what is the longterm goal for a healed marriage/relationship?

[Loleekins]

"Thing is though after this I'm not sure I would trust anyone again, and if I were to leave and try to start a new relationship with someone else I would probably suspect them of being a closet porn addict too! as it seems to be so common!"

Yep, this is definitely a thing you don't shake (I haven't anyway). Not that I suspect them all of being PA, but there's now an association with males as shady and dirty. This didn't exist in me previously.

I find myself perpetually having an attitude of distance. I'm very aloof with men. My laughs are not heartfelt, my amusement half-measure, my smiles not warm, my interest casual at best.

What's amusing and interesting now to me is how they don't even notice how reserved I am. They are so exceedingly single-minded ("you're so beautiful" etc) they don't even notice my smile never reaches my eyes.

 

[Emerald Blue]

I'm actually getting used to trust meaning something different now. Those days are over, and if I'm honest they were over long before d day. About six months before then I was picking on something not feeling quite right, so I asked him outright about whether he had been faithful or not and he could not give me a straight answer. His first reaction was a nervous laugh and then him asking me who with and when, but I wasn't that easily deflected. Then he was all morally outraged and "shocked" that I actually could think of such a thing. But did I get a straight answer? No. He was very evasive before becoming morally outraged that I would dare ask such a question.  I had a sexless marriage for years, and I tolerated his porn habit for even longer. I'd long since conceded defeat and given up on trying to re-ignite our sex life. So I was actually coming to terms with the very real possibility that he would find sexual opportunities outside of our relationship. My concern was that I was going to be dragged down into some miserable hell by him getting involved with someone else whilst I stood back and witnessed my life falling apart and being powerless to prevent it. That was the reason I had to ask him about infidelity and these same fears are also what precipitated d day.

There have been a few odd moments when I thought "Woah! There's something not right here". The first thing was when I mentioned that conversation 6 months ago, and he said "what do you mean by 'fidelity'?" What did he want? An anatomical description? Then there was the big tit porn. Apparently "they're not so nice in real life". Well, whose tits is he talking about? I'm not that big. So I live with a certain degree of probability that he has done more than "just" porn. There have been lots of little moments that are too banal in themselves but something doesn't quite feel right.

I feel angry that his porn habit led me down the path of low self esteem and a complete collapse of confidence. I was always a striking looking woman and I ended up feeling invisible. My husband seemed to assume no man would look at me anyway just because he didn't. I'm actually angry about that now. I caught my reflection the other day and I was impressed! As women I feel we have to challenge sexism and ageism because we have every right to take up space in our world and live our lives. cuppatea, what you say about men having this endless supply of young porn babes is a bit of a fallacy because it's all just pixels. They are indulging in a solitary past time. They are not having sex, they are just masturbating. There's nobody there but themselves. They are deluding themselves. It's quite pathetic.

 

[cuppatea]

Actually you say about the masturbating I was reading some of the rest of the forum and it strikes me that some addicts going out in the real world arent looking for a partner to connect with but just a bag of flesh to use to masturbate with instead of porn. Its like just moving the objectification from the screen to real life, there seems to be no consideration of these women as being people with their own sexual amd intimacy needs. I stopped reading the attitude was making me sad, for women and for them, they still don't get it. (Not all I read some really insightful comments as well).

I've  been thinking about this thread a lot today and I think one thing I  need to do going forward is to find myself, I lost myself and became not much more than a wife and mother and though I love both those roles I think I put all my eggs in two baskets and that was a dangerous thing to do. I need to build a life outside of my immediate family and find fulfillment in other areas of my life that have been neglected. I need to get a little selfish amd I definitely need to start setting some healthy boundaries. Mostly I need to learn how to love and trust myself and not let my happiness be dependent on others. All way easier said than done of course but I'm taking my time in therapy to work on me and the marriage can come second.

 

[Kimba]

I wish I could think long term but Im holding a whole heap back from getting old together type scenario... I dont even trust that he can stay on the straight and narrow for the next year let alone our life together.  There was a scene last night on Supernatural in a strip bar, he turned away for my benefit I'm thinking but it was awkward  :.  Its only fresh but I get no feedback, I ask every now and then how he is going and he responds fine not even tempted he says, mmmmm Im not so sure on that ha ha !! 

My hope for the future is that I feel connected to him again, dont feel that way at this stage really, questions float around in my head, not as bad as when I first found out but still a lot of unanswered questions and I feel the same about getting old together, what happens when Im all old and wrinkly, is that when he again fantasises on the young beautiful naked girls he so loves :-[

Im not sure that I would get into a relationship again after this, if we fail, think I would travel and be my own woman 

Still to early to determine what going to happen, Im hopeful some days more than others, but Trust thats not in my vocabulary atm.

 

[Emerald Blue]

cuppatea, I feel quite depressed when I read some of the men's sections. Their attitudes to women seem to discount the fact that they are just ordinary people going about their daily business and don't want to attract the unwelcome attention of some leering old perv. Of course, they are never the leering old perv, it's all the other men who are. 
Some also admit to having gone further than porn, whether it's webcam sex, chat rooms, and even paying for sexual activities, and quite often their wives don't even know about the porn, never mind anything else. Out of all the women here, it's unusual to have someone write about their partners going further than porn, but the law of averages would suggest there are a few of us here who are living in ignorance. That's why my concept of trust has changed. I can only "trust" on the basis of the information I have. Realistically speaking, my knowledge is incomplete.

It's so true we need to rebuild ourselves. I feel a bit like I'm going through some painful growing up phase, trying to find out who I am, what my values are, even what I want to wear. Sometimes I can't believe that I put up with a situation that I didn't want for all those years. My biggest naivety wasn't so much the porn but my belief in honesty and fidelity.

 

[cuppatea]

I went from his watching porn to him shagging prostitutes in a nanosecond in my mind, and prostitution is legal in New Zealand where we are so it's not even like you have to commit a crime to do it, you can just drive into the city and go to one of the many many strip club/whore houses and walk right in in broad daylight with no one batting an eyelid.

I run all our accounts and no every penny in and out so I know he's not paid for anything online, I would doubt he has in real life, part of the draw of pornography is it being anonymous and that no one can see him or judge his performance (he's got issues to do with his body and performance and I've told him they will be caused by the porn use! damn it, so what's he do, users more porn instead of walking away from the thing causing his problems). His cheating line seems to be drawn at anything interactive, so he thinks chat rooms and webcams cross over the cheating line. Personally I think watching porn and fanatasing about other women and lying to your wife for 16 years is cheating. Our vows said forsaking all others, it didn't say look up others online and wank over them but never do webcams.

Realistically I'm never going to know, I've told him I don't trust that he's told me everything and I probably never will. I think I need to find a way to make peace with never knowing.

 

[Emerald Blue]

I understand about the need to come to terms with 'not knowing' as something that's always in the background. I discovered my husband had at one time been visiting strip bars and I had no idea he would ever want to go to such a place. But of course, he insisted he hadn't been for years but he was still interested to look up strip clubs online. Not deliberately, he said. He was actually looking up just some rather innocent website and he just happened to.... BULLSHIT!! But no, of course he wouldn't go to some tawdry place like that.... Oh no, he just "accidentally" clicked on the website. He didn't know what sort of place it was. REALITY CHECK!! This is a man who admits to having visited such places in the past, not "just the once" or "maybe once or twice" or any of that bull. He was a bit too interested and went too often to pass it off as a curiosity. I don't know how long it went on for, or where he might have gone. But I Did Not Have A Clue.

So how easy was it to sneak this past me? The unsuspecting wife. What else did he think he could get away with? What else DID hd get away with?

TBH, I don't think he would do the webcam thing. I have considered the possibility of him visiting a massage parlour or paid for sex. Before d day I would have never have thought he would even think about it. Now I think the possibility is not as remote as I used to believe. If he had had any sexual experiences outside of our relationship, it's probably more likely to have been with someone he already knows. I had my suspicions about a work colleague, but the truth is, I don't know. It might be one of those curve ball situations when it turns out to be what you'd expect the least.

I've read about the situation in NZ, with legalised prostitution. It sounds awful. A similar situation exists now in Germany and parts of the Netherlands. The more I learn about the realities of prostitution and the global sex trade, I have come to the view that the 'Nordic model' is the best solution. It penalises the buyers of sex. Most prostituted women are selling their bodies because of  economic and social disadvantage, and often have histories of sexual abuse and drug dependency. The legal whorehouses in Europe are the destinations of trafficked women and girls and because of their 'legal status a lot of their illegal activities are conveniently hidden. How can we allow this our 'civilised' nations?