Can’t get over husbands porn addiction.

[ThisAmpleDenimCrab]

Hi, is there anyone out there that has experienced this? I’d really appreciate any input as I’m lost!

I’m married with kids. I’m just not getting on with my husband. We’ve had a lot of external problems over recent years, which hasn’t helped. I’ve always blamed things on that, but now I’m not so sure.

We don’t have sex anymore, he wants to, but I don’t since I found out he was addicted to porn. I know it’s not cheating but I kind of feel a bit like it was 😞 . He admitted to ‘liking’ girls porn videos, He says it went no further, but I don’t believe this. I don’t like the term ‘Ick’ but it’s given me the ick 🤣.

He says his porn addiction is my fault as I was so difficult around this time (we went through a bad patch). I probably was an arse, it was during covid and I wasn’t that happy.

There were times I tried to initiate sex but he couldn’t perform as he’d recently relieved himself to porn.

He says he won’t live in a sexless marriage (when I have had sex with him, it’s awful and I just feel like an ‘outlet’). He makes no effort anymore. I’m also in my late forties and feel so self conscious that he is looking at younger women.

Anyway, I’m rambling, this was a while ago but I still can’t forget it! Do I leave?

Yep. I kind of get it, but it’s not acceptable to me.

Also, if your wife is so up for it, why are you on a mother’s forum causing trouble? 🤣. So many other platforms for your old man ramblings. Probably best to get back to your allotment xxx

It’s for him to get over. Go and enjoy your life without this revolting man.

My DH is 58 and this isn’t the case with him. He couldn’t manage sex and a wank on the same day and I am the same, it’s one or the other for us.

And just so happens to click on a thread with the word porn in the title. All so predictable…🙄

He’ll be furiously beating his meat to golf magazines for sure.

Delightful

I am divorced. Late 40s is the time many marriages start falling apart. Kids are older, years of resentments accumulated. Lack of sex is one of the reasons.

The way you two are going - your marriage will not survive. Sweeping the issues under the rug is not going to work in the long term.

So - you struggled in covid, and relationship was tense. That lead to less (no?) sex and he used porn to manage. It does not seem that there was an actual ‘addiction’ - more just a regular use.
You then decided to use it as a reason to not deal with whatever went on in covid - and it all snowballed.
In parallel - you seem to be struggling with getting older - think of yourself as “old”, and feel inadequate to the “young” women in the videos.
Now - you are living with resentments, not having sex, seemingly not realising that no marriage can survive this way.

I am also guessing you might be in peri- as
this is also one of the reasons why women explode their lives in about the age you are now.

If you don’t want to try to work on your marriage, together with your H - you really should start prepare and plan for divorce, so that you are ready when it happens.

Wow. Were you there? 😬. Yes, you’re very right. Apart from the porn addiction part. He’s admitted it.

And yes, of course I feel inadequate to him watching younger women. Or in fact any other women. Thank you for your advice but I don’t think you understand addiction.

Obviously (unless you are very naive/stupid) you know that some of what you're watching point won't have been consensual. That for me is a big enough turn off.
If you knew, or didn't both a massive turn off and respect drain.

It is not about understanding addition really - it is understanding marriages in middle life. And seeing it all unfold around.
Your situation is not unique. And outcome is predictable.

You seem to fixate on his ‘addiction’. I happen to understand addiction on a very personal level - father was an alcoholic. It led him to eventually die, in his early 50s.
I don’t know if your H is addicted to a level where his need for a ‘fix’ is ruining his life - does not sound like it does.
If so - he can get help, it sounds like he recognised it as an issue and is willing to work on it?

Question is more about you. And what you want to do with your marriage. You two are too young to be sexless. Despite you considering yourself ‘old’ - you two are not - and there is at least another 10-20 years of intimacy ahead of you.

Young people are not going to disappear, even if he did’t see them on porn - there are everywhere. He, or whoever you end up with after divorce - will see young sexy women everywhere. Just as you see sexy younger men. It does not need to affect your self esteem in a way it does for you.

If you think you’ll be happier single - then start thinking about how your life will be. Some women are happier divorced. But many are not - it’s bot easy to be divorced in late 40s -
early 50s. After divorce - most men seem to pair up almost immediately. Most women date crappy men aren’t really happier.

So - in your place - I’d at least try marriage counselling. And certainly check for peri- because if does really affect us - and we
tend to make emotional decisions that we regret.

.

Even leaving aside the moral aspects of it, regular porn use is terrible for men in relationships because it short circuits the natural pathway to sexual arousal - instead of gradually becoming aroused and ready for sex in a way that happens with a partner, porn use already gets men most of the way there without even having to do anything.

This artificially inflates men's sexual desire (especially men in their 40s and 50s where there is a natural drop off in sec drive anyway) and makes them think they want more sex than they actually do, which can then bring significant relationship strain when these men's wives do not have the same fluffed sex drive and can never match the variety and low effort (for the man) that porn gives.

I'm not puritanical whatsoever about porn, but men in relationships who regularly use it are not doing themselves or their wives any favours at all.

https://www.drpsychmom.com/4-reasons-porn-is-bad-for-your-marriage/ - this article explains it much better than I can, with a great analogy that if your wife spent all her time watching dream home programmes, she's going to think her current house is rubbish even if you think it's absolutely fine

Please hear me loud and clear op. It's nothing to do with you. Now does it feel like it is, well absolutely. That is a very valid and natural response.
But it's not the way addiction works. Its like telling a partner to a alcoholic or drug user to just be more interesting and fun than drugs or alcohol then they will pick you! Nope that's never going to work. The addicted person isn't choosing what's fun Or the best option around. They are choosing what's easy what isnt a person. Because people are complicated they can make us feel inadequate and put pressure on us or they are unpredictable. What by passes that? Pornography does. Even the same Pornography doesn't work after a while. So it escalates.

I've have many women in betrayed partners group sessions who are Cam girls and strippers/dancers still very actively interested in having sex with their partner. Eventually though the addicted partner couldn't have sex with them because they had re wired their neural pathways to only respond and have sex with themselves/pornography. That the caused the addicted partner to feel lots of shame andinadequacy The easiest thing to them was to blame their partner who was very attractive and available. Suddenly it was because they expected sex or moved during sex and on and on. It was nothing to do with their partner it was all about them. Their partners couldn't of worked on the relationship or done anything different. Because it wasn't about them.

You can not compete with pornography or addiction. In most cases the addict has been using pmo (pornography masturbation orgasm) to deal with stress boredom anxiety.... since they were a in some cases as young as 9. Its hard wired. Even if it hasn't escalated to addiction where its negatively affecting their life. It's a coping habit that's lying in wait. Add in a computer in your pocket, ai that will produce whatever you can dream up. It's a very easy and secret addiction to maintain.

We never reccomend marriage counselling first. There is lots of abuse that goes along with this addiction Particularly. Its very different to drug addiction or alcohol partners are not co dependent.Counselling has to happen separately for a while untill the addict has become consistent and safe.

Well you would say that. And watching porn daily and wanking off once, twice or thrice has drifted nicely into addiction.
Would give me the mega-ick. No wonder your wife isn't interested in you.

My porn addicted ex used to use porn around six times a day. He had no chance of getting an erection (he didn’t even get hard while masturbating to porn). It was the porn that caused the ED. Porn-induced erectile dysfunction is a thing. In fact, it’s probably the most common cause of ED these days.

‘Thrice’ 🤣🤣

Sending you a massive hug OP. This sounds very difficult and I’m so sorry you are experiencing this. Your feelings are valid and as you can see from all the messages here, many many women would feel the same. (There’s that one man of course, that came here to tell you to shush and justify his own use of porn… which is so exhaustingly predictable!)

i want to say to you loud and clear- You don’t need a ‘good enough’ reason to leave an unhappy relationship.

Good enough for who? Who decides how much unhappiness and unpleasant behaviour you should endure ?

It doesn’t matter if others would endure this situation and keep going. It is making you unhappy, you feel disrespected and grossed out, you know this isn’t right for you. That’s what counts here.

you get to decide if you want to continue a relationship, and you don’t have to justify this as a good enough reason to anyone.

to be clear , you wouldn’t see me for dust in this situation and I can absolutely understand why you would find this gives you ‘ick’ . His attitude to women is clear in the way he uses the degradation and harm of women in porn (filmed abuse) to get off. The fact that he is justifying this and blaming you for his behaviour is appalling. But again- this isn’t my relationship, it’s yours.

you deserve to be happy and respected.

I can hear you are worried about the impact on kids…
i want to offer an alternative perspective- staying in an unhappy and difficult relationship isn’t good for kids. It can seem like it’s the right thing to do , to stay together so they don’t have to go through the change and upheaval of separation…. But kids are resilient and they adjust to parents separation.

seeing their parents struggle and unhappy together isn’t better than seeing their parents separated and in a better place emotionally. Kids are so sensitive to toxic adult behaviour, they are soaking this up! They might not see you argue but they are absorbing the atmosphere and are normalising seeing dysfunction. I say this with kindness because it’s important to hear, not to beat you with a stick.

I also say this as I know first hand that it can feel huge and scary to consider changing their little lives by ending an unhealthy relationship , and then seen that it’s actually been the best thing I ever did for them.

take care xx

Thrice is such a great and underused word! It is the only thing I like about this guys posts 🤣

All I can say is that most women over a certain age ( and many younger women too) simply aren’t ok with it being used as a habit like brushing your teeth- we all know most men have looked at it, but I think a lot of women would be very suprised how often their blokes watch this bilge. I certainly was, H is a pretty ‘metrosexual’ bloke , ( now 60) very much into equality and all that stuff - took a few months of DNS monitoring on our internet to realise he had fed me what he thought I wanted to hear, not what he was actually up to - I did it initially as was convinced he was having an affair as got very uptight if I even glanced in the phones direction- nope, none of that, just porn virtually every day the minute I was out the house. Well it’s certainly killed his sex life now as like OP totally given me the ick -

@DurinsBane it is underused, sometimes heard in period dramas, it really tickled me reading that, I can hear it said in a Stephen Fry voice

Thank you to each of you that took the time to reply to my post. I’ve read some really interesting and helpful things. I’ve never really been on mumsnet before and am impressed with all the support etc. apart from one weirdo 🤣

This. This. THIS.

Your fault he’s addicted to porn?

Refuses to be in a sexless marriage, but can’t get an erection when you initiate, because he’s already wanked to porn?

Doesn’t satisfy your needs; merely uses you as an outlet?

He can fuck right off @ThisAmpleDenimCrab .

grim.

I don’t get it at all, it’s sick. Older generation should feel nothing but fatherly/motherly to young people. It’s old perverts who made me lose my innocent view of the world when they looked at me sleazily.