how can we stay married?

[confusedabouthim]

Is it better not to concentrate on each others good points and not try and find out each others bad points? Sometimes i wish i had taken my mothers advice. insteadi know my husband was watching porn, calling sex chat lines, sending text chats to anonymous strangers, etc

i wish i could concentrate on the fact that he is kind, gentle, good mannered, fantastic with the kids, benevolent about my spending and lets me use as much money as i like, and works really hard in a high status high earning job and gives everythnig to me and the kids from it.

am i being a cow to wish he wouldnt relieve his stress in such ways?

should i just assume that no one is perfect and just stick to the good things?

should i just tell him to put a pin on his phone and change his email password and just make it hard for me to find out if hes doing anything?

is that the only way i can be happy in my marraige? what compromises am i supposed to make, not supposed to make?

how do i forget bad stuff and move on? how do i not see his bad side? is that the only way i can stay married?

Are you ok with the fact that he does those things? If you are, then that is absolutely fine. Tell him to keep it to himself and move on.

If you're not, then despite all of the good parts to his character, you can't carry on.

You need to be very honset with yourself. And then with him.

Good luck

Is this your first post about this?

Have you talked about it with him? Does he know you know?

He needs to understand why you find it distressing. It is not harmless fun if it upsets you.

And by the way, he may earn lots of money, but that does not buy him the right to ride roughshod over your feelings.

i have actually been wanting to post about this for awhile.

sometimes i wonder if i am too uptight about things like this because i came from a very conservative muslim background and so didnt expect certain things. and by not expecting them i havent developed the attitude of 'this could just be harmless fun'.

he is always apologetic and very humble whenever i find out, he isnt proud of what he does. he's taking a counselling course on sex addiction not that hes a sex addict but just to try and find out why he does such aberrent things against his own and our values.

even the counselling course he is taking is driving me nuts. i have been reading all the exercises he has been doing/done and knowing the thoughts that run through his head or the preparations that he makes when he wants to have 'abit of fun' makes me so unhappy. i hate to lie next to him sometimes just for thinking of the thnigs he has confessed to on his course.

i wish i wouldnt take it personally but i do, i take every single thnig personally. i wanted a large family but im to scared of that now because i don't know whether, at the end of the day, our marriage is stable with all these issues he has.

i think i hate myself for staying with him knowing what i know i feel iv let my standards down or have really low value for myself.

Well, personally I think I would be able to put all the unpleasant stuff in a box and focus on the good for the children, but you have to be a certain sort of person to be able to do that and not everyone is. And that's fine.

I would not and could not tolerate this for the sake of a comfortable life.

My boundaries are very, very clear and this crosses the line for many reasons.

I suspect his "sex addiction" course is actually fueling his warped attitude to sex and relationships, tbh

I don't think you should tolarate this, and if you were my friend in RL, I would be supporting you in getting out of this emotionally and sexually abusve relationship.

As much as I adore my dh I couldn't live with this. Give him a chance to work through his problems but if you really can't feel comfortable with this you need to reassess your relationship.

The "good stuff" you quote isn't very good.

He is "benevolent about my spending and lets me use as much money as i like, and works really hard in a high status high earning job and gives everythnig to me and the kids from it."

That isn't benevolent, it's what happens when one of you earns more than the other. It's called marriage and life.

It sounds like he treats you like a possession, or a subordinate. Marriage is supposed to be equal, he works and you raise the children. It's 50/50.

You do need to talk to him about this, but if he's texting other women it's not "harmless", it's disrespectful at best.

Oh and why should the onus be on you to create a happy marriage?

It's ok for him to act how he likes and you to lump it, is it?

your OP is rather money-focussed

do you think you should put up and shut up just because he supports his family ?

if you call time on him, he will still have to support his family

but the good thing is, you and the dc won't be exposed to this kind of constant disrespect

I would also warn you that this kind of compulsive, disinhibited behaviour tends to worsen with time...in that he will need to escalate it and push the boundaries further to get his kicks

meeting women, having sex with them, risking your health and well-being...

how acceptable is that sounding to you now, no matter how well he "looks after you financially" ?

i am scared that it will lead to his meeting women, and taking things to the next stage.

i cant help but feel threatened because if he keeps reaching for the next stage then eventually he might leave me and the kids high and dry and just ride of into the sunset with someone else.

i mention the money thing because my mum keeps telling me to focus on that, and growing up my father was both very stingy and very aggressive so sometimes i wonder whether i shouldn't just be grateful that i haven't married someone like my him.

he's great with the kids, great with my parents, great with alot of things. he has the demeanor of a very shy person and many people remark on that to me so i feel shy to talk about his issues with RL friends because they all see him as this amazingly humble and modest guy.

over the years i have increasingly been checking his internet history, his mobile, his emails, his texts, his statements...

i am going mad! i might find out one thing a year, but it is still heartbreaking becuase just when i think its all died down something happens. he is this mild mannered gentle husband most of the time then this crazy thing comes out again.

before i wanted him to admit he was a sex addict because i felt it would make him take this very seriously. but then i realised that it might make him excuse himself saying he is addicted rather than doing it willfully. now he just does an online programme where it just talks him through the 'bad habit' and how to develop healthy habits. the programme is through recovery nation.

but how do i stay married? should i just tell him when he gets home, put a pin on your phone, buy your own laptop, have his own account, so thati can no longer check anything and so am physically unable. should i put myself in the category of the rest of the world which has him down as a great person, or should i stay in this lone group of one where i am the only one who knows the real him.

but im scared that since i trust him so little anyway giving him all that privacy might just enable him to do more but in secrecy.

basically, how do marriages last so long?

There is not point asking him to change pins etc. You will always be wondering.

Imagine it was the other way round and you were the breadwinner. Would that make it OK for you to behave in a way that your husband found insulting, depressing and threatening to your marriage?

You do not say if you have children. But imagine this was happening to your daughter. Would you tell her to put up and shut up?

I think he is disempowering you.

You have a right to feel secure in your marriage, and he is making you feel insecure.

Are you scared of leaving him mainly because of money?

If so, that's a terrible shame.

I don't know how you could just "forget" everything that you already know

There isn't a "switch" in your brain to keep the intrusive thoughts out

Just because this man doesn't hit you and keep you short of money, doesn't mean he isn't abusing you

Your father was crap, and so is he. there are different ways to be crap.

Why do you think you are worth so little ?

You need some help with that in RL, I think and I woud say your mother isn't the right one to do that.

Get some counselling for yourself to find out why you seem determined to forgive anything o the sake of being a "family"

your "family" is built on sand if you cannot trust him not to "run off" with other women

If you had a daughter would you want her stay tied to a man like that ?

This isn't normal. You seem to think that you should put up with him cheating because either he keeps you financially stable, or you think that your upbringing has made you think such things are not normal - but they really aren't.

You ask how you can stay married - personally, I couldn't. He's a cheater - he'll carry on doing it and you either pretend it isn't happening, or you say enough is enough and leave him.

If I were you'd I'd bide my time and make an escape plan

it sounds like your parents will NOT support this, but honestly this is not what a marriage should be. It will dig at you and grind you down no? toy could be happier

do you work? can you start to develop a life outside of home and start to look at alternatives? start to develop your wings?

as I would agree that this will lead eventually to infiudelity and it will get worse

right now you are not in a situation you have to leave NOW, but dont do nothing, and developing some independance and start to develop outside interests, dont just rely on him

You don't have to answer this of course, but do you have sex much? And if not, is it him who is reluctant (because he prefers porn) or is it you?
His behaviour doesn't sound all that good but I wonder if your whole marriage has been built on those unhealthy 'traditional' values of a man being not just a financial provider but a beast with filthy needs that must be catered to somehow, whereas 'decent' women don't like or approve of sex unless for reproductive purposes.

What I mean is, could he have started with the porn/chatlines because both you and he thought it was wrong for him to have lots of sex with you? Some men start using porn because their wives have lower libidos and the man feels he shouldn't 'pester' the wife but also that he doesn;t want to be unfaithful.

he has put me in a box of 'wife' and 'mother' so i don't think he can see me as someone to talk about deepest fantasies with.

i have tried to be so open and responsive but i just cant be bothered anymore. i feel im married to a fraudster sometimes and am always wondering what is going on in his head. he is actually still, after two children with me, quite embarressed to be affectionate and there are a million ways i have said 'i wont brush you off' but he still can never make the first move.

my family on the whole are against the idea of my doing anything to upset the marriage right now. my sister actually told me quite horibly

'you would rather get a divorce than lose weight'

is her thinking. but she means well deep down. she just doesnt want me to go through the humiliation of turning to my parents for financial support if i leave my husband with two children in tow. instead she advised me to bide my time and prepare to leave him in a couple of years, but meanwhile try and lose lots of weight and be 'desirable' and win him away from what he slips into.

sometimes i think it was my suspicion that led him to taking it as far as he has. in terms of, i think he keeps looking for things to do to indulge that side of himself that are easier to hide from me. i used to rant about porn videos on computer history and now he doesn't use the internet hardly at all, instead it moved to sex phone and text chat lines.

i think that i will be ready to leave when i am so fed up of him that i don't mind whether he gets married again to someone who wont give any mind to what he does as long as it isnt me.

i am still in the frame that i love him for the good of him but i am staying with him because i don't want another woman to benefit from him and my children to lose their dad.

crap motivation huh?

but i originally started the thread asking how can we stay married rather than 'should i stay married'. im not in a financial or emotional position to get a divorce.

we both married each other out of duty at the beginning and i think thats maybe where the problem started. he expected me to change into a slim taut girl over time when i was cheerfully overweight, andi always resented him for that, and i expected him to be more emotionally open over time than he was when we first met. his family tried to warn me but i was so delighted at getting a 'good proposal' that i just went with it. we married on the promise of what the other could be, not on face value.

another problem is that he doesnt have many good male role models where fidelity is concerned. he comes from a family of very generous and wealthy men who cheated on their wives alot, starting from his dad and uncles downwards. so i think my husbands thinking is warped on what a good husband constitutes. and maybe, so is mine.

You ask how you can stay married - the answer is, by making yourself very unhappy, and modelling to your children that this is what they should expect from future relationships If staying married is more important, this unfortunately is the price that you pay.

You ask how marriages last so long - not all marriages do. From reading countless threads on here I've learned that successful, long, happy marriages are the ones where both partners genuinely like and respect each other.

is it that i am too uptight about porn and fantasy sex?

is it that i love my husband too much and thats why i feel wretched, maybe if i didnt love him so much we could get along better on our good points?

do i move away from relying on my relationship with him to define my worth as a person?

am i stubborn in thinking its nothing to do with whether i am fat or thin? i am quite attractive just not thin, but hey i feel so crap about myself....

do i have unrealistic notions of what love is? can we have a porn free marriage, or should i stop pressuring him and live and let live.

can i expect

Well, no, you're not too uptight, you don't love him too much, you're not being stubborn in thinking that it's nowt to do with your appearance. All of those are great attributes that suggest a healthy self esteem despite, frankly, your own family's attempts to model low expectations and normalise unhappiness.

But to stay married to this guy, you'd have to compromise all of the above. And that would be a bad idea. Because as soon as you lower your expectations, drop your objections to his using porn and sex workers, and start trying to diet, he will escalate his behaviour instead. He's only moderating it now because you're standing up for yourself. So you won't end up with equilibrium; you'll end up having moved back your boundaries and had him move forward his behaviour so that you have the same inbalance, only from a worse position.

I know you said you're not in an emotional position to divorce, but I'd suggest at least finding out your financial position. You seem to think that he can just leave you and the kids with nothing; that's not true.

firstly he cant leave you high and dry, there are divorce laws for that!

but I think you are asking how can I stay married?

most women are finding it hard to answer what you ask, as most women do seek emotional honesty. I am guessing maybe this is an arranged marriage?

I just cannot answer your question, as its all a bit alien to me....

I dont understand why you say you cant work/be financially dependant? is this impossible due to family/cultural or cos you dont want to?

of course you can stay married. and god knows it cant be easy to leave him if your family are saying what they do

but do think about slowly developing links outside of the immediate family and culture

You have to look after number one

Hi OP

I think I understand your question. I think the only way you can stay married in this situation is to totally withdraw yourself from a 'traditional marriage'. If you feel that you don't have the strength to leave him and you feel the benefits of your and your childrens lives - having no financial concerns, a nice home, good schools, an easy place in your extended family & society ie having a 'husband' and ofcourse lets not forget the support to you if he is a good Dad - are so great. Then I can understand why you don't want to leave and 'be a single mother', upset your children, uspet the Grandparents and perhaps have a much physically harder life (more work, less security, loss of time with your children).

I totally understand all of that as I am making the same decision, for different reasons at the moment. However I think you need to be clear that you can't love this man unconditionally as a 'normal happy wife' might. He will always feel a right to put his own needs first as and when he decides. You will not have a normal loving, affectionate, sexual relationship. You will need to protect yourself by keeping strong and hence not allowing his behaviour to hurt you. So there is your answer. Can you do this to avail of the lovely lifestyle I assume you have now. Whatever you decide, you need to make a decision soon and stay strong. You need to create your own happiness.

I feel so terribly sorry for you as I know what a tough situation this is to be in. Wishing you the best of luck with your choice.

IstTimeMummy...during this life you are putting forward as an option for the OP, would it include having sex with her husband ?

The reason I ask is that I think that would be, very likely, a massive risk to her sexual health.

The only way I could see that scenario is if they actually lead separate lives and have no physical intimacy whatsover.

Now I believe everyone needs (and deserves) physical intimacy with someone who cares about them. So that leaves a bit of a problem...

hello op. yes, have just read through the thread, and my thoughts are-what if you do let things be swept under the carpet? what then? AF above has underlined one massive risk, and i can't see that adapting to the way he is would do any good at all. surely it would just get worse and you would end up more isolated? have you got anyone to confide in? your family sound unsupportive. you need to share this if you can, and not just on here. you're entitled to be happy-i guess you could take it as positive that he has gone for some kind of counselling. can you BOTH go?-together, for marriage counselling, or perhaps you on your own? sorry if i'm repeating other people's views. bottom line is-i think you'll end up desperately unhappy if something doesn't change. the very fact that you're here seeking opinions shows that you don't want to settle for this.

i had so expected to be told to grow up and that those were not issues to divorce over.

i used to threaten my husband with divorce and he would beg and cry not to leave him because of porn. then when i opened up to a couple of my friends they told me their partners watched porn regularly and 'men will be men'. when i found out about the chat lines i threatened him with divorce and the same begging and grovelling. i opened upto my sister in law who told me that it was just that some men needed to fantasise and that it was completely harmless. he recently received a text message that he said was completely unsolicited about texting a sex service or texting stop. this was after exactly a year of no porn or anything dodgy. again i threatened him with divorce.

post more later