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 remember watching a pop video with him not long after we met. There was a girl gyrating & i remarked on how young she looked. He said "She looks okay to me. I would. Anything 16 or over is legal." He was at that time 46.
I wish i hadn't been so desperate to give & have his love.

He's obviously a porn addict, so that's why there's a lack of sex. He prefers porn to actual sex. He prefers porn to enjoying time with you on a vacation FGS. The fact that he needed several hours to do it says it all. A porn addict will spend hours at it, whereas a casual porn user will not. You are right to want to get rid of him. These men rarely, if ever, change, and they have deeply ingrained misogyny.

I had to live with my porn zombie ex while my new place was being fixed up. For me it was absolute hell on earth. Maybe it won't be as bad for you if your husband is okay in other ways. Mine was a pathological liar/cheater/emotional abuser as well as pornsick, so even looking at him made me want to kill him. So not knowing how your husband behaves in general, it's hard to say. I'm thinking the idea of what he's doing behind his bedroom door will both depress and enrage you. Your mental health is important and I doubt your son would want you to be miserable for his sake. You could see how it goes, but if you can't take it, don't feel guilty about leaving.

It's also possible to...not have a man and live a happy life.

Ewwwww! Did "I would" mean he would have sex with her if he could?🤮

I found out my now ex was watching girls dance on Tik Tok. He claimed he only watched the ones who were in their twenties, but of course there was no way for him to know their ages, and with makeup you often can't tell a 15 year old from a 21 year old, so that bullshit didn't work. He even claimed he was watching them to learn dance steps. This, from a man who had always hated to dance. I couldn't help but roar with laughter at that one, even as disgusted as I was. Btw, he was in his 50s at the time. Gross.

This is all just adding up to him being happy to take excuses to go further into his own world.

I would go further and say it's probable.

I think you'll find it's unbelievably common that a mam progressively begins to choose porn over real life sex.

As you probably know. There's reams on the Internet and whole Web pages set up for men who want to change.

It might not mean those things, but it does mean he's into objectifying and degrading women, which makes him a deeply disturbed and unpleasant person.

I've had very happy relationships with men who are disgusted by porn and find it immoral. It's actually quite a reasonable and commonly-held view.

Yep. I love dh, he does 50% of everything so he is a great partner, I'm not a skivvy, but if he was no longer with me I'd actively choose single life, which I think many women are now choosing.

The modern question is no longer "could I find a man?" But "why should I want one?"

Because then they would lose their live in maid/child minder and their beard who makes them look like respectable family men.
Plus they enjoy deceiving women.

I’ll second that 😊

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

Oh wow. Sure, blame the woman because her pornsick husband would rather jack off than have sex with her.
That is despicable.
How exactly would "compromise" make him more interested in sex and better in bed?
Do tell. Is that code for "submission?"

So many of us living with this.

This, OP
also
There’s someone in my life who I grey rock but only need to be in their presence intermittently, maybe a couple of times in a fortnight.
To succeed at grey rock while living under the same roof would be beyond me.

My ex was very into porn, DP is very much not and I can tell because the sex is incomparable.
Maybe rather than saying "these men choose porn because they don't get sex" we could frame it as "these men don't get sex because they choose porn".
To be a habitual porn user exposes a sexually entitled attitude; a man who watches loads of porn often finds sex with a long term partner "boring". Porn and male attitudes are the issue here.

I think a few times a month is quite a lot of porn, not ‘not very often’! And I say that as a man 🙂

You’re kind of missing the point.

Some people who find porn revolting find people who like porn revolting too. So just hiding from the fact that they like it means they end up being stuck with someone they find revolting ( or would find revolting if they didn’t hide from the truth). Not everyone wants to live like that.

sorry this response was to @bifurCAT who said don’t go looking in the kitty litter.

I can’t believe how many posters have made out that you’re the one ending the marriage when you clearly specified your boundaries five years ago - which he agreed to and overstepped them anyway! Your boundary was porn use. It could have been anything, but because you’re a female against something “men are sooooo naturally entitled to” and “sooooo normal”, people feel the need to comment that you must be some jealous pearl clutching prude.

It’s not about the porn people!!!! It’s about a man who over steps boundaries despite agreeing to them. It’s about a man lying continually. It’s about a man who would rather sacrifice time with his wife to stay in and wank. It’s about a man who will admit the absolute minimum when confronted and continue to lie while gradually admitting to more and more.

OP has said he can consume as much porn as he likes. He can enjoy it in abundance. Just….not…while….he’s….married….to….HER.

Good for you OP for having boundaries. Some women on here have set their bar so low that even a flea would find it difficult to limbo under it. As an aside, porn has ruined so many relationships. It’s created a culture of male entitlement - just look at how many really young girls are being choked and coerced into anal “because it’s normal”. Let’s fucking change what is normal instead of just being expected to turn a blind eye because a “horny red blooded male” wants an orgasm over some pixels rather than spending time in the real world.

I pity some people.

*edited because there was a really funny typo

I have seldom read such self-justifying tripe in all my life.
Here's the thing; you would not need a long-winded justification if you didn't feel it was wrong. You're trying to assuage your guilt. Save it for your therapist.

A man needs visual or physical stimulation in order to get aroused in order to masturbate. Woman don’t NEED porn, men typically do.

😆Total nonsense. Men can and do use fantasy unaided by visuals just as women do.

but from a percentage point of view it’s low, almost minuscule.

Bullshit.

"victims in the pornography industry encounter the same patterns of exploitation as all other forms of trafficking: coercion, force, and fraud. Data from the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline correlates with this reality: the second most common call they receive is for trafficking incidents related to pornography."

https://sosresponds.org/blog/pornography-and-its-impact-on-sexual-exploitation/

How often do we hear about exploitation in the porn industry in the news and media?

About as often as we hear about exploitation in the garment industry, which is hardly ever. What a stupid argument. These are multi-billion dollar industries. Do the math to figure out why these abuses are being largely ignored.

Btw, one can avoid exploiting garment workers and cotton growers by buying used clothes. I do. May I assume you do the same, seeing as you are so (falsely) indignant about it?
Yeah, I didn't think so.

Oh, and let's correct you about pay, too.

"Here’s how things break down. For a “traditional” sex scene between a man and a woman, the average actress’ compensation is typically between $800 and $1,000, depending on the studio’s budget. Top-tier performers can earn as much as $1,500, occasionally $2,000, while newcomers with bad representation might earn as little as $300.

More extreme acts, as you might expect, command higher rates. The most extreme — unsuitable for describing in polite conversation — can go for $1,800 to $2,500."

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/20/porns-dirtiest-secret-what-everyone-gets-paid.html

Again, do the math to figure out how many sex scenes you would have to do to make.$300,000, let alone 16 million dollars.
The physical harm of that many sex acts would cripple you. No wonder so many porn actresses commit suicide.

Porn industry stats;

https://beyondfantasy.com/stats/

I'm so sorry that has happened to you too. 🩷
The defending of pornsick men by some in this thread is disgusting.
Women don't matter to them. Not the porn actresses and not the women who live with men whose sense of male entitlement has blown up a thousand fold by the use of porn.

Dear OP,

People that are acceptant of porn use must not understand the untold damage it is doing to society and the true level of mass addiction that modern world faces. It’s undisclosed and under discussed. I have studied the subject related to my profession for about 5 years.

With prolonged use not only does it totally re-wire the brain in terms of extremity needed to reach a level of pleasure to orgasm it also trains the brain so that users no longer find the ‘normal‘ human body attractive. It is literally massacring human connection, killing sex lives, destroying all types of relationships. Not to mention that porn use is starting younger and destroying the minds of our teenagers causing a huge increase in sexual assault and hugely affecting self esteem. Mostly impacting females.

The saddest parts of my research are regarding the % of under ages ‘performers’ and the sexually exploited/trafficked that frequently appear on the highest searched most popular platforms. Not to mention the most frequently searched videos include the word Teen-scarily some of teens in these videos look no where near a fully a grown woman. Sadly a lot of users are masturbating over sex trafficked under age people (predominantly female) and are unaware.

In regards to those that normalise frequent porn use as an all man thing and you better get used to it-you sound very headstrong and it makes me pleased to hear a woman going against the grain. The ‘oh that’s just men’ acceptance I believe has been a tactical manipulation over the past few decades and I love to hear women speaking up and not accepting lacklustre sex lives because their partners would rather get a quick effortless dopamine hit from a screen than make the effort with the person they share their lives with.

It is definitely far from harmless.

I hope you get through what you need to and find yourself in a position where you feel sexually desired and more important than a screen ❤️

I think that it's pretty normal to watch porn. I know my husband does and I don't police it. That's personal. I also watch it occasionally for "alone time". It's not really a big deal. I do get it though, that it is something you feel personally about. I don't think it's fair to give him an ultimatum. It's obviously not something he does obsessively. He's doing it in secret because it is a normal thing to do but he doesn't want to upset you over it. Don't start picking holes in your relationship and looking for things to catch him out on. In the grand scheme of things, it could be a lot worse in terms of deception. It doesn't mean that he doesn't value your opinion. It doesn't mean that he finds you any less attractive. It is just a mastubatory tool when you aren't around. Don't let this ruin your relationship.

Yes, because lying for years and years is such a "loving" act. Because violating her right to consent is the act of a man who "loves" you. By that reasoning, his lack of interest in sex (because he'd rather wank) surely proves the depth of his "love."🙄
She made it clear she would not consent to being with a man who uses porn. He lied and did it anyway. But then we know porn users don't care about consent.