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?

Arrghh, cross posts all over the place...

Elzy are you suggesting to the OP that if she behaves like a desirable woman (a porn star perhaps?) and lies to her "hubby" about a rival love interest, he may want to have sex with her tonight and then everything will be alright? Although I note you advised trying Relate at the foot of your post.

Please clarify.

oh goody, wwifn spotted it too

I'd better leave it alone, I have derailed this thread quite enough and am doubtful any of this is helping Op, tbh

Would I be out of order if I asked op whether it was an arranged marriage?

tabouleh, I take your point about the Sun and the casual objectification of women. I meant that Page 3 is comparatively very mild stuff, barely dignifiable by the word "porn" because it's just, well, undressed ladies. Such images are around us every day and it's harder to avoid them than to access them. For Rafwife to refer to porn as though it was all equivalent to picking up a copy of the Sun is like referring to armed robbery as equivalent to a kid swiping a penny sweet from a shop. I don't approve of kids swiping sweets either!

""Plus, the best way to remind hubby that you're a desirable being is to become one!!! Make mention of someone flirting with you or asking for your number (whether it's true or not) - I bet you get some that night!!!" "

I like to use emotional mindgames with my hubby too. I told him once that I had fucked his brother! I certainly "got some" that night!!!!!!

As a guy here - I have to admit I've "used/use" porn (ewww tmi) and there are loads of crossed lines in this thread. I've had some contact with the sex industry in my work over the years as well.

It's mainly all about class and politics, as are most things.

The "men are visual" thing is rubbish. After all, men also have imaginations in which they can visualise quite well, for example, in prison.

But it's also true on person's erotica is another's porn. That is normally a class issue, it is why pornographic displays were only allowed to be seen by members of the aristocracy in the 1800s etc as it would drive the plebs mad with sexy desire etc.

Viewing sexy imagery is however, completely understandable. We have all done it. We have all had sex, there we saw it at close quarters, oblique angles. Did it drive us to depravity?

Pornography has boomed in part due to the internet but also - imo - in part due to the continuing collapse of the economic system since 1989, which creates huge swathes of women who are prepared to do it for the money available. Which is a labour issue. Just like prostitution, it is mainly a labour issue.

Where porn is unregulated, underground it is often a disgusting and dangerous profession. Almost always for the women.

As for the OP - you sound very confused. Sex, money, status, arranged marriages. Messy. But sex texts and chat lines are different to porn, they are grim, some kind of replacement shit going on there...the hubby doesn't sound like a sex addict though, more like a bit of a dweeb.

Coolfonz I will see if I have got there before someone else:

"Pornography has boomed in part due to the internet" - Yes but it has boomed due to MEN - men in control of the industry and feeding the demand for it.

"huge swathes of women who are prepared to do (prostitution)" - due to huge swathes of MEN who are prepared to pay for sex!!

Porn and prostitution are not labour issues - they are lack of equality issues!

Well, labour issues are often equality issues when it comes to men and women. Equality in pay for example.

The women I was talking about being "prepared" to do stuff were in porn. Prostitution is a bit different, and much more heavily linked to drug addiction and human trafficking.

But yes in general men control the industry and exploit it for their own ends, absolutely.

So I always end up putting it a bit like this: there is porn theory and porn reality.
The theory is that labour (equality) issues and regulatory issues are dealt with. So all porn makers/vendors are more like Private and Beate Uhse.

Instead the reality is much more depressing and often misogynist.

I don't call 20% of men a huge swathe Tabouleh, far from it imho - I think it's very heartening that 80% of men don't pay for sex.

I was just quoting part of his post back at him: a rephrase of women are prostitutes because of men may have been better.

God - do 20% of men pay for sex.

WWIFN - not once did I make mention of 'acting like a pornstar' to make oneself more desirable to one's husband. If a guy flirts with me and asks for my number, it doesn't turn me in Jenna Jameson overnight, does it?! It just means that someone other than my DP fancies me - a nice little ego boost if you can get it!

I clearly worded it wrongly but all I meant was that I see so many women on here complain that there husbands don't find them sexually attractive/ have a Madonna-Whore complex/see them as a wife and mother only, etc. Sometimes, you have to try a different tack in order to remind your spouse to put a bit more effort into your sex life. A little bit of mystery, some flirting, a subtle reminder that other men find you attractive so why shouldn't he?!

The grind of daily life can massively get in the way sometimes, so the odd flirt here or there (with your own partner) can't be all that wrong can it?! In my experience (and usually by complete accident) I have found out that the men I am with react quite profoundly to the thought of another man trying to move in on their missus - it has always led to great sex for me! And I'm sure I can't be the only one. It's probably a very animalistic, territorial thing on their part. I don't know. And before anyone starts, I would say the same to any man who's sex life has gone off the boil.

Any Fucker - I'm glad you saw the error in your tone, I guess.

ShirleyKnot - I like to use emotional mindgames with my hubby too. I told him once that I had fucked his brother! I certainly "got some" that night!!!!!! - completely unnecessary. Why would you be so extreme?!

One in five men is a lot of men

Some men, on being told another man had made a move on their missus, would beat her up, just to remind her which way her bread was buttered.

XH would just have sulked for weeks, and brought it up any time I went anywhere at all, ever, without him.

Because it's FUN Elzy.

FUN FUN FUN and childish. (a bit like the fact that you still appear to be using "feminie wiles" which most of us outgrew at...oooh, I'm going to say 15 years of age)

Elzy, I was apologising to RafWife, not you.

"I was just quoting part of his post back at him: a rephrase of women are prostitutes because of men may have been better."

For clarity - again - I was talking about porn actresses NOT prostitution.

Elzy go and Barbie off while the grown ups sort out the real problems

Fair doos and thanks, I accept also my opinions may have offended as they are against the grain of the thread, it just got my back up also. So apologies.

Anyhow I think the consensus is it's unhealthy from both sides and they probably need couples counselling is that about the jist of it?

Thanks RafWife

And yes, that's the gist of it. Although I suspect Op has run from this thread, screaming

no way have irun from this thread screaming.

thanks guys. thanks to every single person who has been writing in, i swear iv thought of all these issues over the years.

im actually grateful that we are having a discussion on porn as wel as my particular problem andi was heartened to think that its not just me who has a problem with pornography.

until a few months ago we used to have sex at least 3 times a week all the way through our marriage. i made myself so avaiilable because i feared that if he didnt get it from me he wold go somewhere else AND if i didnt make it easy for him then he would just prefe porn, because there is an aspect to it that some men prefer the fantasy to the reality of a real life relationship/mariage.

tere wasa time i found he had been making calls to chat lines during a period when we were having quite alot of sex and i thought how wrong i had gotten the reason for his ardor.

i dont think sex is related to the porn or chat lines. i think he likes the naghty illicit aspect of it and what he does with me is the normal thing yu d with your wife.

iv tried reading sex manuals and doing things to please him in bed but to be honest iv stopped that now because i actually think it makes him embarressed and that induces embarressment in me.

sorry write more later...

hi, OP

I meant you might have run away because it got totally off-topic and some of us lost a bit of perspective for a while there < holds hands up >

I really don't think you should have to do things that don't come naturally to you, just "to keep your man"

nothing wrong in learning "together" what pleases you both....but this is alllll about him, isn't it

from the little more you have said, I think WWIFN has got it spot-on and he has a bad case of madonna/whore reasoning going on here

I think you need outside, impartial help in your marriage because you both seem unhappy and unable to sort it out, tbh

over to you, RafWife....

TBH I think as a coulpe you need counselling get it all out in the open, no more hiding, spying etc, that's the way forward I think.

Then go from there in all honesty.

i love him very much and he loves me very much. i respect im alot in front of others bt i think it kills him that i dont respect him as te head of the house and hte authority of the house because of the porn and chat lines and sexting. i know that all are with 'services' bt my fear is that it will be with a real live person one day and become an affair. that some of you thought that too made me think alot on whats going wrong in our marriage.

in the past few months we have sex as rarely as once a week namely because i dont make myself as available for him as i used to. i got tiredbof all the jggling and keeping up appearances infront of the families and community we know that i just couldnt be bothered to keep up the pretence in front of him thati think he is an honourable decent person.

i am definitely going to seek counselling about myself and my self esteem. my husband runs most things in our marriage and in most other ways i am quite able to let him take the lead. but rafwife was right i saying that if the man wa the one doing this level of surveillance it wouldnt be a good thing. its for my sanity that i wrote into this forum. i hate the ru im in but i also feeel like no longer checking is jmping off a cliff. you mena im going to leave it upto his flawed judgement and sense of morality?

is it because he fears me that he doesnt do it more often?

i think the thing that escalated it was my putting a parental lock on the computer to bloc kcertain websites nad make sure he didnt go online after a certain time in the evening a few years ago. i know now how controlling that was. he stopped using or caring about the internet then and ithought it was geat and working until i opened up one of his phone bills and saw 600quid spent on chat lines. iv also read in the exercises he does on his 'problem' that he is constantly afraid of being found out by me. i started wondering if it would have gotten so serious and he become more cunning had i not had that level of control over his personal papers and possessions. the porn vids and pictures were innocent compared to the seedy level its at now.

there is a madonna whore thing going on if i understand that properly. regular sex doesnt equal great sex either for him or me. we were never the type ot have it everyday, only in the early months of our mariage so i do envy people who talk about that level of passion with their partners.