Locked in emotional games with my porn addict husband - FF's story

FF describes her struggle with a porn addicted husband, and the painful dilemma that she faces:

My husband is addicted to pornography and our relationship is breaking down. We've been locked in the "emotional games" cycle for so long with him denying and being defiant and me becoming more and more controlling.

Our marriage is no longer a marriage -- it's been taken over by this sick cycle. I love him very much and I want to be able to repair our relationship, but I think we're on the verge of a divorce. He blames me a lot for all our problems and has told me he's very angry at women in general because of his issues with his mother.

How do I tap into this clinical detachment you keep mentioning? It's so difficult to let go when I feel like I'm losing my husband to this horrible addiction. I want to hold on tighter, but it's making him pull away.

Thank you FF for sharing your situation. It's a sad fact that many partners will recognise the heart-wrenching set of circumstances that you describe.

As instinctive and natural as it is, your controlling reaction is pandering to his addiction-warped vision of your relationship. As you suggest, he is leading you into ongoing games of persecutor and victim. By desperately clinging to the victim role, he tries to justify his habit and build further resentment towards you and your relationship. It's a cruel, blaming game called 'Just try and stop me'.

I've recently blogged about the 'clinical detachment' approach for partners. It is a short-term strategy for breaking up these games, and I certainly hope that you could find it helpful.

However, it would appear that there are other issues driving your husband's attitudes and compulsive behaviour. I encourage partners to offer support in facing porn addiction problems, but his historical issues concerning his mother require help that you cannot, and shouldn't be expected to, try to resolve. He may well be using porn to indulge deep-rooted feelings of misogyny, and this should be addressed in professional therapy.

It pains me to say it, but until he accepts and gets help for these issues, little progress can be made. Unless something triggers a significant shift in his outlook, you are just going to continue receiving the same.

I wish you the very best, even if it means moving on from this impossible relationship.