Husband's pornography use

[Circeandthepigs]

I have strong objections regarding pornography ( abuse, harm, exploitation of women and girls) and when 5 years ago I discovered my husband used porn secretly I was completely devastated & gave him an ultimatum- he stop or I divorce him. He said he hardly used it and that it was no problem stopping. I told him my feelings about porn & was upfront that i couldn't live with a man who used it.
Ive checked in about it over the years but he's always assured me he doesn't use it anymore and he is very plausible.
Recently we went on an extended holiday together. He took his tablet for 'Google Maps' etc. Most days he opted to stay behind at our rental for a few hours by himself to 'read and chill in the garden'.
At first I didn't mind as I enjoyed time to myself on the beach etc and he'd join me later. However, I started to get a feeling, an instinct, call it intuition. I started to question what he was doing and asked if he was using the tablet for porn while I was out of the way. He was indignant and swore he never used it, in fact he hadn't even opened the tablet on the holiday.
I left it to the last day to confront him properly as I didn't want a big scene while we were away together with no way of escape!
I made him put on the tablet. I found that he had been using pornography while i was by myself on the beach. He was extremely upset and bashful but still lying. At first he said it was briefly once during the holiday, then twice ( although data evidence indicated otherwise) and that he'd not used porn since our conversation/ my ultimatum 5 years ago. Over the last few days, with my continued questioning, he's admitted he started using pornography again years ago.
He says it is a compulsion for the illicit.
I think it's the tip of the iceberg and my trust is now detonated.
I can't bear the thought that he was doing this on our holiday and gaslighting me. I can feel only contempt for him.
He says that he loves me and it would be foolish of me to leave a man who adores me.
Well I don't feel adored.
We all have free will..he can do as he chooses, but i have the right to not live with a man who chooses to use pornography. We also hardly ever have sex, although I'm attractive and keep in really good shape etc. He has never really wanted to address the lack of sex between us, it has always been me getting upset and bringing up the subject.
I feel done and finished. Unfortunately I can't move out for 12 months because my son has a year left at university and is living at home. So now I have to live alongside this man ( separate bedrooms anyway because he snores) in a way that doesn't affect my son ( I'm not going to tell my son of my plans because stability at uni is too important) or my mental health.
Has anyone in MN had to live with a husband while employing a ' grey rock' technique and come out of it successfully with their sanity intact?
Thanks you for reading to the end.

I don't need to live with it though. End of.
And it's 1 in 4 men using porn regularly.
And I would absolutely prefer to be single than be deceived and lied to.
Niaive? I'm a professional working in abuse counselling 🤦‍♀️

He's a coward. He's a 63 year old creep. When we first met i saw him staring at teenage girls. I should have stuck with my gut instincts and not believed a word he's told me, such as " I'm not staring, I'm just thinking..honestly I didn't even notice that girl".
The more I think of our 16 years together and the behaviours I've ignored the angrier I'm feeling.

What a sad little life.

The patriarchy really did a number on you ey. Men made porn and have successfully brainwashed men (and sadly women too) that it’s normal and every man does it.

Porn is not normal . Remove the screen. A man sitting there masturbating to strangers having sex isn’t normal.

If it’s fine for your partner to watch sex, then I pity you and your standards are in hell. But don’t force other people to have such embarrassingly low attitudes

See a solicitor as soon as possible, make a plan, and leave him. The sooner the better. Your marriage is over, has been for ages it seems, and there's no need to drag it out.

Always surprising to hear how confident the porn apologists are. Mindlessly wanking to a screen showing women being exploited and tortured is so grim. It's common but it's far from healthy, normal human behaviour.

@Catseyes88 "It's also quite easy to find and watch ethical porn."

Great. Good to hear. How?

I’m a female who watches porn quite regularly, however, I don’t live with my partner and I would never sacrifice spending time with him to watch porn alone instead. In my opinion, that’s the bigger issue here. He’s chosen to watch it over spending time with you. Surely he must have plenty of time to watch it when you’re not around?

I think the lying and deception is the worst part, and that is not normal for most men, or at least I hope it's not. There are certainly some men who never lie to their wives about anything (I'm one of them.)

Honestly astounded that you basically forbid him from watching something that's very much legal. Was there no compromise?

I watch porn (not very often - few times a month) and he watches "homemade" stuff.

You are saying your sex life isn't great but maybe its because you don't compromise.

Ewww he's 63 looking at young women, grim grim grim. Get rid of the pond scum.

Over the last few days, with my continued questioning, he's admitted he started using pornography again years ago. He says it is a compulsion for the illicit.
This bit would worry me the most as him saying its a compulsion suggests to me he has no intention of stopping and yes, you've only uncovered the tip of potentially a very nasty iceberg.

I have a thread in FWR at the moment entitled The Secret Sexual Basement (from a link a poster put on another thread on here). Might be worth having a look or googling the term.

The first time I caught my ex husband with pornography was when my son was a new born. I was making dinner and found a VHS tape hidden in the kitchen. I believed him when he told me it was a one off and didn't belong to him.
I was wrong, he was lying and over the years he became a grubby little wanker who couldn't perform with me because he'd been wanking at porn all day whist I was at work. I'm repulsed that I didn't walk out the door when I found that VHS tape.
I left years ago but many years were wasted.

You asked how to live for the next year @Circeandthepigs

You use it to prepare for divorce and your new single life. Tell no one ( or perhaps one close friend who you can trust to keep their mouth shut).

Get all your financial and legal information together, research divorce and see a solicitor with your list of assets and questions. Act on their advice.

Sort out your finances , whatever that means to you. get a promotion / new job / more hours / move savings etc .

start to build a new social life as a single woman . Take up new hobbies or sports.

Gradually fade out your husbands side of the family and his friends as they will probably drop you as soon as you split up. Be less dependent on joint friends , in case they drop you too.

Prepare for the possibility that you will be very hurt by some of those you thought would undertand. Conversely, you may get support from the most unlikely people.

make sure you only do your share of domestic labour and no more. Do not do unpaid labour so that your husband can do more paid labour.

Don’t do any more emotional labour for your husband or his family.

If your husband does things around the house that you don’t know how to do , learn how to DIY . Whether that’s laundry , cooking or decorating - I make no assumptions here.

Go for counselling alone.

Assume that your son might notice and be prepared with an appropriate answer.

Don’t under any circumstances get involved with another man, it will cause A LOT more trouble that it’s worth .

I understand boundaries, and I fully respect them, but to me, it sounds like you wanted out.

Until that moment, you had no evidence other than gut instinct. It's as if you were hoping you'd find something to justify leaving.

The Op doesn’t need your consent or approval to leave. She is allowed to have her own boundaries, just as you are.

I wonder why you think it’s ok to argue with her about this and disbelieve what she says.

Do you have trouble accepting that women have the right to autonomy ? Or are they only allowed to have boundaries that you personally agree with ?

Nice rant. It was purely an observation. I said nothing of my approval.

Porn is your boundary. If I don't want to find sh!t, I don't go looking in the kitty litter.

this is a good point.

IMO, if a partner is willing to walk away from a ‘happy ‘ marriage due to concealed porn use by their husband then they can’t be that committed in the first place.

And to those of you who say a 63 year old man watching young girls is grubby, you do realise it’s not just teens and young girls that do porn right? My 65 year old mum watches porn, does that make her grubby as well?

And as for exploitation, yes it’s there, but from a percentage point of view it’s low, almost minuscule. Just over 20% of all online material is porn related and in 2022 Pornhub alone had over 60 BILLION visits. That’s nearly 10 times the world’s population. How often do we hear about exploitation in the porn industry in the news and media?

All the porn haters on here, and you have absolutely every right to be anti porn, seem to forgot there is some kind of exploitation in nearly every aspect of life.

if you are wearing clothes made of cotton, it’s very likely the cotton came from the cotton fields of the Xinjiang region in China, using forced labour, mainly that of the Uyghurs and ethnic Kazakhs - and kept in similar conditions to those in the concentration camps in world war 2. Similar conditions and slavery are happening all over the world within the textiles industry but I guarantee it won’t stop you from buying a nice cotton Dress for the summer….

But porn is a choice and not a necessity like clothing I hear you say…..yes but we all have needs. A woman can use a vibrator to get herself off with no prior arrousal needed. A man needs visual or physical stimulation in order to get aroused in order to masturbate. Woman don’t NEED porn, men typically do.

and let’s not forget the OP and OH sleep in separate rooms due to his snoring, so it’s unlikely they would ever have a normal sex life so he is going to be far more inclined to resort to porn.

Oh, and the ‘well known ‘ and popular adult stars earn on average £300,000 a year with the best paid actress currently worth £16 million…..

The truth is oftentimes, uncomfortable to hear.

He’s a liar! End of marriage!

Quite simple really.

OP is the innocent party here.

OP says he sleazes on the young ones.
Your post smells very mannish..

You don’t go looking in the kitty litter because you know your partner is disrespecting you and you don’t want to know.

others assume their partners are because they’ve said they would and want to ensure their honesty. They have the self respect to put them to the test.

you don’t, because you’ve not got that self respect.

Your choice, I suppose.

Not read the full thread op but you may want to check out Dr work on the ‘secret sexual basement’.

There is an interview on the link and you can find several research papers.

All the best and apologies if it’s already been linked.

https://minwallamodel.com/resource-library/

I so appreciate this x

Yes we sleep in separate rooms. He is a heavy snorer. I hardly slept because of it. I suggested many ways of having sex life including lots of snoring remedies. He remained noncommittal and passive. My husband stopped taking much of an interest in me sexually the day i moved in with him, so i eventually figured i may aswell get a good nights sleep in a different room. His ex wife told me he'd go off me like he did her ( she's an attractive woman) but I thought she was just trying to stir up angst.