AIBU to feel hurt after husband broke our no-porn agreement?

[Echo15]

I've been with my husband for 9 years. We have a 4 month old son. I had a traumatic birth so sex is still painful and therefore rare. It's been a very loving, equal marriage. A few years ago we both agreed that we shouldn't watch porn because we felt it disrespected / didn't align with our marriage vows and wouldn't make the other person feel good.

Caught my husband masturbating to porn while I looked after the baby a few days ago. He says it's happened a few times but is sorry and won't do it again.

I feel really hurt. I know we're not having much sexual intimacy at the moment but surely that's normal with a baby? He happily agreed not to watch porn years ago, so now I feel i can't trust him. The timing of this has really knocked my confidence given I'm postpartum but I'm mostly just angry that he did it despite our agreement, I assume because he thought he wouldn't get caught as I was busy with DS. He wanted children but now I feel discarded and disregarded because my body has changed and I'm busy with DS. I have birthed his child and this is what I get.

AIBU?

It never stopped.

Someone mentioned ‘ethical porn’. What is this please and how is it identifiable. (I guess the answer to the first question might inform
the second)

The drop in usage when viewers had to register their details to watch tells us that men know full well it's not ok. Why else wouldn't they want their details known, if there's nothing to be ashamed of? And no way is it to do with security risks or fear of identity theft because they will be signing up to a ton of other sites without qualms.

You honestly believe that watching porn and being a 'decent person' are mutually exclusive?

I don't like porn, I think it's problematic for a number of reasons. I also think it's over the top and wildly judgemental to suggest that no one who watches porn, something that is very normalised within our society, can possibly be a good person.

I think that wanking off to potential rape is not the behaviour of a decent person, no. Obviously everyone has good points and bad points, and no one is a monolith, but to get sexual satisfaction by watching dehumanising content that could be coerced/rape is not the behaviour of someone with moral integrity.

That doesn't mean they're '100% of a dick', but it does mean that they're severely lacking in decency in regards to that, so not a decent person, overall.

Not all sex has to be P in V. There are alternatives that can satisfy both whilst leaving out the part that hurts. I quite like men 'sorting themselves out' if i can be involved.

I just don't think it can be true that they can't. Do we think that before widespread print media, men just didn't masturbate? It's hard to actually find this out from the historical record, as men don't exactly write it down, but I just can't believe it.

OTOH framing it as "we both agreed that we shouldn't watch porn" feels dishonest. There's obviously some variation with the people involved, but in 9 cases out of 10, the man is giving up more than the woman with this agreement. It's absolutely fine if OP wants that as an agreement, but I think the both sides framing is a little dishonest.

The "agreement" was meaningless to him, as it would be to the vast majority of blokes. He never stopped watching it.

I think part of that is the weird stuff they watch (and women who watch porn are included in that, as if they watch porn it's often very violent or degrading, I presume due to internalised misogyny or trauma). These days, apparently even the vanilla porn is overwhelmingly the faux incest of the 'step' variety, and there's a host of reeeeally weird stuff that men watch - escalation over time means they need to keep upping how extreme it is, so they can get into quite gross territory pretty quickly.

The other thing these days is that a lot of men don't watch porn to masturbate to - they just have it open on a second monitor while they work from home, and just look at it now and then as entertainment. It's really bizarre.

If he watched porn before your relationship, he's going to continue doing it once in a relationship. It's up to you if you can tolerate it or not. But for me, it would be a divorce offence. That's how much I'm personally against pornography. It's disgusting and I couldn't find a "man" attractive that jerks off to videos. It's really emasculating and off-putting. Gross.

I’m sorry what?! Obviously it’s different when it’s a CHILD! The OP is talking about her husband! What a bizarre comparison.

He’s lied- he’s a wanker(in both senses of the word). I can understand why you’re hurt.
You say lack of sexual intimacy for 4 months, you’re probably exhausted from the newborn, in pain from the vaginal massacre and plate size wound inside you, and have a husband who has probably pestered you also. He’s feeling hard done by cause he is a dick, and unless he had a gaping wound on the end of his penis that stung like a bitch every time he pees/has sex, he’ll never understand how you are feeling.
All that said, have you tried to have sexual intimacy without penetration? Have you discussed it with a gp in case there is something not quite healed correctly? Have you used plenty of lube and do you completely trust your husband to listen to you during sex(this is the main point!), or is he selfish? It’s been years since I had kids but I remember being petrified of having sex after each one after the stitches had gone, but I trusted my husband to listen to me, and it wasn’t comfortable to begin with, but did get better.

Also, the poster who said she only watches “ethical porn” made me spit my tea out!! Made me think all her sex toys are probably made out of renewable ethically sourced wood! 😂😂

We all have boundaries. It's not about what we let our partners do, as they're adults with bodily autonomy, it's about what we'll stick around for, but in essence the result is the same - 'if you want to be in a relationship with me, you can't do x, as that's a deal breaker for me'. Then your partner has to decide if being with you, or doing x is more important.

Is it so normal to watch porn these days that you have to have an agreement not to?

This. Stop being so pathetic and selfish and self absorbed.

Is this a joke? I'm going to assume this is a joke.

This is a very odd thread
I'm assuming it's because it's the summer holidays..
But anyway
Porn is out there ,it's always been out there ..not all women in porn are trafficked
Or abused ..lilly Phillips..bonnie blue ..the women desperate for a session with girthmaster .. clearly lots choose to partake in this .
It's up to the police to to prosecute where abuse has taken place
Men are going to seek it out ...before the net it was top shelf mags ..
Porn moves with the times
Having it as a non negotiable in a marriage,is a quick way to a divorce..
But if that's the ops line in the sand ..so be it ..

@OtterlyAstounding I know someone who was in the staff room at work and realised the group of men huddling round a phone were watching porn. When she called them out on it the shits asked her if she had "seen something she should have?" Like it was her fault for looking - they were trying to intimidate her. She
had to lodge complaints more than once about them and they work in a very professional (or should be) setting and often with vulnerable people and have a lot of responsibility.

It's bloody everywhere and I'm sick of it. If I see one more music video where she's just about in her underwear and he's wearing everything he owns and dressed for the Arctic...

Bloody hell unclench. 😂

You're really defending a group of men watching porn at work?

He happily agreed to not watch porn 9 years ago. Tbh I think most men would just go along with it and agree.

I dont see the issue him fulfilling his needs but there a time and place. Whole your in the house with baby isnt one of them

I meant more the last paragraph.

It's quite baffling that so many feel a man's access to pornography should trump everything else. Like it's oxygen how could he possible live without it. What a damaging reductive view.

well it has no impact whatsoever on you or me if someone is watching porn (in his own home, not the workplace)

Smoking or vaping impacts me. Porn? No.

Have the people defending porn use actually looked at the popular porn sites within the last 10 years? If you're imagine soft focus shots of Sam Fox rubbing her boobs or a couple or a few people having passionate sex that appears consensual, then think again.

The most popular stuff on all front pages is all about force, violence, simulated (or not) pedophilia, abuse, choking, spitting, incest, degradation and the sexualised use and abuse of women and girls. Look for yourself (or read the studies if you have more sense).

Are they wading through the suggestions to get to non abusive/illegal looking stuff? Maybe, but maybe they are instead reinforcing misogyny in their brain one wank at a time. And the non disgusting stuff is still paid prostitution/rape at the end of the day and the psychological effects of of porn actors (men and women) is very well documented.

I am aware of 'ethical porn' but how can you ever really know? Loads of people active in the sex industry report they are happy with it when they are in it, later the tales of coercion, abuse, drug use come out.

Written or drawn stimulation (depending on what it depicts - reinforcing pedophilia etc is not ok) is great.

Wanking and sex is fun...porn with real humans rots your brain, contributes to misogyny, abuse, crime and more. If you can turn a blind eye while knowing he consumes that behind the bathroom door then shame on you - weak and desperate behaviour.

I don't believe every man does it but I'd never risk it.

OP - I'd be dreadfully hurt but you know your boundaries - 'allowing' himself to be caught is either another layer - either he wanted you to know (I won't speculate why) or he's dumb and too desperate to wank.