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?

I don't know, Mumatron. If he's the sort of person who has a habit of keeping his sexual life private and centered on fantasy, this might be too much of a leap for him to make. I don't think he's after something real. He seems to me like the sort of person who is very good at compartmentalising. Marriage and children/ sex and fantasy, sin and atonement/ -- are all kept separate in their different boxes. Money runs through it all. Marriage and children give him social status. Sex and fantasy, sin and atonement indicate a lack of integration in his makeup. Money allows both threads to be maintained separately.

I totally agree with mathanxiety - think the Madonna/Whore complex is at the root of this, and he needs to keep OP on a pedestal -plus of course, OP may not want to do this - sounds to me like she's lost all respect for him and there's too much water under the bridge. I do sympathise with OP,and think counselling is really the only way forward for her.