Cat87

I believe that there are things that are right and that there are things that are wrong. I never really bought into situation ethics, I am nore of a moral absolutes kind of person. I believe there are things that are morally reprehensible and I think the healthy and normal response is anger. I am not in a place yet where I can even contemplate forgiveness. I am angry, and fortunately or unfortunately, I believe that my anger is justified. That kind of anger takes me a long time to work though, I have done a lot of therapy on my abusive and dysfunctional childhood and know that I can hold a grudge for a long time if you really, really hurt me. From this forum and from other conversations, I am being to see that it is just going to take time and that I may or may not stay married. I may or may not have an affair. I may or may not take his cute little fishing boat out and sink it. I may get to a place where I want to have an open-honest discussion with my husband, but right now, I am not interested in making him feel comfortable or safe or trying to understand what made him think that his behavior was doing anything but harm to our marriage. I am not over the horror of the past yet and I don't think that he really is brave enough to hear what I really think right now. It amazes me that people keep telling me to think about his feelings. I feel like he has murdered part of my soul and that people keep telling me to think about how the murderer must be feeling, to be kind to him because he feels really bad about being a murderer. He should feel really bad, he has been doing really bad things for a really long time. Not simply the porn, but the lying, the sneaking, and the manipulation. He should feel like crap for a long time. If I had been doing what he has, I would not be able to stand myself. This situation is testing my morales and ethics on the issue of marriage -- my husband knows that I how I feel about divorce and I think he used my beliefs to his benefit. He thinks that he can have is cake and eat it too -- I am not afaid of being alone (I have had 5 years practice) and I financially capable of supporting my children and myself. I believe in the vows that I took and I cancelled 3 engagements before I got married because I knew that I could stayed married to them for a while, but I knew I couldn't stay married to them for a lifetime. I married my husband, not because I loved him any more than the others, but because we talked about values and morals and how married people behave and we agreed totally on everything. My husband was the one who wanted to get married and I have to ask myself why -- why if he wanted that lifestyle, why involve me.

First let me say, I am one of those people who feels no need to experience any more pain than is absolutely necessary. I had to be induced into labor both times -- and had lots of drugs both times. If they start talking about given you drugs to bring on labor, I would strongly advise you to consider epidurals and anything they are willing to give you in an iv. In natural labor, your body has time to adjust to the pain and it isn't so bad (did about 6 hours of natural labor with my son), if they induce you, your labor progressed much more quickly than nature intented and it is very intense. In about 15 minutes I went from planning to have natural child birth to begging for drugs. With the pain medication, I was comfortable (not completely pain free) and could participate in what was going on -- the miracle of having a baby -- prior to getting the epidural it was too much. Both my babies came quickly and both were alert and healthy. My daughter held her head up at 3 days old. You have to do what is right for you and for your baby -- a mommy that is completely worn out from a painful delivery is not going to be able to enjoy her new bundle of joy quite as much. A mommy that feels guilty about drugs during delivery is also going to be distracted. What my birth coach taught is if your baby is thriving, that is all that matters.

Wow, there are a lot of perspectives out there and I really appreciate most of them. I especially appreciate those that have "walked in my shoes" and can understand what I am feeling. Thanks for the ideas, the support, and for reminding me that I am not alone. I always thought of myself a pretty liberal (I grew up in Southern California) and while I was never really comfortable with porn -- it makes me more nervous and uncomfortable than excited, I really thought that most men had playboys, etc. I thought it was something that men used to meet their sexual needed when they couldn't have sex with their partner. Porn addiction, like any other kind of addcition (alcohol, drug, gambling) is extremely damaging to the addict and their families. Not everybody who looks at porn is a sex addict, but I do think that even casual use has negative effects over time. I never would have guessed or believed that a person would choose to masterbate over having sex with a willing partner. I am really upset and hurt that for a long time my husband choose porn over me and not just instead of me, but when he knew that our lack of sex life was hurting me. This is not about looks or sex appeal. I am not overweight, I don't have green teeth or 3 eyes in the middle of my forehead. I'll put it this way, I never have to carry groceries to my car, wait for help at Home Depot or stand in line to get into a club. This isn't about my husband and I not getting along either, I was floored by his confession because I thought we had a good, solid marriage. I thought we had honesty, shared morals, and emotional intimacy. Granted we didn't have much of a sex life, but my husband is older than me and told me that he just wasn't very interested in sex much anymore. Part of my anger is that out of love for him, I put aside my physical needs. I went without a sex life because I loved him and was willing to accept that he no longer wanted sex. Can you understand the pain those lies caused? Try to imagine getting okay with only having sex once or twice a year for the rest of your life and then finding out that your partner had a secret sex life that didn't include you. I know that most of this wouldn't have made any sense to me in my early 20s -- I couldn't have imagined being with one person for more than a couple of months and I didn't have the life experience to really understand what commitment is suppose to be and how many people you can hurt when you break vows.

In my situation, yes, it was cheating. It inolved lying and sneaking and not doing things with me and our family in order to have time alone. His addiction to pornography progressed to the point where he preferred porn to having real sex. He was masterbating 3 or more times a week and we would go for months without having sex -- trust me, I understand being horny. When I would try to talk to him about our sex life, he didn't want to talk about it and when I woud push, it was that he just didn't have any sexual desire, and then it got to be that he wasn't physically attracted to me. I can not tell you how heartbreaking and agonizing it was to accept that at 30-somthing, my sex life might be over, because I was committed to my husband and I couldn't imagine having an affair. So to find out, he did have desire and was having "sex" -- it just didn't include me feels like an affair.

I have been married for 11 years and about 2 months ago found out that my husband is a porn addict. I have been blown away and am still in shock. And yes, in hind-sight, there were some signs, but he was very deceptive and secretive and I was very trusting. At first I was shocked, then I cried all the time, and now I am angry. What scares me is that the anger seems to be getting worse, not going away. I feel like I am emotionally stuck in this mire of emotional sewage and I can't find a way out of the hate. I know for my own emotional well-being I have to find a level of forgivness, but I can't figure it out. PLEASE HELP! I am hoping there are some folks out there that can give share there experience on how they got through it. I mean really practical stuff -- like what did you do when you were so mad you started thinking about the things you could do that would hurt them the worst (emotionally, financially, even physically). My husband and I are seeing a therapist, he is going to a 12-step program and is no longer materbating to porn (as far as I know). I am really confused as to why people tend to say, "watching porn." Instead of feeling forgiveness, I seem to hate him more everyday. I feel like he stole 11 yrs of my life, got to clear his conscience at my emotional expense, and now I have this "secret" that I walking around with that I can't even really tell my friends -- we all have kids and I don't want my kids hearing about it from their friends. I can just imagine someone at work asking me how things are going and me saying, "Not so good, my husband is a pig who has been cheating on me, not with another woman, but with hundreds of pictures of other women." Just writing this email and thinking about it and I am fuming. Please, anyone who is working through this or is working through it -- I need practical suggestions.

How would he feel if the tables were turned? If you were going out with the girls and an ex boyfriend and by the way, he wasn't invited?? Even if there is nothing to the date with the ex, it shows a lack of concern or understanding for your feelings. I have found with the men in my life, that allowing in appropriate behavior only invites more inappropriate behavior in the future. In some ways men are like toddlers, they will test you to see how far they can push you. If the relationship is going to go anywhere, it has to be respectful to both people's feelings. Hope things work out for you.