What made my husband stop watching porn

[DelphiStar]

Hi All,

I have a fantastic husband who I love very much. He has one trait which has always bothered me and that is that he occasionally watches porn. We have had a number of arguments about it over the years but he is embarrassed and I get easily enraged so rational talk quickly falls into argument.

It's been about a year since we last talked about it. Out of the blue a few weeks ago he tells me he has stopped after watching this TED talk. I thought I would share with you all in case you are in a similar situation.

He is a kind man who is a feminist but sometimes it can be easy to fall into bad habits. The TED talk articulates everything I've tried to say to him over the years but I'm a calm and measured way. I'm proud of him for making a positive decision for himself and for us.

What's a TED talk?

I love TED talks!

It is sad that he is more ready to listen to some stranger on the internets than to you, his beloved wife, but good that he has finally stopped watching porn.

Liney, TED is a long running series of very interesting short talks by experts.

Thanks, One.

Silly question, but unless he was watching it with you there in the room, how do you know he's stopped?

Surely telling you he has is the easiest way to remove the cause of your anger and thus make life easier for himself...

Thanks for all the positive messages everyone...

Why do I know he has stopped? Because he isn't a liar. Why did it take someone else to make the points, well I just think he has taken some time to come to the same conclusions but without me pushing him.

I think that sometimes it takes someone who is emotionally removed from the environment to explain and illuminate.

I thought it was a very good talk and really made me think about my own attitudes, so thank you for sharing that Delphi.

(I'm a bit about some of the comments as well, not particularly helpful or constructive)

@partialderivative: Why should it take someone who is emotionally removed from the environment?

If someone does something simply for fun, then why should he not stop it when his wife tells him that it hurts her?

I don't know about you, but if a Native American friend (I live in Europe, so don't have any, but let's just pretend, okay?) asked me to not dress up as distorted version of their culture on Halloween because it makes them feel bad if I do so, I would immediately agree to not do it anymore, while, if some "emotionally removed" social justice activist without Native American heritage whom I do not even know told me, I would be a bit doubtful if it is really that bad.

I value my friends and thus would (I hope, as it never really came up) respect their feelings more than the "objective" opinions of strangers on the internet.

And I would expect the same from a husband. Which may be one of the reasons why I am single, admittedly, but I have always been an 'everything or nothing' type of person.

Obviously it would be crass for me to defend Delphi's DH on her behalf.

But why can't other posters accept what OP will say about their DP without it being treated in such a cynical and dismissive?

It happens often enough when an OP has bad things to say about their DH

I agree Partial It more often than not takes outside intervention to deal with alcohol or gambling addiction.