Not to mention, it seems like you’re saying that if she doesn’t (or didn’t) submit to the marital embrace, she’s the one who caused him to turn to porn. 
Dear Farmerswife,Hello. I’ve been trolling CAF looking for answers… Not sure what I’m seeking: prayers, advice… I’m heartbroken.
10 years ago DH and I were still dating and I found out he watched porn. It devastated me at the timr but he loved me and he quit. I got past it, today we are happily married with 2 children and this past year we have really grown closer, after a lot of turmoil In our marriage. Finally, things were good. Really good. Then this weekend I discovered he was looking at porn again.
He said it was going on about 2 weeks and he was looking at it on his new smartphone after he found the “incognito” browser. Guys at work suggested it. I discovered the phone abandoned in the barn with the horrible pictures still on it. I confrontrd him, He was upset, ashamed, apologetic…said this was the first time it escalated to masturvation.
I don’t know what I did but I feel like I failed him. He is ashamed and mad at himself but is also accusing me of driving him to do it due to lack of intimacy (it had been a week). And he says I’m overreacting by being so broken over it, after all they’re"just pictures" and don’t mean anything… Ya know, “everyone else does it” and “_____'s wife doesn’t mind…”
The worst part is he knew what it did to me 10 years ago. How bad I hurt then, before my body was wrecked by having kids and aging. I can’t trust him right now. He knew it would hurt me deeply. And he was sneaky, hiding it in a browser I wouldn’t see or trace. I told him I felt like he was cheating on me and he blew it off as nonsense.
In a tirade I bawled and told him if I ever caught him again we were over, the kids and I would leave and make him sell the farm. I don’t want to leave him, I love him so much, but I don’t know if I can weather this if it doesn’t end now, today, cold turkey.
I installed mutual accountability apps on our phones last night, which he seemed a little irritated by.
How do I move past this? How do I make him understand why it kills me? I’m not a hot little 21 year old anymore, it seems like that’s what he wants and i cant be that person. I’m so lost and alone right now, he’s my best friend… I feel gut punched… I have nobody to talk to about it. I thought he was different. Better than that. How do I make him stop if he’s so aloof about it? He says he will but… I just don’t know.how do I learn to trust him again?
It is “adultery in the heart”, as Our Lord put it, but according to priests I’ve spoken to it is a very different animal from adultery with a live woman. As I noted in my earlier post, there is nothing “real” for the man caught in this sin…there is no emotions, no feelings, no love…she could be a cartoon figure for all intents and purposes. Its all about the “high” of the moment. It isn’t a relationship. While porn is extremely damaging, an affair with a real person a) carries additional risks of diseases b) physically profanes the marital union in a more profound manner (the husband becomes one flesh with someone who is not his wife) c) usually involves great emotional ties to a real person. An affair with a real person always indicates that the adulterer feels something is missing or lacking in the marriage. This is not necessarily so for porn, as I noted from personal experience. Men fall into the addiction of porn for a purely completely unemotional momentary high even if their marriage is happy and their sex life wonderful. For a man, psychologically, it is not even remotely in the same galaxy as an affair with a real person. Even if both are infidelity, and they are, I don’t think it is useful to equate them too literally.
Yep. That’s it. We’re all “anti husband”. Bad husband! Hate husband!
You have a right to be paranoid, because of what he did. What you need to do is find a constructive way to deal with it together. Don’t get too worried about the computer being “unattended”. Most companies monitor their employees internet, even when using icognito browsers.
I’m so sorry to hear what you’re going through, Farmerswife. It hurts so much to even read your posts. I’ve been experiencing the same thing in my marriage for many years, unfortunately. My husband wasn’t apologetic and apparently sees nothing wrong in it. It just hurts a wife to the absolute core of her being. You’re definitely not alone, unfortunately, and please don’t feel as if it’s your “fault.” It truly isn’t. It’s his sin. There’s a support group here at CAF titled, “Women Suffering Because of Unchastity,” (see top tool bar under “groups”) which deals with this specific issue. It has helped me a lot over the years and might be beneficial to you as well. You and any other women reading this and experiencing the effects and pain may wish to join as well.Hello. I’ve been trolling CAF looking for answers… Not sure what I’m seeking: prayers, advice… I’m heartbroken.
10 years ago DH and I were still dating and I found out he watched porn. It devastated me at the timr but he loved me and he quit. I got past it, today we are happily married with 2 children and this past year we have really grown closer, after a lot of turmoil In our marriage. Finally, things were good. Really good. Then this weekend I discovered he was looking at porn again.
He said it was going on about 2 weeks and he was looking at it on his new smartphone after he found the “incognito” browser. Guys at work suggested it. I discovered the phone abandoned in the barn with the horrible pictures still on it. I confrontrd him, He was upset, ashamed, apologetic…said this was the first time it escalated to masturvation.
I don’t know what I did but I feel like I failed him. He is ashamed and mad at himself but is also accusing me of driving him to do it due to lack of intimacy (it had been a week). And he says I’m overreacting by being so broken over it, after all they’re"just pictures" and don’t mean anything… Ya know, “everyone else does it” and “_____'s wife doesn’t mind…”
The worst part is he knew what it did to me 10 years ago. How bad I hurt then, before my body was wrecked by having kids and aging. I can’t trust him right now. He knew it would hurt me deeply. And he was sneaky, hiding it in a browser I wouldn’t see or trace. I told him I felt like he was cheating on me and he blew it off as nonsense.
In a tirade I bawled and told him if I ever caught him again we were over, the kids and I would leave and make him sell the farm. I don’t want to leave him, I love him so much, but I don’t know if I can weather this if it doesn’t end now, today, cold turkey.
I installed mutual accountability apps on our phones last night, which he seemed a little irritated by.
How do I move past this? How do I make him understand why it kills me? I’m not a hot little 21 year old anymore, it seems like that’s what he wants and i cant be that person. I’m so lost and alone right now, he’s my best friend… I feel gut punched… I have nobody to talk to about it. I thought he was different. Better than that. How do I make him stop if he’s so aloof about it? He says he will but… I just don’t know.
It’s a meaningless list though. It may make the husband feel less culpable for what he’s doing but it doesn’t change the fact that while it’s a physical turn on for him, it’s a major physical turn off for a woman. She can do her best to forgive and forget and suppress her disgust, but there’s a very physical aspect to a womans high regard for her husband. It’s very hard to live a fully giving love when you lose that high regard for a man.
It may not be psychologically the same as an affair for a man, but for a woman it is. And, as you pointed out in the beginning of this post, Jesus Himself has said, “You have heard that it was said,
Totally agree.
@LongingSoul - make no mistake, I am with you 100%. My praising of the other post was merely that - praise. It is the best post on the thread on what’s going on inside a guy’s head who has a pornography problem.
This is exactly why porn can be that much more damaging then an actual affair.
It doesn’t make the husband less culpable, but it may help the wife to understand her husband. I’m not a woman, so perhaps I am completely off base, but wouldn’t it be better to know that your husband does not love another, has not lost interest in you…than to know that he DOES love another and he HAS lost interest in you as is often the case with a “real” affair? Yes, pornography is always a horrible and heartbreaking betrayal, but surely there is some value in understanding what’s going on in the husband’s mind?
I understand that for the woman it may feel the same as a real affair. I get that. I just thought that possibly with time understanding what’s going on in the husband’s head may help with the healing process.
No, I personally don’t think that information has any significant value to the wife. The reality remains that his first love is his porn and his wifes experience is always sacrificed to his addiction. If you read literature on abusive husbands they claim to love their wife because it controls her and keeps her submissive and tied to the relationship. It’s a sign of unhealthy co-dependence to rely on that dynamic.
so there’s a beautiful redhead on 2 of our favorite sitcoms, guess they’re out forever now. The age and body bothers me too but for some reason I’m stuck on the hair. Never been into hair salons and makeup and he always liked that about me, so he said. Back in my young and wild days, before I returned to the church, I sent him some risque photos of myself (I was 20couple and my body looked like these girls back then) and he had them available to use IM THE NEXT ROOM but still chose the full out pornographic genital photos of redheads to use for his pleasure. I will never, until I die, understand this or get over it. I will forgive and eventually move on, but I’ll never forget, and always be scared.I think the two of you are handling it much better know. The important thing is to move past the hurt and anger and actually talk. While your feelings are perfectly justified, you wont get anything done with anger.Wow I didn’t log on for a day, what a mess, lol!
OK I’ll try to respond and update all at once… Firstly thank you all again. It’s most comforting to know I’m not alone and that this is not an illegitimate problem.
Second, I love DH with my whole heart and soul, I always have. I took for granted that things were OK, we practice NFP for the most part and I thought things were fine in our intimate life… No we dont swing from chanaliers anymore, but I thought it was satisfying and comfortable. I think what he meant was that we don’t have that “new love” anymore, we don’t always cuddle while we watch TV or hold hands at the store. I’m actively trying to fix that.
To my own defense, IT WAS LAST SUNDAY that I found d out about all this, its raw, new, deep pain!!! Not even a week ago! How soon am I supposed to drop it!?
So we have talked, a lot, rationally… And otherwise, but I’m a bit more at peace with it. The dust is settling a bit.
I’m not over it or letting it go, but I am with all my heart trying to press forward and get past it. I’m going through hell, so I plan to keep on going. I’m not giving up my marriage to Satan’s horrible industry without a fight.
- I asked and he told me it was always redheads. And admitted that it went farther than looking at pictures more than once. Started out googling “redhead woman,” then “redhead nude” and escalated from there to the vulgar words I saw he had typed after redhead. The redhead aspect really bothers me, for whatever reason. I have temporary hair dye coming from eBay as well as some other things to spice things up, I hope. Why is my brown hair so wrong, its got natural blonde highlights and no gray yet, amazingly!? Why didn’t he marry a redhead if that’s his #1desire? Things like that.
- this has, if nothing else, opened up our communication. We have talked, asked, admitted things, both of us. We are working to fix this. He knows that he just used his only “get out if jail free card” and if he falls again, knowing what this has done for me, I will leave him. And I am will, I am ashamed to say. He swears it will not.l happen again, Time will tell. I did not lock down the net, but I am keeping the accountability software active. We have also become more intimate, although it sort of bothers me, its also healing in a way-- its been helping me feel closer to him, and I hope,him to me.
- no, its not technically cheating. But it does feel like it because he obviously wants sex with someone else! He says he doesn’t. But I’ve seen the phone screen, he admitted the masturbation, using their pictures! It guts a woman to find out that she’s no longer good enough, after giving up so much of herself to him. I keep asking why, he doesn’t know, he tells me “something just snapped in my head” and I have no idea what that means. He tells me sex to a guy is different from love, that mars and venus thing, about how he only wants to be with me… So I ask if he wants sex with someone else and he says no only me… Which brings me full circle to “then WHY did you do this to us???”
