I just replied to someone's post on this issue, but thought I would make a new thread. This is one area of porn addiction that I haven't seen addressed very much, but one that is proving to be what feels like a potential nail in the coffin for my marriage to a recovering addict. There is something about porn that not only stalls/stops the ability to mature, it actually causes what is emotional/psychological regression.
When my husband was early in his recovery and I am shell shocked from d-day, this aspect wasn't one that was a big issue. The first 90 days of his reboot were all consuming and I was just trying to keep my head above water. We are now just over seven months out and are focusing much more on our marriage. My husband and I are both in counseling and he has had no issues with relapsing.
So, what's the problem? It honestly now feels like being married to someone twenty years my junior emotionally. He things, reacts, responds in ways I would expect from a guy in his twenties - someone just starting out in life with little to no life experiences to draw from. His emotional intelligence is almost nonexistent. All of his attempts at reaching out backfire, mainly because they are just the wrong thing to say.
Examples:
Yes, I am the first to admit we have a lot of catching up to do in our relationship. He was emotionally checked out for at least five years, if not more. However, his attempt to reconnect is buying a book on "101 questions to ask your spouse". This is the type of book you would give a couple at an engagement party, not at all something that would be a good way to reconnect in what has been a thirteen year marriage. Some of the questions in the book: "Were you ever caught masturbating as a teenager?" Really? That is kind of NOT the type of question we need to be asking each other when you battled porn addiction - hell, you were still masturbating to porn this time last year! Most of the questions in the book are things we talked about over a decade ago. I mean, really - I don't need to ask if you you competed in any sports as a kid or what are you thoughts on death or where you want to retire. What we need is more about rekindling romance or how to create new memories. But, he doesn't see that, he thinks it is possible to 'start over' as if we are complete strangers meeting one another again for the first time.
I have been completely taken aback by his inability to have any sense of how I am feeling in the moment. Look, I get that women as a whole confuse men, but men and women with whom I am only a causal acquaintance have more insight into my feelings that my husband does. I gave the example in another post about feeling a bit depressed and going to the gym where two guys and one woman (trainers that we work with for classes) as gave me a look and asked if things were okay - meanwhile my husband could be none the wiser. It isn't just when I am feeling bad, we were on holiday and I had significantly more causal interactions with strangers than I did with my husband. Feeling silly - another man or woman in the waiting area of a restaurant would look at me, see a smirk, and we could joke back and forth with one another about the cold temperatures or totally out of place 'mood music'. My husband would be two steps behind "Oh, your in a good mood now." No - I was in a good mood before we even got here. Those strangers I spent five minutes with could pick up on the fact that I was in a good mood and ready to joke while he was completely unaware. If I am feeling particularly amorous - wearing my nicest nightclothes (or jumping in bed completely naked), touching his shoulders, giving a 'look' or a smile - nope. If I don't grab his penis or literally say, "let's have sex", he is just clueless. He knows when he wants sex, I know when he wants sex - he has no idea when I want sex. The problem is, before porn addiction - he could pick up on those things. He could tell if I was 'feeling fat' or catch my eyes when I was telling him I was ready for 'bed' or seem me being silly and join in. It is like porn completely severed that emotional connection. The sad part is - I can still read him. I can read him quite well; it hurts that the connection doesn't run in the other direction.
Other things that have seemed to be completely deadened in him - long term planning, the ability to anticipate what will be the likely outcome of things, the ability to think ahead and have plans for when things could go wrong (back up planning). One thing I have been working on in counseling is to stop coming to the rescue. The reason why his porn addiction was able to go on so long and progress so far was because I never let things fall. The more he went into his fantasy world, the more responsibility I took on for the real world - to keep the household running, to keep the kids' needs met, etc. He could spend his emotional and mental energy on porn because other than his job - he could slack. Over the years of his porn addiction, I became less of his partner and more of his parent. Part of my recovery has been to step out of the parenting role, and I have been amazed at the things that have falling as he tries to juggle real life. For instance, I get no longer wanting to live a lie, but does it really make sense to out of the blue tell your 70 year old parents you have been jacking off to porn and now your wife is mad at you? What got gained from telling your mother you want to a massage parlor and got a blow job? She is 70 years old, she doesn't want to know her forty something year old son got his dick sucked by a stranger! Really, there was a better way to handle the whole "confessional" thing. But, the reason why he felt the need to even 'confess' to his parents was because he is thinking like an adolescent. He doesn't live with them, they don't pay our bills, he has been on his own since he graduated high school, there is no reason to tell your elderly parents about your sex life, especially since we were working on our marriage and had no plans for divorce. But, he saw himself as a kid that needed to confess to mommy and daddy and no longer "live a lie". The fallout of course, was his mom was so horrified she called all of her friends to figure out what was wrong with her son and they apparently all agreed that when a wife is not around to do her "wifely duties" men have to go purchase those things from prostitutes. Ugh!!!! Of course, I could have told him what the outcome of his little confession sessions would be, but my stepping back and letting him navigate the world has meant I end up more embarrassed. It is taking everything in me not to 'parent', the only out is now saying he might want to run things by his counselor first. But, that just puts the counselor in the parent role.
It's hard, because I do love my husband. He is a good person who made a very bad choice. Unfortunately, that bad choice changed him in a way that I am not sure he will ever truly recover from. My husband is out of the porn fog and well away from porn, but the man standing in front of me isn't who I was expecting. I am frightened by what I see, I am sad and angry. This isn't fair for him or for me. I know that if he knew then everything porn would take from him, he would have unplugged the computer and threw it out the window all those years ago.
I know on RN and YBOP, they sometimes say that it is easier for older men because they didn't get introduced to porn through high speed internet. I don't think it is easier, just different. I think in some ways, the damage may be worse. Younger men have the gift of time, when porn releases them from its grip - they are still young enough to mature on schedule. For older men, they have to look in the mirror and see a 40, 50, 60 year old man who is overcoming the something his children or grandchildren might be dealing with. They are expected to be beyond such foolishness. No one wants to imagine some 50 year old man holding his dick while jacking off to watching some teenager pleasure herself. It is creepy and not at all age appropriate. Even if they are looking at a 'mature' woman, she is still likely ten to thirty years his junior. The only way to cope is to force their mind to meet their actions and when they finally snap out, they see just what their bargain with the devil was about.
It is so hard, I miss what we both wanted in our marriage. I mourn for the loss of my husband, my partner, my best friend. The man that stands in front of me, that shares my bed, that keeps trying to work his way back into my life - is just a shell of what is left. Just what porn was willing to spit out and give back. I hope one day he will be made whole.
When my husband was early in his recovery and I am shell shocked from d-day, this aspect wasn't one that was a big issue. The first 90 days of his reboot were all consuming and I was just trying to keep my head above water. We are now just over seven months out and are focusing much more on our marriage. My husband and I are both in counseling and he has had no issues with relapsing.
So, what's the problem? It honestly now feels like being married to someone twenty years my junior emotionally. He things, reacts, responds in ways I would expect from a guy in his twenties - someone just starting out in life with little to no life experiences to draw from. His emotional intelligence is almost nonexistent. All of his attempts at reaching out backfire, mainly because they are just the wrong thing to say.
Examples:
Yes, I am the first to admit we have a lot of catching up to do in our relationship. He was emotionally checked out for at least five years, if not more. However, his attempt to reconnect is buying a book on "101 questions to ask your spouse". This is the type of book you would give a couple at an engagement party, not at all something that would be a good way to reconnect in what has been a thirteen year marriage. Some of the questions in the book: "Were you ever caught masturbating as a teenager?" Really? That is kind of NOT the type of question we need to be asking each other when you battled porn addiction - hell, you were still masturbating to porn this time last year! Most of the questions in the book are things we talked about over a decade ago. I mean, really - I don't need to ask if you you competed in any sports as a kid or what are you thoughts on death or where you want to retire. What we need is more about rekindling romance or how to create new memories. But, he doesn't see that, he thinks it is possible to 'start over' as if we are complete strangers meeting one another again for the first time.
I have been completely taken aback by his inability to have any sense of how I am feeling in the moment. Look, I get that women as a whole confuse men, but men and women with whom I am only a causal acquaintance have more insight into my feelings that my husband does. I gave the example in another post about feeling a bit depressed and going to the gym where two guys and one woman (trainers that we work with for classes) as gave me a look and asked if things were okay - meanwhile my husband could be none the wiser. It isn't just when I am feeling bad, we were on holiday and I had significantly more causal interactions with strangers than I did with my husband. Feeling silly - another man or woman in the waiting area of a restaurant would look at me, see a smirk, and we could joke back and forth with one another about the cold temperatures or totally out of place 'mood music'. My husband would be two steps behind "Oh, your in a good mood now." No - I was in a good mood before we even got here. Those strangers I spent five minutes with could pick up on the fact that I was in a good mood and ready to joke while he was completely unaware. If I am feeling particularly amorous - wearing my nicest nightclothes (or jumping in bed completely naked), touching his shoulders, giving a 'look' or a smile - nope. If I don't grab his penis or literally say, "let's have sex", he is just clueless. He knows when he wants sex, I know when he wants sex - he has no idea when I want sex. The problem is, before porn addiction - he could pick up on those things. He could tell if I was 'feeling fat' or catch my eyes when I was telling him I was ready for 'bed' or seem me being silly and join in. It is like porn completely severed that emotional connection. The sad part is - I can still read him. I can read him quite well; it hurts that the connection doesn't run in the other direction.
Other things that have seemed to be completely deadened in him - long term planning, the ability to anticipate what will be the likely outcome of things, the ability to think ahead and have plans for when things could go wrong (back up planning). One thing I have been working on in counseling is to stop coming to the rescue. The reason why his porn addiction was able to go on so long and progress so far was because I never let things fall. The more he went into his fantasy world, the more responsibility I took on for the real world - to keep the household running, to keep the kids' needs met, etc. He could spend his emotional and mental energy on porn because other than his job - he could slack. Over the years of his porn addiction, I became less of his partner and more of his parent. Part of my recovery has been to step out of the parenting role, and I have been amazed at the things that have falling as he tries to juggle real life. For instance, I get no longer wanting to live a lie, but does it really make sense to out of the blue tell your 70 year old parents you have been jacking off to porn and now your wife is mad at you? What got gained from telling your mother you want to a massage parlor and got a blow job? She is 70 years old, she doesn't want to know her forty something year old son got his dick sucked by a stranger! Really, there was a better way to handle the whole "confessional" thing. But, the reason why he felt the need to even 'confess' to his parents was because he is thinking like an adolescent. He doesn't live with them, they don't pay our bills, he has been on his own since he graduated high school, there is no reason to tell your elderly parents about your sex life, especially since we were working on our marriage and had no plans for divorce. But, he saw himself as a kid that needed to confess to mommy and daddy and no longer "live a lie". The fallout of course, was his mom was so horrified she called all of her friends to figure out what was wrong with her son and they apparently all agreed that when a wife is not around to do her "wifely duties" men have to go purchase those things from prostitutes. Ugh!!!! Of course, I could have told him what the outcome of his little confession sessions would be, but my stepping back and letting him navigate the world has meant I end up more embarrassed. It is taking everything in me not to 'parent', the only out is now saying he might want to run things by his counselor first. But, that just puts the counselor in the parent role.
It's hard, because I do love my husband. He is a good person who made a very bad choice. Unfortunately, that bad choice changed him in a way that I am not sure he will ever truly recover from. My husband is out of the porn fog and well away from porn, but the man standing in front of me isn't who I was expecting. I am frightened by what I see, I am sad and angry. This isn't fair for him or for me. I know that if he knew then everything porn would take from him, he would have unplugged the computer and threw it out the window all those years ago.
I know on RN and YBOP, they sometimes say that it is easier for older men because they didn't get introduced to porn through high speed internet. I don't think it is easier, just different. I think in some ways, the damage may be worse. Younger men have the gift of time, when porn releases them from its grip - they are still young enough to mature on schedule. For older men, they have to look in the mirror and see a 40, 50, 60 year old man who is overcoming the something his children or grandchildren might be dealing with. They are expected to be beyond such foolishness. No one wants to imagine some 50 year old man holding his dick while jacking off to watching some teenager pleasure herself. It is creepy and not at all age appropriate. Even if they are looking at a 'mature' woman, she is still likely ten to thirty years his junior. The only way to cope is to force their mind to meet their actions and when they finally snap out, they see just what their bargain with the devil was about.
It is so hard, I miss what we both wanted in our marriage. I mourn for the loss of my husband, my partner, my best friend. The man that stands in front of me, that shares my bed, that keeps trying to work his way back into my life - is just a shell of what is left. Just what porn was willing to spit out and give back. I hope one day he will be made whole.
