DH been watching porn on TV in secret - i feel so betrayed. Advice please..

[nickneat]

I'm 45 so no youngster but have found out my husband (47 has been watching adult channels and relieving himself when i have gone to bed. We have been married 17 years and have two children aged 8 and 5. We tried for years to have them and finally had IVF which was successful in 2001 and thought we were the luckiest people alive.
However, i found out by accident in 2005 when i was still breastfeeding my second son age 3 months that my husband had been looking at porn on the PC and the TV. I was devasted and it nearly broke us up but we talked and i believed he wouldn't do it again.
I've now found him out again and i feel sick and just don't think i can forgive him again, not after we nearly split last time. He's really sorry and says he can't help it but i feel so betrayed. I really don't want to upset the children but i don't want to be in the same room as him at the moment.
What do i do?
Nicola

I think the real issue here is that your DH agreed to something which he clearly had no intention of keeping . If you feel so strongly about the issue of pornography that you were willing to leave him over it ,he had little choice but to agree ,especially if he loves you . Do you feel the same about magazines ? i only ask this because a friend of mine regularly has to buy new stock for the sperm donation centre where she works , do you think the use of pornography in that context is abhorrant ? given that some of the men donating are in relationships ?
If i were you i would take time to work out what it is about the act of him watching porn and masterbating that upsets you so much. I have no issue with porn per se ,but have friends who are vehemently opposed to it in every way and every form , so i understand that it is a very personel issue.

"Has anyone trotted out the old chestnut "I'd rather my DH / DP watch porn than visit prostitutes/other women" yet? "

OMG - do people really say stuff like that! How rude. As if it's lkely that men who use/watch porn would be sleeping with prostitutes if they weren't able to - what a silly oldfashiond and frankly ridiculous thing for anyone to think.

Men can use porn without ever having entertaining the idea of using prostitutes. I suppose people who think this believe that the two things (porn and use of prostitutes) are somehow connected. weird.

I wouldn't date a man who wasn't into porn, but each to their own.

You obviously need to sort it out yourselves. What kind of porn or erotica do you enjoy? Could you share that with him? How is your sex life?

Xenia, ha ha,
I wouldn't date a man who was into porn.
I just don't get porn. It doesn't excite me. It just looks like people being forced to perform. its not natural.
but hey.
sorry. i don't think that is helping the OP is it ?

shall i tell you all what my dh does for a job ??????

I suppose I was making the point that huge numbers of british couples are very into porn as a joint activity and she's not necessarily in the "right" because she isn't into it. I was going into London yesterday and noticed masses of couples leaving the Erotica exhibition (not where I was headed) with a red bag full of freebies and Erotica 2009 plastered all over it. It amused me to surmise the relationships between them.

Those of you bleating on about it being the OP's problem and trying to make her feel odd for not accepting porn are out of order. Give the poor woman a break!

nickneat, I think counselling is worth a try if your DH will go for it. It sounds as though the sense of betrayal you feel after all you have been through to conceive is very great. You both need to find a way forward. Good luck. x

I would look to the relationship a little more. Are you sure that you are not putting being a mother before your DH? Breast feeding at 3yrs implies that the the DC comes first and DH is supposed to understand. Were you able to have time to yourselves during those years-e.g. grandparents have them overnight-go out as a couple-stay in without DCs? I would sit down and discuss it properly. If he does feel he comes second-it isn't too late to change.

I personally have no problem with my husband wtching porn,however i would hate it if he hid it from me.

flockwallpaper - do you not think it's rather an extreme reaction to seriously consider ending your marriage over it? Even if you really don't like porn, that seems a bit OTT to me.

spice, please try and see it from nickneat's point of view. I am not trying to say that this is the case here, but TTC for ages and then going through IVF is known to put relationships and sex lives under sustained stress. It can also affect self esteem. I don't think it is an extreme reaction necessarily because context is everything.

Xenia, my dh's company made a huge order worth £100's of £1000's to Erotica. They did the same to the NEC exhibition.

Believe me the trade is flourishing in this credit crunch.

I think that the people saying they have no problem with porn are in relationships where it is not kept secret - that's the key here.

Imagine being with someone for 17 years and finding out a vital piece of their life that you had NO idea about, whether it was smoking/drinking/cross dressing, the porn is secondary to the secrecy.

If my husband was sitting downstairs at night wanking to porn instead of being in bed with me, I would leave him, not because of the porn but because it was a secret he kept from me and he wouldn't be the man I thought he was.
Most men like this seem to tell their partners that they don't even like porn - that's why the women are usually so upset.

If a woman has huge moral objections to porn then it isn't unreasonable of her to ask her partner not to use it - and they are using it as they are not merely viewing it unobjectively, they are actively masturbating to it to get them off.
Men don't need porn in order to masturbate, if they do then they are a bit pathetic.

I think that it is the secrecy that is the upsetting part, but I wonder how much of a voice DH had in the upbringing of the DCs and whether OP is ever willing to send them off to stay with grandparents etc so that she and DH are alone. I wonder whether they ever discussed bfing a 3 yr old in advance, with both being happy about it -or did OP take the attitude 'her body-her baby,' without it being a joint decision-or did she just assume that DH must feel the same. I think that there is a huge amount to discuss; rather than just feeling betrayed.

Her kids are 8 and 5, not 3. She found out when he was 3 months that dh had the porn on the go, not 3 years.

DuellingFanjo - yes that has been said on here. I don't think it was to connect the two, think it was more of a "hey at least he is only watching other women rather than shagging them" kind of comment to be fair but still......

Interestingly enough I read this article a few months back and it stuck in my head
www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/2009/01/houston-we-have-a-porn-problem (did that work?)

Oh dear! I don't know why I missed the months. Ignore me entirely!

I can see it from both their POVs. TTC and fertility treatment does indeed put a huge strain on a relationship and a sex life but it affects both the man and the woman, not simply the woman. Maybe that's the OP's DH's way of dealing with it, who knows?

And the bit in the OP which says that he is 'relieving himself' after she's gone to bed implies that their sex life isn't really happening. But perhaps I'm reading too much into that.

Although given the OP hasn't returned, am beginning to suspect this was made up. First post about porn at 11pm on a Saturday night

Or maybe she's trying to sort out her marriage rather than hanging around online?

I don't think it was made up, sounds pretty convincing to me.

I think she didn't post again because a lot of people replied saying basically, what is your problem! Porn is fine!

I don't think porn is fine when it upsets someone else, I think it is destructive and selfish. I think people have a gut instict about these things and it's always good to trust your instincts in matters such as these.

Most people who watch porn do so privately and alone - some people might also do it "secretly" but they don't always mean the same thing. At what point was he supposed to announce to you that he was watching porn and wanking? Surely telling you would have made it sound like a much bigger deal than it is, and result in much upset? So you can understand why he didn't when all he wanted was a quick knuckle-shuffle before bed.

Just my opinion but I think it's nice to have some harmless secrets in your life. Not big stuff, affairs etc, just little things that are just for you which no-one can stand in judgment of because no-one knows, whether its a sex toy, some porn, rainy day money or even just a stash of chocolate you don't want to share!

Op, do you hate porn, or do you just hate your man looking at other women? If it's that you hate porn then you need to decide if it's important enough to break up over, or if it's something you can tolerate/ignore.

If it's that you feel jealous or think he prefers looking at the other women to you, then that's a different issue. I think you'd need to explain that to him and see what he says.

Most men who look at porn do it because they like looking at naked women doing rude things. There's not much more to it than that, they aren't sitting there going "God I wish my wife's fanny looked like that!" or "my wife nagged me about putting the bin out again, wish I could replace her with this 18 year old scandinavian girl" they're just thinking "boobs!" - the girl is forgotten as soon as the website is closed.

I think you can ask him to stop looking at porn and give your reasons why, but you can't demand it of him, because you can't enforce it.

I think anyone who thinks someone can look at a lot of porn and then shut the computer down and drive it completely from their minds is deluding themselves.

One of the destructive aspects of porn is that it normalises things which aren't actually normal, whether in terms of looks or activities. If someone uses porn a lot, after a while they will on some level look for that sort of thing in their sex life. Porn addiction results when reality is no longer enough.

That is not true inmylittlehead. I watch a fair bit but it's all vanilla stuff (nothing that most people wouldn't do in the context of a fairly standard relationship) and I'm not really looking at the way the people look iyswim. There are a lot of people who use/look at porn as part of their regular sex lives and who are not in any way addicted.

I also think that it covers such a vast range that you really can't make any sweeping statements (ie that it will 'spoil' you for 'normal' activities or 'normal' looks).

ob, doesn't surprise me. Sex is something most men and women think about all the time.

I don't agree with someone above saying it is that it's in secret that is the problem. If it's in seceet why? Does she have sexual hangups? Would he expect her not to be interested if he showed her? Why wouldn't he think they could find stuff they'd both enjoy together?

Anyway everyone is different. What he is doing is not illegal and say he found out she was reading about how to convert to Catcholicism or spending 3 hours every night chatting to a new friend or learning to knit he might equally be cross. Instead they need to talk about it, perhaps subscribe to some sex magazines or find whatever it is that most arouses her -s he should sit down with him and talk about her sexual fantasies, order some new underwear or something