My father (married 25 years) frequently "secretly" using gay porn

[TotallyFrozen]

Hi all, I am so grateful for the name change feature on this. I am posting here because hopefully there are many women on here who would be in a similar-length marriage to my mother and it is her welfare that I am concerned about here. Sorry this will be long-ish.

In a nutshell: My father is an unlikeable and difficult person. He rarely helps around the house, usually disagrees with whatever is said seemingly for the sake of being difficult, gets very angry and defensive if anyone criticises him (screams, makes threats towards you, threatens to leave), and spends his days rotating between sleeping, eating, watching TV, and using the computer. Unfortunately the feeling that I and my sibling have towards him is contempt, even though we wish we could have a good relationship with him. He has some good points (financial contributions, nice towards our pets). He has a history of falling out with others but always blames them, and has few friends or people he gets along with. The "narcissistic personality disorder" description rings very true for him (and I say this as someone who works in the mental health field). This description is basically "the tip of the iceberg".

My mother, whilst an imperfect human like all of us, is a kind and caring woman who is very selfless and giving.

The problem: My father is constantly looking up gay porn on the home computer. He has been doing this for probably 13 years, though my sibling and I only became certain of it around 2-3 years ago. Previously we attributed things we found (videos/ pictures hidden away in folders, constant viruses on the computer, etc.) to viruses, etc. He has been doing this since we were both children. Once we realised what was happening, we decided to install K9 (a child internet protection program) on all our home computers to at least stop the behaviour in the house. I know that there may be an argument against trying to control someone's use of porn but considering his horrible behaviour at home, we felt that it was awful of him to disrespect my mum in her home in this way whilst using her for her domestic services. I am OK with being criticised for this decision and would be interested in differing perspectives. My mum is not very good with technology and has no inkling of his behaviour. He thinks he is hiding his tracks, but he is not as good as he thinks he is with technology either.

Anyway, increasingly I am realising that installing programs that prevent him from accessing these sites constantly (i.e., every night once everyone has gone to bed, during the day when no-one is behind him) is only addressing a symptom rather than the core problem. He is now searching for images on Google images and on social networking type-sites which the internet protection program cannot block without blocking ALL such sites. It really angers me that he uses and puts down my mum during the day, then goes behind her back and does this most nights. My post is prompted by the fact that he did this last night and didn't even bother trying to cover his tracks by deleting his history. Is he WANTING to be discovered? Initially I was shocked finding this out, but I've now had 3 years to become semi-desensitised to it all.

My mum describes him as "a good man, though he has his problems" and has spoken in the past about how she is happy to be part of a couple and be financially secure. Most of his behaviour, she has learnt to "let go", because he gets so nasty when criticised. It is like we all tiptoe around him. They have been married around 25 years. I'm quite sure they have no sex life anymore (I say this because he sometimes goes off for "massages" twice a week or so - they seemed legitimate but I'm aware that gay porn might not be all that he's seeking out and I wouldn't want my mum's health at risk).

My question is: What do I do? His seeking out of gay porn is pervasive and frequent; before I put K9 on our computers he was doing it constantly and just minimising the screen when someone would walk past. I haven't brought up the topic, just passive-aggressively installed K9 and refused to remove it when he asked me to. We got some new computers and he installed K9 first so he could have control over what he viewed, and was watching all the porn again. Luckily I was able to hack into it, uninstall it, and put in a new version of K9 that I have control over. It is like this ridiculous passive-aggressive dance back and forth between us; however I do not feel it is my right to potentially destroy my parents' marriage by publicising what's going on.

I'm basically wondering, from women in long marriages, what you would want if this were your husband, and what issues might be important for me to consider? Should I remain quiet, talk to my father privately, tell my mum - what?

To the OP - I think you've taken a lot of the comments here (which I consider to be very insulting) very well and on the chin. I totally agree with MrsFlitterSnoop.

It seems to me that lots of people, as parents themselves, have sided instantly with the 'accused' parent in this role, thinking, hmm, I wouldn't like my children to interfere with my life like that, and responded accordingly.

I think these people need to put their own very biased perspective aside and try some empathy.

No, in the current economic climate - when it's nigh on impossible to own, or even, in some very expensive cities, to rent decently - the OP is NOT too old to be living at home. She is also doing postgrad work and presumably has little or no income. It is not asking marytrdom of her parents that she live at home during this period while she completes her studies. Only in the West are people obsessed with the notion of complete independence after a certain age. In Asian countries it's entirely standard to continue living with your parents, often, for your whole life. People need to stop unhelpfully criticising the OP for that and address the real problem.

Personally, I think her father has behaved disgracefully, and deserves to be called up on it, particularly as the mother's well-being is the OP's main concern. And no - I don't think they are simply 'controlling' their mother in the same vein as the father. Seriously, who do people think they are making judgements like that? Where is the psychology degree, and furthermore, what's wrong with being concerned for your mother?

My 64 year old father also spends an unseemly amount of time on the computer til about 3am in the morning each night. It slightly turns my stomach to think what he is getting up to. Unfortunately, I think it's pretty obvious. Had I been able to install monitoring software (I am too untechnological, unfortunately), I would sincerely hope for my mother that it wasn't gay porn (as I agree it's a good thing to know who you are married to), but any excessive porn isn't great, is it. However, whenever at home I have turned a blind eye. I think it's obvious that internet porn is a major issue for literally millions of men. It's somehow even more unseemly when it's your own aged parent doing it, but, well - I suppose at their age, unlikely to be getting a lot of action, they need it the most?!

However - this behaviour combined with the generally abusive (let's just take 'shouting and screaming' as abusive, without the need for etymological analysis, shall we) behaviours he exhibits mean that the OP is well within their rights to take him to task. Seniority within the family should not make you untouchable. His total lack of respect for the mother is not on, and I would hope that my children, if they saw me in a similar situation of being shown zero respect, would say something and stick up for me.

OP - hope among all the criticism and judgemental posts, you find this one, and it helps.

My father was a total arse and Mum convinced herself their love was so strong, etc, etc, she basically dived into his world and screwed up most her life - as well as ours, and her own mental health - in consequence. After Dad died, Mum found out he had been unfaithful. If she'd known at the time, she would have left him. It was her deal-breaker.

I suspect that, while porn might not be a deal-breaker for your mum, the fact that it's gay porn may well be. So I would tell her. Furthermore, if you can afford a detective, I'd consider investigating what he's done to carry out his fantasies in real life.

It would be nive to give her her permission to end this abusive relationship and get a life of her own, wouldn't it?

My mother's now in a relationship with a very nice man.

Larry once again you come here to minimise abuse and defend the right of a man to do whatever he likes in his own 'castle'. When it comes to the rights of others to live without the likelihood of being mind-raped in their own homes (because whether you like it or not, this OP lives in her own home here and your assumption that she could live anywhere else is based on no evidence whatsoever) they should follow the rule 'the man's way or the highway'.

Shocking really, to find dinosaurs like you still roaming the earth spewing your nonsense.

'I am afraid I get very pissed off when the words such as narcissm, abuse, entitlement, etc are bandied about by people who have simply read a book, or something online about these traits and then start applying them here, as if they are experts.'

Again, Cabbageroses, you really need to have some sort of qualification in order to be able to dismiss the possibility of these traits being present, don't you?

You are in fact setting yourself up as some sort of expert if you attempt to say none of this is present here.

Mathanxiety,

How about you tell a genuinely homeless person or person who has been sexually abused (in the normal sense of the word of physically abused) that some 23/24 year old, choosing to live in a very comfortable parental home and spying on and censoring her own father, is abused because she ferrets out what her dad is up to on the internet? I wonder what reaction you would get?

Don't be disingenuous about Cabbagerose's post. She did not deny the diagnoses, merely questioned others' right to make them. There is a world of difference as you well know. Don't you feminists call this response a straw argument (deliberately misinterpreting what someone has said and responding to what they did not say)?

I may be a dinosaur but when we dinosaurs roamed the earth, it was a far less self indulgent place and all the better for it.

LarryGrylls -- how much gay porn have you seen, that you can state without a shadow of doubt that a 13 year old seeing gay porn (which is how old TF was when she first ran across it) would not be scarred for life?

Having run across what my exH used to indulge in and leave on the computer to be found at the click of a mouse, I can state that it was some of the most revolting material I have ever set eyes upon. I have a strong stomach and I saw it before breakfast, and for that I am thankful. It made me gag for hours. The idea that any child of mine would ever see anything like that caused me to shake. I felt physically ill every time I thought of the possibility. The NSPCC considers exposing children to porn a serious threat to a child's welfare for good reason.

But thanks for your reasonable perspective. Must be great to have such insight into how nothing is ever as it seems. What an untroubled little bubble of a world you live in.

Larry, read the OP's posts again.

You have simply got your facts wrong.

Since you seem to specialise in abuse denial, this is no surprise to me. Whatever doesn't fit your neat paradigm of men being all lovely creatures and children being ungrateful/ men doing just fine ruling the world and feminists being troublemakers is dismissed.

Cabbageroses has denied and dismissed just as you have in support of her own particular focus on the right of an adult to use porn no matter what the circumstances. In particular she has denied that the mother in the case here was being abused. I was not being disingenuous in the least.

And as for 'you feminists' -- you really need to learn to stop worrying.

Mathanxiety,

I come from a home of divorced parents and it was not a particularly pleasant atmosphere when I was growing up (some of you lot would probably term it abusive). I left home at 18 to go to university, worked every uni hol whilst living at home, and moved out 6 months after graduating aged 21.

From the perspective of adulthood most of us see our parents as flawed human beings. It is in seeing a more balanced picture and not reacting to our parents as if we were still children that we grow up. Unfortunately, some seem to struggle to make this transition.

If you don't like the family home and you are a remotely employable adult, go. It really is as simple as that. I do not believe the OP is desperately scarred but still there, living on her father whose good points are that he is "generous financially".

My world is not untroubled but I do not think professional victimhood is healthy. I would not want to grow old blaming my parents for who I am.

larry thanks for your support

math- larry said it all for me. YOU actually set yourself up as an expert, and I assume you are not?

I didn't say that those traits did not exist- what I did say and will say again, is that the likes of you bandy them about in posts as if you are qualified to do so. Are you? If not, the stop posting as if you are. If you want to act like a psychotherapist then train as one!

A little knowledge- and a lot of labelling- is a bad thing, IMO.

I have to agree with larry that this thread has become far too complicated as a result of people using their own unhappy experiences and projecting those onto the OP's position.

The fact is that the father can do as he likes- he IS doing as he likes. His habit/activity is distasteful, but it's not murder. No one has died.

If the OP doesn't like it she ought to tell him instead of game playing with censoring.

If she wants to tell her mother as a means of getting back at her father for being such an arse all her life, then that's another thing. She may find that retribution does not pay.

She may also find she has well and truly fucked her parent's marriage.

Is that something she wants to live with?

'It is in seeing a more balanced picture and not reacting to our parents as if we were still children that we grow up. Unfortunately, some seem to struggle to make this transition.'

Dismissive of the abuse that has been explicitly described here and patronising the OP all in the one paragraph. Your ability to mansplain everything away that makes you question your core belief in the right of men to do whatever they want as long as they can manage to hold down a job is breathtaking.

Again, your idea that TF can simply up sticks and move out is based on a rather narrow and western idea that young adults all grow up and move away from their parents homes and live independently. You don't even have an open enough mind to consider there may be another cultural norm involved here.

I think you assume too far Cabbageroses. I have a lot more than a little knowledge. You also assume too much wrt the motives of the OP here. Do you read minds?

Not surprised you and Larry are cosying up to each other.

And a father can do anything he likes short of murder?

On what planet?

god. i have just read the entire thread. poor OP having to take that!

If I so much as suspected (and no, i wouldn't need concrete proof) that my father may be visiting prostitutes of either sex I would tell my mother

the OP strongly believes this may be happening. Her mother may know. or she may not.

there is a chance (even if it's only small) that she is unknowingly having her health put at risk.

I think the OP's mother deserves to know and I am shocked that anyone on here would think otherwise to be truthful. It doesn't matter if she knows for sure, it doesn't matter whether or not she should have installed K9. If she thinks her mother is at risk then she needs to tell her

OP- I would talk to your Mum. I would start simply by saying that you keep finding this stuff on the computer and that it is clear that someone in the house is accessing particular sites.
Then see what she says. If she brushes it off then perhaps that is because she knows about it all already?

I think another thing we should bear in mind is that we have no idea where the OP lives. What I mean by this is that a man visiting prostitutes in this country may be "safer" in terms of STD's than he is if he lives in Thailand or somewhere like that....

What kind of marriage would the op be 'fucking up' then Cabbageroses, one where the H is a bully, uses gay porn and visits massage parlours? Some loss that would be!

The op is not banging on about abuse, others are. The op's worry is should she tell her mother, not with a motive of 'getting back' at her father, but out of concern for her mother.

I come from a happy, 'normal' family, parents have been married 49 years. I still maintain op should tell her mum. If I discovered my dad was doing this, damn right I would tell my mum (a technophobe also) because I was raised by both parents to be honest and respectful and to intervene when wrong was being done against someone. We were taught not to look the other way, no fence sitting round our house. They taught us well, we all know what we are worth, and what our parents are worth,.

How much is this mother worth? Not even the truth that her marriage is a sham? Telling her doesn't force her to end the marriage, or even confront the H but it does give her her place. We all know, the op and sibling knows. The only one who is does not know is the very one who ought to know.

Am surprised, and disappointed so many see this as interference. The womans husband is gay, she has a right to be told.

Larry, what you are doing here (and this is the most charitable interpretation I can come up with) is projecting your own relatively benign (by your own account) experience of living in a home where divorce occurred onto the OP's situation. And living in a western home at that, as a young man. So perhaps your lack of experience of life as a young woman perhaps living in a culture where this is not the norm makes your 'insights' here irrelevant?

It is patently obvious that you have never cracked open any literature on the subject of dysfunctional families, either that or you have a strong resistance to even the most fundamental ideas and research that has been done in the area, so clearly your posts do not come from any perspective that could possibly be useful to the OP.

Again, the most charitable reason for your involvement on this thread that I can see is a misguided idea that simply by living on the same planet (some of the time anyway) and having come from a home affected by divorce, you think you can be useful. I think you have an idea in your head that there is nothing worse than divorce or rocking the boat in the home.

There are worse things.

The OPs mother has elected to remain in the marriage - that has been her CHOICE. From the sounds of it, the gay porn is the least of the problems - his verbal abuse, his behaving like a child when challenged and so on. I agree with the posters who say that it is not the responsibility of the OP to sort out her parents' marriage.

I doubt very much whether there will be any "happy" resolution whatsoever by telling her mother what she has found. It is quite naive to imagine that this revelation will somehow be the moment of enlightenment.

I would agree with the posters who have advised that it is best to disengage from the situation. What the OPs father looks at on the computer is up to him. How the OPs mother reacts is up to her. I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with the OP telling her mother what she has found (although I would strongly suspect that the mother already has a pretty good idea of what is going on) - but I do not think it will necessarily resolve things.

.

What kind of marriage would the op be 'fucking up' then Cabbageroses, one where the H is a bully, uses gay porn and visits massage parlours? Some loss that would be!

One which the mother wants, at the moment.
call her blissfully ignorant- but it's not her daughter's place to spoil the illusion, IMO. And I doubt she is as blind as the DD believes.

Math if you really do have professional qualifications then why not say so instead of implying you are somehow qualified?

I'm afraid your sanctimonious posting style is really irritating me.

Christ math is this helping the op or anyone
else in a similar position? Are you saying a human of a different gender or one who has not had direct experience of something, and has not read up on a topic, is not entitled to an opinion? Ffs.

I'm afraid your style of assuming you are qualified to dismiss everything the OP has said here about abuse is becoming quite irritating to me for my part. You seem to have read exactly nothing about the dynamics that may be involved here yet you feel confident in dismissing everything the OP has said about her mother's life.

You are also confident that the mother has willfully turned a blind eye to all the abuse and lives a charmed sort of life because her husband is employed, and you seem certain that nothing will make one bit of difference to her because she has obviously made her bed and is happy to lie in it, so revealing the father's gay porn habit and possible down low lifestyle would be futile, on top of interfering in the father's right to do anything he pleases short of murder -- all despite any evidence and despite your complete lack of any experience of life with a man like this.

Tadpoles, there is really no element of choice when a woman is involved with an abusive man. One of the effects of abuse is to rob a woman of any feelings of self respect and self esteem and to make her feel trapped, to feel she could not possibly make it on her own and actually needs the abuser for survival, to feel she is worthless and that this relationship she is involved in is the best she could ever hope for. Sometimes knowing that there is no hope at all for the relationship, no hope at all that he will come to his senses and love her, no matter how much she bends backwards for the man makes all the difference.

I'm just sticking my head above the parapet again, TotallyFrozen, to add my voice to those who recommend telling your mother - supporting her as far as needed - and not getting your hopes too high.

I do agree with Math about the insidious effects of domestic abuse (I am qualified by a lifetime of living with it). The 'choice' to remain with an abusive partner is not made freely; it's dictated by the total loss of objectivity which the abuser causes in his victims.

We see in these threads that abuse targets can be shaken into awareness by some misdemeanour that crosses their fragile boundaries. It often is an infidelity. I would think there's some hope that, knowing her husband/ruler/dictator had been shagging random men, she might decide enough is enough.
Good luck, anyway.

Great post, C2B. I hope TF reads it :)

TF tell her - tell her

if she knows it won't be a shock - if not she needs to know