i feel like our life is about porn and lies

[sadwife]

I don't know what to do about my husband. He doesn't seem to care about honesty in our marriage at all. My biggest problems are about porn on the internet and lies.

 

I've found out about him looking at porn six or seven times. A few times he was honest about it right away, and a few times he lied at first and then admitted it. I didn't go searching for it on the computer, I always found it by accident, and it totally ruined my day each time. We supposedly believe that we shouldn't be looking at other people naked. The last time, was Christmas Day, when a magazine fell out from beneath the seat of the car as we were driving together. He's actually mad at me because I don't believe that he's never seen it before!

 

In addition to this, he's told me several lies about finances. He's lied about the amount of his paycheck at least twice, telling me that it was less than it was. He's gone to pay bills, and then come back and lied to me about the amount that was paid. We have different opinions about how many times it's happened, and because I didn't document every time and date, I can't prove it to him, but it's getting unbearable. This morning, I found out that although he told me he paid our daycare provider 80$ yesterday, he only paid them 60$.

 

So, on Christmas, I get to find a porn magazine, and on New Year's, I get to find out about a lie. I'm starting to feel that my life with my husband is too miserable to fix. To top it all off, he blames me.

 

He's told me that he looks at porn because we don't have enough sex, and that he lies to me because I overreact about everything and he doesn't want to deal with me.

 

When I tried to tell him that I'm miserable because I can't trust him, he started getting all sarcastic and mocking me, saying that I just wanted to make a big dramatic scene(I was crying, but not being crazy or anything).

 

I know that his defense mechanism seems to be getting sarcastic, being mean, blaming me, bringing up things I've done in the past. because he feels put on the spot, but what can I do?

 

He told me that to fix everything, I can

 

1. Take his paycheck directly from him, and pay all the bills myself...check every receipt from everything he does.

 

2. Buy a computer surveillance software, to make sure he isn't on porn sites, and check the car from now on...

 

3. Stop making such a big deal about everything that he does wrong, and then he won't feel like he has to lie(basically just drop it, and not get upset when I find out about something)

 

I don't want to do that stuff!! He already makes me feel like some big B**** that he has to lie to because I'm scary or something(trust me, I'm not). I don't have the energy or time to monitor someone's behavior that way. Not to mention that I shouldn't have to.

 

There's nothing I'm leaving out here about my own behavior, this is the straight up truth.

 

I think my husband is in major denial. He doesn't seem to realize how divorcable he's getting. When I told him that I was considering divorce, he didn't believe me. He says he doesn't want a divorce...He acts like he does!

 

We have a child, and he's a good person, basically, I've always thought, though I'm starting to wonder.....but if I can't get through to him by our next wedding anniversary(7th), I need to get out.

 

Can anyone suggest anything about how to get through to him before that point, or do you think it's just a lost cause? We were supposed to really love each other and thought we were meant to be together at one time. He's just nothing like I thought he was.

[missopinionated]

Yucky situation. He obviously doen't respect his marriage or you. Sad.

 

There is little you can do to change him. You are, however, completely in control of yourself.

 

You need:

A bank account in your own name, completely separate from his and at a different financial institution.

 

A credit card in your own name -- one that, if you use it, you pay it IN FULL every month, so that you have your own, excellent credit rating.

 

To take over paying the bills. When they come in the door, you open them, and you pay them. Period. End of lies on his part related to the bills.

 

To take over paying your child minder. Again: end of the lies.

 

To let him know how you feel about him using porn. The key is to limit your use of the word "You" and use "I" or "me" alot. I.e. "I really dislike it that you use porn. It makes me really sad to know you do it and worse to find it." I hope you will consider how it affects our marriage when you use porn and when you lie about it and other things. It makes it really hard for me to trust you when you lie to me."

 

Here's the hard part: tell him you don't understand why he uses porn or surfs those sites, but, as you can't do anything to change that, you are just going to back off in hopes that at some point, he will realise how dishonourable it is to BOTH of you.

[redriding]

"He's told me that he looks at porn because we don't have enough sex, and that he lies to me because I overreact about everything and he doesn't want to deal with me."

 

have u even considered that he is telling the truth here?

To me it does seem like u r over reacting... its only pictures.

[Ladyjane14]

Originally posted by sadwife .......

 

He's told me that he looks at porn because we don't have enough sex, and that he lies to me because I overreact about everything and he doesn't want to deal with me.

 

Sometimes you have to sift through a whole bunch of BS, defensive language to get to the truth. The above statement is the truth as he sees it.

 

3. Stop making such a big deal about everything that he does wrong, and then he won't feel like he has to lie(basically just drop it, and not get upset when I find out about something)

 

This is the choice he hopes you'll make. The other choices are more diarrhea of the mouth

 

I don't want to do that stuff!! He already makes me feel like some big B**** that he has to lie to because I'm scary or something(trust me, I'm not). I don't have the energy or time to monitor someone's behavior that way. Not to mention that I shouldn't have to.

 

This is your 'truth', but it is at odds with itself. You don't want him to continue the behavior, and you don't want to be his parole officer either. It's necessary to pick one. You can't have it both ways.

 

I wish I had more time tonight to discuss at length, but let me at least say that I've been there and done that.

 

It becomes necessary to decide how much of this is his problem....and how much is your problem. Hope that makes sense.

 

Some brief examples: If it's about your self-esteem, then it's your problem. If it's about him neglecting you to look at other women, that's his problem.

 

In my own relationship, I elected to make a treaty with the porn situation. It just wasn't a deal-breaker for me. Only you can decide if it is for you. (I'll tell you this much though, when I stopped prioritizing it as a problem, he stopped feeling the need to look at it all the time. )

 

I would advise anyone who's partner is interacting with people that they met on internet porn sites to proceed with the utmost caution. This can become a deal-breaker very quickly, leading to both emotional affairs and physical ones.

[sandy80]

You can get through this. I did. First, don't keep their secret anymore. It will only get worse if you do. I lived through this behavior for years. My advice to women/men is tell someone. Tell your family, tell his/her family. Yes, it's embarrassing, and your partner may snap when you do, (so may your family) so be careful who you tell. My own sister believed him and not me (she left when I was 9, so she really never knew me). However, my friends that knew me, knew the truth. Then get counseling. There are many resources on the net that have literature on this topic. Make him or her read it. If they have character, they will see the light and what they are doing is wrong. You can get through it. When I told the truth he even tried to say I was crazy. I couldn't have got any lower in our relationship than I did. But we pulled through it. We love each other. Most of you do too. They just are caught in a pattern that probably started when they were very young. Read literature and make them read it. You can get this literature on the internet if you need immediate help and you cannot afford counseling. It worked for us. We've been together 25 years. I'm still hurt though, that it went as far as it did. So I'm still healing. Don't keep the secret, because it only enables them to continue their patterns.

 

I wanted to a reply to a point that if you received the sex more often, you wouldn't look at porn so much. You thought that some couples were, most likely, not receiving it at home, so they look elsewhere. I disagree, only because my husband was obsessed with porn and had and has sex with me everyday. He seemed to turn to it, if his job was not going well, or a death in his family, etc. This is normally an awesome, great guy. He started his habit as a child, looking at mags. His habit got worse and worse, to the point of almost physical abuse. I had to leave because of this. I am back with him helping him because I've been with him 25 years and I love him. You can get through this, but you have to stop the habit before it becomes an obsession. Some people have total control over this, but some do not. Unfortunately, the porn on the internet today, is nothing like the old days, when porn was in mags or you rented a flick. There is easier access to some gruesome stuff. As a society, we haven't experienced the repercussions of such behavior. I have, first hand knowledge of this type of behavior, and it's not pretty. What is going to happen when the younger generation looks at this stuff today, which is different from the porn of yesteryear. It's already happening. Just from seeing teenage behavior now, it's a different world from what it was when we were young. Now there's college orgies and they film them. 10 to 12 year old girls are trading colored bracelets for sexual deeds. There was just an interview (Katie Curick) with teenagers, who believe oral sex is not sex. (Bill Clinton theory). Come on. Now there's clubs everywhere with Swingers, S&M, yoga clubs, massage, etc. Let's be real. Who'se supporting all these clubs and hookers. The hookers will be the first to tell you it's a lot of married men. You never see a married man admit that he's going to these type of clubs. Husbands/wives cheating is no big deal today. Look at Yahoo groups, MSN groups, etc. It's not human nature, it's what we're allowing as a society and unfortunately, relationships, and the quality of life will fall apart, if we don't put some limits to it for children, because that's where it begins. Adults make their own choices. And, of course, this is where many SAY they have control over their porn issues. But when it begins as a child, (like my husband), children are not ready yet. Yes, it's parenting, but some parents are stupid. The parents that have control, cannot control their kid's friends' porn issues. That's where the trouble begins.

[hotgurl]

Now there's clubs everywhere with Swingers, S&M, yoga clubs, massage, etc.

 

I do yoga. It has nothing to do with sex.

 

To the poster I see no problem with the porn. I do however see a problem with the money issue. I would take over bill paying. You don't want to loose your house or have you electric cut off because he told you he payed a bill and didn't. My ex was like that. It was part of the reason I left him. There is absolutely no excuse to lie about finances.

[sandy80]

There are yoga clubs out there that are a front for Karma Sutra and Swingers/Lifestyles. Research it and you'll find it. My husband tried to go to such a club and it wasn't for yoga.

[Pocky]

Life will be about porn if you want to make it about porn. If you stop focusing on porn and deal with the real issues in your marriage it may not be as dismal as you think it is. The money/finances is an issue and should be dealt with as soon as possible. Personally, I would suggest you drop the porn issue now and deal with the problem that's more important. Once you and your husband aren't feeling defensive and are able to communicate without accusing each other of mistakes, then I would approach the porn issue if you find it still bothers you.

 

Approaching him with a list of problems isn't going to make him want to work together for a solution. Unfortunately, he may not see your list as valid and reasonable and will make the assumption that because you're upset about the porn, you've now decided to pick apart everything he does.

 

Can you do that? Can you focus on the most important issue right now and let the porn issue wait?

[dixiepix]

As I sit here reading this, I laugh and cry at the same time. I am in the same situation not knowing what to do. I have went through this for about 8 years now. It is heartbreaking to tell someone how much they are hurting you by continuing this behavior yet they continue. I am so tired of the fight. I am so tired of the lies. I am so tired of the distance this has put in our sexual life. Everyone thinks I fib because we have 2 children under the age of 4. Trust me it only takes once to get pregnant. I sit here knowing mine and your situation is only likely to get worse. Mine because he just promised me yesterday that he'd not looked at or tried to download porn for at least a year now.. He brought that up not me. And when I called him at work to tell him our computers were still down, he said just shut mine down....don't bring anything up just push the button to shut it down....it took forever to close...so I cut the monitor on...to find porn trying to download.............made network disconnect, that's why my 3 yr old couldn't get on pbs website. I too am tired of being the bad guy...when I confronted him tonight that his 45 min Kreamed video downloaded successfully, he acted stupid, then asked what are u talkin about, then said well he don't even know how to open it yet, that he hasn't even seen it ....AND WHICH PART OF THAT MAKES IT RIGHT? I dunno. You'll be in my prayers for I myself don't know how to deal with it, but you are not alone

[CaGirl1980]

I haven't been through the exact same situation so I can't tell you exactly what to do but I have been through something similar recently with my husband. I found out that he has been looking at porn for the past 2 years and totally hiding it. It made me feel like such a fool and I really felt like it was a big deal because he had been hiding it so well for so long. I agree with another poster that said to talk to someone about it. I ended up telling my mom because I really felt like I didn't have anywhere else to go. She didn't really understand either so told me to talk to my dad about it. It was by far the most embarrassing conversation I have ever had with my dad but it helped more than anything. He really was able to point out from a male's perspective that it was just a visual thing and that it had nothing to do with how my husband felt about me. He also made it clear that he was probably hiding it because he was probably very embarrassed. So once I was able to really have a heart to heart with my husband about it I realized that my dad was right and that the real reason he was hiding it was because he was embarrassed and he felt like I might judge him for it. My husband is a very private person and since we've had this issue we've been working on opening all of the communication doors. He has since told me a lot of things that he's needed to get off of his chest for a long time and he said that the only reason he was able to was because he finally felt safe in telling me. He really felt before that he might be judged, even though I'm one of the most non judgemental people, he just has never had anyone who didn't judge him for things he has done.

I also had to make it very clear that I had grown up in a very honest family and that I'm not the kind of person that can keep secrets and that I didn't want to be married to anyone that could. I don't think he really knew how important it was to me until I said flat out that I would not live the rest of my life with someone that could keep secrets from me. I think that if you tell your husband that you can't stand the lies and you really mean it he should get the point. I would also suggest counseling if needed. My husband has since stopped looking at porn and has promised to let me at least know if he felt like he was going to need it. I don't think that my biggest problem was with the porn itself, it was the fact that he was keeping it such a huge secret. It has really helped our relationship in every aspect. Sorry to make this so long and give you my story, but I hope it helps. Good luck!