Is there a difference between an Emotional Affair and Using Porn?
In my last post I started to address the issue of cheating on your spouse versus using pornography. As I learned of alleged cheating of my wife, I recalled the time when I was viewing pornography. She was hurt when she learned of this as I was of her. Can the two be reasonably compared as one in the same? I think we need to take a look at each one specifically.
Let’s first analyze the viewing of pornography. Is viewing pornography cheating? The person who is engaged in watching pornography will usually sneak away, view the material, and then sexually gratify himself.
The man in this example knows his wife would not approve of this behavior, so he finds a window of opportunity to be alone. He will always destroy the evidence of his deed by hiding the materials and history. The part where he sexually gratifies himself while looking at another woman would not sit well with his wife either.
Is this cheating? In the man’s eyes he is only using this material to relieve tension or to escape the daily grind. He still loves his wife and family and he is not actually involved with anyone else. To the wife, this man does not find her attractive enough and does not long for her. She is hurt that he seeks the intimacy of sex with strange women even if they are only in his make believe world and the intimacy is a lie. He thinks this is normal behavior for a man, but she would feel betrayed and hurt if she found out.
Emotional cheating is when one spouse seeks out the confidence and close friendship of someone of the opposite sex. This friendship may be known by the spouse, but they do not know the extent of the relationship. Most of the time however, the spouse does not even know of this relationship.
The example of an emotional affair involves a woman who recently found an old friend on Facebook. At first the woman and this man exchange a few messages over Facebook to catch up on life. They then exchange email addresses and phone numbers and wind up talking to each other more frequently. The woman likes this guy because he listens to her, pays her compliments and is generally upbeat. They both wind up sharing personal struggles about their marriages and meet for coffee; all the while their spouses do not know about the relationship.
In the wife’s eyes, this guy is a good friend who provides an escape from the reality of life. He doesn’t remind her of the bills to pay or housework to be done. She really enjoys talking and spending time with him. She still loves her husband, but finds a piece of her heart going out to the other guy. The husband of this wife would not like the fact that his wife is covertly talking and meeting up with this other man. His wife is not having sex with the other guy, but she is emotionally attached and sharing personal things that should only be reserved for her husband.
In both examples I try to show you the point of view from each person in the marriage. We could argue the specifics on whether each situation is technically cheating. She didn’t actually sleep with the other guy or he didn’t have sex with a real person, but does that matter if the spouse feels betrayed? In my opinion, No.
I could argue all the day long that my viewing of pornography was not physical with anyone real. Those women only helped me to achieve the end result which was sexual gratification. Would that matter to my wife who feels hurt, betrayed and unattractive? No. I hurt her with my actions whether or not they were technically cheating and she feels cheated on.
How about the husband who learns of his wife’s sneaking around with this friend of the opposite sex? She could argue up and down that he is only a friend, they never had sex, and the only reason she kept it from him was because she didn’t want him to be jealous over a friendship. Do these arguments matter to the husband who feels hurt, betrayed and ineffective at meeting his wife’s needs? No. She hurt him with her actions and even though she did not technically cheat on him he feels cheated on.
Now am I saying that whether or not this is classified as cheating all depends on the feelings and reactions of the offended spouse? We will explore that in our next post.
In the meantime, please feel free to leave your comments below. I will respond personally to any questions or opinions you have on the matter. I want to know your thoughts!!
My husband was addicted to porn through the first 3 years of our marriage and when he finally confided in me, I had no idea. I was pretty shocked because he is not overly sexual or grabby and I just couldn’t picture it. Our relationship is so bogged down by our 3 kids under 5, sports, work (his, and our shared business) and home life. It’s hard to connect in ways we would like and our libidos don’t match up. He has said that it is hard for him to be aroused because we’re fighting, or not spending time or I’m getting frustrated with kids. Fast forward to year 5 and he’s taken a new job (self-employed up until now and currently). At this workplace is a very attractive, outgoing, smart and interesting woman who he works with. I felt a tinge of jealousy when she sent him a friend request on facebook but let that go. They recently went on a work trip with a few other people overnight. He carpooled with her, with her allowing him to drive her car and they all went out for diner. He didn’t call in for bedtime which was frustrating but also odd to me as the group is a professional group and setting. When I called him he said he was sorry, just got back to the hotel after dinner and had drinks and was heading to the pool. When he got home he talked about everyone at the event except the girl in question. He barely greeted me and we had no personal interactions all weekend. On Sunday we had family over and he went upstairs unannounced for an hour including a 15 minute shower at the end of it. When he came down he asked when everyone had left and I sniped back, “An hour ago, because you’ve been upstairs for more than an hour” and he got really defensive.
He says he’s just friends with her, and he likes it because he doesn’t have friends. I recently found out that they eat lunch together sometimes and they obviously talk about stuff outside of their work because he related a story about her husband’s family issues. I feel like their friendship is very secretive. Part of me also logically knows that opposite-sex friendships especially at work are fine I just feel like he’s purposefully omitting the details of their relationship. I asked him about it and shared my concerns and he acknowledged my feelings but then brushed them off as crazy and in the “don’t I get to have friends?” kind of way. He also told me he also feels guilty about enjoying spending time with her. I apologize for the disjointed back story and abundance of … assumptions. My question is, If someone was addicted to porn would they be able to gauge a healthy friendship vs one that crosses lines? Am I out of line for feeling hurt? They are colleagues so how do I reconcile my feelings? My husband says he cares but also wonders when I’m going to get over it (it’s been one day) but hasn’t really given me anything to quell the fears. He says I’m being irrational for wanting to know what they talk about and time they spend together. I do not know the details of the overnight trip like if he had drinks with everyone, or ppl petered off and it was just them by the end of the night or if he went to the pool alone, or the gym alone in the morning. I know that they carpooled for 4 hours together, shared meals and a really terrible training session together but through all his accounts she wasn’t there. I don’t think it’s a physical thing but I could see it eventually going there.
Thanks in advance for your input.
I am sure he knows what crosses the line and what doesn’t. He has not mentioned her because he knows you might be jealous or think that something is up between them. Maybe up to this point he found a sympathetic ear and someone who will listen to him and make him feel good… They may be engaged in am emotional affair http://www.abattleplan.com/2011/01/emotional-affair-cheating-pornography/ which in the future could lead to a physical affair. I don’t think you are out of line thinking this way,but how are you approaching the situation with him? Is your relationship with him solid? Do you have an open an honest communication with him?
This is so what I’m going thru but I feel so trapped .He turned to a penis pump so he don’t even have to use his hand and our sex use to be amazing the bam we watched porn then he got sucked in 5 yrs marriage and now he don’t even kiss me all I can do is cry. He said that’s why he does it but it was defiantly the egg before the chicken. No use..
sounds like he’s got erectile dysfunction cause he only is used to getting off “pixels” . He needs therapy fast. You may too to know how to deal with and help him as well as helping yourself to be strong and not feel bad about yourself. I read that a woman can look as good as those porn ho’s and the guy won’t get off his girl anymore, even if she “goes the extra mile” because his brain now is only super stimulated by these video pixels. I also read that some of these guys eventually end up all alone in their porn world….sad really
I prefer porn than my wife! My wife does nothing for me in the sex department. She wants one way only, and that is so boring. I’ve talked to her and bought her books, she understands what I’m saying but refuses to change. I decided that a good porn is way better than she is.
Adam, what would she say if you said that directly to her? I assume you are just thinking this and not voicing the alternative. Find out why she is hesitant about trying other things. She may be scared or suffered abuse when she was younger.
we recommend haivng your Accountability Partner set up your iPhone to use Apple’s “Restrictions” feature. This is where you can lock down Safari and YouTube. Unfortunately, this is one of the great limitations Apple places on app developers, but for those who both want an iPhone and the kind of accountability we provide, these are the hoops they need to jump through. Of course, it would be great if we had access to more of the operating system of the phone itself, but until Apple opens the door, we wanted to give our subscribers something that would be a help to them on their iPhones.
I have been married 29 yrs. My husband has been connected to porn since he was a young, and through his college years. Midway in our marriage he started to act on his impulses and had 2 different affairs. I would like to say this with regards to infidelity and porn….they may deal with real and fantasy but the end result is the same…betrayal. This is exactly how I felt because in both scenarios (porn and infidelity) I never ‘knew’ the women he had sex with in the same way I never will know the multitudes of women he has connected with sexually on the Internet. I felt cheated on in both cases. My heart became untrusting of him, and intimacy had died. Both situations stole from me.
At this point in time, my husband is in ‘recovery’ and we have worked on re-examining this on a consistent basis. It has been very hard. He has relapsed, I in turn start losing hope. It is a day by day, step by step process and as long as you have some support recovery is possible. I want to recommend to women not to make any impulsive decisions but to use wisdom and read all you can, avail yourself to good therapy and support groups. Every time I see my husband making a genuine effort to stay in recovery I know it is worth it. Porn can definitely cause addiction and it profits no one positively. The key is to recognize that ‘porn’ is the substance causing the problem. Your husband or boyfriend may be under the influence of porn but that doesn’t mean he cannot step away from it and get help…it is a choice only he can make. After that the best one can do is support his effort to change…
I caught my husband using porn. My husband and I have been having a hard last three weeks. Well, recently I found he has been searching for porn related stuff online. The works. Teen girl Compilations via youtube, porn vid on Chrome, and multiple personal ads from craigslist. All searched within a week. A “low point and horrible” week for him. He had never had this on his history before. He promised.this never happen before. But I am having a hard time buying that. He swore.time and again.he will never do that again. From a male point of view, that will happen again, won’t it? Should I just distnace myself before getting hurt again? Whats the point?
Maybe he has done this before but never was caught. Given the right circumstances anyone who enjoyed it would do it again. What circumstances surrounded his looking at this? Bored? Lonely? depressed? Lack of sex? Generally there is what I call a perfect storm – all the right conditions that surround a person turning to porn for some release, intimacy, cure for boredom, wanting to feel excited, etc. If you distance yourself from him that seems to me like something that would drive him more towards porn. Since you are his wife, you should be in there working with him to help. Don’t give up when the going gets tough. He needs you.
First off, you are not the problem… unless you are a nagging wife always tearing him down and on his back for everything he does or doesn’t do. Even if you are, you are not totally to blame.
He was either bored, depressed, lonely, looking for excitement, needing sex, etc.
As a route to happiness, keep in mind that porn excites for a little bit, but will bring the person back down later. Sin is pleasurable only for a season.
His promise is probably valid, but that doesn’t mean he can’t break it. It is keep-able yes. He probably fully intends to stay out of porn. Help him do it. Install filters and accountability software on the computers/phones.
See the covenant eyes links on my website. If he is expected to do this on his own he will have an awfully hard time. Don’t leave him in a time of need. it hurts you but trust me, he is not thinking that when he does porn. Only afterwards will he realize it.
Hope this helps.
Ok… so, you have outlined an scenario comparing emotional cheating, to pornography.
Now answer me this. [And this is a real scenario].
Man and Woman meet. Love at 1st site. 1st Date they talk about everything. Likes, Dislikes, deal-breakers. Past relationships etc…
Man mentions use of porn as a normal part of life. Woman does not object.
Over the course of engagement this is mentioned at several points… always by the man, and at no point is this ever considered a deal-breaker by the woman.
Marriage. Wife moves in. Husband warns of the Drawer that contains magazines and DVDs, just so Wife will know it’s there in case she runs into it while putting away laundry, and so he’s certain she knows he’s not hiding anything or sneaking around.
2 weeks after moving in [and mind you… the two of us are still in honeymoon phase, where there is sex all the time, and not really any time or energy for masturbation] Wife decides it all has to go in the Garbage. After reluctance, it’s all trashed.
Then wife decides to [unsafely] unplug Hard Disk Drives while I’m at work, and plug them into hers without asking me… and finds porn on them. I explain that I thought throwing away the magazines and DVDs was because she didn’t want it where she could see it. So she forces me to format the Drives in front of her, and promise to stop any and all porn viewing completely [which is not something she had asked for].
I obliged. Went 3 months… and then she started sending me articles about pornography addiction while I was at work, despite the fact that I was abstaining from it. Just hounding me 24/7 for something I had quit months ago.
Then she starts in with “You know what, it doesn’t even matter that you quit, and it doesn’t matter if you never look at porn again… because deep down, every time you sit at a computer alone, you get an urge to look up porn.”
Then she starts telling me that she doesn’t even care what I do. And I get to the point where I actually do need to look at porn just to escape the reality of her bitching and moaning 24/7. So I slip up, and start looking at it again… and after trying several times… it’s just not satisfying the way it had been because she made such a big deal about it. So eventually I came clean to her about the slip-ups.
This gave her the fuel she needed to emotionally blackmail me into doing pretty much anything she wanted for the next year [sell her old car, and buy a new one on credit… take her on trips to vegas when we had no money… letting her quit her job and become a housewife even though we didn’t have kids, and I had just started a new job, making less than my previous one].
This went on, like I mentioned, for 1 year. I would quit for a few months. There would be silence. She would bring it up… even though it was a dead issue. She would harass me about it even to the point where she would suggest we watch it together as a compromise, then when we did so [at her suggestion… I had quit] she would throw me under the buss and blame me for bringing porn into our sex life.
Eventually we reached a point where I said “Look, not only am I willing to give up porn, again… I will also see if I can find us a marriage counselor… since it looks like this is something that will never go away in your mind, even when I quit looking at it”.
She agree’d to that, and asked to go visit her girlfriend that evening, and I said sure.
Then I found out, that on that evening, she was not with her girlfriend, she was at a bar, with a man, having drinks, and sitting cheek to cheek [this was observed by a friend of mine, and confirmed when I confronted her about it]. This man was someone that she had met on a dating site, several months before we started dating each-other, and she had kept in contact with him the entire time. She even told me before this happened that when we fought, and she would make posts on facebook about our fights, he would send her lewd private messages. I asked her to stop talking to him altogether.
So, like I mentioned. I confronted her. She confirmed she had been out with this man, on that night. We talked it over, and thought it would be a good idea for her to stay with her female friend for a few nights until we both let our nerves settle.
After 2 days she wanted to come back, and I wanted her to come back.
Then she left again, and took a bunch of things with her. Then over the course of 2 weeks, she took more, and more… until none of her stuff was left. Then she told me she wasn’t coming back, and she was going to divorce me, and marry this other guy.
Is she justified in doing this? Just because I liked to look at porn from time to time?
Is her PHYSICALLY cheating on me, and leaving me for another man the same as me going off by myself, looking at some pictures that I KNOW are fake [air brushed, implants, lighting effects, whatever], pictures that I don’t even give a second thought about when I leave the room. Woman that I will never meet, and have no interest in meeting. Women that because I have no real interaction with them [not even chat, phone sex, or live video], cannot give me an STD, or get me pregnant, or talk me into leaving my spouse.
I want to know your honest opinion on this.
You’ve made it clear that you believe Porn viewing is the same as a Woman basically going out on dates with another man behind her husbands back…
So what do you say about it… when confronted with the logical realization that a real, flesh and blood face to face person is more likely to get you drunk, get you in bed, and lure you away from your mate… than some pictures or videos?
I welcome responses from both the author, and the comment section.
Keep in mind… that other than the struggle with porn, I was a model husband. I bent over backwards to make my wife happy. I never once told her to clean the apartment, make dinner, do the laundry, get a job, change her appearance [she complained about her weight all the time… like most women do… my response was always that she was as beautiful as the day I met her, and that I didn’t think she needed to goto the gym unless she enjoyed it]. She did most of these things without me needing to ask her [and I always thanked her], and when she didn’t do them… I would step up, and do them so she could have a break.
I know I sound angry and bitter… towards her, and you, but honestly… I’m here because I do want to know if I should blame myself for what she did… or if what she did can even be compared to what I was doing.
Well, you both have issues that need to be worked out. She is acting badly, perhaps to get back at you. Unfortunately all things that you have stated done by the both of you are acting on love. You both seem to keep hurting each other with the justification that the other did this to me, so I can do that. Somehow you both need to get to counseling to work out how to communicate and love each other instead of a tit for tat.
The hardest thing I tried to come to grips with is that porn is cheating, as much as an affair. The physical aspect is the hardest thing to get around since the difference is real people vs. digital images. If you look at sex beyond the physical aspect, it is really more of a spiritual and emotional act than physical. It is expressed physically, but based upon something much deeper.
Absolutely she is entitled . Why did you need to have the stimulation of other women’s naked bodies anyway? Is she not enough for yoh? If not you had not right marrying her and if , like you say , her bitching ’caused you’ to go to pirn then you had an obligation to get out of the martiagr before going back to getting off to multiple women
Reality is that men offer a lot of Excuses for porn but it is blatantly disrespectful to their wives . If it’s so ok and so not a problem then I sure you would be happy for your daughters or wives to show other men their bits right?
The truth is that men think it’s fine to destroy their wives self esteem by getting off on other women but would die if they found out their wives were Mastebating to big buff hot men
Lots of guys will say ‘ oh I have no problem with my wife watching porn’ of course they don’t !!! Majority of porn is super fit young women with gross fat old men .
Women are waking up and the smart ones make sure that their porn viewing husbands never find out about their toy boys ;p
If it’s good enough for you guys to claim you need your ‘visual needs ‘ fulfilled by twenty year old whores then it’s good enough for us wives to get our emotional needs met by other men too
And believe me …. Smart Women are doing exactly that !!!!!
I think you are asking the wrong questions. You sound more interesting in assigning blame and comparing behavior to decide who is worse. The fact is, you BOTH did damage to your marriage.
I am not saying that your wife is blameless (people should NOT marry with the idea that they will/can change their spouse. It seems your wife thought she could. Sh also, possibly, thought she could handle your porn use. Women are pressured to accept porn as a way of proving how progressive and secure they are. What nonsense!) Anyway, focus on YOUR behavior, not hers. You are the only one who can change how your relationships work.
As far as the kind of husband you are, aside from the porn, understand this: when you discuss your patience, generosity, and great treatment of your wife, in the context of a discussion about your porn use, you sound as the f you are saying that you have earned the right to use porn. I guarantee that’s what she hears (and most women will hear) wh n you do that. You are generous with your wife. Great! You are not demanding with her regarding employment or house work? Awesome!…but don’t think that decent behavior makes your extra-curricular sex life, even if it is with your right hand and women you haven’t’ touched, acceptable.
I am the wife of a porn user. My husband is awesome in every regard other than his porn use and lusting over other women in public. Guess what? He has never and COULD never EARN the right to disrespect me and use me as a masturbatory prop while he thinks of large-breasted barely legal girls when we are having sex. He will stop or he will lose me and be a lonely old man with carpel tunnel!
I’ve been married to my husband for 21 years, and our sex life has always been a little rocky. But over the last year, it is almost nonexistent. He claims that he gets semi erect and it just doesn’t work right, but then I find evidence of him watching porn and masterbating. I constantly wonder what’s wrong with me that he doesn’t want to make love to me. I’m becoming very depressed and very sexually frustrated. I’ve even considered having an affair. Other men still find me attractive, but not the one I truly want. So far, I just can’t bring myself to cheat on him or leave him. I’ve been with him for over half my life, and I do truly love him. He insists that he loves me and still wants to be with me, that it’s not me. That he thinks he should go see a doctor for erectile disfunction, but yet he hasn’t. I’m lonely and hurt and confused. I just don’t know what to do.
Sounds like he is addicted to pornography. His ‘erectile disfunction’ could be a side effect of using the pornography. If you have read my other article on the side effects of pornography it makes sense why he has ED with you. He could be into more deviant or kinky stuff and normal sex doesn’t turn him on as much. I suggest talking with him heart to heart to see if he will tell you exactly how long porn has been a part of his life. Then seek help together and walk with him.
All of this nonsense about Porn causing erectile disfunction has NO basis in reality or medical science.
In reality, the opposite is true.
Once you get beyond the websites that tell you to pop a pill, or use a Penis Pump… sites that are trying to sell you something… and you end up on an actual sex advice, or health advice forum… everyone will tell you the same thing.
The sex organs are basically muscles, like any other part of the body. If you do not exercise them they will atrophy.
So, not allowing someone to have time alone for porn or masturbation or both… is COUNTERPRODUCTIVE.
Any expert on the subject of body building, or sexual health will tell you… if you only spend 5 to 10 minutes once a week masturbating… you are doing it wrong. Masturbating too quickly, or not enough will cause both erectile disfunction, and premature ejaculation. Your muscles, Sexual Response, and Hormone production will atrophy, and get wired wrong.
The best method to improve erections, and stamina, is to masturbate on your own, at least 3 times a week, for at least 30 minutes, if not more. If you feel yourself getting close to climax, stop, Do Kegles [also helps to do Kegles when you are being inactive, like watching TV etc…], calm down for about 90 seconds… then begin again until you have done it for 30 minutes [or longer depending on how long you can go, or how satisfied you feel].
If you do Kegles for 3 minutes, every day… and masturbate using the “Stop-and-Go”method for at least 30 minutes each time, 3 times or more a week… for 1 month… I Guarantee you, the erectile disfunction will start clearing up, you will have a better sex drive… and you will be able to last longer with your spouse.
Typical spousal response: “Practice while we are having sex”.
Reality: It’s a lot harder to Practice under pressure.
And my advice to the spouses… let your partner masturbate… to whatever can keep them aroused for 30 minutes or more [as long as it’s legal, and as long as it’s not Live feeds]. Cast aside your antiquated notions about “Visual Fidelity” and realize that it’s going to improve your sex life, and his.
Your Doctor wants you to buy Viagra, don’t listen to him.
Your Shrink wants you to attend more counseling sessions.
Your Minister wants you to attend church so he can keep you feeling guilty, which keeps you coming back to church and putting money in the collection plate. Do you get where I’m going with this?
The advice above costs nothing, and it will work [unless you’ve got diabetes or some other health problem that causes sexual side effects… in which case… you should get that checked out, but still follow the advice above].
/end rant
Please don’t ‘t listen to this person. Porn destroys marriages. Porn creep leaves men impotent. Porn is not a solution to impotency. It is a cancer and destroyer of of intimacy. Just because you have found someone to tell you that your porn use is helpful, it doesn’t make it true. So sad.
HE IS A PORN ADDICT, SAME THING HAPPENED WITH MY BOYFRIEND OF 18 YEARS, HE COULDN’T STAY HARD NO MATTER WHAT, DESPITE OTHER MEN LITERALLY LUSTING AFTER ME. COME TO FIND OUT WHEN I FOUND TEXTS THAT HE HAD AN EMOTIONAL AFFAIR AS THE WOMAN SAID HE WOULD COME TO HER HOUSE YET, THEY NEVER TOUCHED, (SADLY AFTER SEEING HER ON FACEBOOK, EWWWWW AND SPEAKING WITH HER IT DOES APPEAR THEY WERE FRIENDS). AS HE ADMITTED HE HAD BEEN WATCHING PORN FOR YEARS AND TEXTING TALKING AND VISITING THIS WOMAN FOR OVER 3 YEARS, (THEY MET AT A HORRID JOB). NOW, ALTHOUGH I LOOOOOOOOVE SEX AND ALWAYS HAVE HAD SEX AT NASEAUM WITH MY OTHERS IN A RELATIONSHIP, I DON’T WANT SEX WTIH HIM AT ALL. I TOLD HIM THIS, I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS BUT I WAS NEVER ALL THAT ATTRACTED TO HIM AND HIS SMALL PENIS TO BEGIN WITH. NOW AFTER YEARS OF ASKING HIM WHAT’S WRONG, WHY DON’T YOU WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH ME, AND THE LIES I THINK THIS RELATIONSHIP IS DONE. NO DESIRE LEFT FOR ME DESPITE NOW AFTER STOPPING PORN HE SAYS HE IS READY. OHHHH GREAT, AFTER THE LIES AND FOOLISHNESS YOU CAN KEEP IT AS IT WAS NEVER THAT GREAT TO BEGIN WITH. HAVE TO FIND A WAY TO EXIT THIS GRACIOUSLY ALOT OF TIES YET, NOT GOING TO WORK. I CRAVE SEX AND PLEASING A MAN, JUST NOT WITH HIM
If you area spiritual person, pray. Pray for him to be convicted about what he is doing and pray for peace, for yourself. I am at a crossroads with my husband. I will NOT spend the rest of my life with an unfaithful partner. Why should I? I have value and we entered into a MONOGMOUS partnership when we married. Intimacy cannot survive any other way.
Don’t let depression take hold of you. Go to support groups. Make sure he understands how what he is doing affects you…but don’t nag. It won’t work. If objectifying women and getting his sexual needs met elsewhere has hardened his heart to the point that he can’t be moved by your pain, then nagging won’t help.
Be prepared to act in your own best interests. His addiction will take you to a very dark place if you let it. Don’t let it! Going down with the ship will not help him. I am not saying to walk away, but protect yourself emotionally while he gets help, IF he will get help. He needs an accountability partner and you have every right to check his cookies on the computer for porn sites.
I’ve wasted ten years with a porn addict. I’ve been lied to my face more times than I can count. I’ve heard every excuse and promises to quit. Every time I leave the house, he runs off to his porn hos. He’s so pathetic he even made a list of porn stars but he insisted he didn’t look them up, just wrote down the names. I’m sick of being treated like I’m stupid. I’m sick of his deception and lies; he just gets more careful and sneaky to cover his tracks. He claims he’s never had an affair, but why should I believe him? I don’t believe anything he says. I’m sick of competing with his favorite porn stars, the sexy neighbour, every single woman he sees. His promises mean nothing. Love me? Ya right. Find me attractive? Ya right. I’m tempted to leave him to raise our disabled child by himself. I’m afraid I’ll be even more bitter and angry in another ten years. I’ve never been lonelier. I’ve even thought of doing myself in, after I’ve disclosed his addiction to everyone he knows. Yes, it is cheating. I loved him with my whole heart until I stumbled upon the computer’s cookies and learned the extent of his use. And in all these years since, I just can’t make myself feel the way I used to. I feel like I was fooled into this marriage.
It is cheating. Do NOT harm yourself. You have value even though HIS problem is hurting you. I think the pain of this is draining you, emotionally. You have the right to a peaceful life. I am not telling you to divorce. You need to pray about that. I am telling you that YOUR wellbeing matters.
pls help me! I feel so imadiquate and hurt! what do I do>>>>>He has made a#% yr old woman feelhe is unattrative and I’m not??? help me understand why?
He is under the siren song of pornography. Until he can snap out of it, he won’t realize what he has done. He probably doesn’t mean to make you feel this way and it is all the addiction working in him. Try to get him some help
You are not ‘that screwed up.’ Porn is what is screwed up. Now women have to deal with an entire generation of men who are raised watching the most extreme sexual acts imaginable…and then have to go in the bedroom with an actual women and make love to them. Is it so bizarre that they cannot ever really be satisfied by reality any more? Our culture continues to impress on us that this is ‘all normal.’ It is NORMAL for men to only be able to ejaculate by watching women hurt abused or in pain. Porn always leads to worse porn. People love to act like this makes your sex life better, or is ‘mangable’. But to the many women I have known who have ended marriages in part or in LARGE part because of porn–it is not. It is not a matter of a husband ‘getting enough sex’. It is a husband who would rather masturbate then actually have sex because reality can no longer measure up to his fantasies. He is bored, and porn always takes it one step further-the step is wife cannot take it because she is ONE WOMEN who actually has feelings and pains. To any women who has a husband who would rather sit locked up in his room gazing at fake women all day…we know it is NOT normal. As wives we are supposed to be the SOLE object of our husbands lust and desire. How many wives spend time with their kids all alone because ‘daddy’ is locked away jacking off to other women? How many wives lie in bed at night longing to have sex but unable to because their husband has satisfied himself with other women? I have one question…HOW IS THIS HEALTHY? Men will always come up with excuses as to why they do it, and why they should do it. Deep down they all know its wrong, and logically when you are trying to build intimicy with ONE person, anyone can see that its wrong.
Wow Abby, I couldn’t agree with you more. Thanks for injecting a woman’s point of view into this issue. If men would wake up to how their wives feel and stop making excuses to justify their behavior their hearts would break. If the shoe was on the other foot, and the woman was spending lots of time watching men and satisfying herself, how would that make the man feel? Just the same as you feel. Thanks for reading.
Hi, I have had many experiences with past relationships with men and in a culture of porn they all have used it, and was even married to a man who was an addict to porn. Divorced now. My ex husband has also obsessive and compulsive personality who also very controlling and in fear I left with nothing he set out to make me suffer. I still as an adult woman of fifty one years of age have problems with trust and jealousy. I have been told I am attractive and feel attractive at times not always. But, none the less I feel deeply that porn is harmful. I am a very sexual person but feel lonely not being able to have a true intimate relationship with a man I can deeply trust and admire because I want to trust he only has desires for me. I even wonder if such a thing exists. I might want to add a little history perhaps someone can relate but so much detail might have to be left out. At about eight years of age my mothers boyfriend picked me up out of a recliner chair I was asleep in and carried me to his bed and proceeded to get me to engage with some fondling, but I just played dead sleepy girl and he got up to shower and I hid, until my mom came home from work. I also recall he had some porn magazines because I saw my two brothers viewing them. This scarred me and though not as tragic as some people, it left me with a intense need to masturbate through the years and the impression that this older man was sick in the head for doing such a thing and I related it to him doing this because he had the porn in his apartment. Now, this created jealousy and insecurity within me that taints my relationships no matter how bad I want to trust and be loved I end up pushing them away because I can not handle their interest in other women as lust objects. I want them to lust for me only. Am I that screwed up ?
If you’re using pornography, you’re probably also masturbating. This is the sign of problems in the marriage where there is a lack satisfying sex.
Hi Sam, I visited your website and am interested in your book.
Your post sounds like you are blaming unsatisfying sex (women) for men’s porn use. Wrong!