How many time should I forgive him?

[IAmFCA]

OP says:

 

"I am in a wonderful relationship with my boyfriend, neither of us thought that it was possible to find a person that gives you so much joy and personal stimulans every day. "

 

OP, Please consider that it is incongruent to have a partner with flaws as awful as you say, and yet who contributes his part to a relationship that you describe in ideal terms.

 

Your bf avoids conflict by making his private choices privately and by letting you believe a lie, because to him, that lie is closer to the truth, in terms of his feings for you. In other words, to him, porn has nothing to do with his affection for you, even though you think it does. So, to lie about watching porn is a lie, yes, but he feels like he is adhering to the spirit of your request, which is not to cheat on you.

 

Similarly with this woman. Cheating? No. Trustee you to see the friendship for what it is? No.

 

Seen this way, you both have a limited ability to trust. You don't trust him to be constant in his affection for you and only you. He doesn't trust you to see him for him, to understand his motivations and feelings. Said differently, you don't trust your own judgment and suspect you were blind to his cheating nature. He doesn't trust his own judgment in choosing you, wondering why he chose someone who doesn't see the real him.

 

In this way, you mirror each other. You both protect yourselves from pain by staying a little bit aloof from the other.

 

This is dangerous to your relationship. Read about intimacy avoidance and codependency, and choose a counselor who can help with self acceptance.

[MissCanuck]

OP, you told him you couldn't be in a relationship with a man who watches porn.

 

He watches porn.

 

So, are you going to put your money where your mouth is? It's fine to have a personal boundary, but there's little sense in drawing that boundary if you're not prepared to enforce it.

[IAmFCA]

OP, you told him you couldn't be in a relationship with a man who watches porn.

 

He watches porn.

 

So, are you going to put your money where your mouth is? It's fine to have a personal boundary, but there's little sense in drawing that boundary if you're not prepared to enforce it.

 

And there is wisdom in removing the boundary, if experience proves that it was unnecessary.

[thornz]

I can't believe how many people are trying to defend this gutless guy. He lured you into a relationship under false pretences and continues to lie. I don't think you could ever be happy with this man as you will soon find other lies now that you are guard to find them. How can you trust him when he lies about something so pathetic? I would question every word I was told if my partner lied to me like this.

 

He should have been honest from the start and said he watches porn (like nearly every other man and woman on the planet with unrestricted internet access) so you could decide if you were OK with that.

 

 

That being said I think you're being somewhat unrealistic in your desire to date a man who doesn't watch porn as just like alcohol, most people watch it occasionally. It's not only readilly accessible but almost unavoidable when using the internet.

[Mariah12]

Honestly, based on my own personal experience, it won't get any better. MANY other females have problems with the fact that their boyfriend watches porn. It makes us feel like we are not enough. I know many women who agree with me. My boyfriend (now fiance) did the same thing. I found out he had been watching porn so often, even the morning after we just had sex. No matter how many times I threatened him with me leaving, got mad at him or anything, he NEVER stopped. Here I am four years later with the same guy and I still have issues with it, but not as much. It really is something you can choose to live with because he makes you happy enough, or just leave the relationship. Yes, there are guys out there that don't watch porn (Christian men, formerly addicted men, etc.), so it's just a decision you need to make. Will being without him make you happier than being with him knowing what he's doing anytime he's home alone? Good luck. Hold your ground too.

[yonderkthx]

Sorry to resurrect this thread from the dead, but it's been about three weeks since I was booted out of my SO (significant other)'s place for looking at porn and lying. I am a 26 yr old male. We were together two years, and I deeply loved her. We were living together on our own for the first time in our lives. I failed three times to keep my promise to stop watching porn. I lied to her face in bed when she asked, afraid, if I had been looking at porn lately. She was incredibly insecure about it to the point where she tried hurting herself after finding out a second time. I vowed if I could not keep my promise for a third time, regardless of the situation, I'd leave. So I did.

 

I regret so much, but I understand now that the contributing factors to why I looked at porn were too great. I was upset about my privacy being violated to the point where she'd snoop on my computer and I had to let her to keep living with her. I was never proud of having to hide this despicable habit, but I felt it essential to my morning routine so I orgasmed and moved with my day as if it was nothing. It was more than that. It IS more than that.

 

Well into our relationship she has helped people on this site with advice, so I figured I'd confess and contribute with a guy's side of the story. Since living in my own place I masturbated maybe three times just after moving in, wanking to my heart's content. I PAID for porn for the first time in my life and kept files on my PC. Four days of a small urge later, I haven't really had the desire to masturbate. It's been almost three weeks. I don't think I've gone three weeks without masturbation since discovering I could do it. I don't know what to make of it really, but it seems excessive and overwhelming to me now. I feel like my computer is just flooded with it and I don't care.

 

I never took my livelihood seriously enough to stop masturbating, and I should have. I'm living outside my means in an area I have very few friends. I'm lonely, exhausted, confused. This month has been the most trying of my life in many ways.

TL;DR-

Sorry to maybe hijack the thread, but I wanted OP to know. It isn't until she left me / kicked ME out that I think I'm getting a grasp on my pornography habits. He will very likely not change in the time you're with him, no matter the love and patience you provide for him. It isn't until it hurt, viscerally, that I started to consider seeking real help and assessing what I could do better / differently in future relationships. Leave him; If he truly loved you he'll understand why you did so. I want to say I became friends with her after all this went over, but it's far too early to tell, and I don't think she's that kind of person. I love her all the same.

[Salty]

He lies because you are restricting something he wants to do. The porn is the root of the problem and you described in great detail why you are restricting him from it. Its tough being a grown man and being told by someone "You cant do this because someone else abused it". Obviously, you are free to not want a man that views porn, and your reason is understandable. But its also understandable that he may simply not agree with your restriction and is willing to hide around it.

 

Telling an adult in a relationship they can't do something because your ex abused it is bull. If i were him I'd leave you rather than sneak around. "Sorry honey you can't drink alcohol because my ex was an alcoholic." Uhm no.

[ParisPaulette]

Whoops, I just saw this thread is an older one. Not sure why it came back up, but nah.

 

OP has either solved this by now or she hasn't since the original post was from October, my bad.

[zeino]

But do you really think it is ok for him to say he wont and then do it anyway. Should he not just say he cannot live with feeling restricted? I would think that that was the grown thing to do, standing by your actions?

 

YOu told him right in the beginning that there could be no porn (this implies consequences of leaving I suppose "could not"), he agreed and then violated it. You chose to stay which means there could be porn in the relationship and you wouldn't leave immediately which clashes with what you told him. And then there was more. Stating that boundary was an action, words are also actions, you didn't stand by your your action and boundary. Why aren't you applying your standards to yourself?

[zeino]

Ooops. I thought it was new too. Sorry.

[Unreasonable]

A lot of men start masturbating at age 12 or so, usually with some sort of visual stimulus. For me, it was my mom's women's magazines (the back pages had great lingerie ads, lol). This becomes, perhaps not an addiction, but definitely a habit. A vast majority of men have absolutely no interest in "imagining" as their stimulus, in fact, I'm not sure it's preferable, considering the imagination probably would be about somebody he knows in real life.

 

Perhaps your current boyfriend thought he could break the habit, intended to when you got together, and did for a while, but then slipped back. I really don't think any relationship is going to last where the guy keeps getting caught, gets scolded, and gives the "Yes dear" apology, only for this pattern to repeat over and over. As has been pointed out, most men do look at porn (the statistics are pretty overwhelming), some guys are just better at hiding it. I really don't understand why he isn't using incognito mode.

 

I think you need to break up and go through as many guys as you need to to find until you find somebody that genuinely doesn't use it ever, or is not stupid enough to keep it in his browser history.