I had such high hopes for "Every Man's Battle"

TrustingWife · #1 2nd February 2010, 07:05 PM

My husband read it, cover to cover he says, but it has changed nothing. He still sees nothing wrong with his porn addiction or satisfying himself (at other times as well) and he cannot understand why I am so devastated every time one or the other, or both, happens; and I cannot understand why he prefers either of them to intimacy wth me. I feel so rejected.

Today feels like the worst day of my life - I woke to find myself alone at 5am this morning and came downstairs to find my DH on the computer. There was no doubt about what he was doing, or at least what he was doing right then, I saw it with my own eyes, then he deleted the history. I asked him how long he had been there and he said an hour. AN HOUR! The computer gets more of his undivided attention than I ever do - every time this happens I feel so terrible; so horribly gut wrenchingly bad that I cannot even begin to find words descriptive enough to describe the depth of my pain.

He says he loves me (I believe him) but that I have to "accept this as part of him", a "part of our marriage", just "the way it's going to be so get used to it", it has been going on for several years now, on and off.

I love my husband with every fibre of my being and just don't know what to do anymore. We have been married for almost 25y and have a large family; I just cannot even think about being without him but this is killing me, my dreams are shattered, he has admitted to a long lasting (5y+) infatuation in the recent past, which he tells me was only in his head, but that it is over and he deliberately rarely sees the other woman (she works at a business he visits through work so he cannot totally avoid her), my heart truly is breaking into trillions of tiny pieces over all this.

Is there anybody who's marriage has survived an addiction? I'm totally prayed out over this, I need help but have no one to turn to. Can you help me or at least let me know you are praying for us and our children?

mkgal1 · #2 3rd February 2010, 02:47 AM

TrustingWife · #3 3rd February 2010, 05:44 PM

Originally Posted by mkgal1

Thank you so much, you will never know how much that really means to me. Bless you.

Hosannainthehighest · #4 3rd February 2010, 06:21 PM

it is very difficult for a marriage to survive an addiction. mine has, but only because i put my foot down, and made life very uncomfortable for him whenever the addiction was reintroduced. while the issue in our marriage was not a porn addiction, it was an addiction none-the-less, and it took his love away from me to what he was spending time doing.
our relationship is infinite times better now that the addiction is no longer running rampant, but it took a hard line from me before we got to this point.

TrustingWife · #5 4th February 2010, 05:12 PM

Thank you for your reply. How did you put your foot down?

My husband says this is not his problem, as far as he is concerned it is perfectly normal, he says it is my problem.

Is he right?

Hosannainthehighest · #6 4th February 2010, 06:15 PM

if it's a problem to you, then it needs to be a problem to him. out of love and care for you it is only selfish of him to continue with something that hurts you.
no, he is not right, because he's not taking your feelings to heart on the matter.
if that were me? i'd block the computer for a start...he needs to know that he cant keep his head buried in the sand.

TrustingWife · #7 4th February 2010, 11:58 PM

My husband has admitted that he knows he is a selfish person. And the strange thing is that he never was (and I have known him since we were both pre-teens), this has only been true the last year or so; well after the porn started. Is it a consequence of the porn I wonder? Part of becoming desensitised?

IMHO (and I am open to discussion on this from men who have been there) blocking the computer is treating him like a child, he needs to make this choice on his own or it would only send his problem out of the house and to the possibility of something far worse than looking. I feel that he needs to choose to leave this behind on his own; but of course the possibility is that he never will and it will escalate eventually into physical affairs and separation/divorce as all the stories I have read so far have.

How do I convince him this is not normal? Where are the scriptures that might convince him? I am searching and searching and coming up with nothing. Is there a book we could read together that might be helpful?

Hosannainthehighest · #8 5th February 2010, 02:59 AM

selfishness IS a childish act.

McScribe · #9 5th February 2010, 03:46 AM

How was your marriage really established? Have you always been really honest with one another? What is your family prayer life like? Do you both submit all things to God together?

chaz345 · #10 5th February 2010, 11:30 AM

Originally Posted by TrustingWife

My husband read it, cover to cover he says, but it has changed nothing. He still sees nothing wrong with his porn addiction or satisfying himself (at other times as well) and he cannot understand why I am so devastated every time one or the other, or both, happens; and I cannot understand why he prefers either of them to intimacy wth me. I feel so rejected.

Today feels like the worst day of my life - I woke to find myself alone at 5am this morning and came downstairs to find my DH on the computer. There was no doubt about what he was doing, or at least what he was doing right then, I saw it with my own eyes, then he deleted the history. I asked him how long he had been there and he said an hour. AN HOUR! The computer gets more of his undivided attention than I ever do - every time this happens I feel so terrible; so horribly gut wrenchingly bad that I cannot even begin to find words descriptive enough to describe the depth of my pain.

He says he loves me (I believe him) but that I have to "accept this as part of him", a "part of our marriage", just "the way it's going to be so get used to it", it has been going on for several years now, on and off.

I love my husband with every fibre of my being and just don't know what to do anymore. We have been married for almost 25y and have a large family; I just cannot even think about being without him but this is killing me, my dreams are shattered, he has admitted to a long lasting (5y+) infatuation in the recent past, which he tells me was only in his head, but that it is over and he deliberately rarely sees the other woman (she works at a business he visits through work so he cannot totally avoid her), my heart truly is breaking into trillions of tiny pieces over all this.

Is there anybody who's marriage has survived an addiction? I'm totally prayed out over this, I need help but have no one to turn to. Can you help me or at least let me know you are praying for us and our children?

I don't have much to offer in terms of specific things you can do, although I may have a little being as I was in your husband's position not all that long ago myself. But I want to start by saying something that may or may not help. I'm going to say it "loud" for emphasis. HIS PORN USE ISN'T ABOUT YOU. It's not about you not being pretty/sexy/whatever enough for him. I know that is feels like that and I know my saying so probably doesn't help much, but maybe it does a little.

As crazy as this sounds, it's not even really about sex.It's about the avoidance of pain, or the avoidance of dealing with something. Look at it as if he were an alcoholic. Does an alcoholic drink because they are thirsty? Nope. Same thing here. The porn isn't about sex.

Like I said I've been where your husband is so if there's anything I can do to help you understand his thought process just ask. I can't promise that I'll know exactly what's going on with him, but I do have a pretty good general feel for the dymanics of porn addiction. If you want a book that approaches the subject from that angle, that gives you an understanding of what's really going on, try Pure Desire but Ted Roberts. It starts out as if it's intended to help church leadership deal with this on a church basis, and it is intended for that, but it also gives a very good understanding of the dynamics involved. The one chapter written by his wife is worth the price of the book too.

As for what you can/should do, I need to make a comment on the "be firm" type of advice that's been given. I'll not for a second suggest to just accept his behavior and pretend that everything is fine. But being "firm", if it takes the form of any sort of ultimatum, or takes the form of this being his problem to deal with ALONE, is not at all likely to be successful. Rather than a "fix this or else" approach you need to take more of a "let's deal with this TOGETHER" type of stance. I'll admit that I'm at a complete loss as to how to help him see that this is in fact actually a huge problem though. I had been, for years, living in fear of my wife finding out, and when she did I immediately knew that I needed to change. And her approach helped me greatly. No yelling and screaming, no threats, no fix this or else, just a simple straightforward this is what needs to happen this is what you are going to do and what I'm going to do type of thing.