makes me cringe because I HAVE SAID THIS! I see the truth that men are visual creatures....we are attracted visually to the body of a woman. I personally used this as justification to use porn and observe other women in ways that are not respectful. I was not a "construction worker" type...didn't whistle or cat-call...but I did NOT "bounce my eyes".

I have been to restaurants that captilize on this weakness by having waitress's dress very provactively, have been to strip clubs too....some as part of professional conference evening activities. See how prevailent it is in our society?

I think NOW the better phrase would be

"Boys will be Boys". We are called to be men...to mature past the boy stage.... Real men fight this battle....boys avoid it.

I am shocked, and humbled, on how immature I was-am.

I am 42 years old, have 2 terrific daughters, a beautiful wife, fought western wild fires, currently oversee a $1.5 million dollar budget, am debt free......so how could I have been so blind for so long...DECADES??!?!?

I, sadly, can answer that question myself. It is the same blindness that led my M on the path it was on.

I, like my wife and many posters to this post, did not recognize the problems as such....I thought using porn was "normal", I thought the "okay" feeling I had within my M was "normal". It wasn't even that I justified my actions...no need to, since no "problem" existed. Even nude pictures of other women are NOT appropriate (has been some discussion that some porn is okay...but the really kinky stuff is NOT) for men to possess.

Emotions are indicators...when we use them as if they were "dictators" we, many times, choose wrongly. When I checked up what I desired to do...thinking I was doing a healthy process...I looked to the world around me.

With regards to porn...emotionally I liked to view it, my Dad uses it, my brothers use it, my wife viewed it in high school and viewed it with me, her Dad uses it, etc. etc..

So how could something so common be anything but normal and healthy?

God help me for the damage my poor choices have done.

[This message edited by blakesteele at 10:15 AM, November 21st (Thursday)]

@Leopoled...you have made your love of porn quite clear. This isn't the first time you have come onto a thread filled with BS's who clearly have a WS who has a problem with porn..and minimized their feelings. Why? Do you not bother to read the posts before you respond? is it just an instinct to defend the use of porn? Are you not reading that these BW's have been rejected time after time because their WH prefers jacking it to porn? Or that their WH started out with porn and it progressed to a real live whore?

You're being completely insensitive. You love porn. GREAT! Enjoy it all you want. If your wife has no problem with it,then fine,have at it. Not all men can tolerate porn in a responsible way. For SOME men they become addicted,wanting more and more.

Also, you view on women and their sexuality is way off. Sorry, but women don't hump tables. Or the washing machine. Or the arm of the couch. Women in porn? Maybe that's what they like. But real women? LOL...no. I consider myself to be very adventurous and a very sexual person...it has never even occured to me to hump the table. If you think women behave like this..well...ok.

Porn doesn't affect a person's view about the opposite sex or sexual behavior?

..@ leopoldB..

..please don't include me in your category of 'men'.

..simply gross and offensive!!!!!!

smy

[This message edited by somanyyears at 1:54 PM, November 21st (Thursday)]

What smy said was reassuring.

I keep hoping that most men out there feel that way.

[This message edited by Laura28 at 11:22 PM, November 21st (Thursday)]

Leopoldb --- I think you accidentally logged on and posted to to the wrong site--that was intended for your other "favorite" site, right?

I think this is NOT a porn issue for your H. If that were the case things might be a lot easier for you. Unfortunately, I think it is more serious than that. He is definitely looking for escapades outside the marriage. No amount of your discussing this with him will make him change his mind. As you can see he is already in the mindset he is

Going to do this. That is not to say you can't do something. If it were me, I would do an early 180 to snap him out if this before something happens. That your marriage will not include any

of these types of behaviors not now and not ever. He's on a train that has to be shut down once and for all.

It's very troubling that your H is looking into the dating sites. I'm confused that you say he created a profile which included discreet sex yet he didn't activate it. I don't know how he was able to get that far into the process without actually registering.

Myself, like many others on this site, have WS's who used those sites for their hookups. It's diving headfirst into the slimy cesspool that's on the internet.

You have every right to be concerned. I do hope that you caught it before it progressed to physical contact.

i discovered my husband's secret email account account. in it, i found that he too was into porn, and was a member of those dating sites. i know people will say it is no big deal. but it is. i later discovered that he was actually having an affair with one of the women he met on-line. she had a boyfriend so it worked out perfectly for them. i caught them when i went in his phone and saw a dirty sext message he sent to her at 4am. he minimized the a...said it was "just sexting." turns out it was a full blown affair with a woman 15 years older than us.

so, no....i think it iS cheating...and will eventually lead to physical contact.

i told my h that cheating is defined by me as not being able to do or say it in front of me. if he crosses that line again, he is gone.

that is my boundary. i will not be with a man who is into the on-line crap. btdt.

and it is a bunch of BS anyway.

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

@Livinginlimbo- Before I confronted him, I wanted to make sure that I had hard evidence. I signed onto the site myself to see exactly what it was, and found out that you were required to enter a screen name, a birthdate (he actually used his real birthdate) some other random info, and lastly why you were registering. To chat, for a relationship, discreet affair, etc.

His choice was discreet affair. When I finished creating my phoney profile, it asked for me to click to send it to my email so that I could activate the account. As soon as I sent it to my email and opened the link, the messages immediately began. Before I had them blocked, I must have gotten twenty emails from girls eagerly offering their "services".

When I confronted him, I demanded to see his inbox and junk mailbox, because they offered to send the emails to either. They were both clean. I also saw that he had opened the initial email, yet didn't click on the link. I hope that makes sense. Unfortunately, I'm not a computer whiz so it may sound confusing.

So that is the source of my pain. My h's intent. Because he didn't open that link, I am somewhat relieved. If you could call it that. I've got to get it together...

I like to use the illustration of boiling a frog. Now, if you just go and fling a frog into a pot of boiling water, he'll jump out. However, if you put a frog into a pot of cold water and gradually turn up the heat, you'll cook him alive and he'll never notice the temperature change.

He's warming up to the idea of a physical connection. And he's getting closer.

When I first came to this site three years ago I saw this:

"If you wouldn't do it in front of your spouse, significant other, it's cheating."

Period.

[This message edited by EasyDoesIt at 1:44 PM, November 30th (Saturday)]

We know that women hump everything in the house that isn't nailed down when we are away. You hump the corners of tables for goodness sake. Men do not have a problem with our partners sitting on top of the dryer while doing a large load of towels.

Excuse me????? What the Fuck? Leo, that post was incredibly offensive and unproductive.

I agree that porn could be a progression to a physical affair, in the same way marijuana could be a progression to class A drugs. It depends on the person and what need they need to fill. So not everyone is on the slippery path if they choose to look at porn.

I think the more sinister element is the secrecy, if they are doing it in secret there is an issue. Either they know their SO doesn't like it but they do and so they think they have to keep it a secret rather than open up a dialogue and say "I know you don't like it but I'm really curious, can we talk about it?"

If it turns into an addiction, and addicts are secretive - shame and all that, then the person needs to address the issue. I guess its like every other M issue where one person is broken and it affects the relationship. The risk is the relationship could break down.

Serene, so if he didn't click on the link you think he hasn't activated the account and so hasn't got the emails? This isn't porn surfing - he was looking for a discreet affair - that was his intention. He may have changed his mind but he wanted it at a point in time. It would be minimising it to say it was just porn surfing.

You may have caught this early - which is good, so needs addressing.

Serene, he may not have clicked on that link.

Does it matter?

I mean, did he come to you and say, "We need to talk. I caught myself contemplating using a no-strings-attached adult sex site, and I need help so that I don't damage our marriage further by my extracurricular interests and neglect of the relationship?"

No. I didn't think so.

He's clandestinely escalating. If he has that one profile, there is a very good chance he's got others.

By the time I found out about my husband's "online" activities, they had been taken to real life.

But I was convinced---ALLOWED myself to be convinced--that "it was nothing."

It's not nothing. And not choosing to act is, in fact, making a choice NOT to act.

And that's okay. If you don't want to confront it now, it really is fine. Just know that it will not go away and is very likely to escalate.

PORN KILLS LOVE. Period.

I think it is fine for LeopoldB to state his opinions. Honestly, I do. I do not believe it is only helpful to have others agree with us. It's good to hear the other side - that is true communication.

For me, I have always hated porn. It's disgusting and dirty and yucky and messy and so much bodily fluids - ugggh. How can men love watching all that bodily fluid shit stuff? I mean really? Vomit anyone? My husband loved porn - was his very very best friend. And after all, it's so much easier to please ones self daily or 2 X daily with porn. And why do you need your wife when there is porn. Men who truly love their porn truly do not need their wives. Except to do the laundry. Like Leopold says - he likes clean towels..better to wipe all the gross bodily fluids away, you know?

Porn kills love.

The first time I read (and only time) 1984 I was a freshman in university and that was a long time ago. And there it was - 1984 I saw the day coming where porn would be everywhere and here it is today - 2013. It's disgusting and dehumanizing and men using women in humiliating ways. That is what porn is. It's all about humiliating women. How can anyone not see that in all the porn. I have seen so much since my d day, trying to understand why my husband was so in love with it. It's so humiliating to women. But he loves naked women. So it was porn, strip joints, peep shows and then finally prostitutes. 1984. Porn kills love.

My poor child. I will teach her to take care of herself and to never rely upon a man - ever. The men today and in her day are not worthy. Biologically, men cannot handle all this porn everywhere and strip joints and easy pickings of cheap sex. Biologically they are still in cave man genes where there is no porn and they had to hunt to survive just for a couple of decades. Now, with the same genes, they have TV with porn, and computer with porn and naked women at a phone call away or a massage away. Men were never meant to have all this. Their brains are not wired for all this. So porn kills love. It will only get worse and worse and worse. I will teach my girl to take care of herself, make money, have children from a sperm bank and never to take more of a chance on a man than she can easily give up. I hope she has lots of children from tubes. I will try to be there for her. I'm old, but I'm very healthy, thank you God.

Porn kills love.

No porn in a marriage helps a marriage. It only hurts it. Or destroys it.

But hey, as Leopold says, we women hump couches. Man, no wonder his wife has to hump couches - he's always taking care of his tuber while watching gross out women/men have sex in all positions for 20 minutes and then having to clean up. Uggh. Gross. See porn shows men that women are just sex objects and that they can have sex with as many women as possible (my H said that also) and for me, porn shows me men are just gross. SEE, PORN KILLS LOVE.