my husband likes teen porn, and apparently as crushes on his teen students

[PocoDiablo]

the power dynamic in our relationship is definitely off- i am a very strong personality and verbalize everything.

That is kind of what I was wondering. So, the question is, if he grows in such a way as to exclipse your role in the relationship, how is that going to work out? Will it cause any problems?

 

i feel that my husband should not be such a coward where he cannot share important things with me because he is so afraid of the repurcussions.

Well, yeah, but now that he has brought it up, as mentioned, he's facing losing you, losing his job, and he sure isn't getting the support to work through it. I see him as having come to you as a mother figure in his life. I think he desperately needs help learning to be more mature, more social with regular folks, and more self assured. I look at this as you now having an adult child to raise, and wonder how you feel about that.

 

he comes from a very repressed family- they didn;t even start hugging each other until i showed up. they are wonderful people, but don't talk about things that need to be put out there.

I'm not surprised. Sounds like he never learned how to be an adult. Imagine being his age and having the social skills of a child. It's got to be tough.

 

i am worried that he is only doing counselling to keep me, and not because he really thinks he should change. he is in counselling now to tap into his feelings and to learn how to communicate better, and to figure out who he is.

Well ... sure, I can see that. So.... he is going to change. What then?

 

My only fear here is that if you abandon him he'll get worse. Realistically, I think he needs to grow up, and he will change. This, of course, will doom your marriage, and you will go your separate ways. Now, you being in a position of what I consider "clarity" know that things will most likely get worse and you'll potentially have to break. So the question is: Do you break now and leave him to his own devices, and most likely his failure, or do you work with him for a few years knowing that you're going it as more of a humanitarian effort knowing that it will be of (potentially) little to no benefit?

 

Me, personally, I see things coming to an end sooner or later but hope he gets his act together and grows up. He's really on thin ice here, in my opinion. No one wants a potential "sexual predator" in a school environment.

[anabanana]

i posted separately on recent developments with this weird scenario. thanks to everyone for their input.

 

 

we've been in couple's counselling and doing alot of talking and fighting. we have been close friends since we were 19, and have lived together since we were 22. we are genuinely best friends, and spend alot of time together. we have had serious communication issues in the past, and i have felt that he has repressed alot of his own doubts, worries and resentments about our relationship. i think that resentmnet came out in a pretty vindictive way over the last couple of weeks.

 

well, anyways, at this point i genuinely believe that what happened was a huge misunderstanding (some of that is explained in the other post). i have never doubted his love for me, or his desire for me, or his respect and admiration for me. we have a very active and healthy sex life.

 

what was so traumatizing about what happened with my husband is that he lied about it, and he made it seem bigger than it was. alot of those things were said in anger, and he thought he was communicationg something completely different from what i was perceiving. he thinks a few of his teen students are good-looking. i have seen them, and i can tell you, they do NOT look like they are 17, and are indeed very attractive. he also thinks alot of his co-workers are good-looking as well, and women he sees on the subway and on TV. he does not have a fetish thing for teens, nor does he lust after them. apparently, he doesn't even fantasize about them sexually, which was another misunderstanding.

 

so i feel that this is something perfectly normal- he thinks other people are good-looking. if he was sexualizing them or fantasizing, that would be a problem. but good god, i see tons of people i think are good-looking just on my way to work. he has expressed that he felt really resentful about being put on the spot like that and interrogated (and i had snooped in his journal and had been really mean) and that he said things to be vindictive. i have been reluctant to believe that the damaging things he said weren't true, but i know better than anybody that things said in anger are not necessarily accurate expressions of feelings. and i know that he is not lying to me now.

 

so, yeah, i am trying to forgive and let go and move on. i am not sure whether we will stay together or not, but i need to stop dwelling on the pain he recently caused, remind myself of all the times i have caused him great pain, and try and remember that our relationship has always been fun, playful, open and loving. my intensity and his mellowness work wonderfully in our normal lives since i pull him out of his shell and he calms me down, and we really play off each other well. in intense crisis situations, however, it becomes difficult, since his response is to close up and mine is to attack. and what happens is i interrogate (i am a freaking lawyer, so you can imagine what that looks like) and manipulate and corner him in alot of ways. and he wants to close off, and ends up saying stuff he doesn't mean... and i have a tendency to only hear things that support my idea at the moment, so, for example, i will ignore him telling me about how much he loves me and how sexy he thinks i am, that i am his world and all that and just focus in on one slip of language like him saying, "i am attracted to these women" when all he wants to say is that he thinks they are good-looking but doesn't actually have any desire to pursue anything with any of them. and he has been adamant that he has never even thought about it, which is hard for me to believe since i have thought about being with other people. so i think i have been placing alot of baggage on him and not really listening to him.

 

but i think things are getting better.

 

thanks to everyone for your input and support.

[Scout]

Ananabana, thanks for the update. I commend you for going to counseling, and for what it's worth, I never got the impression your husband was a sexual pervert or anything. I just was surprised he admitted to you his feelings of attraction for others, and I still say that brutal honesty in a relationship can have it's negative points.

 

Nevertheless, it sounds like you two are getting through this rough spot, and I'm really happy to hear that.

[anabanana]

thanks scout.

 

i guess the best thing that has come out of this is that it has forced him (well, both of us) to deal with issues that have been plaguing our relationship from the start. he has really been making amazing advances with communication and sharing how he's feeling.

 

i am a firm believer in brutal honesty, and have always been very honest with him... so while i totally agree with you that hearing some of this stuff can be really painful, i would much rather just have the truth right away than have to wade through all the bull * * * * and still have to ultimately deal with the truth. i am really good at sniffing out lies.

 

but yeah, this has been good too because it has brought to light the ways in which i make it really hard for my husband to talk to me and be honest with me. i react angrily and can be really mean when i am upset. also, frequently i don't really listen to him and i have a tendency to read stuff into what he is saying that isn't necessarily there. and i have this tendency of coming to some sort of conclusion and then questioning him in a way so that he will give me answers to support my views... it's hard to explain.

 

but yeah, i guess we're just going to see where everything goes. but at least we're making steps in the right direction. and people have told me that the first year of marriage is the hardest because it's when things like this get "ironed out". i just hope one day we can look back on this and laugh at how absurd it was.

 

thanks again for your advice and input, and for taking the time to read through my rambles. it really helped alot, especially at the peak of the drama when i thought i was gonna die! so dramatic, i know, but i can get really caught up in whatever emotion is consuming me, and sometimes it is so good to hear a rational and detached perspective.

[Scout]

but yeah, this has been good too because it has brought to light the ways in which i make it really hard for my husband to talk to me and be honest with me. i react angrily and can be really mean when i am upset. also, frequently i don't really listen to him and i have a tendency to read stuff into what he is saying that isn't necessarily there. and i have this tendency of coming to some sort of conclusion and then questioning him in a way so that he will give me answers to support my views... it's hard to explain.

 

Well, first off you're ahead of most folks, because generally, people refuse to acknowledge, let alone change, what they contribute to problems. Also, I think some of your tendency to do the things you describe above might just be a result of your training as a lawyer. They really ingrain in you how to question folks until you get the answer you want. My mom's a lawyer, and I often have to remind her I'm her daughter, not a witness giving a deposition lol.

[anabanana]

haha, so true...

yeah, the legal training certainly hasn't helped my personal life... i have always been kind of intense- i'm not afraid to say what's on my mind and tend to call people on their bull * * * *. i mean, i remember people telling me i should be a lawyer since i was a little kid. i am not afraid of confrontation and come from a very loud, boisterous family.

 

i can acknowledge how my approach can be really scary for my husband, who comes from a very calm, laid back family. they NEVER raise their voices and always give each other time to cool off before dealing with issues. i am very impatient and demand a response immediately, which really tends to make my husband flustered and confused, and he ends up saying stuff he doesn't even mean. our coping mechanisms are just so vastly different.

 

so i guess we just need to figure out how to find a middle ground. i need to change my behavior so he is more comfortable speaking up, and he needs to be confident enough to speak up... the couple's counseling is helping.

[Scout]

i need to change my behavior so he is more comfortable speaking up, and he needs to be confident enough to speak up...

 

Interesting, my boyfriend and I have a similar issue. Talked about it with one of the mods here (Avman) and he pointed out something very useful: my boyfriend is more of an introvert than I am, which means he's not as dependent on other people for his happiness, source of validation, and whatnot. So, he doesn't feel the urgent need I always do to communicate about everything. He's learning, though, and I'm also learning not to expect him to process everything the way I do. Really being able to put yourself in the other's shoes can help you find that middle ground you mentioned.

[anabanana]

very true.

 

sounds like the roles in our relationships are very similar.

 

we are now working on really understanding where the other peson is coming from and respecting their needs and boundaries.

 

looking at it from his perspective is so useful because it reminds me that his silence in crisis situations is not meant to be intentionally hurtful. it's just the way he deals. and i think if he understood that i need the external validation to properly cope and am not asking questions to put him on the spot or make him uncomfortable, some of the resentment that is an inherent part of our interactions would lessen.

[anabanana]

okay, so things have taken a turn for the worse....

 

i have really tried to believe and accept his recent story about not actually having crushes on these girls and just thinking they are good-looking and not sexualizing them at all.... this never really felt right since i had a gut feeling he was lying to me.

 

so, for the last 2 weeks, i have been asking him every single day, "are you sure you don't have crushes on these girls? are you sure you don't view them sexually?" and he has been like, "yes, of course." i never totally believed him, but he would get so adamant about and mad that i wouldn't believe him.

 

i had asked him several days ago if there were any girls in his program now that he found "good looking" and he said no.

 

then on friday, i found out there actually are 2 girls he likes that are still in the program. and then it came out eventually (after many, many hours) that he had lied, that he did indeed lhave crushes on his students and co-workers, that he has fantasized about sleeping with them and finds them attractive.

 

this is all after i had agreed to work on our marriage (he had been lying to me for 5 weeks at this point already) and had implicitly insisted that my only requirement is absolute honesty. i told him if he lied to me again that would be it. and he consciously chose to continue to lie to me...

 

his excuse is that he didn't want to hurt me and make it sound like these crushes were more significant than they were. but that makes no sense, since if they are so insignificant, why is he hiding them and lying about them?

 

here's my deal- he has told me that the times when he is thinking of other people while masturbating, he is predominantly thinking about his co-workers and students. he doesn't seem to understand that this is threatening... he is essentially telling me he has desires and lustful feelings for people he works with and interacts with constantly. not only are they people he finds attractive physically, they are also people he likes as people. he insists it is purely physical, but i just don't buy it.

 

and aside from that, what he has demonstrated at this point is that not only is he sexually sttracted to people that are very accessible to him, but he is completely untrustworthy as well.

 

i can't believe he had been lying to my face during these last weeks when i thought things were getting better.

 

i am breaking up with him and moving out. thoughts?

[Scout]

Well, I'm a little confused. I thought that you had said originally in your post he admitted to sexually fantasizing about a few of the girls at his school.

[anabanana]

yeah, he did, and then he backed out of it and said he just thought they were good-looking but didn't fantasize about them sexually.

 

he maintained this lie for the last 2 weeks, and was lying to me every single day as i asked him, "are you sure?" since i just felt like he was full of * * * *.

[RandomAdvisor]

I thought you said you were understanding and chose to forgive him? Asking him everyday if he's sure that he doesn't fantasize about them doesn't sound like forgiveness to me.

 

In any event, I said earlier that in the end that all this comes down to how you feel about it. If you want to move out and break up with him, then you should. You are going to counseling though, and I think you should have a trial seperation before you file for divorce. During that time when you're living apart I'm not sure if you should have NC, or continue counseling. What's everyone else think?

[mandaryn]

Ok...wait a minute. To say that men who like younger women have immature relationship skills is a big generalization. There is generally a chemistry between an older guy and younger woman because most women find it hard to be happy with men their age. Women are typically more mature and earlier until things level off in the 30-40 age range. I'm 34, my wife is 24. She was 19 when we met. I didn't like her because she was a teenager, I just liked her

 

The man in question for this post has no business being married. His obsessions do not make lifelong commitment especially easy. As he gets older, his attraction to teens will only intensify. Please...let him go with kindness and start working on your life after him. This is only going to lead to a destructive end for both of you and a very real potential for humiliation.

[evy38]

He is walking the edge with his obsession for these teenagers. Even if he never touches them he could still put himself into a too familiar situtation where rumors start, get out of control and his career goes down the drain. What a mess. Do you still love him? Do you think the marriage is worth saving?