Top 5 things I wish he wouldn't do/say

[Abbie]

• Hide the use of P, and lie about it.
• Say I'm gorgeous and everything he wants, but then look at somebody completely different to me.
• Say he can stop "right now" when he obviously can't.
• Say "it's normal" and "every man does it".
• Say he doesn't want to do it anymore, then take no steps to prevent it.

Just thought I would write this and see how everyone else feels about it, maybe add their own?

[cmperry]

My Top 5

1. Lies, I hate them they make me utterly sick to death, I hate dishonesty especially from someone who is supposed to be my best friend and confidon

2. Feeling 2nd to other women kills me, he says he loves me more than anything, but it feels as if he forgets what he keeps choosing over me.

3.Deception, this one is close to lies but I feel it's seperated by actions, lies are words, deception is action. Hiding things, tiptoes, secrets, going to work early, coming home late, mowing lawn and washing the car in the rain?!??!

4. Belittlment, I can usually tell when we start back down the path because he starts belittling my views on this trying to justify his secret life, starts telling me I'm crazy because I can't stomache the women he's looked for being on my TV.

5. I hate the words "just trust me" if I never heard them again it would be too soon.

[Glass_of_water]

• Say I'm gorgeous and everything he wants, but then look at somebody completely different to me.

That for me has been really difficult.

And I will post my top 5

1. The lying, the lying to my face, even when caught out. That is something I am having difficulty with, how do you know when they are finally telling the truth when you have had years of lying.
2. Finally wanting intimate relations with me again because he isn't getting it anywhere else and making me feel guilty because I hate the thought of him touching me, and I hate thinking about what he is thinking about. Where was his guilt when he rejected me again and again, where is his guilt for making me feel unattractive and worthless.
3. Making me feel like I am the crap prize at the fair, but the only prize he could win, so would have to do.
4. Making me question if he loves me and if I even love him.
5. Agreeing to marry me, when he knew the truth, he knew I wasn't marrying the person I thought I was. I thought I was marrying an honest, loving, moral man who adored me, at times it feels like I have married the complete opposite.

[mrsblack]

1. Don't talk about "how he deals with it"
2. Say that i "need" to trust him, but don't do anything that says his trust is worthwile
3. Say cheese lines. Those seem practiced as if he doesn't really mean them
4. Talk about sex in non romantic ways. It just makes me think that he's thinking with is libido and not really in love with me.
5. THE ONE I HATE THE MOST: Say that he doesn't understand why I feel so insecure about myself, the way he looks at me and our relationship

[Dominus]

For me this thread is very poignant, it makes me realise how dreadfully I have betrayed my wife who has never been anything other than completely loyal, hardworking, loving and understanding, even though I havent deserved her. Thank you all for helping me to be aware of what I need to work on.

[brokensoul]

this is helping me look into how i have hurt the one i love

[jasmine]

1. No question: any lie is the number one worst thing he could say.

2. Men are visual, and related arguments. I swear if I hear this garbage one more time, I am seriously going to blow a gasket. Everyone is visual, and even if men are more so, they are finding a cliché and overplayed card to justify a moral wrong I consider worse than rape (yes, I would rather be raped daily than be cheated on with porn; I really think it would do less damage).

3. "I didn't want to wake you up." I could write a book about this one, but my demand to my boyfriend-- wake me up for sex (see rather rape than porn). Chances are I'm already awake and waiting for you to make the first move, and nothing hurts more than my looking forward to your embrace and then, while you think I'm asleep, having to watch you run for cover to go masturbate in the bathroom. Disgusting. *wrings hands in frustration*

4. "I don't think this is an addiction." I give you my definition for addiction: have you tried to quit? Did you FAIL? If the answer is yes, yes or more than once to any of these, then period, end of story-- you are addicted.

5. "I don't want to talk about it." Ugh, I don't care if you want to talk about it or not. You ruined my life, and if you want to be with me, then you're sure as hell going to fix it. So start talking.

Sorry to be so militant, but I am so upset right now, and so angry and so hurt. I think my boyfriend has, at this point, accepted all but 4 and 5 at this time. So he's making progress at least, sigh.

[Abbie]

I'm glad that this thread is helping some of the PA's, I had hoped it would.

I have some more:

• Don't say it's my fault. (This card has been played by my husband several times, on one occasion because I was pregnant and he didn't find me sexually attractive, and another because I had just had loop treatment on my cervix). This is just a downright cheek.
• Don't use my/our kids/family names as a password to P sites. Frankly, that's more than disgusting.
• Don't get angry with me because you've been caught out. Get angry with yourself (if you must) for putting us in this position.
• Don't say there's no money for new kids shoes, then pay for a P subscription.
• Similarly, don't say you're too tired to bath the children/do some housework then stay up all night watching P.

[illumination]

It's very interesting for me as a recovering PA to hear these things from the side of a SO. This is one of the clearest threads I've seen on these issues.

I am still continually shocked by the depths to which a person can be dragged by this addiction. It's like a kind of madness that blinds us to reality and what is important.

I would like to say as a successfully recovering addict that the fundamental key to it for me was realising how disgusting and degrading the habit is for my own inner being. From my experience and everything I've read here, it seems that a man who continues to think "I think it's OK really but I want to stop for my partner" is lacking the necessary motivation. For me it was absolutely necessary to perceive directly the abject state of degradation I had sunk into.

Once this happens it is no longer a struggle between the two partners in the relationship, but a co-operation to resolve the addiction. That's what happened in the end with FoolishMind and his SO, and this realisation can be seen in a particularly beautiful way in Avegan's journal.

Basically, the man has to realise that it's not a case of balancing his own selfish interests against those of his SO, but that it is 100% in both their interests to get over the addiction. Once you get to that point, it's really not that difficult. But it has to be 100%. Essentially we are talking about totally reconstructing a person's sexual psychology and that will require some self-insight.

[brulant]

1. No question: any lie is the number one worst thing he could say.

2. Men are visual, and related arguments. I swear if I hear this garbage one more time, I am seriously going to blow a gasket. Everyone is visual, and even if men are more so, they are finding a cliché and overplayed card to justify a moral wrong I consider worse than rape (yes, I would rather be raped daily than be cheated on with porn; I really think it would do less damage).

3. "I didn't want to wake you up." I could write a book about this one, but my demand to my boyfriend-- wake me up for sex (see rather rape than porn). Chances are I'm already awake and waiting for you to make the first move, and nothing hurts more than my looking forward to your embrace and then, while you think I'm asleep, having to watch you run for cover to go masturbate in the bathroom. Disgusting. *wrings hands in frustration*

4. "I don't think this is an addiction." I give you my definition for addiction: have you tried to quit? Did you FAIL? If the answer is yes, yes or more than once to any of these, then period, end of story-- you are addicted.

5. "I don't want to talk about it." Ugh, I don't care if you want to talk about it or not. You ruined my life, and if you want to be with me, then you're sure as hell going to fix it. So start talking.

Sorry to be so militant, but I am so upset right now, and so angry and so hurt. I think my boyfriend has, at this point, accepted all but 4 and 5 at this time. So he's making progress at least, sigh.

Ouch
I know you didn't honestly mean this, but I do need to respond.

Be very careful what you wish for.
My ex began using me in my sleep. Yes. He used me multiple times as a literal pocket p***y. This was rape and it was far worse than the p. Unfortunately I am a very heavy sleeper although there is a possibility that he may have drugged me. He did admit that one time was a**l and I remember waking up one morning thinking something was wrong with my body a** and I went to get checked out. It was that memory that made me know it was true. The fact that I had become pregnant during our relationship even though we were only having protected sex became totally suspect. I had previously thought that there had somehow been a protection failure.

The time that I did wake up during, well, he was able to play it off.... kind of, but my radar was on.

This may be more extreme then most of what you all are going through, but I'm betting that some of you have felt an internal nagging that he was fantacizing about his p when he was with you. PAs commonly do it (I'm not saying that all of them do).

This was what I tried to press charges on, but the world told me I couldn't/paranoid/his, etc.

I have PTSD symptoms now because of being used like a piece of p. I could confront the other PTSD symptoms, but this world is saturated with p and these won't go away and are constantly triggered.

I understand your anger and rage, but NEVER tell him you'd rather be raped... he just may take you up on that.

You don't want that.

Nobody wants to *really* be raped, not really.

take care of yourself hon.
much love and don't be afraid of a good cry to help vent that emotion.

Always remember that depression is anger turned inward.