After two years of monitoring my husband's porn habit, it's time to talk - N's story

Submitted by a reader on Wed, 17/03/2010 - 11:15

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I am a partner of my porn addict husband.

To our friends, family and the outside world our life looks perfect. Two talented individuals, lovely, well-balanced children now adults, close extended family, no financial problems. Our marriage hit near divorce 6 years ago, due to my husband's cancer which left him impotent. In addition he fell madly in love with someone 23yrs his junior. For obvious reasons it was a platonic affair, which as far as I know lasted two years until I threatened to leave him.

I would like to think that there is a connection between the illness and his addiction but I suspect that he might always have used porn mainly because he has always had a wandering eye and even though I think its quite natural , I've always felt his is something more, and it has bothered me all our married life.

I have tracked his usage over the last two years and cannot believe that I keep delaying confronting him on it, but I now know I can't hide my hurt any longer. I'm a strong person but I feel I'm losing respect for myself. It's also too embarrassing to tell our close friends, who because of him being such a likeable person would be astonished. I've also found he's signed up to dating sites, so I really am a wimp for taking all this and feel my life would be so much easier without these burdens.

He says he loves me and he really is a lovely person to be with but because of the other woman, the porn, the dating sites I feel the marriage is really over. He is unable to have a proper relationship with someone else due to the illness, consequently I feel I'm being used. I know that if I left him he would be so lonely as he doesn't have any close friends, he would also be ashamed of people knowing the truth. Friends tell me I'm vivacious, beautiful with the body of an 18 year old and great fun, why then am I putting up with all this. Despite the aftermath of his illness we do have a loving but now different sex life.

How can I enter into sex with him, am I now what is termed a co addict? We've been married over 25 years.

Hi N,

Like so many men, it's possible that your husband learned early in life that he can depend on porn for private thrills and escapism. Porn enables him to maintain a picture of himself as a player in a world of sexual opportunity, especially through dating and contact sites. A porn habit develops as a convenient remedy for low feelings and trauma, which may help explain why things went further off the rails at the time of his illness.

And like so many partners, you have been drawn into the game. This happens very easily. Closely monitoring his activities, grinding down your confidence and trust, and feeling increasingly alone in this horrible situation. I'm always wary of the terms co-dependent or co-addict, but just as his habit has warped his model of the world, it has impacted yours too.

Let's pick up the positives here. Despite the painful issues you describe, you've both managed to maintain some form of loving sex life. To me, that's an indicator of hope. And he did take some notice when you previously threatened to walk out.

As you rightly suggest, a different approach is called for now. Tell him your deep down fears over all of this. Explain that you have some understanding of why porn feels to necessary to him, but you want a different future for both your sakes. Make it clear that his porn habit leaves you feeling hurt and taken for granted.

Honest dialogue and real comprehension on his part is the key to planning a way forward together and rebuilding trust. He needs to wake up and see the need for change.

For your own recovery, letting go of the porn-tracking duties and finding someone who you can open up to really can help. This may be one of your own closest friends or a professional counsellor. I wish you both every success in breaking free.

Hello N,

I read your story & its very clear just how torn apart (conflicted) you feel by this dilemma. The problem is clearly your husbands and NOT yours, its up to him to take full responsibility for his porn habit or porn usage. Or to take the consequences of his denial.

**A good happy relationship has to be based on trust & openness & honesty and if these bed rock components are missing then the foundations of that relationship are also in doubt. BUT I also want to add something here, which is you should NOT under estimate the importance of a good sex life and its role (power) to hold the relationship together. Sex is an incredibly important aspect of a loving relationship in the sense that sex is a powerful form of intimacy. It is also sex & sexual intimacy that provides a kind of glue that holds a relationship together. If this is missing your intimacy & emotional sexual needs are not being met either.

**If your husband is in strong denial of has porn habits & other hidden behaviors then the threat of being left due to his hurtful behavior towards you might just be the wake up call he needs in order for him to really change. I think what many men are looking in porn is the potential thrill or excitement of the chase, the desire to fulfill a fantasy, the desire for experiencing intimacy with a new or different partner (not actual but imagined). But when it comes down to it, this is all just sex in the head frankly. Having said that I'm not excusing this, nor belittling the hurt it can & does cause partners like yourself.

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Further thoughts for you N,

Have you ever considered that sometimes men use pornography as a way to numb out very difficult feelings, i.e. real emotional pain & things they themselves cannot face up to. This is were porn is used almost as a form of pain killer, its like a form of self medication (OK! not necessarily always all the time but frequently its a way to explain porn usage).

But porn is also a method or mechanism of denial, meaning denial of the deeper unresolved issues & denial of the use of porn itself. Many men will also use denial to cover up their shame & guilty feelings for using porn too, or pretending they don't have a porn habit or a porn problem. Thus denial goes hand in glove with using pornography its as basic as that!.

Porn might be being used like a cork in a bottle, denial & armoring & defense cap off the real (original) pain and thus porn keeps the lid on the container. If he were to stop using the porn he would have to end up facing his fears, his pains, his guilt,etc and he would also have to face how much his behavior has hurt you too.

If he is willing then I think a good counselor or therapist could help him but it does need to be someone with a good understanding of the problems caused by using porn on a regular basis and how this influences & affects intimacy & relationships. I had a great deal of personal therapy before I was able to let go of using porn and now I have very little or no interest in porn, I no longer have porn dependency.

**Porn dependency cannot ever be a substitute for a loving relationship. Porn can never be a replacement for real intimacy with a real person although many men fail see this it would appear.

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Oh that's sad to read. Sad for you because of all you have been through, and sad for me because I can relate to much of the same. I put my husband's impotency down to his porn habit - he doesn't have the excuse (if it is an excuse?) that your man does. I'm also paranoid about the women he chats with on his blackberry and god knows what else. All I can say is that he needs to wake up to the problem, even if it means a trial seperation or something like that. Best wishes to you N.

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Hi once again,
Candace touches on an interesting point which is the long term health effects on men who use porn, in my opinion if you have a chronic porn dependency (porn habit) combined with compulsive frequent masturbation then the outcome is quite likely to end in male sexual impotency.

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Hi N,

I, too, am the partner of a porn addict and I know how crazymaking and hurtful it is. I did all the same things--snooping, talking myself out of confronting him by telling myself I was making a big deal about nothing, etc. But this *is* a very serious problem and you have every right to discuss this with your husband and insist on some very dramatic changes in behavior.

I also second Jason that it's important to get help for yourself. Porn addiction erodes our self confidence, our belief in our inner voice, our sense of reality, and it's important for us partners to seek healing for ourselves. Therapy and 12 step programs for partners of sex addicts (S-Anon and COSA) have helped me greatly.

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Thanks so much to all of you for your comments which I've found so comforting. I realise that I'm not alone with this ghastly situation.

I'm an astute person and deep down I know that if he weren't so ashamed of our marriage breaking up then I really do believe he would prefer to be single, but of course he would be unable to build a full -on relationship with another woman and so it's comfortable for him to stay with me, also, my friends are his only friends.

I've got to the stage whereby I'm not afraid of being on my own, but the thought of breaking up the family really kills me and I don't know if I can put them through the trauma, even though I know that if they were aware of the situation they would be horrified.

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