Nude photos found on computer—need advice

[pinctor]

Welcome to Catholic Answers.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

"2354 Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials. "

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This definition seems to imply plurality of sexual activity. In other words, an image of a single person cannot be pornographic, unless lewdly posed and postured.

 

[Houguy82]

To the OP:

1st … BREATHE ! It’s naked pictures, the porn itself isnt’ the issue

• I agree with you, he lied to you. You two should talk about why he lied about it.
• Couples counseling ? For reals ? No… that’s going a bit too far IMHO; that is unless the two of you have more issues than you’re letting on about. But assuming this is the only issue … no.
• I agree with others on here… Make darn sure it was without a doubt him before you go dropping a grenade in his lap.

If your husband loves you, I seriously doubt a naked girl picture is going to change that. I hope all turns out well.

 

[Trishie]

To the OP:

1st … BREATHE ! It’s naked pictures, the porn itself isnt’ the issue

• I agree with you, he lied to you. You two should talk about why he lied about it.
• Couples counseling ? For reals ? No… that’s going a bit too far IMHO; that is unless the two of you have more issues than you’re letting on about. But assuming this is the only issue … no.
• I agree with others on here… Make darn sure it was without a doubt him before you go dropping a grenade in his lap.

If your husband loves you, I seriously doubt a naked girl picture is going to change that. I hope all turns out well.

Regardless, it is a big deal unless we ignore Jesus:
Matthew 5:28 Jesus said, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” There is no innocent reason for a male seeking and downloading pictures of naked women. The fact that some men have no conscience about it makes it no less sinful.

 

[Houguy82]

" Regardless, it is a big deal unless you ignore Jesus:
Matthew 5:28 Jesus said, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” There is no innocent reason for a male seeking and downloading pictures of naked women. The fact that some men have no conscience about it makes it no less sinful. "

Ok Trishie:
Put the bible down for just a sec dear. It seems the OP is a bit concerned with the Trust issues here. All I said was they had a few things to chat about, but it wasn’t the end of the world ?

Trishie … Have you honestly never looked at a dirty picture ? I’m not saying that her faith belief isn’t a factor, it just wasn’t a factor I addressed. Not to mention you’ve done a great job there of executing her husband prematurely. Again… make sure beyond a shred of doubt that it was him that did it before you let him swing from the gallows.

 

[Trishie]

I wasn’t discussing her issues as those have already been discussed and it seems she is handling that wisely and well, but your light dismissal of the naked pictures. And it is betrayal and adultery, insulting to a wife. Possible some males don’t understand that, certainly there is the occasional male here that can’t see what’s wrong with it.
According to Jesus and the Catechism it is sinful. Too many don’t think it is. And as God created us and our destiny is with Him, His take on things is paramount.

No I’ve never done so. Why should I?

Anyway enough of that. The OP has already posted her considered response, and that was the purpose of the thread.

 

[Houguy82]

I didn’t say you should, I simply asked if you had.

It wasn’t a light dismissal of anything ma’am. Again … I didn’t adress the religious aspect of her dilema

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

Unsubscribed! I am outta here.

 

[ahs]

Do not ignore this. I have confronted my husband over the years when I found porn and believed his lies. I have recently found out that my husband is into some very bad things and has been addicted for years. I’m now separated and do not know what will happen to my marriage. I’m a devout catholic and this is tearing me up inside. Women have to stop accepting that this is just “boys being boys”. It does real damage to real relationships. God be with you.

((((HUGS)))) You are absolutely right. It is no light matter and can destroy a relationship. I pray for you and your husband.

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to respond to my post.

… From this point forward we can begin the healing process, but I need to understand what I am dealing with first. This is something I never thought I would encounter in my marriage. Our children are very young, and yes, to the poster that mentioned our children stumbling onto the page–my thought as well.

Oh, and I love the idea of putting a picture of Mary on the computer–that is brilliant! I just taped a beautiful picture of her just now.

I really appreciate everyone’s (name removed by moderator)ut. Thank you for your prayers too.

I’m glad to hear that he came clean on it. That is the tough first step for a man. It will likely be a bumpy road, but it seems you are going in the right direction. God Bless you in this tough journey.

Ok Trishie:
Put the bible down for just a sec dear. It seems the OP is a bit concerned with the Trust issues here. All I said was they had a few things to chat about, but it wasn’t the end of the world ?

Trishie … Have you honestly never looked at a dirty picture ? I’m not saying that her faith belief isn’t a factor, it just wasn’t a factor I addressed. Not to mention you’ve done a great job there of executing her husband prematurely. Again… make sure beyond a shred of doubt that it was him that did it before you let him swing from the gallows.

As a man, I find your post offensive to what a man is called to be in a Marriage and degrading toward women. A man looking at porn in not just a Trust issue, in addition to that it is an issue of adultery and a sign that the Marriage is in trouble, or soon will be. It also shows a lack of respect for women in general.

Whether someone has ever looked at a naked picture before is irrelevant. One’s past does not diminish the sinfullness of an act, nor does one’s personal conviction or opinion. It is a grave sin because God said it is.

Trishie’s post is both informative and helpful, and I recommend you study on it more and perhaps review the Scriptures and the Catechism to educate yourself on this issue. Matthew 5:28 Jesus said, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” There is no innocent reason for a male seeking and downloading pictures of naked women. The fact that some men have no conscience about it makes it no less sinful.

 

[Conor7]

I understand your feeling of betrayal, but before you confront your husband and damage your relationship further, ask yourself what role you played in this development.

I’m not saying it’s your fault, but pointing out that this need in him came from somewhere. I would ask myself what I did to contribute to these circumstances.

 

[ahs]

I understand your feeling of betrayal, but before you confront your husband and damage your relationship further, ask yourself what role you played in this development.

I’m not saying it’s your fault, but pointing out that this need in him came from somewhere. I would ask myself what I did to contribute to these circumstances.

Seriously?! You think she may have some role in his decisions? The last time I checked, we humans are responsible for our own actions, not for the actions of others. There is nothing she could have done to drive him toward looking at porn. That is a decision that HE made.

Just for pretend, let’s assume they have a rocky relationship and she does not meet his needs or whatever…for pretend. DOESN’T MATTER. HE made a poor choice instead of a healthy choice…which may have been marriage counseling, simply confronting her or communicating to her how he feels, etc… She played NO role in his decisions. He is solely responsible for that.

 

[Conor7]

Seriously?! You think she may have some role in his decisions? The last time I checked, we humans are responsible for our own actions, not for the actions of others. There is nothing she could have done to drive him toward looking at porn. That is a decision that HE made.

Just for pretend, let’s assume they have a rocky relationship and she does not meet his needs or whatever…for pretend. DOESN’T MATTER. HE made a poor choice instead of a healthy choice…which may have been marriage counseling, simply confronting her or communicating to her how he feels, etc… She played NO role in his decisions. He is solely responsible for that.

Yes, seriously. And, I never said she made the decision for him, nor did I even make a judgement on whether his decision was good or bad.

Let’s taking cheating as an example. We can all agree that cheating is awful, but what person says to themself: “My spouse is loving and attentive and satifies all my needs. Despite this, I’m going to cheat.”

Furthermore, your boss fires you and you think he made a poor choice. You don’t wonder what you did to contribute to your termination?

You say “we humans are responsible for our own actions,” and I coudn’t agree with you more. He needs to be accountable for his actions, and she needs to be accountable for hers.

 

[Conor7]

One further point. Taping a picture of the Virgin Mary on the computer to further shame your husband is naive and damaging.

My suggestion: delete the pictures, get out your digital camera and take a few naughty picture of your own. You want to fix this, that’s how it’s done.

I think that sends to perfect message: I know what you did you dirty perv. I forgive you. And, I am willing to work on this with you.

 

[faith_above]

Yikes, that last post was a surprise to say the least.

I just wanted to thank everyone for all the advice you have given me in the past 48 hours. There was no one I could turn to for advice on this topic in such a short amount of time and I found myself using quite a few of your suggestions.

We spoke last night (praying before and after–thank you Jose). He has made an appointment to go to confession today. We are seeing a priest tomorrow.

Thank you for defending me ahs, and for every woman who may face this some day. I am not perfect, none of us are. We’ve had our ups and downs like any couple has. It is part of our role as husband and wife–to help each other through the good and bad. But, mostly our journey has been good. Honestly, this was the last thing I ever suspected, At least before Wednesday. (hindsight really is 20/20 isn’t it!) As for conor7 questioning whether I had something to do with this. His confession to me last night is that this is something that started when he was a teen.

I am going through a lot of emotions right now. Someone said it will be bumpy for a while. I can only imagine, but I know you are right. As dark as this hour feels I am so relieved that the truth has come forward. No amount of help and understanding can help someone who is living a lie. It affects themselves and everyone around them. This lie has affected a part of our marriage for 11 years. As angry as I am feeling about this today I am also so thankful for the blessing that I now know the truth. Like I said before, now the real healing can begin.

Thank you to all who have sent prayers and good thoughts of love and encouragement. It really touched my spirit. Some brought tears to my eyes. Proof that the power of love and forgiveness are very powerful.

God bless you all!

 

[Ridgerunner]

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Secondly, could it have been unintentional? It has happened to me a few times that misspelled internet addresses, or mistakenly clicking on the wrong link when searching, has led in all innocence to some not-nice websites. In light of the bookmarking it would seem unlikely, but I guess much stranger things have happened.

Never will I forget the time my son and I were looking on the internet for games. He was just a kid then, maybe 9 or 10. Well, we ran into this one game that looked like it would be really good. It was an airplane shoot-em-up with WWII mockup planes. Supposedly the operators would be in a Mustang or something shooting at zeros. I clicked it on and suddenly an absolute flood of pornography began streaming on the screen. I tried to click it off, but I couldn’t, and my son was right there. I finally did stop it. Don’t remember how. Might have even unplugged the computer.

So, I’m sure it all downloaded somewhere on the hard drive. I’m not much of an expert at computers, but I went into some part of it where, supposedly, you can erase things, but I couldn’t tell what anything was. Just numbers and letters and odd names. So I erased a bunch of stuff that had a suspicious look to it, but got to thinking maybe I would erase pieces of the operating system or something and stopped. I guess I didn’t knock out any crucial programs or anything, because the computer still worked. I didn’t dare click into anything to see what it was out of fear that the deluge would all start again. Besides, I’m not sure what program information looks like anyway.

I’m not saying that’s how most or even very many people get pornography on their hard drives, but that event was a big surprise to me. It did teach me never to open anything if I didn’t already know what it was.

 

[jmcrae]

Yes, seriously. And, I never said she made the decision for him, nor did I even make a judgement on whether his decision was good or bad.

Let’s taking cheating as an example. We can all agree that cheating is awful, but what person says to themself: “My spouse is loving and attentive and satifies all my needs. Despite this, I’m going to cheat.”

No one is perfect - anyone who wants to cheat can come up with some fault of their spouse as to why they “have to” cheat.

Bottom line, it is always wrong to cheat, no matter how many faults your spouse has.

Furthermore, your boss fires you and you think he made a poor choice. You don’t wonder what you did to contribute to your termination?

A boss-employee relationship is nothing at all like a spousal relationship. Spouses are members of each other’s family - bosses and employees generally are not - and even if they are, work is work; it is based on productivity; not forgiveness.

You say “we humans are responsible for our own actions,” and I coudn’t agree with you more. He needs to be accountable for his actions, and she needs to be accountable for hers.

There is nothing in the world she could have done that merits her status as a permanent member of his family being replaced by a picture of a complete stranger.

 

[Conor7]

No one is perfect - anyone who wants to cheat can come up with some fault of their spouse as to why they “have to” cheat.

Bottom line, it is always wrong to cheat, no matter how many faults your spouse has.

A boss-employee relationship is nothing at all like a spousal relationship. Spouses are members of each other’s family - bosses and employees generally are not - and even if they are, work is work; it is based on productivity; not forgiveness.

There is nothing in the world she could have done that merits her status as a permanent member of his family being replaced by a picture of a complete stranger.

Well, don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say she deserved it. Let’s use this analogy: Your child mouths-off to you and you slap him in the mouth. Does your child deserve your abuse? No. But, why did you hit him? You hit him because he was mouthy.

All I am saying is the woman got a bum deal and her husband looked at a little porn. So she should look inward and figure out if she in anyway contributed to the situation so when they talk they can get to the root of the issue.

Maybe that’s not how your marriage works, but in mine, when we do something hurtful to one another, we figure out how we managed to get into a bad situation together. That’s a marriage.

 

[elibrimom]

I personally would turn off the computer, and go talk to my husband. See where he was coming from when he viewed the pictures. Perhaps it is something simple as you just need some alone time together. See what he says before the forum.

 

[andrewstx]

I am certainly no expert on computers, but I was hacked and stuff that I never sent out was sent to people in my address book – from or through Africa. Afraid of what it was, I notified the people to not view it nor open the mail. But I know I did sent it out.

About 6 months ago someone from California actually acessed one of my accounts.

Now this was just yesterday. And most of them were to my bosses and to his accountant. One was sent to an old out dated e-mail address for my boss and got bounced back to me. That alerted me that I was hacked. I phoned and wrote these people; thanfully it was late and I was able to reach the ones I needed to reach.

Okay, having said that: any possibility anyone has used your computer, even for innocent reasons and hit onto a wrong site which saved itself into the bookmarks – anyone at all? Do you run mulitple virus, malware, adware, spybot and programs that prevent unwanted keyloggers from being downloaded so people can access your computer? I have at least 5 and look what happened to me. And I all block remote access, and still someone got into my address book. There are many free programs of all sorts.

Not being an expert on computers, but knowing what happened to me, I can tell you anything is possible. And scan weekly. Some work in real time, but have the capacity to perform scans at your schedule. I have both. Some site could possibly get access and place itself in your computer, even placing itself on a computer as a bookmark. If one could clone my e-mail address and send stuff out to people in my own address book, I would say anything is possible.

Talk to your priest as to how best to approach telling your husband that you discovered these bookmarks. Remember, the purpose of any conversation is to listen so that you do not drive this into more secrecy. A priest can guide you as your first approach. But, be you need to be sure it was him. In any case, if this was the doing of some malware, etc., he has to know too.

Be sure not to come as an accusation when you do bring this up, but more from the point of a partnership. Use words like “we” and “I” – not “you.”

Last, I do agree with the poster who said there’s no divine intervention in your finding this. Depending on your husband’s response, you may find that it was Satan’s doing, though I do not discount the fact, and only if he was the one who bookmarked it, that your husband might have wanted you to find it.

Whatever – tread carefully and be mindful of Satan’s trickery. Treat your husband, assuming he did bookmark it, with understanding and not accusation. But talk first with a priest for guidance. And make sure all the computer software protections are up to date and then get more of them. Even Microsoft has 2 free ones depending on the operating system.

A very simular thing happened to me. I had abd stroke and now what cyber=IT skills I had have gone down the drain.

I was kicked off Facebook, becuase someone had hacked into my page and posted a ton of semiporn.

I ahd no idea of how to get rid of it, so now I am banned from FB because of the actions of others!

 

[jmcrae]

Well, don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say she deserved it. Let’s use this analogy: Your child mouths-off to you and you slap him in the mouth. Does your child deserve your abuse? No. But, why did you hit him? You hit him because he was mouthy.

All I am saying is the woman got a bum deal and her husband looked at a little porn. So she should look inward and figure out if she in anyway contributed to the situation so when they talk they can get to the root of the issue.

Maybe that’s not how your marriage works, but in mine, when we do something hurtful to one another, we figure out how we managed to get into a bad situation together. That’s a marriage.

In our marriage, we don’t blame ourselves for the other person’s mistakes - each person owns his or her own mistakes. We help each other through it, but if I do something stupid, I don’t blame my husband for it - I take the full responsibility, and we work through it to become better people. That, too, is a marriage.

 

[Leegal]

A very simular thing happened to me. I had abd stroke and now what cyber=IT skills I had have gone down the drain.

I was kicked off Facebook, becuase someone had hacked into my page and posted a ton of semiporn.

I ahd no idea of how to get rid of it, so now I am banned from FB because of the actions of others!

In addition to someone getting into my address book and sending trash to my employers and associates just a few days ago, someone hacked by FB account 6 months ago too, but FB blocked him before he did any damage and notified me. Locked my account and I had to go through all kinds of stuff to get my access back.

One time while at work I clicked something too and the same thing happend as that other poster described. Porn sites non-stop and at work, so I wasn’t doing something that I should not have been doing. Clicking to close made more and more open, not just the same one. It would not stop. They opened faster than I could control them. And then some download stuff onto the computer too and you are unaware. They can hijack your browers so that that the internet opens to a porn site every time, instead of your home page.

And I’m not even that knowlegeable. But stuff has happened to me and it was simply awful. Imagine having to call your two bosses and his accountant, among others, and tell them “it wasn’t me; please delete anything you got from me.” One of my bosses said “are you okay?” I was so distressed.