I keep seeing men tell women it is not about us. I sat and thought about that statement. It seems it is meant to get us on some kind of road to recovery. Such a simple statement.
And yet here is the conundrum, porn is not about us, BUT Once our husband gets into porn he talks to us less, he complements us less, he makes comments about our appearance, he goes to bed at a different time, he doesn't talk to the kids, we don't just have fun anymore, we don't have those spontaneous fun sex moments anymore, we see him ogling other women, he doesn't hug us often, kisses even less, is secretive, is furtive, is grumpy. How can we not feel it is us?
He does not want to be around us anymore. When we ask what is wrong, we are told NOTHING. But we feel everything is wrong. Then all of a sudden BAM. I'm sorry honey its porn. I have been MOing to all these young goregeous girls the whole time I have been ignoring you and our entire life. But hey its not you. Just forgive me it is an addiction. Suck it up, quit crying and I will stop. Oh yeah, that makes us feel good.
It does not. It makes us feel like shit. It takes a long time to get past that. And in order to work through it, and wrap our brain around the lies, we have huge pain. I wish I could describe the physical knife stabbing pain that was there in the beginning, the heart palpitations, the shallow breathing, the hypervigilence, the sense of loss, the feeling of no direction and the feeling of being so alone that we feel.
It can be worked through but only together and with each partner validating what is being said. But I can tell you, I will never be the same. There is a scarred wound from the hurt that came into our marriage. And it can only heal from the inside out. Porn significantly harms the marriage attachment.
Just saw this posted by Gracey in the partners section I am quite sure for some it is 100$ true. But is it possible many of these "facts and feelings" could be felt by either partner in a relationship due to many different issues? Could one husband or wife not turn to porn because of other issues in the marriage? That person than becomes the bad spouse. and it is all about the other spouse now when the 1st one could not cope and still has no voice because it seems the only one to have a voice is the partner of a porn addict .
Huge problems in our society and they can be the direct or indirect cause of marriage breakdown.
I have been given the impression by my wife many times when I felt I was overworked tired burned out (I have an extremely physical job working 50-60 hours a week... she works 9 to 5 in an office) that i'm only whining and being a bity lazy. Many times we go to bed at different times. Me sometimes later because I need to unwind(not by surfing porn) by listening to music watching a movie relaxing in the hot tub. Many times I have asked "what's wrong" ? only to be told nothing and later to be blasted for something i did, or forgot, or did wrong the list can go on. I think many of these things just come naturally after years in a marriage. We lose a bit of ourselves the moment we get married. Communication forgiveness and moving forward are what keeps the marriage on track
Post often it helps me it helps you