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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

WWYD.....Porn again.......

119 replies

MeelooMouloo · 06/08/2011 23:07

Confession first, DH out at friends house, forgotten phone, curiosity got the better of me after it rang twice in quick sucession (was another of his mates, nothing dodgy), looked at his "gallery" & found LOTS of porn.

I know for some women this is no big deal, all men look at it right??? but for me it is a big deal, DH knows it's a big deal, has always known it's a big deal. Happened few months back when found stuff on the shared laptop. Explained very directly that I find it offensive, degrading and very upsetting. He made lots of excuses ("mates just send it me" etc), I argued that he could just view it & delete it rather than save it alongside photos of the DC.

I have very low self esteem & pretty serious body issues all of which he is aware and which have become worse since having DC3. Receiving counselling as a couple at the moment which is looking into some of these things but next session not till the end of the month.

How to I approach DH about this again? Feeling very upset and angry right now, not sure I can be objective, just want to tell him piss off & take his fucking big titted, size 6 women with him.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 07/08/2011 22:36

well, you know what chip, your sister does not have to stay with a man who puts porn before his primary relationship

it isn't compulsory to stay, nor (IMO) to be recommended

unless, of course, your sis is happy to accept his primary relationhip is actually, with cheap thrills and she will always come second

MeelooMouloo · 07/08/2011 22:44

AnyFucker
The kids don't play with his phone thankfully but the last time this happened, back in March, he had been downloading photo's from his phone to the pc and some porn images were transferred too which he hadn't noticed. The kids have access to the pc, hence we had the conversation where I made it clear not to store any shit again.

Chipstick
Your sister's husband sounds a complete shit.

OP posts:
chipstick10 · 07/08/2011 22:45

My sis said if it had been an affair it would have been different, its almost as if porn (lapdancer)can be excused. I love my sis but AnyFucker i agree with you.

solidgoldbrass · 07/08/2011 23:14

Your relationship doesn't sound healthy at all, and porn doesn't sound like the biggest problem. I think you are coming across as a bit controlling - if you feel that you saved your H from himself ie coerced him into taught him about a Proper Relationship, and if you remind him of that, I think the porn use might be a bit of a two-fingers in the sense of 'Actually, you don't own me.'

MeelooMouloo · 07/08/2011 23:24

Solidgoldbrass
Sorry if I came across that way, don't feel I saved him from himself and hardly showing him a proper relationship Confused
Trying really hard to salvage our marriage & tbh porn use is just one issue albeit an emotive one. Like Ducati said earlier, the fact that he prefers to spend his freetime with his mates and hobbies rather than his family shows that maybe I'm wasting my time.

OP posts:
ineedabodytransplant · 08/08/2011 00:51

I am a bloke, no sex in my life for a long time. Looked at porn, more as a possible 'relief' than anything else, but honestly once you have seen one woman 'getting it every which way until sunday' you've seen it allWink. I know I now find it so boringly samey.

But no, not all blokes look at porn all the time. I personally think that any bloke who does, has a wierd/strange/ wrong view of women in the first place.

Porn is all about enticement, making you imagine what might happen if you were the male/female participant. But any bloke with an iota of morals or sense will realise it 'ain't like that in real life'.

OP, if your oh knows your feelings about porn, then ok he has looked at it on his phone, but would he, or anyone, male or female, who knew their oh views on this leave their choice of media around for the other to view?

You need to re-emphasise your views. Let him know that you are not totally against his porn viewing if that is ok with you, I don't really know. But he needs to keep it to himself. Or even firmer if that is how you really feel, tell him to cease looking/saving/whatever asap!!

sassyminder · 08/08/2011 00:52

I am a very confident woman and I don't hae any issues regarding my looks and but I loathe porn and much more now that I have a daughter. I dont understand how fathers who have daughters can still like porn.
I know that my husband had a mild addiction and he seemed to cal down now, I don't keep tracking it, just remind him to be very careful with the stuff he saves on the computer.
What I can say is the more you fight against it the more they will seek it with great pleasure as it will be forbidden.
You either accept or leave.
Remember to use your own time wisely triying to do things that will make your life and soul better, if he wants to be a fool and waste his time on shit, not your problem.

heleninahandcart · 08/08/2011 00:58

The degradation of women in porn is vile. You can tell your DH this, but you can't control his sexual fantasies. Whether he can keep control of them I have no idea, but either way he should not enable a situation where he hurts you by storing this crap. He has stored these images after agreeing not to. Unacceptable and this needs to be dealt with.

OP you are comparing herself to the women in these porn clips and of course this makes you more unhappy. The women really are incidental images/necessary vessels for them to get off on. It wouldn't actually matter to most men whether they were size 6/8 or 18/20 although its interesting that there are lots of sites with bigger women, but not for very skinny ones. Its not about real women, its about fantasy available women which do not exist in real life.

From your posts it seems the porn use has become symbolic of lot of things in your relationship. Yes, its nasty and its difficult not to feel undermined by the apparently big breasted/bleached anus/reshaped labia actresses. But most men are not be looking at porn for this apparent 'perfection', its not about the women as such, so please try not to go down the comparison route.

MeelooMouloo · 08/08/2011 11:20

Spoke to DH about this last night. Agreed I shouldn't have looked at his phone without his consent but that I thought I had made my feelings on porn crystal clear on more than one occassion during our 5 yrs together. He says that he wasn't aware just how strongly I felt but that is total bollocks. He also claims he only looked at whilst he was off because he was bored. Again total bollocks because the day before he's had a paddy about me asking him if would be in when DS1 got home from school as I was working late. Apparently he was going down the pub and would now have to stay in. when I pointed out that he had claimed me asking him to do stuff had prevented him from doing what he wanted on his days off so why was he bored he changed tack again to try and make it my fault he'd looked at it because i'd been upset with him (hmm). Also mentioned that if he was that bored perhaps he could try taking his hols with the family but that met with total derision.

Have come to the conclusion that his attitude is never going to change regardless of what I think/feel etc and that I am wasting my time trying to salvage any kind of relationship with him. He's obviously not that interested regardless of what he says when feeling contrite. Counselling not going to work either ifhis heart really isn't in it. Single parent of three DC is not what I had in mind for my life but hey ho :)

OP posts:
Malificence · 08/08/2011 11:32

He sounds like a completely self absorbed and selfish git and it seems you would be much better without him, the porn is just the catalyst, he really doesn't give a stuff about you.
Decent, loving and emotionally mature men actually want to spend their holidays with their families.

It makes me wonder why men like him want a wife and children when they seem to resent it so much.

Claennister · 08/08/2011 11:33

I don't see this as an issue of being pro-porn or anti-porn, this is an issue of he made a promise that he did not keep. Whether this promise is OK darling I will not keep any more porn or yes darling I promise I paid the gas bill, they won't cut us off, knowing full well they didn't pay it at all, it's all a question of trust. If someone looks you in the face and says sorry I didn't know it upset you, now I know it upsets you, I will stop doing it then that is lying, cheating dishonesty.

What else could he look you in the eye and lie about next? Look but don't keep it was a very reasonable middle ground between his wishes and yours yet for some reason he couldn't keep to that compromise that you both agreed upon. Why not? It demonstrates a lack of respect for how he knows you feel about this. So it's not just "harmless fun" because he is aware it upsets you. If he is of a different opinion from you about what is harmless and what is not then you need to find a different path between you, but lying and promising he will stick to terms he won't stick to isn't useful for anyone.

What I will say if you cannot expect necessarily to win. He thinks it's fine, you don't. As a couple, why is your opinion necessarily the correct and valid one? If you cannot find a compromise in this issue you will end up with more lies, but it is an issue which can frequently come to a stalemate.

AnyFucker · 08/08/2011 11:40

he sounds like a complete prick in more ways than one, tbh

sorry, love

Malificence · 08/08/2011 12:07

Claennister - I would always say that the person who is being hurt by their partner's behavior has the correct and valid opinion - the person causing the hurt should be the one to stop, especially when it involves deceit .

solidgoldbrass · 08/08/2011 12:41

He does sound like a selfish tosser. I think his attitude does have a basis in 'she wants The Relationship more than me so I can do what I like by constantly reminding her that I could leave if I want to.' I think that obsessing about porn is missing the point which is that this relationship isn't working and hasn't been for a long time.

Apocalypto · 08/08/2011 15:00

The argument that if porn was fine it would be used openly, which someone made above, is a bit facile IMHO.

Wanking is not done in public, along with defecating, self-abuse with sex toys, and farting (mostly). The day it is, we will see whether men want to upfront about porn use. Meanwhile, they are pretty open about it with each other, AFAICT. If they were as open about it with female workmates, they would be in front of an employment tribunal.

It also seems a bit odd to argue that because in some cases porn is forbidden for religious reasons, it ought to possible to forbid it more generally (paraphrasing from upthread). Well, yes - but look at where. Countries that forbid porn are always totalitarian and repressive in other ways, unfortunately, and usually notably so towards women. In Saudi Arabia the display of an ankle is considered indecent, so it is surprising to hear the suggestion that we should look to such places for guidance.

I suspect the reason men are fine with porn is because they perceive the participants as prostitutes. Technically, in having sex with all comers for money, that's what they are, and it's even what the word means. As such, they are seen to be volunteers, not victims. There must be plenty of equally economically desperate women who aren't attractive enough to feature in porn, and yet who somehow get by. There must also be a lot of attractive women in need of money who find other ways than porn to get by. They get jobs as cleaners, for example. So what, exactly, drives the decision of some attractive women to feature in pornography? - rather than being front of house in a hotel, or working in a car showroom, or somewhere else where being attractive and female is helpful?

Perhaps one would have to ask minor slebs whose first career move always seems to be to get their kit off for a lad's mag. This seems to me to be the first rung of the same ladder.

A lot of it porn certainly very unpleasant, and a lot of it looks horribly unhygienic. But the odd thing about porn as someone mentioned upthread - a bloke I think - is that it is free. Those who are using it for nothing aren't going to have any input to the content, because if they dont like it, they can't exactly take their money elsewhere. The misogynist nature of it must be the result of the tastes of those who do pay for it, which I think is probably very few and being a minority by definition weird.

I think all men have looked at it and perhaps all have gone through a phase - certainly post-internet - of looking at it quite a lot. I also think they stop though exactly because the women in it look nothing like real women. This is probably why Ovid stopped wanking over Greek pottery in the end.

DariusVassell · 09/08/2011 00:01

Mate, it would take years of therapy to de-construct the blatant misogyny in that post, so I'll just make this observation...

For people with a brain and an imagination, they don't need porn to wank...Wink

solidgoldbrass · 09/08/2011 00:46

Apocalypto did actually make a good point, which is that the countries that have the most repressive attitude towards porn are also the countries that have the most repressive attitudes to women (and the countries that have a history of liberal-minded attitudes towards porn also tend to be, oddly enough, countries with a liberal-minded attitude towards women as well - and much better women's rights and general equality than the UK).
Porn is not the root of all evil.
And one thing I have noticed particularly on MN porn-and-relationship threads is that when a poster starts off by complaining about her partner's fondness for porn, it usually becomes clear fairly quickly that the partner is a tosser for a variety of reasons, and 'He looks at PORN!' is just the most socially acceptable peg to hang the blame on. Looking at porn doesn't turn a nice man into an arsehole, looking at porn when you generally are an arsehole might make you slightly more of one.

DariusVassell · 09/08/2011 01:18

That's an interesting take on it Solid. Conversely, I've noticed several threads about misogynistic, lazy, selfish guys who are crap in bed and/or cheat on their partners - and it turns out that they've also got a porn habit....

That mirrors real life for me. I've never met a bloke with a porn habit who treats women as true equals, or who doesn't categorise women into those worthy of a relationship and those who are prostitutes and therefore only fit to wank over ....rather as apocalypto said....

solidgoldbrass · 09/08/2011 01:42

Darius: My point is that they were sexist, entitled, unpleasant arseholes before they started looking at porn. I have met plenty of horrid men who don't look at porn - some of the scariest misogynists I have encountered have been the ones who hate porn.

DariusVassell · 09/08/2011 01:55

" they were sexist, entitled, unpleasant arseholes before they started looking at porn"

Who do you mean by "they"? The men referred to on Mumsnet threads? If so, how on earth can you know which came first? Most of the threads I read are about men who grew up with the internet and got used to using porn long before they even had sex or a relationship.

Much like the guys I've had the misfortune to work with for much of my life, or at least since the 1990s. I think you must have your blinkers on if you think that men in the 20-40 age bracket only started looking at porn after they settled down and had families.

solidgoldbrass · 09/08/2011 01:59

Settling down and having a family doesn't stop a man being a sexist, entitled arsehole. Religion and a 'traditional' upbringing set up the whore/madonna dichotomy without the use of porn. Men who are selfish, abusive and controlling often don't use porn but do show their true colours when the first baby arrives (because all of a sudden the woman is jolted out of the 'oh never mind, it's easier just to let him have his own way' mindset when she has a baby to take care of, and only then realises how much of the relationship has been about pleasing the man).

Curiousmama · 09/08/2011 02:11

Just read most of this thread an dmust say I hope you stick with this decision. He obviously has a lot of growing up to do and you have enough to cope with without another child.

Life's hard enough without wasting your energy on this. Really feel for you. I left exdh (for different reasons) and it wasn't easy initially but I felt so free when I found a home for us. Exdh is a good dad though.

Good luck chick.

DariusVassell · 09/08/2011 02:27

I don't much disagree with anything you've said there Solid, but it doesn't seem to be a reply to my post and therefore misses the point. You seemed to be saying earlier that the arsehole men you've either come across in real-life or on Mumsnet relationships threads, who also happen to be porn users, were all arseholes before they started using porn. I'm asking you how on earth you can know that if you just mean the men referenced on here, or how many men you've actually met in the 20-40 age bracket who became porn-users only after they had started having sex and relationships.

Curiousmama · 09/08/2011 09:34

Meeloo how are you today?

solidgoldbrass · 09/08/2011 10:42

Darius: Knowing a lot of men who use porn and are not arseholes has been a help in that respect. My point is that the sort of deep-rooted contempt for women, the view that women are not so much people as a cross between a domestic appliance and a well-trained pet does not come from porn. It's a matter of upbringing as much as anything - the boy who grows up in a violent (or toxically religious) household will have absorbed these attitudes very young.