Porn didn't work out

[lottielottie1]

I created this thread for women to vent and or give share on the subject. Im just in the process of ending a 17 year marriage, partly due to porn.

In the beginning i didn't mind him watching and he didn't hide it, but as we moved in together and started a family, i started to notice how excessive the use was.
Fast forward 5 years the more he watched the more i started to investigate what he was doing, i told him i didn't like the lying about it and hiding, and understood all men do it, so i don't know why you are hiding.
Fast forward 10 years, i learnt he was watching it on the back of the bus to and from work, watching it in the background for hours a day whilst he is working. Watching in the toilet or after i had gone to sleep.
I told him I thought the use was excessive and he agreed. and sort help.
For years the porn wasn't enough anymore and he started chatting to women on social media pretending he wasn't married asking for pictures and videos and also sending videos of himself wanking to them.
Fast forward he started counselling again and that didn't work, he lied to the counsellor saying he stopped. The counsellor told him she thinks he is addicted to the porn and also to the attention he is getting from talking to these women.
( Strange he was never great in bed, I believe because he watched so much porn it was almost impossible for him to get turned on via normal sexual activity, with him it was also like you always needed to perform like the girls in the videos to get any half decent performance from him)
Final straw I caught him on a zoom call to a women abroad that he met on a porn site telling her he loved her (not the first time he had done this type of thing, just the first time i heard the conversation with my ears)
Ending, I felt physically sick and realised he cant /wont stop and and filed for divorce.
I feel sad i trusted him for all these years when he would say it was just porn and all fantasy and it helped with his depression. I know many say porn is normal & I used to agree, but i read that it can be damaging to the brain and the high will often need to be higher and higher each time, I think his porn use was completely wrapped up in the chatting to women at the same time, i think for many years the porn and having a wife available wasn't enough and he wanted a bigger trill, i would like to hear others stories

I feel your pain OP. I did a desperate 'pick me' dance to compete with my dh's extensive porn use for years. I had low self esteem, and also ptsd issues due to sexual abuse as a child which also involved porn... in fairness I didn't tell dh for a fewcyears, but once he knew, every 'discovery' of the sneaky grim stuff he was up to just made me spiral. I got so anxious and depressed. On medication. Kept trying to compete with porn - I tried everything! In the end I got vaginismus- my lady parts just said nope, ain't doing it. Having helped destroy me mentally he is a reformed character. Yay. We have kids so I'd never wish him harm, and I do love him, but what shit thing he did to someone he said he loved for his own pleasure, laziness convenience and habit. It's really shit, OP. Congrats on your freedom!

Oh and yep to the porn use at weird times, like before breakfast, at lunch time and obviously night time is any excuse to be downstairs playing with himself all night - time. While I went to bed alone. I also had to mention not leaving DVD covers out where children / visitors could see them and also semen laden newspapers are not suitable floor decor. I stepped in it once.

That was a long time ago. Anything like that now and I would be putting him under the patio with some dvds for company in the afterlife!

Thanks for your kind words.

For years I used to think lots of wife's just put up with this sort of thing or entertained this behaviour!

Then I used to look at the young women married to those rich cheating old men and think look at what they put up with, whats my problem!

But now I just think, he isn't even happy in himself, all he wants to do is watch porn, go to the pub and chat online to women, im glad he didn't drive me to depression, instead he is the one depressed.

I know now there isn't anything I could have done, because I tried in the beginning to accept it, entertain it, play along. Im gonna spend a good few years happy to be free from the stress & responsibility of watching him deteriorate in life.

One morning I said to myself, if i had a life changing accident he would most definitely stuff me in an institution and carry on obsessing over women, where as if he had a life changing accident I would spend all my time & life devoted to looking after him. I realised I needed to get rid of him fast at that point.

@ThisIsntDanicaBritannica wow exact same the amount of carpets i've had to scrub, I thought he would grow out of it. Im glad you managed to get yours to change his ways.

To be fair that change was a long-time coming (excuse the pun) and took place over time. If I hadn't had a complete breakdown when I did (another discovery, unfortunately found that on the same day my dad passed away and I just lost it) I would have left back then. For his sake as well as mine, as he could have then continued on with his favourite hobby. I'm sure I was a paranoid screeching harridan to live with, but I had my reasons.
He had to step up with everything, house, parenting, the lot, as I didn't recover for a few years. I think that was when he had a few epiphanies. It's so weird because around this issue, he's been a total dick, but otherwise, he's lovely. Not even sexist. His mum was a working mum and an awesome person. It's so bizarre - it was like living with two different people. When I found out the extent of everything, I was totally blindsided. It just didn't seem like him, but obviously he has a malfunction somewhere. I think it's the ' I want it, it feels good, I'm entitled to feel good, I'll do what I want.' Very prevalent I think. In the words of Skunk Anansie, just because it feels good, doesn't make it right.

I think at the age of say 14 -21 that behavior would be gross but, well, I'd get it, but I met dh when he was 36...
😱
20 years on he's a different person... fml.

@ThisIsntDanicaBritannica yes young lad I can understand but he was 32 when we met and turning 50 soon, the older he has got the more disgusting I find it, a grown married man chatting dirty online to 18 year old girls just makes my skin crawl, id rather sit home alone and enjoy the future grandkids by myself!