Looking for Hope (Marital Problems)

[1soul]

Saying a prayer for you and your husband.

 

[Anna_jane]

I suggest setting up a meeting with your parish priest ASAP. The porn needs to stop now ( the filter will help), but he needs to hear from you and your priest that this ends immediately if he wants to safe his marriage and his soul. A counselor is good in addition, because it sounds like he needs to hear from outside sources what he needs to do to get his act together. Vague promises to stop and no real change achieve nothing. So, once he’s commited to leave the filth behind and go to confession, you can work on improving your relationship. For that, you can look into getting a Catholic counselor, and maybe getting some books to help you out. I like to recommend " When Divorce is not an option". Is there an older men friend of your husband’s? Sometimes the problems with how to treat your spouse can be best solved by an older man whom your husband respects. He can give him the " come to Jesus" talk as they say in the South.

 

[HopefulWife2012]

Trident H: You are amazingly accurate in your explaination. I would correct you though on the reason our sex life went downhill. After our son, he didn’t adjust well to being a dad. Even though he loves us both he was always stressed, and his job at the time didn’t help. (Since then he’s changed jobs) So for awhile he would constantly refuse my advances until I just gave up completely. I learned later that he refused me so much, because he was so afraid of having another baby. This I when my self esteem began to drop, because I had thought he had lost all interest in me after our son. That is when we stopped doing things together and it was like pulling teeth to ask for a date. I just gave up, stopped trying, stopped asking. And then the porn started some time after that, while he was still working at his stressful job.

Update: I talked to him the other day. And it came surprisingly, because he was the one that started the conversation. He told me he had this painful feeling all day at work that I knew that he fell back into. We talked about how he was trying to overcome this, and like I figured he wasn’t trying anything new. Just pretending that it wasn’t there. We both agreed that our marriage has more problems then just this particular issue, but until we can work through this and I can become comfortable and trust him again the other problems will be difficult to overcome.

We have a young son that wouldn’t let us have some privacy to discuss things in detail, but we did talk about getting some books that we can read together and on our own to help this behavior to stop, and to help heal from this. We discussed possibly getting rid of the computer or internet. The problem here is that I need the internet for work. We talked about me changing the password and he just can’t use the Internet while I’m not home. We both felt as if this feels like I’m treating him like a child, and are thinking of this as a last resort. The Covenant Eyes program wouldn’t work, he said he already looked into and being computer savvy, says there were too many ways to still hid it.

Any recommendations/tips to do with the computer would be great. I personally would prefer to box the whole thing up, I’ve got my laptop for work. I do realize though that he does use it for entertainment, and to drop everything like that might be too big of a step all at once. Again I’m thinking that this might also be a good second step if we can’t figure anything else out.

 

[EnglishTeacher]

I don’t necessarily have any advice, but just wanted to share that Catholic psychologist Dr. Peter Kleponis has a ministry dedicated to helping people overcome porn addiction and also to helping the spouses of those addicted. It is called Integrity Restored. If you check out his website, integrityrestored.com, there are both articles and resources for finding help.

Good luck to you and your husband!

 

[Trident_H]

Trident H: You are amazingly accurate in your explaination. I would correct you though on the reason our sex life went downhill. After our son, he didn’t adjust well to being a dad. Even though he loves us both he was always stressed, and his job at the time didn’t help. (Since then he’s changed jobs) So for awhile he would constantly refuse my advances until I just gave up completely. I learned later that he refused me so much, because he was so afraid of having another baby. This I when my self esteem began to drop, because I had thought he had lost all interest in me after our son. That is when we stopped doing things together and it was like pulling teeth to ask for a date. I just gave up, stopped trying, stopped asking. And then the porn started some time after that, while he was still working at his stressful job.

Ah that makes for a better case to recover from. Thanks for that clarity.

Update: I talked to him the other day. And it came surprisingly, because he was the one that started the conversation. He told me he had this painful feeling all day at work that I knew that he fell back into. We talked about how he was trying to overcome this, and like I figured he wasn’t trying anything new. Just pretending that it wasn’t there. We both agreed that our marriage has more problems then just this particular issue, but until we can work through this and I can become comfortable and trust him again the other problems will be difficult to overcome.

We have a young son that wouldn’t let us have some privacy to discuss things in detail, but we did talk about getting some books that we can read together and on our own to help this behavior to stop, and to help heal from this. We discussed possibly getting rid of the computer or internet. The problem here is that I need the internet for work. We talked about me changing the password and he just can’t use the Internet while I’m not home. We both felt as if this feels like I’m treating him like a child, and are thinking of this as a last resort. The Covenant Eyes program wouldn’t work, he said he already looked into and being computer savvy, says there were too many ways to still hid it.

Any recommendations/tips to do with the computer would be great. I personally would prefer to box the whole thing up, I’ve got my laptop for work. I do realize though that he does use it for entertainment, and to drop everything like that might be too big of a step all at once. Again I’m thinking that this might also be a good second step if we can’t figure anything else out.

I’m really glad he came to you on this. That’s a really positive sign. I mean this gives me way more hope that he’s got some drive to fix things. This isn’t just the pat answer to a threat. This is a genuine want to be a better person in spite of a strong addiction and an uphill world-view. This meas a lot.

So as far as the computer situation goes? Does he have a laptop or a desktop? If a desktop, can you take out the wireless network card inside it?

If not. I really do think you handing out the password is the way to go. I know it makes him feel like a child. But if you explain it from the side of having an accountability partner it might help. This isn’t an unusual thing really. (And if you can have him help you to be accountable for something else in the same breath it might help. Not totally necessary though). I mean as an alcoholic? I’d have no choice but to demand someone else keep the keys to the liquor cabinet if we absolutely had to keep that stuff on hand. So I really don’t think there’s any big shame in this. I mean this both helps to keep him accountable. And rebuilt trust. So not bad overall.

But yeah. I’d still strongly push you try to find a mixed interest in what he’s doing on the computer though. Because ideally it should move from being his escape. To being his doorway back to you. But you do what you think you can. One measured step per dose.

Peace Hopeful. And thanks for the update. Praying for you guys!

-Trident