I'm new here and full of rage!

[mplayer]

Hello everyone. I've been reading everyone's stories for awhile now and decided to post my own. I opogize,, it will be a long one..

I met my husband 13 years ago. The man of my dreams. He rode in on his white horse and rescued me from single motherhood. I had a 4 year old and a 3 month old. He was everything I wanted in a man. I was only 22 at the time and he was getting ready to turn 30. He seemed so well put together and so right for me and my boys. Boy,,, was I wrong.

He moved me 350 miles away from my family to move to his state after 3 months of dating long distance. I knew I was in love with him so I took the chance. If I could go back,, I would.

I discovered he had an addiction about 1 year into the relationship. At the time, I had a very high libido and didn't mind that I found a magazine here and there and VHS tapes once in awhile. As time went on,, I started to see more pop up. He would hide stuff in the basement drop ceilings of our condo. Magazines, tapes, pictures of old girlfriends (disgusting ones), money, bank statements, ect. I was a waitress back then at a local bar and worked weekends, leaving him with the two boys. I would notice when I got home at 2 in the morning, there was evidence of him doing his thing. (towels) He would get desperate and ask me to run the gas station for him, or run to the store, or go return a movie. Just to get me out of the house.

During all of this,, I started to obsess on my appearance. I started taking diet pills, dropped 30 lbs, and became anorexic for about 2 years. I decided I needed to get breast implants 4 years ago because I wanted to look like the girls in the movies. Now, I'm a total gym junkie always striving to look the best I can and it has consumed me. I've been on diet pills for 8 years and hooked. I can't get off them, I've tried. I don't take them to lose weight. I have to have them or I feel like crud. All of this because of the damage he's done to my self esteem.

We've been separted 7 times over the past 13 years. I have left him 3 times because of this addiction. All 3 times, he promised to get help and never does. Remember I said he moved me to his state 350 miles away? Well, imagine the money I have spent in Uhauls, gas, apartment deposits, ect. just so I could have the support of my family.

Two years ago, I started to notice towels under his truck seat with dried s*men on them. How disgusting is that? He was MB on his way home from work. He never went to work without his portable dvd player. Now what electrician has time to watch movies on the job?? Gimme a break!

Last April, I had enough and called my parents to come with a Uhaul one last time. We had been together for 4.5 years and in the meantime had a little boy together. This was our longest spurt together. I decided I needed to leave and start over. I loaded the Uhaul with everything in the house in 6 hours, took the 3 boys and left. After 4 months of struggling on 9 bucks an hour with 3 kids,, I gave in. I didn't know what to do. It was either move back with him, or we were going to be homeless. I spoke with him about the problem and he once again convinced me that he realized he had problems and promised to get help.

When I returned, I found out he was on a website where locals meet for sex. I logged in to his account and found emails from a woman 30 minutes away explaining in detail what they had did for others to read and said this man could F**k like the devil. She had a body to die for and extremely attactive. Of course it made me feel horrible and my self esteem once again took a nose dive. He still to this day after 9 months of being back denies ever seeing her.

A month ago, I started to see porn hidden again. I blew my top! It was so bad I threw my clothes in my car and threatened to walk away from him and my boys. I love my children dearly, but the rage was out of control. Then it led to me threatening suicide. I just simply couldn't take it anymore. After 6 days of non stop fighting he came to me and opologized. It was sincere and heartfelt. He admitted he was wrong and was sorry for hurting me. It was a stupid mistake.

Yesterday I returned from a 2 day trip to my home town. I went down there to sign a lease on a house for us. Due to him being laid off for 6 months, we have to relocate so he can find work. When I returned home, he was gone fishing with 2 of our boys. I immediately went to the dvd player in the bedroom. My gut was telling me something. I was right. Teen A*n*l was in there, plus another laying on the dresser. I was outraged. After the fit I threw a month ago and threatening to leave, take my own life, ect. He had the nerve to do it again? He can't care about me. There's just no way.

He is gone for the day and I'm sitting here depressed, raging, ect. I wish I could leave and just start over, but I can't. I've been a stay at home mom for many years. How would I ever make it? I'm stuck. I love him, but this addiction makes me hate him. I don't understand why has he has this problem. Our sex life is great. It can be mindblowing. Why is he not happy with just me? It always seems to be Teen something that he watches.

To top it all off, my 17 year old son has developed the same problem.

It's evil, I hate it.

Please help. Any advice for me?

[Jacinda24]

HI, First I have to say that your story touched the very deepest part of my soul, I give you more credit than anyone I've ever known. The fact here is that you LOVE this man, and from what I've learned it feels absolutely impossible to leave. It feels like it's not even an option. Sure you may "leave" But deep down inside don't you already know at the moment you leave that you will be back? You know it. You're not really leaving, you left this man 7 times? That's 6 times too many. And he knows it. He knows you are not going anywhere. Sure you'll threaten to leave and you will for a week or two, but eventually you come back. Why do you think that we do that? In our head/hearts we are done, it's been too much pain/hurt and we've decided this is it, " I can't take one more minute of this, it's destroying me from the inside out, this makes me a person I don't want to be. Sometimes I imagine getting a fatal disease or a fatal accident, and
i feel a sigh of relief to know that this feeling of doom will all be over." And that is truly how i feel sometimes & I bet you do too. I think it's so sad. Here we are-Beautiful, Caring, Sexy, smart women! And what are we letting happen to ourselves? We are self-destructing ourselves truly-we are. I love my man more than myself and more then the air I breath. Do I believe he feels the same? Not a chance, I don't believe he's capable. I believe it's all a part of this fantasy life of pornography. It consumes every bit of their soul/being. It is a monster that no women should ever be subjected to. However-there's still this one really big problem!? WE LOVE THEM AND WANT TO WORK THIS OUT, EVEN AT THE SELF DESTUCTION OF OURSELVES-BELIEVE ME I THINK ABOUT IT EVERY DAY. AND DO YOU KNOW WHERE I AM RIGHT NOW? HE'S LAYING IN BED ASLEEP NEXT TO ME, HE LOOKS SO PEACEFUL :((AND I CAN NEVER IMAGINE LOVING ANOTHER SOUL-BUT HERE I AM LYING RIGHT BESIDE HIM.

[Inshi]

Hello mplayer, Iam so so sorry for the position you are in.Reading your post made me cry cos it brought back so many unpleasant memories.Just know that u are not alone in this situation, there are many of us like you, some of us are lucky enough to have partners who realise that they have a problem and seek help and some of us are not so lucky.
Iam one of the lucky ones cos my H has been P & MB free since January2008 and our relationship has never been better. But to get to that point we havegone through a number of rough times. All the lies ,hurt and pain, I dont even wanna think about it, cos just thinking about it hurts.
But I totally understand what it must be like for you, leaving your family behind in another state and putting all you faith on this one person you love and to find out that, that person in return only betrays you and hurts you.
I left behind all myfamily and friends in one part of the world and moved to another for my Husband.After 1 week, I regretted ny decision, I realised at that time that it was the biggest mistake I had made in my life. I found my Husbands P collection on his laptop a few days after moving in with him and just kept finding more and more trash.At that time it made think, why the hell did he get married to me, when none of these women look anything like me. We have had many fighs about his P usage over the last 5 years( Iam not gonna count this year, cos its been the best year so far) and I have threatened to walk out, but then stayed after him promising me that he would never do it again, to find more in a few weeks. I was scared to leave him cos I loved him and he is an amazing guy,and I didnt know if I wud ever meet some1 like him, also I didnt want my daughter to be brought up in a house without her dad. But at the begining of this year I made the decision to leave , I realised that I had put up with enough of this crap and needed to live my life. My self esteem had dropped down to a zero, I had no confidence and thought I was the ugliest woman around. I was constantly miserable and justwent through a phase of hating my Husband,for what he had done to me. I used to be such a happy ,loving and confident person and he had just destroyed the real me.Before I got married, I never had trouble finding a boyfriend and they used to shower me with compliments. But it wasnt the same with my H, all he did was try to change me and put me down whenever he can. He constantly told me I wasnt his type.
So I joined this site in a final attempt to save our marriage and got some great advice. I was asked to write a letter to my H and tell him how his P usage has made change as a person and how it has affected our relationship. I did that and I guess that letter had more of an affect on him than I thought it wud. We havent looked back since, he joined this site and is constantly here. He is a completely different person to what he used to be (in a very good way).
I totally understand your rage, I used to go through all that. Trust me I still do, theres certain times in a day when I get really annoyed with my H and act all weird with him even if he hasnt done anything.Its the times when I remember our past and how much he hurt me.
I know u have spoken to your H about ur problem but I think writing how u feel and making him read it, does wonders. Cos when u talk about things, u always end up arguing whereas when u write about it, he can actually shout at you but continue reading it. Tell him how it has affected you and your relationship , and how it is digging into your kids lives now. Parents are meant to be role models to their kids, cos they look upt them and think whatever the parents do is the right thing to do. So tell him about your 17 year old P problem and how its gonna affect the other 2 if he didnt stop. Make sure you tell him to stop for HIMSELF. To better his life, have a better realtionship with u and the kids. Cos if u ask him to stop for you, he is only gonna go back to it. HE shud want to do this for himself not for anybody else.
Lot of PAs dont realise that they are addicts or that they have a problem. Why dont you show him this site, just ask him to read a few stories, journals etc. Might open his eyes to the real world!

Also its nothing to do with u. He doesnt watch all this cos he doesnt love u or want u. But I dont know, I guess its habit and it provides them with quicker relief. Its very hard to think its nothing to do with u but I have read alot of articles and stories on this site and every single guy here says its nothing to do with their partners and that they find them attarctive.Its a tough one but I guess its something you have to believe.

Write him that letter and talk to him about this site in a subtle way, let us know how it goes. We are all here fo you.. Goodluck!

[Abbie]

Hi MPlayer,

First of all, I have to say that you must be one tough, resilient cookie, and an amazing woman! To have put up with this for 13 years takes a lot of self-restraint, understanding and most of all LOVE from you. Yes, you have had your own problems that were borne of his addiction, but you are still here. You seem broken by this, but you are still here. All of this is an incredible achievement and you need to see that you are priceless.

Your story is heart-wrenching, and living so far away from your home town makes it harder (I too moved away to be with my husband so know how it feels to be void of any support network close-by).

However, you really need to take a stand now, this has destroyed you and your relationship too much. How much does he know of what you have told here? Is he in agreement that he needs to address the issue?

It seems that you are both at the very beginning of the long struggle to recovery. Would he join this forum?

I would suggest that you start your own journal, this has helped myself and so many others incredibly - just to write your thoughts down can be a great release, enabling you to focus on the here and now and what needs to be done.

My thoughts are with you, you are in the right place here, so many of us are sharing the same story - and a lot of us are now on the right path. >:D<>:D<

[pornhater]

To top it all off, my 17 year old son has developed the same problem.

It's evil, I hate it.

Telll me about it. ~X(

Just going from my own experience your son will probably retain the problem for a long time. Not only that but he's possibly been porn-addicted for longer than you think into his childhood.

20 now, at 17 I knew there was no hope for a porn free life for me. At that stage a certain portion of my brain was devoted to porn, and it had been firmly built into my understanding of life and routine. That's the way it felt anyway.

Then again, individual circumstances apply.

Here we are-Beautiful, Caring, Sexy, smart women! And what are we letting happen to ourselves? We are self-destructing ourselves truly-we are. I love my man more than myself and more then the air I breath. Do I believe he feels the same?

To be honest I think he probably does but it is just lost in layers upon layer of smut. Layers upon layer of junk which are separating him from the things that really matter.

Problem is, even if he does love you behind it all:

(i) He might not be able to express himself emotionally because everything is fogged and there are addiction cycles and
(ii) His physical and sexual energy will continue going on the Ladies of the Net.

To be honest I think the determinant of whether he loves you is whether he was porn free for say 2 months and did his behaviour start to change. Of course reaching that plateau alone is like climbing a mountain for a porn addict, but you know what I mean.

I can only emphatise with you. Perhaps cut the DSL/Cable line with a scissors; see what happens then? That will cut out the fresh stream still lots of old stuff to fall back on though. Actually no you probably can't cut the line. The addict who has not fully acknowledged a problem would go crazy. /:)

I can say if someone said delete all the porn off your hard drive (I really do need those Gigs incidentally), and throw away all your DVD-Rs; well let's just say I'd be very reluctant.

Even though I know the end result would put me in a better place emotionally, psychologically etc. it's just there's a security in having a hard-copy porn supply.

Sorry to go into the pervy details here but it's just the mindset of an addict and it really is more something that's enslaving me down than anything else. But.... Crazy logic reigns.

Teen A*n*l was in there, plus another laying on the dresser. I was outraged. After the fit I threw a month ago and threatening to leave, take my own life, ect. He had the nerve to do it again? He can't care about me. There's just no way.

Addictions are a crazy thing - especially porn addiction.

It consumes every bit of their soul/being.

Yeah it's very soul consuming alright.

Another reason to sympathise with the women here is that even if you do say "I don't know if he loves me any more, the whole thing is dysfunctonal, I want out". Well then you are single again okay; you seek someone else but as porn saturation is a Society-wide problem, what are the odds you will run into another relationship with a man very possibly through no fault of his own, who also has a consuming pornography addiction. So the cycle repeats.

Of all the things the media and Government love telling us, about our sex lives about our opinions etc. Percentages on porn addiction are rarely discussed by the media. A conspiracy of silence of a sort.

Maybe dating agencies should have a "certified porn addiction free test"!!

Romantic affairs are hard enough without porn getting in the way demanding increasingly larger parts of our souls!