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

yes, it was probably sexcetera or summat

where, strangely, all the ladies have black stars for genitals

Oh so that's not okay because it doesn't turn you on. I like watching it and I'm het

I'd got the impression that the adult channels were of the pay per view variety, which , if the adverts are anything to go by, are pretty hard core.

I actually find the thought of a 47 year old man, sat on the sofa alone with his pants round his ankles, while his wife is upstairs in bed, a pretty grim prospect, it just seems a bit grubby and desperate to me.
I wonder why the OP hasn't been back? She didn't say if they had a decent sex life together.

I really can't think that you have worked so hard to afford school fees for your DDs, Xenia, for for them to be porn stars! DCs do not choose their parents and it is a matter of luck on their part. A DC who gets a feckless parent is at a severe disadvantage and I don't think it is ethical to say -'you can be a porn star becuase your parents didn't bother about you!
Are you really saying that it perfectly alright for intelligent, hard working women in well paid jobs to exploit those who didn't have a good start in life?
Every human being is unique-one person is not more important because they had the sheer luck to be born into the 'right family'.

There has recently been a long thread about marriage and changing the name and being called Mrs makes you the possession of the man so I find it strange that it is perfectly OK (even liberating) to be a piece of meat, with no one remotely interested in you as a person!
It is just as bad for a male-my DSs are not pieces of meat for other people's entertainment.

I think that very few, emotionally well balanced, people choose to work in the sex industry. I would say that Belle de Jour had a troubled upbringing. A father who has used 150 prostitutes isn't normal in the circles that I mix in! (If it is, then it is well hidden from me!). If it was my father I would have no respect for him at all.

who knows? I still suspect the op was made up. But it's been an interesting discussion nonetheless

or rough anal scenes Dittany, don't forget that!

I can get turned on by watching women together and I'm 100% straight, not in the least bit bi curious, the thought of being touched by a woman does nothing for me.

The film "feeling it" features hot men masturbating alone - would you consider that a form of prostitution? I'm afraid I rather like it.

Not everyone that watches porn watches the 'nasty' stuff. I know number of men that still prefer the basic stuff

Malificence, do you think a 42 year old woman on the sofa with her knickers round her ankles also grim?? I admit I don't sit on the sofa very often, usually masturbate in bed but it has been known. Is all masturbation grim, grubby and desperate in your opinion??

I don't think it was made up. I can see that she was horrified. I think that probably, because she has had so much trouble having DCs, she has neglected the sexual side of her life in favour of being a mother. I think that they need to discuss it and, if necessary, get outside help. I don't see a problem if both are interested in porn-but that is not the case here.

So it's okay for her to neglect the sex side of her marriage but her poor DH isn't even allowed a wank. And yet on other threads where women are living with non-sexual husbands, they're being advised to have fuck buddies. I do so love MN's double standards

No, I don't think that it is OK to ignore the sexual side and that her DH is supposed to be quite happy about it. I think that it is probably quite common in that they must have had a tough time trying to conceive and then all the stress of IVF followed by the sleep deprived years of babyhood etc and that she has forgotten that, first and foremost, they are a couple. The ages of 45 and 47 and 17 yrs of marriage are given, rather as if they should have settled into a steady routine of parenting and middle age(I may be imagining that one-it is just my impression). I think that she is playing the martyr and putting all the blame on him and he is taking it. She needs to stop playing the victim, realise that they have problems and at least talk about it in a adult manner with him rather than giving him the cold shoulder.

piscesmoon - totally agree with you.

I see far too much of that attitude on MN from women that somehow becoming a mother somehow means the man has to like it or lump it if she loses interest in sex. Loads of double standards too as spicemonster notes. Sometimes I just want to say 'give us blokes a break'. My guess is that the average man has a sex drve that is 5 - 10 times higher than the average woman and it does not make us monsters. It is entirely hormonaly driven that we cannot just switch on and off - just like women have a hormonal balance they cannot control.

I notice the OP has not come back but the thing that rings out of her post:

"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 ..."

The whole thing in her mind seems to hang around the issue of babies and children and that the whole 'betrayal' thing is somehow connected to 'conception, 'children' and 'motherhood' and nothing to do with their relationship.

Fine the OP does not like porn. DW does not like it and it does not do anything for me and am not interested (cue a load of women going and cat calls of 'yeah right'). There is a heck of a lot more going on here than the OP suggests in her post though.

It is nice to have a man agree with me...or anyone for that matter!
I misread her bf at 3months as 3yrs which was a bit embarrassing but I think that her sentiments are similar. I think that many women are putting their role as mother first. If you are all co sleeping, or in many cases the DH is kicked out to a different room and the DCs always come first, then there is little opportunity for sex. It is difficult when they are small babies and all you want is a good night's sleep but her DCs are 8yrs and 5 yrs and plenty old enough to stay with other people, to have babysitters and to allow all members of the family to have some privacy.
I am at the age of empty nest and so there are just DH and me: it would have been horrible to have turned around and found that we had been so bogged down in domesticity that we were strangers.
I don't personally like porn, but I can see that it has it's allure. I think there is an addiction possibility and a tendency to see men and women as purely sexual objects, there to gratify other people, and I wonder where you draw the line between acceptable and not acceptable but I think that OP is over reacting to something that is quite understandable and playing the victim, while not taking any responsibility herself.

Scared of love, I'm all for it, it's absolutely essential as part of a great sex life.
It's just the thought of a 47 year old sat there like a naughty schoolboy while his wife is oblivious upstairs. Why wasn't he lying next to her in bed doing it?

The fact that he said he "cant help it" is pathetic at his age.

Why aren't people able to be honest enough with their sexual partner about masturbation, so many people think it's only a "private" thing but WHY? I find that so odd.
ABD, my husband has no interest in using porn either, he finds most of it pretty un-sexual tbh.

Good post, ABetaDad!

Many men do like porn I know - I don't myself, it just doesn't do a thing for me to watch other people having sex - and although I can understand the OP's shock and initial disgust, if I were her I'd try to give myself a shake, come to terms with it and not feel it any reflecton on herself, nor a sign that her DP is disgusting - he isn't - he's just horny and it's there and a quick release.

However I do feel worried about the explosion of porn and the way young men (and girls) are seeing very extreme stuff on the net from a very young age - I can't help but think it colours their attitudes to sex and women and gives them a wrong impression - C4 Teenagers and Pornography program anyone? Boys (and girls) thought normal young women's bodies were 'saggy' and that girls could be quite scary in their demands for sex with strangers, as per your average porn film where a bored, nympho housewife drags in the postman and his mate and won't let them leave till she's thoroughly 'done'.

Imagine your DS, those of you who have them - he has you as a mother, he has a good image of women as strong, equal people with minds and rights of their own. But then at the most impressionable age, with hormones raging, he and his mates see over and over again images of girls who are just men's willing - or unwilling - toys, splayed out begging for it in every hole from several men at once (he won't be watching Petra Joy !) However good the attitudes you brought him up with, I think his own might wobble a bit.

I don't know what the answer is - extreme porn and the appetites for it are not going to go away - I just wish boys had a more vanilla start to their imaginary sexual life these days - but it's straight in at the deep end now (no pun intended!) and not a wank over gauzy half-hidden glimpses in the underwear catalogue or a 60s Playboy with soft-focus, pretty, naked women - withOUT a cucumber where no cucumber should go

I think that you have very good points there, Apples. In the past, impressionable young teenagers would have found it extremely difficult to get such material, but now it is so easy. People are up in arms at the suggestion that 15yr old might get compulsory sex education at school, from caring, responsible adults, and yet seem oblivious to the fact that a click of a mouse can open up a whole new world in the privacy of their own home-much of which the parents wouldn't want them to see.

That's a good point piscesmoon - I am quite shocked at what is so freely available online nowadays. It's a bit sad

Good point about teenagers. Reading Cosmopolitan would be a great place to start for most teenage lads and having a kind but open Auntie or older sister to talk to. I remeber feeling overwhelmed at age 13 by suddenly having the sex drive of a 23 yr old man but with no experience or maturity to deal with it.

I have two DS not quite teenagers but am going to try my best to help them make te transition. I hate to think what they could come across on the internet now.

Oh Dear Nickneat - im sorry that your post had turned into somewhat of a debate about porn! But you can see how divided peoples opinions are on the subject!

I posted a similar thread on here a few months back. It may be worth you reading as I got slightly different replies.

I think i over-reacted initially (I blame those hormones again!) but DH & I had good chat & our relationship was not affected by it. Still dont see what the fuss is about for men & what they get out of it though but have excepted that that is the way things are and men & women are different.

If it was a very regular thing for DH & something that he was insisting into bringing into our relationship then I would have to draw the line but i am confident that it is the occational thing that DH just needs to do. At least it is better than being pestered for sex when it is the last thing on your mind or DH going off with other women.

I also agree that it takes time to get back into a sexual relationship with DH after sex meaning baby making for so long, then the pregnancy & the birth.

BTW, I since found that if you post this sort of thing in the relationships chat room, you get a more sympathetic ear and less of a debate IMO.

What is wrong with looking at porn? I really don't understand why this is such an issue for you. Why isn't he allowed to watch porn? What, genuinely, is your problem with it OP?
Why would you consider ending a relationship over something so normal....and trivial!

Agree tamtam that OP should have posted in the relationships section perhaps, rather than AIBU. I thought that some posters were being a bit harsh when it was clear that she was really unhappy and needed a bit of encouragement to sort her relationship out.

And rostbeef, porn is not a 'normal' part of my relationship - it just isn't something that interests either of us much. If other people wish to indulge then that is up to them.

I think it's natural for men to want to masturbate and if they choose to look at porn then so be it. I can't really see what the problem is here. Her DH enjoys watching it and gets off on it, let him be. It's not a huge crime. He's not off doing it with some random woman is he.