DH addicted to porn - help!

[lostincornwall]

I am really struggling to come to terms with the fact that my DH seems to be spending increasing amounts of time (he thinks without my knowledge) looking at internet porn. Admittedly, since DS was born 2 years ago I haven't been exactly game but as he now seems to prefer "working late" in our study to coming to bed with me, I am starting to panic. I can't get this image of him - sad, pathetic man - and these porn images out of my mind. I caught him last week (at 2pm for god's sake!) looking at a site but he refused to discuss it, saying someone from work had sent it through. Does anyone have any advice as I am struggling to get past "yuck" and make something of our otherwise perfectly happy life?

No I meant that seriouly not bitchily. MadameZ seems to have some very contructive ideas about spicing up sex which is great and useful. But advising about relationships when you don't advocate momgamy... que??!

I am definitely into monogamy but tend to agree with MadamZ. I don't really think there's anything wrong with porn. I think it becomes a problem if it is kept secret from the partner (which will happen if it is a "banned" activity) and only then because any type of secret between partners is damaging to a relationship. I would always rather my DH feel that his sexuality is respected and that I am completely open to whatever he wants (nb that doesn't mean that I am his slave a will DO whatever he wants!!) so that he feels he can share anything with me. Why don't you try watching it with him? Men are visual creatures. It doesn't mean he doesn't love you or desire you (you are ALWAYS going to be better than an image on a tv or computer screen)... but I think you'd be hard pushed to find a man who doesn't enjoy porn...no matter what they say!

i topo find no objection to it per se. Howver thee are things blatently being ignored in this thread.

you can only gauge how one or the other deels about the subject if you communicate. you are obviously not communicating togethe effectivley.

i dont think that you should watch porn if you dont want to.

i do think that sex can be wonderful and if it isnt you both need some help.

I think its partic sad that women accept that they are not feeling sexual as "ok" and not mourn for a good sex life.

and there also has to be an acceptance i think that your husband has a sexual appitite. therefore there needs to be a discussion on how it is acceptable for him to relive himself if you dont want to have sex.

You mention 2am. therefore its cuttinginto your bounds of normality.

for me personally ( and we all have diff routines) dh and i go to bed together and him staying up later on a regular basis to do something else - therefore not getting great sleep and being angry. irritable with me and the kids next day - simply not acceptable.

Hi aquasea,

"I think it becomes a problem if it is kept secret from the partner (which will happen if it is a "banned" activity) and only then because any type of secret between partners is damaging to a relationship".

If its a "banned activity" then who has banned it and why has is become "banned"?. Often the other person is unaware until much later. It needs to be determined why men seek out such things. Often men seek it out for all sorts of reasons (many but not all such men are in stable long term relationships where they have found the wife is just not as interested in sex as they are). The internet has made porn sites much more accessible, once upon a time it was top shelf stuff and black wrappers. Some men do undoubtedly become addicted to internet porn; it provides a fair amount of work to computer doctors for instance who have to wipe hard drives.

I would agree with your assertion that any type of secret is damaging to a relationship. Many men do not understand why their wife/partner does not like them looking at porn and therefore keep such viewings quiet. However, when the solids hit the air-con as such things often do...

"I would always rather my DH feel that his sexuality is respected and that I am completely open to whatever he wants (nb that doesn't mean that I am his slave a will DO whatever he wants!!) so that he feels he can share anything with me. Why don't you try watching it with him? Men are visual creatures. It doesn't mean he doesn't love you or desire you (you are ALWAYS going to be better than an image on a tv or computer screen)... but I think you'd be hard pushed to find a man who doesn't enjoy porn...no matter what they say!"

This is great for some women and some do enjoy watching porn with their menfolk. That is fine if both parties are in agreement and I don't have a problem with that. Many men also come out with the arguments that are expressed in your posting (it does not mean that he loves or desires you any less) but to some women internet porn to them is another form of adultery. They often ask, "what has she got that I do not?". Also where the computer is sited is a factor; some people keep it in the bedroom.

Lost In Cornwall is unhappy and I hope she finds a way forward through the unhappiness that usage of internet porn can sometimes create.

BTW if you find my previous posting there is an article attached to it re internet porn.

i think if he's watching regularily with people in the house and she has stumbled across him doing it a few times, then it's most def some sort of addiction.

also, i know we're all supposed to accept porn now as this day to day thing and that most guys do it and that's ok and all that... but (and I don't want to make out that anyone here is naive) that stuff on the net is nasty. I'm a red blooded male. i've had a look and I don't know any guys that haven't. we're not talking about some well hung guy with his tool belt and big moustache coming to fix a woman's dishwasher and ending up shagging her on the kitchen floor. we're talking mean, degrading stuff with women who look very desperate and, in most cases, unhealthy. i

the stuff is wrong and it rots the brain and it does not belong on a family computer. it's unethical crap no matter which way you look at it.

Hi Attila,

I think you misunderstood my post.

I certainly was not suggesting that anyone should do anything they don't want to. I merely suggested perhaps it might be a good idea to TRY watching it with him. While doing this, talk to him. Communicate. Try to bridge this gap, to understand why he likes it, what it gives him.

I just don't necessarily think it needs to be such a big deal. It doesn't need to be the enemy. The "what has she got that I haven't" is a very damaging and negative way of looking at things. Men look. They are hard wired to look. They they don't do it to hurt. (I realise this is a generalisation but of ALL the men I know this is the case). I just feel that if a person's sexual needs aren't being met (and we can't meet them all of the time) then why beat them (or ourselves) up for finding harmless alternatives?

Yes, there are indeed times when it becomes far more serious and would be qualified as a true addiction and this is a different issue. If your DP isn't interested in you at all and would rather spend all his free time online then, yes, this is a serious and hurtful problem.

I am just trying to offer a slightly different view point.

Daddycool, the problem with what you say is you're confusing subjective and objective. A picture is just a picture, no matter what it's a picture of. One person's "degrading" is another person's "great fun", and yet another person's "complete indifference" - I am talking specifically about the viewer here, because performers in porn are performing, and whatever may be said on camera by their co stars they are not going to percieve it as degrading any more than someone being called a "slaaaaaaaag" in The BIll takes it personally. - As to people appearing unhealthy or whatever, the average porn performer looks in better health than many a size 0 fashion icon - and think about appearance for a minute: people appear nightly on the telly covered in blood or even 'dead' in shows that are regarded as pretty much family entertainment. Then when the cameras stop rolling they wash off the ketchup, get paid and go home. Far too much rubbish is talked about porn by people who can't believe that other people are capable of distinguishing between fantasy and reality.

Shinyhappypeople: while I accept that monogamy is a fetish for some folks, I think that a great deal of damage is done by the cult of monogamy, which insists that only monogamous relationships are valid and invites people to believe that everyone really wants a monogamous relationship when this just isn't so.
So I'll continue to point out that there are other ways of living and that communication is important, rather than just assuming that what one person wants is right when the other doesn't want it at all.

madamez - ok. i understand what you say but I can't agree. it's exactly your type of response that i'm rejecting.

i'm taking a view that looking at a man whacking a woman about and doing things to her that goes to the limit of ones imagination without actually punching her in the face or strangling her to death, just isn't acceptable in a family home.

Also, what kind of stuff do you think these guys are looking at? full length movies and 'performers'. methinks not. they are looking at the stuff that is readily available and anonymous. short mpegs in home movie quality of desperate women getting degraded for money.

why is all this stuff so acceptable now? tell him to bloody cut it out.

Daddycool - seriously, do you think that "tell him to bloody cut it out" is good advice? Most normal people's reaction to being told point blank what to do in such a parental fashion would not be a favourable one. This would only block communication further and drive them further apart. He will feel indignant, vilified, dirty and guilty and it will become even more secret.

I just can't see or accept your alternatives. He's a man with a children looking at filthy rubbish in his family home. it's just childish. he needs to grow up.

maybe saying 'cut it out' isn't such a good approach but saying 'listen, i really don't want you looking at that crap in my home. i want you to stop. i find it hurtful' might be a better one. hopefully he'd wake up and stop hurting his wife by acting beavis and butthead (you choose which one. butthead may be a suitable choice).

... and why does lostincornwall have to just either accept it or sit down and have a long awkward conversation with him as to why he likes stuff like that.

if he's not enough of a man to respect the fact that this stuff is really upsetting his wife and that he should maybe stop doing it after she tells him point blank to do so, well.... he's a child and it's an impossible situation.

well, i went to the loo and thought about it . TMI?

maybe sitting down with him and having a look at this stuff together and having that long awkward conversation would be good.

lost would have to endure the full extent of what he's looking at but it was creep the everloving sh*t out of him and I would guess he wouldn't go near the stuff ever again!

"A picture is just a picture, no matter what it's a picture of."

Sorry but this is postmodern relativistic nonsense.

great essay speak there mt

It's all very well saying grow up and stop looking at it... but if he is not being sexually fulfilled what is he supposed to do? Should he have an affair? Should he just accept the fact and be frustrated? I am of course assuming that he isn't showing his kid/s this stuff! I am sure there are all things we do in our homes that are private from our children!

And - why should talking about sex/sexuality/sexual needs/desires be an awkward conversation between a husband and a wife?

It's oh so easy to be blase about porn when you haven't been hurt by it. And I don't just mean by a DH who surfs it. There can be a helluva lot more to it than that; internet porn can lead to other more interative stuff so very easily and then you have a potentially much bigger issue. Real marriage-harming stuff.

And this "well if you don't put out what do you expect him to do!" attitude is wrong as well. A DH with a porn habit can stamp a woman's confidence so far into the ground that she may well have trouble getting through the day, never mind wanting "make love" with the person who's causing her all this heart ache.

i said this earlier.

i would assume few people have a problem with wanking per se.

but when it interrupts the rounds of normality and interferes with a relationship - ie. staying up til 2am.

now, if you stay up til 2 - and get up at say 6.30 7 for work you have had 5 hours sleep.

so if you are used to more sleep you are interrupting your bodies need for this rest and will be tired and irritable and snappy

so its not just the wanking.

i am sure with a true converstion they could come to a 'wanking agreement'

Shinyhappypeople... I most certainly do NOT have an "if you don't put out what do you expect" attitude. I am sorry if it has come across that way. I would NEVER suggest that. However, I do believe that honesty and openness are vital in a marriage. I also believe that each partner's needs are important. All of their needs need to be taken seriously and sensitively. Emotional, sexual, physical etc etc etc. I also absolutely agree that there are times when porn can become a problem and lead to other issues but I just don't think that this happens in the majority of cases... and if it can be discussed and isn't taboo and forbidden then I believe it is less likely to turn into a problem.

Daddycool: the fact that something is not to your personal taste doesn't actually make it morally wrong. People who like SM (which I assume is what you are referring to) understand that this is a very negoatiated way of interacting sexually - it's all about consent. And as to saying that people shouldn't look at porn "in the family home" then I don't recall the OP suggesting that her DH was sitting her and the kids down in front of the computer every night for a couple of hours of Interactive Anal Gangbang from Hell. There are plenty of things in the average household that DCs shouldn't have unsupervised access too, such as cutlery, alcohol and matches.

SHinyhappypeople, with the exception of performers who have been underpaid or mistreated or misled (and anyone who has dropped a full case of R18dvds on their feet), you don't get hurt by porn. You might get hurt by a partner's behaviour, which may or may not be reasonable, but the mag/DVD/website didn't do it.

Many incidences of domestic violence occurr during rows over cooking and cleaning, but no one blames Delia Smith, Jamie Oliver or those gruesome house-cleaning women - or their work - for the domestic unhappiness that can blow up over these issues.

Monkeytrousers, go on then, when is a picture not a picture? Wait, I'll try and get some of it done for you...

Envisage a picture of a person tied to a chair, naked. Is this picture
a) part of a campaign against torture such as Amnesty International
b) a still from some issue-led drama
c) porn?
d) satire on something or other
If you're shown such a picture, uncaptioned, on its own, how would you know? Your choice of what you think the picture would be would depend in part at least on your own circumstances.
Sure, some porn is stupid, unappealing, gross, offensive - but the same applies to some prime time television progammes, song lyrics, books and films - and a whole lot of advertising as well.

But "porn" is too often used as a scapegoat for a whole lot of other social and personal problems.

madamez - you spewed off a whole bunch 'when isn't it' and 'how can you define it' and 'it's not the medium, it's the person's behaviour' stuff like a textbook but completely dodged the issue.

he's a grown man looking at porn blatently with what seems like to regard for his wife or kids (who might wander in) and it's upsetting his wife quite rightly because she probably thought she lived in a home where hardcore porn didn't exist and wasn't an issue.

lets not over analyse this and phycobabble out a bunch of nonsense about misplaced affection and 'when a picture is more than a picture' stuff. the issue is cut and dry here. i don't think she's blaming porn or petitioning against porn here, she's just saying that it's really not a very pleasant thing to find or discuss with her husband.

and, we're not talking about structured high(ish) budget mainstream jemma jamison or whatever the hell her name is, stag party porn here.

we're talking about the stuff that takes up the majority of the space on the net... a few guys with a video camera, paying prostitutes to do horrendous things on camera.

lets see how morrally rightous lostincornwall thinks this stuff is when she sits down with her DH and watches some brace-toothed 18 year old girl, getting penetrated in an area other than the most popular spot, semi-strangled and hair pulled by a grey haired pervert for drug/alcohol/rent money.

common sense says that is morrally wrong.

and i apologise for that image. i just wanted to make a point. this is the stuff that gets emailed around. this is the majority of the stuff on the net right now. not main stream video stuff or even the whole silly leather whipping stuff. it's the exploitation.. and is advertised as such to bring in the viewers.

Daddycool: the OP stated that her DH is looking at "porn" late at night in the study. Nowhere does she mention SM or hardcore or anything other than than the fact that he was looking at a site he claimed 'someone from work' had sent him.
You seem to be the one projecting a little bit here. If you've been reading too much Stoltenberg, drop it in the bin and have a beer and you'll feel much better.