Partner has a pornography addiction, ask me anything

[Endo33]

My partner has a porn addiction. AMA. I guess I'm sorting of using this page to help me order my thoughts.

Does he recognise that he has an addiction?
How does it manifest itself ie type of porn?
What impact does it have on you?
If you have children, does the addiction worry you for them?
How did you find out about it?

He recognises it and is in a 12 step programme for it.

I think it's all pretty vanilla stuff you can find on YouTube but I haven't actually asked.

A lot of the time I feel sad, ashamed, angry he's thinking of other women. Sometimes I feel sorry for him but okay in myself.

I worry about my DS a lot - we haven't had any other children due to the impact of the addiction on our relationship so he'll be an only child, which is fine but not what I imagined for him. If we heal enough to have another one the age gap will be high and I'll be older and the pregnancy will be risky due to certain medical conditions and he'll have to watch me go through that. We've lived a part a few times over it which obviously has a huge impact on his sense of security. He's witnessed some horrific arguments and breakdowns as my partner hasn't really let me express the impact its having on me, being too caught up in his own recovery. He's had a father who in the depths of his addiction was emotionally absent, rude to me, condescending. He's had a mother struggle with understanding what the right thing to do is. So lots of impact and I don't know how to undo it /support him.

I saw my partner's internet history but also he was quite open about his struggle.

I am sorry you have to live with the repercussions of this, OP. Thank-you for answering my questions. I hope for all three of you that the 12-step programme is effective and points the way to a different and better way of living.

There is also the paranoia of whether he is sharing everything with me or just enough to make me think he's being honest whilst the reality is much worse. So he's said he's had massages but never accepted the extras, he's said he's joined dating sites but never exchanged messages but I don't know for sure I can trust that so feel a bit obsessive about checking his phone, getting std checks etc.

Thank you so much

Why haven't you left him?

Would you consider leaving him? What is making you stay? ❤️

I have a couple of times. The first time we got back together after some couples therapy but mainly because I felt like I was seeing so much more of our son than he was. Things did get a lot better than they were at rock bottom.

We're currently living apart again because I can't seem to hold my anger in at him looking at other women, yet he doesn't want me to express that or go to couples therapy over it, and it wasn't healthy for us.

See above.
When he's sober things are really good. But there are relapses in his habits which pull us down again. We're currently living apart and this second separation is really fresh so I don't know what will happen long term.

Also he is truly remorseful about it all and trying really hard to improve.
My current block in staying with him is that it feels like I'm not allowed to be angry /hurt, all the space is taken up with his recovery, and that was suffocating me.

What leads you to believe the porn he’s watching is tame and “what you’d find on YouTube”?

Most people (even without a porn addiction) visit actual porn sites for porn (not YouTube). Have you checked out things like PornHub / FetLife etc? Do you ever think you only know the very tip of the iceberg and that you’d DP sees you as being incredibly sheltered from the realities of what he looks at and engages in?

Do you think it’s probable that this isn’t a ‘porn’ addiction but is a sex addiction? The ‘having massages’ and being on dating apps seems much more like a sex addiction than looking at some racy clips on YouTube.

What I see on his history and what I overhear him say to his sponsor, but he could be deleting the worse stuff and just leaving the tame stuff for me to see I am completely aware I may not know everything that is going on behind the scenes and that scares me shitless. Especially the number of hours he looks at it and the knowledge that usually you need to look at more and more extreme stuff to get the same high.

It could be both a porn and a sex addiction I haven't really looked into the differences between the two.

What's happened in your past to lower your self-esteem enough to think this is an acceptable way to live?

What are you teaching your son about healthy relationships?

What will it take for you to break free?

The first 6-8 years of our relationship were completely different.

As I said above we have split up a couple of times when his treatment of me was getting really bad, this time being one of them. By taking him back I was hoping to teach my son that we can forgive people their mistakes and work through difficulties together but I'm seeing that it didn't quite work out like that in the end.

We've split up again, maybe I have broken free, maybe I'll take him back, it's all very fresh.

I don't know re low self esteem. I have a lot of wise people around me who talk about forgiveness, that no relationship is perfect, that we do have good times and we need to just make sure we're in therapy etc and all will work out okay etc so I take their advice and try.

Also, at first I didn't really understand the impact it was having and thought that if I took a "no porn" stance in life that standard was way to high for anyone to live up to.

It’s not “way too high” a bar to expect people not to a) view porn and b) become addicted to it!
People “make mistakes”, of course they do.
when people have addictions, they need help.
i very much doubt he’s spending hours every day just watching vanilla (as you say) porn and wanking.
Does he do anything else with his life?
And please don’t teach your son that wanking non stop to images is normal or healthy or a mistake. It’s choice he’s making, over and over again.
He could do more than get help for his obsessive behaviour. Like go for a walk, or gardening or a job or something useful even if he can do none of those things. He could campaign for the rights of trafficked women as he seems to be very comfortable in that world already

Do you think someone should forgive someone who isn't sorry and who fully intends to continue to do the thing that hurts you?

Why doesn't he just stop? Especially knowing it could cost him his relationship with his son and partner?

My son doesn't know what he's doing, just the impact its having on our relationship.

Agree on the other activities he could be choosing every day

He is sorry, and he has stopped watching porn, but replaced it with YouTube shorts which are just as bad for the brain, especially hours of them just before bed.

I don't know why he doesn't just stop those, that's what made me angry and ask for a separation, that he was going to bed early every day, avoiding me, but then watching shorts all evening instead if just going to sleep (even if they weren't porn). I have no idea why he chose to do that over prioritising his relationship.

Also a lot of responses when I have told people IRL are "wear something pretty", "do you share a bed", "men are just like that", so whilst I don't feel responsible for his addiction I am trying to avoid doing something which will invite more of those sorts of opinions.

You are much better off without him aren't you?

Probably

Sorry OP but there is zero chance a sex/porn addict turned down massage “extras”. Zero.

Have you spoken to him about the fact that many women involved in the sex industry are trafficked, and that he may well be wanking to a scene of rape?

For me this is what would anger me most - if somebody comprehended this and still continued to consume porn in vast quantities.

If you discuss the ethics of porn, what does he say?

That's what I think but he insists he's never said yes