My relationship is being torn apart.

[Heartbroken85]

My boyfriend has never tried to hide or deny his addiction to porn from me even admitted early on in our relationship that he believe that he was addicted to sex. In fact when I breach the subject he tries to make me feel guilty for not liking it, justifying himself by telling me that his ex's would watch it with him and that they would watch it on their own as well. He is a self proclaimed porn addict and I feel like he uses that excuse as justification to look at it everyday. He'll get home from work and get right on the computer to view it for a few minutes before dinner or get up early so that he can look at it before work. He doesn't hide it from me and sometimes he even invites me to watch it with him even though I tell him it makes me uncomfortable, I don't know why he wants that. He doesn't masturbate to it either, and it doesn't really get in the way of us living our lives. We still go out to movies and dinner and visit people. We still have sex regularly, with mutual initiation. But his daily need for it breaks my heart and makes me feel so unsatisfying to him. It makes me feel like I'm not enough to satisfy him sexually. It makes me feel fat and ugly. The worst part is he tries to convince me that it is perfectly normal and that my feelings are unwarranted and stupid.

His problem is not just normal porn either, he gets a thrill from knowing the women in the pictures so he's joined a website that offers the chance to look at amateur stuff and talk to the people who displayed it. He also has a knack for meeting and becoming friends with girls that will send him provocative pictures of themselves. He also engages in sexually explicit conversations on the website, in his emails as well as through text messages on his phone. He denies any of it when I confront him, but then he refuses to prove it to me and accuses me of being controling and invading his privacy. He hasn't cheated on me physically (yet), but I can't help but feel the things he's doing is unfaithful to me. I've asked him time and again not to talk to the people he claims are just his friends now but who are the same ones who have sent him naked pictures, but he just acts like I'm being unreasonable and gets mad at me.

I know that I'm not seeing the worst of it either. He keeps his laptop password protected as well as his 3 e-mail accounts. He also makes sure that he never saves text messages or pictures in his phone. I've looked in his phone before to find evidence of conversations and all I’ve found were a couple texts from the tail end of a conversation. Sometimes responses like "I don't think your girl would like that" or one time "yeah, now I'm all horny for you". Even though the whole conversation wasn't in there I had a horrible feeling the rest of the conversation wasn't much better. When I confronted him about it he tried to assure me that there wasn't anything to be worried about in their conversations and then got angry at me for invading his privacy. I just hate his need for top secret security and privacy all the time. I also know that he doesn't keep the nude pics he receives on his phone, he keeps them on his password protected online gallery provided by the phone company.

I've been sleeping in a separate room from him for the past few days. The first night he asked me to come back down to be with him because he missed me and didn't want things to be that way, but I knew that if I did come down, I'd wake up in his arms and forget the whole situation like I always do. So I was resolved and I wanted to stand my ground until we could come to a solution. The second night he didn't even bother. I asked him why the porn and his "friends" were more important than me and he told me he felt like I was just trying to control him. We've slept apart since then. I don't know how much more I can take. I love him so much, but I hurt so bad. I've been feeling so depressed. I've been crying so much, I'm even crying now as I write this. I don't want to leave him, but I can't do this. I've asked him to get counseling and help. He just tells me he wouldn't feel comfortable with talking about it. I told him about different pastors that I know wouldn't judge him, but he just got angry at me.

We've been together for two and a half years and have lived with each other for one and a half. He tells me that I'm the only one he loves and the only person he wants to start a family with and spend the rest of his life with. He's told me before that he's never met anyone like me and that I'm different from anyone else he's dated and that's what he loves about me. But it's seems like he doesn't care that he's sacrificing me for his porn/sex addiction, even though he keeps telling me that breaking up is my decision, that I'm bringing it upon myself. I've told him over and over that I can't live with the stress and depression that it brings me. I just want to know that there is hope for him, and for me. Hope for our relationship. I don't know how to make it work even though I love him sooooo much.

[brokensoul]

i have my faults
but i really don't know how to give you answer

[Searching4peace]

HB85,

I'm sure there is a part of every woman on here and some of the men that would tell you if he is talking with other women about Sx and exchanging pictures and such, that you should leave...then there is a similar part of all of us that knows what it's like to love someone and not want to loose that love. There is no easy answer to your question

I just want to know that there is hope for him, and for me. Hope for our relationship.

I'm sure we'd all like to think there is always hope, sometimes that just isn't true. This is something you have to figure out for yourself, but we are here to help, to listen, to give feedback on things we did in our own recovery and subsequent rebuilding of our relationships. What he is doing is not only a violation to your relationship as PA is, but he's taken it to a different level. His actions are no longer just the actions of a PA, but the actions of several other branches of SA. It hurts my heart that we have so many new members lately that are with people who have not only hurt them with PA, but have violated that trust to new and worse levels. Most of us don't know what to say.

My husband, and I've never entered this into my journal, placed an online add for sex last year when things were going bad with our relationship. This was a tipping point for me in my own mental downfall. As if it wasn't enough to be the wife of a PA, he was searching for sx online while out of town. Nothing ever happened with it, but it did rock our relationship in a way that I never thought we'd make it through. While we were separated he started chatting with a mutual friend of ours who was telling me in separate conversations that I was doing the right thing leaving him, and was making plans to have sx with him in his conversations with her...I tell you this because I want you to know I do TRULY understand the emotions you are feeling. These things we were able to overcome, it has taken us a long time, and a lot of sleepless nights, and even more tear filled conversations. We were only able to do this by me taking responsibility for my own faults and actions and him realizing and accepting his illness. I found a lot of guidance through the books I got from S-anon International...he has read some of the work with me and participates "though mostly reading" on these forums. We are happier now than we have ever been in our marriage. So in that matter there is hope for us...

I recommend you start a journal in the Journals for So's area...so that we can get to know you better, and have one place to respond to your situation. It helps because as you recover you can have one location to read all of the progress you have made, and to help revisit issues you have come back up.

I hope that this helps you a bit, and look forward to getting to know you.

Try reading some of these
Journals for SO's - TTF community forums

They might help you to see a plan of action for yourself.

Peace and love,
Crys

[needsmoresugar]

I'm sure there is a part of every woman on here and some of the men that would tell you if he is talking with other women about Sx and exchanging pictures and such, that you should leave...then there is a similar part of all of us that knows what it's like to love someone and not want to loose that love.

I agree with this. After reading about your situation, my first thought was, "Leave him!" Then I put myself in your shoes, and imagined that my boyfriend was doing these things. Of course, I'd want to do anything to keep him, and I'd fight like hell to... for awhile. But I know that if he continued to refuse to change and stop doing those things, the pain it would cause me would become too much. My boyfriend has been watching and masturbating to porn more than we have sex, and discovering that was excrutiating... if I found out he was doing what your boyfriend is doing, it would hurt me a hundred times more, and I honestly don't know how I'd even get out of bed in the morning. As much as I'd want to hold on to him, I wouldn't be able to live with that level of pain for long. If I explained how hurt I was and asked him to stop, and he still didn't, then I'd give him an ultimatum: me or them. And if he didn't choose me, I'd leave.

But that's just my opinion, and I'm certainly not saying that that's what you should do. However, I do want to ask you to consider this: if you've already asked him many times to stop, and he's refused, do you truly believe he will ever change? If he doesn't understand how he is hurting you—and from what you've said, it doesn't seem like he's making any effort to understand—do you think he ever will? You should be prepared for the possibility that he will never stop this, and you need to ask yourself how long you are willing to put up with it.

Also, I personally think that what he's doing is cheating. I believe that sexual interaction of any kind is cheating. I don't consider viewing porn cheating, because it isn't interaction. But having sexually explicit conversations and sharing sexually explicit pictures with another person most definitely is interaction. Even if it never moves into the physical realm, that is still a betrayal of his commitment to you. Or at least, I think so.

I sincerely hope you can get him to understand what this is doing to you, and he stops. That, of course would be the best case scenario. But if that doesn't happen, I hope that you can find a solution that will make you happy. If he isn't willing to put your needs first, then you must!

[brokensoul]

i have read and reread those last post
when i started posted messages to phot online
and than i posted photos of myself
i never thought that it was an act that would damage my marriage
no touch no real contact it's just play acting
well when my wife found out i guess that was wrong
and reading these post just puts it into the front line
i just don't think about what my actions would do
to me it was just a way of not pushing issues
i could go to p land be on my side on the screen
not have contact in the real world just play out
over the last month i'm really starting to see what i was during
was not playing but just scr@wing up my life and my wife's%-(

[Daniel]

HB85,

Without mincing words, your boyfriend is very very far away.

You're asking if you can salvage the relationship.

As a P addict in recovery, what really brought me back to reality?

It was my Mrs. Soul Mate who said, as needsmoresugar said, "It's that stuff or it's me." An ultimatum.

I love her more than words can describe. And the realization of my failure, in its full effect, reduced me to a slobbering mass of tears. It was the abyss.

I was doing P off and on for 31 years starting when I was a youngster.
The mere thought of engaging in the activities you describe of your BF, my inner voice says "Run as fast as you can, get away, the house is on fire!!!"

You may be able to help him in the long run, if you really think in your heart of hearts he is "the one" for you. But for right now, today, this moment, I believe you need to do it from a distance in the name of self-preservation.

The actions he is doing are causing unbelievable harm to you.

I submit it will take a long time to sort through what has already happened, let alone future pains, mentally, psychologically, etc.

A loving, trusting, fulfilling, peace-filled, wonderful, awesome, honest, forever relationship CANNOT HAPPEN with him living his life the way he's living it now.

Simply put, his life in P, SA, and explicit relationships is #1.

As has been described by Searching4peace, he is squarely in PA & SA and shows no interest in stopping.

He has to come to the point where he wants to stop and wants to make his life an Open Book for you to read. Everything. No pressure from you, or nagging, or bothering, etc.

He has to want to do it on his own, motivating by his love for you. Anything else will be wallpapering over the real problem: his addictions are in the driver's seat.

Just my opinion and take it or leave it as you see fit.

I perceive you are in a dangerous situation and need to do damage control to save what's left of yourself immediately...

Daniel

[Heartbroken85]

Today I started my journal. I'm really looking forward to it, especially because of the things that have developed since my initial post. I also want to thank all of you for your support and responses. Thank you for being understanding, especially needsmoresugar. Of course there have been so many times when I knew that leaving him would be the safest and surest route, but choosing to leave someone when you're still in love is like trying to choose not to breathe. I can only hold my breath for so long before my chest burns and I gasp in gulps of air. But being able to log on here daily and drink the advice and support of you all is making me feel so much stronger and more confident than I have ever felt in dealing with this. Thank you so much.