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Original poster

Pornography and trust

70 replies

heinrichvonkleist · 21/09/2014 18:24

I'm not a prude and although I am not a fan of pornography personally I wouldn't condemn anyone who needs it.

And here's the 'however' part ... I met my husband only 2 years ago, we got married in June this year, we're a mature couple - he has grown up kids and I have a 12 year old. We both came out of long term relationships which had lots of problems and no intimacy for years so meeting each other has been a revelation. But I discovered he is accessing porn sites when I'm at work, quite regularly and, as an intelligent woman, I feel I shouldn't care. But I am devastated. I also discovered a very flirtatious email conversation with someone he previously met on an internet dating site.

I am now torn between feeling like I've been very stupid to trust someone so quickly and between feeling like I don't know what I'd do without him. I can't get it out of my head though and I find I'm reading things into everything he says now and looking for signs of betrayal. It's not good. I'm very ashamed of myself.

I have talked to him about it and he was very upset that I'd found out, has said it doesn't mean anything to him and promised it won't happen any more. His only excuse for looking was 'boredom' - not with me (he says) but just being bored during the day (he's home a lot at the moment). In relation to the flirty email he said it was vanity but he had no intention of meeting up with the woman.

I am struggling a lot and finding it extremely difficult to regain trust in him. This all happened in July and I am still getting upset about it. Can I move on? Am I being ridiculous?

Any advice is very gratefully received, thanks x

OP posts:
Original poster
heinrichvonkleist · 21/09/2014 19:55

I met him in November 2012 and we got married in June this year.

OP posts:
Vivacia · 21/09/2014 20:04

Increasingly porn is being produced that sees women humiliated and treated physically in a way that hasn't been seen or imagined before. And it becomes more and more extreme.

Original poster
heinrichvonkleist · 21/09/2014 20:11

Yes, I looked at the site he accesses and some of it sickened me. scenarios of dads fucking their daughters and wives being gang banged by the husband's mates. He says he doesn't watch any of that but that he likes the real life couples, husbands and wives. Whether I believe him or not, he is still going through pages of the other stuff to get to that and just by doing it he's condoning it.

OP posts:
BlackDaisies · 21/09/2014 20:21

This man does not respect women. I would walk out the door and not look back.

gincamparidryvermouth · 21/09/2014 20:29

Are these things bad enough to break everything off?

Well it's entirely up to you. In my view he is a fucking worthless scumbag whose views of women are repulsive and indefensible. But loads and loads of women are perfectly happy for their husbands to masturbate to images of women being raped and abused - they just employ phrases like "ethical issues aside" and that makes all the actual consequences for the actual human beings involved magically go away so they can stay married.

Diagonally · 21/09/2014 20:29

Jeez you know what, this is a second marriage, you've probably both made mistakes in the past, and experienced not so great behaviour from others, too.

He should be cherishing you and your marriage so much that an online affair would never even cross his mind, let alone try to set one up. How dare someone who has been given a second chance at a committed, loving relationship, crap all over it?

He's obviously learned nothing about respecting other people as he's grown older.

I know it must feel terrible that you have invested so much in this relationship but honestly, this man is so much less than you and your DD deserve.

punygod · 21/09/2014 20:56

I really feel for you. You sound so sad and so nice. Far too nice for this man.

I'm not a 'LTB' poster usually. But in this case, I would. He sounds very unpleasant.

Original poster
heinrichvonkleist · 21/09/2014 21:13

I genuinely don't think he looks at the horrible stuff on the site - he has two grown up daughters and he has been devoted to them. What I'm saying is that to look at even anything on a site like that is so wrong.

He's not unpleasant - as a man he's done an awful lot for my daughter and I and has committed himself to us in so many ways. When he's with us he's charming and kind and fun.

But there is obviously another side to him that can switch me out of the picture. He puts it down to habits he picked up in his previous relationship. He is apologetic, well was, he's kind of 'over it' now and can't understand why I'm not.

Now I don't know if I can trust him again or not but I'm finding it so difficult to let go of how good I believed things were. My life was very sad before and he brought me a lot of happiness.

OP posts:
HumblePieMonster · 21/09/2014 21:18

he has two grown up daughters and he has been devoted to them
not an indication of someone who 'doesn't' - as a man said to me, once, "I have a wife, around half a dozen regular mistresses, and hundreds of women for sex, some younger than my daughters"

Original poster
heinrichvonkleist · 21/09/2014 21:27

Yes but I honestly don't think he's like that. If he is, if I ever found out that he'd watched any of those kind of porn things, then it would be over in a flash.

OP posts:
warysara · 21/09/2014 21:40

Amazing that you are all concentrating on the porn rather than the flirty emails. Porn is there, it will always be there and the internet has made it all to accessible to people who it may damage. Adult men being damaged? Probably not ...

Original poster
heinrichvonkleist · 21/09/2014 21:50

Warysara, the flirty email upsets me far more and is far more difficult to move beyond. It has redeeming features in that it was only one conversation, he said he was 'unlikely' to meet up (why he just didn't say he couldn't is maddening) and he did say he had a 'partner' but not how serious it was and he denied the presence of my daughter. He veered between signing his name with a kiss and without. It makes my guts churn. He was tandem emailing me at the time and telling me he loved me. When I confronted him he denied it and he had deleted every trace of it from his email. His excuse was that he wanted to find out who the woman was but it's lame and I think he knows that and that's why he won't talk about it any more.

It makes me wonder how many other things like this have happened that I've known nothing about and how many will happen in the future. Do I take a leap of trust or do I get out now? I have no idea how the hell I'd do that.

OP posts:
SolidGoldBrass · 21/09/2014 21:57

Some people are just not monogamous, and he sounds like one of those people. Unfortunately, because there is so much social and cultural pressure on people to practice monogamy, those for whom it doesn't really work are often not honest about their preference for a variety of sexual partners.

ThisIsSylviaDaisyPouncer · 21/09/2014 22:27

Agree with previous posters about the porn, I think it is toxic. But the email... How long ago did he meet this woman and what triggered the conversation in the first place? Is it recent?

Original poster
heinrichvonkleist · 21/09/2014 22:38

He was with his previous partner for almost 30 years and, yes, he was unfaithful to her twice very early on but not again after. He told me that on one of our first dates.

The woman was someone he met through an internet dating site about a year before we met. He didn't go on any dates with her but she contacted him to say she was available and if he would like to meet up. Yes, very recent, a few weeks ago she contacted him, and it was after I'd been upset about the porn stuff and thought we'd turned a corner with being open. That's part of the reason why it hurt so much. Earlier that day we'd been discussing wills and guardianship of my daughter so it's painful that he 'forgot' to mention her in the emails with the other woman.

OP posts:
Original poster
heinrichvonkleist · 21/09/2014 22:40

I don't think he would 'seek' another sexual partner but I don't think he would be able to say no if one cropped up as a real possibility. Well that's what I fear. He says otherwise.

OP posts:
babbinocaro · 22/09/2014 05:18

Really feel for you. My OH it wasn't porn but chatting with online female friends / foreign golddiggers - setting himself up on fb with no relationship status and then general flirtatious behaviour. It smacks of disconnect and is disrespectful. At best pathetic but v.hurtful. what advice would you give to daughter or if she was being treated like this??

Original poster
heinrichvonkleist · 22/09/2014 07:16

And what did you do babbinocaro?

I wouldn't like to think of my daughter being hurt by a man and whether or not I'm blowing this out of proportion I am being hurt by it every day. So I would advise her to get away from the hurt.

In my situation that is really difficult for practical and emotional reasons. I love DH very deeply. Our wedding day in June was one of the happiest days of my life - that was before any of this was known about. It's hard to give up that sort of happiness but I suppose I am left wondering now if it was all always in my mind and heart and not his. I have a feeling that he's been saying what he thinks I want to hear and that I may never have got to his true feelings. He's very private. Since we got together he used to hide his laptop whenever I went in the room but since I discovered the porn he has given me all his passwords, that's how I found out about the email conversation. By the time he gave me his passwords he'd deleted his intire internet history and a large amount of his emails so I'll never really know now what he was hiding before.

OP posts:
Original poster
heinrichvonkleist · 22/09/2014 07:36

Disconnect, that's a good word to explain things. I think that's what he does, he disconnects from his emotions and from me, it's almost second nature to him. I also think he compartmentalises things so that looking at porn and being flirty are in a separate part of his mind to where I am but he doesn't realise that it's not possible to do that and maintain an open loving relationship.

OP posts:
Joysmum · 22/09/2014 08:01

There's a big difference between porn and actively contacting and communicating with others in a sexual way.

The porn I don't have problems with personally but seeking out contact would be considered infidelity in our marriage.

Redrosesplease · 22/09/2014 09:32

Omg. The type of porn he is watching would have me running for the hills.

I'm sorry OP if I was you I would be realising now what a huge mistake I had made and be starting divorce proceedings.

Fathers having sex with their daughters? Seriously? You don't stumble on these sites by accident, you look for them. I wouldn't have this man within a mile of my daughter

Vivacia · 22/09/2014 09:41

I think that you've slightly misread that bit Red Smile

Original poster
heinrichvonkleist · 22/09/2014 10:02

Red - that's some of the stuff on that site but it's not what he watches. You can search for anything you like basically - those are the things that came up on the home page which really turned my stomach.

OP posts:
Redrosesplease · 22/09/2014 10:12

When I have accidentally turned up porn with a search engine (to my complete shock) it's always just been normal sex between consenting adults with no weird stuff at all. So that's why I think it's odd these sites have popped up for your H and would really worry me.

I have since become a lot more careful about my search phrases and it's been a long time since I did this so maybe it more normal to see incest than it used to be Sad

fifi669 · 22/09/2014 10:28

No problem with the porn myself. Guys do wank when bored, my partner does when he's at a loose end, watches porn etc. I know this, it's not a secret but it's not advertised everytime IYSWIM.

I would be very uncomfortable with the email. It sounds like IMO, he wasn't planning on anything but loved the attention and so didn't want to completely blow her off. The danger is of course that if it had continued he may have been tempted to go further.

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