Widowgirl Tries to Start a Journal

[Disillusioned]

Hi, Widowgirl. I wanted to tell you that this could have been me, had we not been so fortunate. My h just underwent a prostate biopsy in August which was negative for prostate cancer, and had a triple bypass in November. You are still struggling to understand what happened with the most important relationship and love of a lifetime. You still feel inadequate for not being a centerfold, and I have too. I know you sat by his bedside and took loving care of him in spite of the hurt and confusion about p, that you were still dealing with. I put my own need to understand aside and just loved my h as much as I could and stayed as positive as I could while he was going through these scary medical things. Once he began to recover, I felt surely he will jump into recovery with both feet, but he hasn't. He is moving slowly forward...and I must be okay with that, rather than the huge, ta duh recovery I had thought I would see. I am so grateful for his improvement...even though I had hoped for more.
I have to tell you about your analogy to the economy car, I felt like a used appliance, about worn out and needed replacing. I thought my h was checking out the new ones and all the bells and whistles, the delux version, this time. Not old, dependable flannel nightgown wifey. I have felt inadequate since, and I am better, but it still is there to a degree, even though I know better now.
Look at Isaac's description of would he really want a girl like that....and his response. My h tried to tell me that many times, but I didn't understand. He doesn't have Isaac's way with words, or maybe it was my own negative belief in myself that made this hard to hear. They both describe these women as not real, but fantasy, even though they are pictures and images of living, breathing women. My h told me they don't even look that good to themselves, as there is a lot of make up, lighting, and surgery to accomplish the beautiful appearance. He said he's too old to be with anyone else, and I fit him just fine...then why the P, I wondered. Are you not telling me the truth, that you truly want and need someone better looking because you don't want to hurt me anymore? Round and round I went in my head, confused. These are real women, and they deserve better too, than to be photographed in this way, or seen with such exposure. Isaac referred to how damaged their own senses of self are compared to the perfection in their images.
I think we need to look at all of this, Widowgirl... All of us involved at any part in p are harmed by it. All except the purveyors who make ridiculous profits on this destruction to all else involved.
I am hoping you arrive at peace in your life, so you will understand and believe that your h really wanted, loved and needed you. He got into something that felt good and numbed his pain as far as his own expectations of himself, and he got addicted. You have been a loving wife and dedicated to that relationship in that you are here, struggling trying to understand what it really was even after it is over. God bless you in each step of your journey. I am happy you, I and all here have found TTF. It has made a big difference in my life and understanding of something I could not fathom without believing that it happened because of my inadequacies.
disillusioned

[widowgirl]

Wow, thanks everybody for your encouragement and insights. So glad you are here for me it means a lot!

Isaac I think I'll be going back to your posting over and over. My H once told me the same thing- that if one of those P women knocked on the door in real life he wouldn't be the least bit interested. At the time, it didn't make things better, (I'm pretty sure I told him he didn't even have the b---s to cheat on me in person, ouch!) but now, reading your powerful words, I can have an insight as to what was behind it. There are so many times now that I want to apologize to him, just as I needed him to apologize to me.

At the risk of getting into TMI territory, one of the big stumbling blocks for me was the fact that physical intimacy eventually stopped. I've been reading some of the entries about p-induced ED, and in our case, there was the illness too. Trouble is, from the SO's viewpoint, all that looks exactly like "He doesn't desire me!". So confusing, and I guess that's where I'm getting that idea that I'm the utilitarian economy car. I wanted him so much, and he claimed to want me too, but the ED, if that's what it was, became another excuse to use p.

This stuff isn't simple is it? Guess I might be here a while!

[widowgirl]

Originally posted by BigEyes:

For me I was always attracted to my wife, but the porn would take away my desire to be intimate. Also, due to my addiction I was more attracted to the P pictures, than I was to a real, live in the flesh woman. Now if that's not screwed up.

In addition, I had ED issues caused by porn. I wanted to be intimate but couldn't perform or I barely could perform so I became fearful of intimacy. My wife could have interpreted that as a lack of attraction to her, but this would be totally untrue.

I just had to add that to my journal so I can find it easily when I'm feeling sorry for myself. This happened to us too! What a mystery it still is to me, that two people can have a loving marriage and still have it ripped apart like that.

I've never known a woman who strayed (in the real or the virtual world) unless she was unhappy and felt something lacking in her relationship. That's at the root of the inadequacy we feel- "What did I lack that he needed to turn to that?". I just need to keep telling myself this is a whole different animal we are dealing with. It is becoming a bit easier to let this thing go, little by little. Yeah it will still attack at times, but it begins to feel like the road to peace. Praise God!

[stillinlove]

You're right, WG. It is a whole different animal we are dealing with. It has (had) nothing to do with us.
As long as we stay grounded, we know who we are.

[widowgirl]

Amen!

[Disillusioned]

Hi, WG. Haven't seen you around in a while. Hope life is treating you better. Hope some of the insights, particularly from our PAs, have helped you find peace. This hurts so much, WG, even when our guys our gone. I suspected it for myself, and you validated that with your search. Want to tell you my h told me the other day that he pushed me away so many times because he was afraid of the closeness and affection I wanted to give him. He had told me he was not in love with me anymore after our first year, and added to the devastation of D-DAy. This seems to be at the root of a lot of our fellows acting out and involvement with P and other adult things. They don't want to get too close in a real-life relationship, so p offers its endless variety of appearances with no real-life relationship strain. Sad for all of us. Hoping you have moved on and feel no need to come back and keep searching. If you do, we are always here and ready to listen, consider, and allow your full expression of all your feelings. God bless you on your journey.
D

[widowgirl]

Hello Disillusioned!

Thank you so much. Yes I am still here; I got a bit sidetracked by the holidays and work, but often think of you guys. I am doing much, much better now. The raw hurt is being replaced by grief for what we might have had, but that's OK; I'll grieve for that as it deserves, without carrying anger and hurt in my heart anymore. I hope things are well with you too!

Hi, WG. Haven't seen you around in a while. Hope life is treating you better. Hope some of the insights, particularly from our PAs, have helped you find peace. This hurts so much, WG, even when our guys our gone. I suspected it for myself, and you validated that with your search. Want to tell you my h told me the other day that he pushed me away so many times because he was afraid of the closeness and affection I wanted to give him. He had told me he was not in love with me anymore after our first year, and added to the devastation of D-DAy. This seems to be at the root of a lot of our fellows acting out and involvement with P and other adult things. They don't want to get too close in a real-life relationship, so p offers its endless variety of appearances with no real-life relationship strain. Sad for all of us. Hoping you have moved on and feel no need to come back and keep searching. If you do, we are always here and ready to listen, consider, and allow your full expression of all your feelings. God bless you on your journey.
D

[Disillusioned]

If you're still around, I think I can further explain what happened, though it might not make sense. When our fellows were children there was a time, usually in a dysfunctional family (alcohol, gambling, SA, etc.) where their needs were not met, there pain was not attended, and they knew they could only count on themselves to cope with it. No one could be counted on to come, ease pain, or rescue them. This and the message culturally of little boys aren't allowed to cry, as it is a sign of weakness (failure to be masculine), gave our boys the message that they could only count on themselves. Studies have even show that mothers go faster to reach their crying infant girls than they do to infant boys. In an effort to cope with the pain, they numbed themselves to it, but not hearing, feeling, acknowledging and doing other things to take their minds off what was hurting them. My h read all the time. In fact his neighbors never realized there were 3 kids growing up at his house, as they only saw the younger two outside playing. As time went on this continued. Then came the mag/rag PB, and often this is shared with boys the same age. They look and are mesmerized by what they see. They know they can't tell Mom and Dad about it, but their peers now all have a 'wink-wink' secret, and this 'wink-wink' over this behavior of looking at n-d- women carries over to adulthood. As in, see your buddy coming out of a strip club or buying a p DVD, 'wink-wink,' you understand right away what he is doing and what's going on, and you would not tell on him, cause it might someday be you, 'wink-wink.' If they read HH's PB philosophy, he is telling them it is sophisticated to have or want the world's most beautiful women, as in flavors of the month, and then discard them and move on. Women become a smorgasbord to be used, become objects instead of people. HH tells them that these women are available to successful men only, but states that this is what all successful men want. He uses good writers and advances some social programs in order to make his logo and filth seem more mainstream, and it works to some degree. Note, even young girls wearing PB ear rings or tee shirts, etc. HH advances jazz and has articles rating music and entertainment, all aside a bevy of beautiful n-d-s. In muting their emotional responses to pain in their own lives, our men come to see that showing distress is considered weak, and girlfriends, wives, and men who show it are soft, not manly and strong like us. As time goes on, more and more adult entertainment is available. It is talked about in PB and touted as new and exciting, offering men with taste, even more variety, and it has been HH's philosophy all along that all men need variety. Biologically, men are wired to note a woman of reproductive age and proportion, but human beings are part of the 3% of mammals that have high levels of oxytocin and vasopressin that actually wire us for fidelity. We still have lust, and can control it or feed it. The adult venues feed it, and the need for more and different becomes stronger to get as much of a jolt of feel good neurotransmitters in the brain, as the initial simply n-d- pictures did. These neurotransmitters help numb pain and make you feel good,but continued use is needed to keep that going, and our fellows escalate behaviors or use. Bad day at work, P and when possible MB. Come home to an empty house, P and MB. Argument with wife, P and MB. It becomes a crutch to lean on and numb from all the frustrations and pain in life. Only then, it gets to be addictive and a new problem is added to their lives. In addition to the usual difficulties of life, thoughts of this begin to appear during our daily activities, as in see a well dressed woman, imagine her n-d-. Since visual images and thoughts travel 2% faster than other thoughts and images, advertisers use scantily dressed women to attract the attention of men to their products, using that knowledge about how s-x sells, and it does. Men will actually wait and look at their commercials. There are images everywhere and each one becomes a trigger to our men, to go back and look at P and possibly MB. All this activity depletes the man. He's tired and usually too exhausted from MB to have s-x with his loving partner.
Rats (with electrodes implanted into the same pleasure receiving areas of the brain) will press a lever that stimulates this center over and over again to stimulate that pleasure center, so that in time, they lose interest eating or in a receptive female.
Human beings have never been exposed to this much stimulating n-d-ty in a life time, and the amount of stimulation is really conducting a living experiment on an unknowing population. The P producers keep finding more and more ways to reach their audience, more quickly and more shockingly. What was once shocking and embarrassing, if repeated often enough, becomes ordinary and no longer disturbing. You have to press that mouse for longer and longer times and this is another reason they are no longer interested with s-x with a living, loving partner. That time hunting for the ultimate image that will give a similar jolt to the original PB pictures they were stimulated by, takes longer and longer to find. Usually, this results in loss of sleep, often not eating properly, not getting enough exercise. Add to that aging, lowering testosterone levels that go along with that, and pretty soon, we have men suffering from ED. PE is also a common problem with men who use, as in trying to get MB done quickly to avoid detection by others, there is no delay. Instead of becoming master lovers, they have lost their ability in real life, and it is sad. It even happens to young men who should be in their prime. I wish I had seen this posted all together like this, as I have been searching and searching for it, in books, on TTF, all over and have finally put it together enough to have some peace that it really is not about me. We have a new groom on here who is experiencing ED with his young bride, and it is all related to his p use. Also wanted to say that cardiovascular disease can cause ED and is much like the canary in the gold mine as far as an early warning. And, of course, there is the aging and lower testosterone that comes with it.
I could not understand how my h could say he is attracted to me when he has seen so many perfect bodies. I believe now, he was attracted, but also somewhat repelled, in that I offered a form of real intimacy that he both wanted and was afraid of, in that he had turned off his emotional needs early in his life, as he couldn't trust that anyone would be there to ease his pain. He still registers emotional pain as he did as a child, something to avoid, something to not give importance to. In still looking at pain the way he did as a child, he didn't realize he is now fully adult and can cope as an adult and have a loving partner to help soothe him.
We all have different crutches to ease emotional pain. I watch more movies now than I ever have in my life as a way of dulling the nagging pain from his PA and my depression. I try to stay away from love stories, because from my own experience, the man might say he loves the girl, but in a year or even less, he'll be out on the prowl, looking for other bodies, looking for variety, etc.
Not all men are like that, and it is reassuring, but p should come with a warning that it is harmful and addictive, and it doesn't and probably won't ever. Big business wants a cut of the huge profits to be made, so they are part of the p purveyors arsenal of weapons, and they have freedom of speech.
A priest in a parish near our closest big city was arrested for having illegal stuff on his computer, and his attorney said, in his defense, how can this be a crime, as it is available to anyone via p sites on the internet for all to see. I was sick when I heard that excuse, as it is dragging our society ever lower.
I know my h loves me. He has read some of the material I've found and I believe he has finally seen where his thinking was flawed allowing what happened to us, happen. He believed the need for diversity that all men have, according to HH. (Some authorities still feel diversity is wired into our brain circuitry). He also believed that all men do this stuff. NOt all, but a growing number, and I think we are all going to be worse off for this infection into humanity that is p.
Look at the 14 commonly used rationalizations for P use. This is stuff our men justified their use of p by, for themselves, as well as us.
I hope you are more and more at peace, each day, WGirl. I so very much understand your need to understand where your h went, as mine went the same way. Isaac has helped me so much, in that he was able to use without worrying about the heartache it might cause his late wife, and he began using unemcumbered by that worry. Then, he noticed his life was disappearing and he was over-s-xu-lized just like many of our men, in the way he was looking at women in everyday life.
You were a real trooper, WG, laying aside your hurt and confusion to lovingly help your man to his end and letting go with loving arms. I hope that you are recovering from the P, and grieving for the man now, instead of grieving for the loss and confusion in your marriage that occured prior to his illness.

[widowgirl]

Thank you DI! Yeah that HH has a lot to answer for; thanks to him opening that door, P is now become mainstream and considered "normal". No wonder there is now such a demand for ED meds! I cringe when I see women buying into it as you mentioned.

I do feel a lot better. I'd been going through the grieving, and coping OK , but there was always that unresolved thing lurking in my thoughts. To be rid of it, after so many years, is an incredible blessing. It's got me mourning all over again, but it feels healthy and healing. This time, it's for the man I loved, the real him, who was damaged by PA, but loved me dearly. I am even beginning to think that one day, I might be able to love again (that's a huge step for me) and I am so grateful.

[Disillusioned]

Hi Widowgirl, I was hoping I wouldn't offend you with that long post. It's just that I needed to put it together for myself from a-z, and when I did that, I wanted to share. Something that helped me even more was the book, "Love you; Hate the Po*n" by Mark Chamberlain. I have learned so much more than I even posted above, and am so grateful for the insight this book gave me. It even addresses relapses and feelings of SOs with the passage of time, as far as how the new 'normal' looks.
I have always believed, that the greatest compliment a spouse can give a deceased spouse is to look for love again, WG, as it is a statement that you have lost something so fulfilling and special, that you were open to risking it again, in order to have that wonderful contentment. I am so sorry that you and your h didn't have time to work it out while he was still here, and I applaud your attempt to understand what this was and if you were really important and loved by him. After reading this book, I can see the love more clearly than I could before. I'm hoping for peace for you, and the attitude that if it comes your way again, you will have a heart that will be open to love. God bless you on your journey.