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?