DH obsessed with 'beautiful people' - please help

[5tuck]

Obsessed might be an exaggeration, but it's certainly not far off. We've been together for six years. It's taken me days to work up the courage to write this and I've name changed.

He has consistently lied to me about porn through our entire relationship. First of all he didn't use it at all (he did, always has) and then he has denied watching it (he always has been), then he has denied watching certain things (women masturbating, which he does watch). He volunteered that he would never watch other women masturbating now he's together with me - I always assumed that might be some of the stuff he watches - and that was a lie.

He does not share with me what he likes to watch, he is not interested in watching porn together. He is extremely secretive about it and regularly chooses to watch porn instead of having sex with me. I DO NOT CARE if he watches porn, I DO care about being excluded and sidelined from his sexual interests. We have sex quite often, always the same positions (he can only cum in two positions), no sex toys added in, no talking dirty, he's mostly silent. I get the feeling that he has sex with me because I'm lying next to him, not because he craves my body.

He works away sometimes for weeks at a time and we have had endless discussions/arguments about the lack of sexual communication while he's away. He quite literally switches off from me and pours his attention into porn. He knows how much it upsets and frustrates me and he still does the same thing over and over. Most recently he was away for three weeks and not once did he mention anything sexual to me. Didn't ask anything about me, didn't talk about feeling horny or anything like that. Usually I would initiate but this time I didn't and so there was no sexual communication and he knows damn well how that would make me feel. He never thinks about me whilst masturbating, he has photos and videos of me and never looks at them while he's away.

And now the 'beautiful people'. Basically, he is constantly noticing 'beautiful women' and sometimes becoming aroused. He specifically chooses the women he wants to watch in porn (as opposed to certain acts, etc.), he has admitted that he looks for 'beautiful' women. We were watching American Pie (of all things!!!!) and there was a scene where two lesbians were briefly topless and kissed a bit, just wearing knickers. I asked him if that turned him on and he tried to get out of answering by saying "Lesbians don't do it for me," but I asked him again and he said "Yes, it turns me on a little bit - beautiful people are beautiful people." In fucking American Pie! He's a 42 year old man! He will never give a straight answer to a question, hence why I pushed him on this, he wasn't going to be honest at all.

He has destroyed my self-confidence. I feel utterly unattractive and that he has no sexual interest in me at all, I'm simply there to fuck when he wants to. He rides roughshod over my feelings and nothing ever changes. I don't know what to do any more. I love him and I know he loves me, and I'm pregnant with our first child. I just can't live my life like this. Knowing that he's going to specifically notice any attractive women walking past us on the street and admire them, get turned on by seeing 'beautiful women' in bikinis on the beach, etc. He has stopped noticing me. For reference - I am reasonably attractive, I have a nice-ish figure, large breasts, slim, toned legs, long dark hair and blue eyes. I'm not a stunner by any means! But I know that I'm attractive to men.

I'm writing this on my laptop and it's about to die. I probably haven't explained myself or the situation very well at all, but I would ne so, so grateful for some advice/giving my head a wobble if that's the consensus!

Sorry for multiple posts! She's a great blogger though. I love her no nonsense style.

I'm just desperate to establish a solid, secure, sexual relationship with him.

Why?? You have no right to hear his private sexual thoughts.

I'd forget about that for a while and focus on the most important thing - that he never offers you any reassurance, that he prefers porn to you, so naturally you're feeling rejected and that you're lacking in intimacy.

But you can't change this. Only he can. And he has to want to change first...

Because he makes a big point of telling me if he has been watching stuff we've made.

OP I think you're being given quite a hard time in some of these replies. I totally agree that wanting to get inside your partners head and know what his fantasies are, if he's not happy to share them, is not ok. However, the root of that behaviour is him choosing to put most of his sexual energy into porn and not you, his partner.

^This. There is a problem in your relationship and you are trying to get to the bottom if it in order to improve the relationship. The fact that some posters don't agree with how you're going about doing so should not distract from the actual problem, which is your dh's porn addiction and the fact that he's prioritising it over his relationship with you.

He does sound very much like this. No, rarely notices anything different. Never compliments.

He is a terrible shag and he doesn't care. Ltb

Thank you very much x

The worst part? This sounds a horribly dysfunctional relationship for both of you yet you have chosen to get pregnant together. Why?

Case in point - I ordered some new bras a while ago and they came today and they look very sexy. I modelled one for him and his response? "They look supportive."
Hopes. Dashed. Rightly or wrongly I feel rejected.

There was no spark of anything sexual from him at all.

This is what I can't get my head around, it seems so sad to continue something so dysfunctional and decide to bring a child into it. I think it may be better for the child to see two separated but happy parents than to grow up witnessing this dynamic which is toxic.

I'm just desperate to establish a solid, secure, sexual relationship with him.

see unlike the above poster, I think this is a normal and healthy thing to expect from a relationship. However, when one partner is involved in porn, its also unlikely to happen, because porn becomes like the third person in the relationship - and because its ever changing and designed as a marketing tool to feed exactly into the parts of the brain that are going to want him to come back for more, real honest intimacy and the rejection of porn is unlikely to happen.

Porn destroys intimacy. porn destroys sex, because porn isnt really about sex, and certainly inst about mutually fullfilling sex lives - its about hooking someone on a mastabatory product.

Porn makers, the hugest majority of them, do not give one hoot about their users sex lives. They just want them to consume, and porn feeds right into one of the fundamental parts of the brain - it cares not one jot about the effect that this has in his real life relationship, so long as he keeps coming back for more.

there are some people who claim to make ethical porn. Or porn for women. But Im pretty meh about that - I still think its doing the same thing, and its a real bloody shame that sex positivity seems to be resulting in consumerism and not actually in improved sexual intimacy and pleasure for real people.

Then theres the whole exploitative aspect of those used in the industry.

So its OK to want a decent sex life

And its OK to not be OK with porn.

@NettleTea

There are loads of people with healthy sex lives and relationships that watch porn. The vast majority of men, especially men of the last few generations watch it, you don’t seriously think they all don’t have fulfilling sex loves do you?

The reality is away from MN’s most women don’t give a crap about private porn watching unless the guy is a total freak about it. It’s totally normal and nothing to worry about.

I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with either of you, but you don't sound compatible sexually.

You say you need him to be honest to be secure, but when he was honest about being turned on by a scene in a film (designed, ostensibly, to make men horny) it did not make you feel secure.

It sounds like you actually want him to give you your preferred answer without lying to you. He can't do that without being a completely different person.

If he's honest, you don't like his answer. If he lies and tells you what you want to hear, you don't like that he's lying. Having to tread of eggshells around the topic of sex like that is always going to make it less appealing.

One thing I'm wondering - has he ever been as open with you about what he's thinking sexually? Was it something he used to do, and now no longer does? Or has he never talked like that?

He sounds like a creep