BetrayedHurtAngry
Member
I'm so happy I found this site. I haven't told anyone what's going on with our marriage right now as I feel so ashamed, and I'm so relieved to get my feelings off my chest. It's not the easiest thing to talk about with friends when our kids are playing together at the park. Like, "hey, my husband likes to look at naked women when I'm in the other room."
Anyways, I was hoping for some clarity from other spouses and addicts as well. Sorry for the long post.
I knew before we got married my husband would sometimes watch p. After we got married we talked about it and I assumed it would stop. Well, I found it on his computer and that led to a fight and he told me he would stop. Shocker, he didn't. I found out after I had our second child that he had been watching it sometimes. I was devastated. I cried and told him how horrible that made me feel, that while I was growing our child and my body was changing, he was looking at those perfect women. I threatened to leave, he cried then he promised he would stop. That was 3 years ago. The past 3 years, I would sometimes check on him and ask him (I needed the reassurance) and he would deny it, saying he didn't have time, etc. He is in graduate school, very busy studying all of the time (or so I thought).
About a year ago, I took our daughter shopping during my son's nap time. Hubby was 100% on board, and told me to enjoy my time with my daughter. I came home after a good day, and found evidence of ejaculation in the toilet. I questioned him, and he claimed it was just masturbation, no p (that was a lie). When I asked him what he was thinking about, he confessed it wasn't me. We talked about it and agreed that is not okay in our marriage. I thought that was the end.
A month ago, I felt insecure. I had a gut feeling and asked him. He said yes he had looked at a video about 2 months ago, but stopped because he "felt so awful". I cried, but forgave him. The next day, while he was out of the house, I sent him an article talking about how to overcome p use once and for all, and how to be honest with your spouse. I didn't think anything of it, but then he told me he was headed home and needed to talk. Shit. He got home, and he looked like he had aged years: dark circles around his eyes, visibly stressed. He told me that he had been watching p the entire time. About 3/week. I was shattered. I absolutely lost it. I'm pregnant with our third child, and he's still doing this. For the next week, we talked all of the time. Every time we put the kids to bed, we would stay up until 1-2am. I wasn't eating or sleeping (I'm pregnant, so I started feeling sick). He said he decided to stop watching once we found out about the third pregnancy, and in the withdraw process, he was only looking at pictures. Then he stopped doing that, and was sexualizing women he saw outside of the house. That hurt so bad. He told me it was bad for a few weeks, to the point he was looking at women in other vehicles while he was driving. He would imagine them naked and sometimes having sex.
He cried harder than I've ever seen him cry. He left the house and came back with a flip phone and immediately sat down to look at filters on the computer/devices. He is so scared I'm going to leave, so he wanted to show that he is never doing this again.
I honestly feel like he's remorseful; and from reading other stories here and other places, he's making huge progress on his own and doing more than a lot of men in this position. But I'm struggling hard. For the first two weeks, I questioned him on everything. I wanted to know exactly what he watched, how long, how often, etc. I started watching the p he claimed he liked and hyper analyzed everything. I wanted to know who he was what he liked, etc. It caused so much pain for me, so I stopped. But I can't stop thinking about what he watched. I get random images during sex. Like maybe he would like it if I did x like the woman in the video. It's miserable and makes me feel so sick.
Here's my big issues right now:
1. He claims his addiction didn't really progress into anything else. He said he started watching rougher things towards the end, but he liked a little bit of everything. I asked him to elaborate and he said he liked a little choking and slapping, but nothing that looked painful. But from everything I read, it seems it would get to the point the "mild" stuff wouldn't do the job anymore? He claims it did for him. Is that possible? I have trouble trusting anything, but then again he has been completely open about this and willing to help in any way he can. So I feel like I should trust him? But that's so hard.
2. I'm having trouble with my self esteem. I can't leave the house without worrying if I don't look pretty enough, he will look at other females. We also started having a lot of sex. I've always been a very sexual person, my drive was much higher than his, which is why none of this makes sense to me. I've always been right there in the next room. I've begged him our entire marriage to initiate things, but he never really did. It was always me initiating. Now he is experiencing PIED, which he struggled with mildly throughout our marriage, but I just thought it was stress. I now know it's because he could access a full library of anything and everything he could imagine, and I'm just one person. In that, I have completely lost my self-esteem. We will start, and everything is fine. Then something won't feel good for him for a second and he completely loses it. I'm so irritated. So not only have I been lied to for the past 7 years of our marriage, I've also been sexually neglected, betrayed, psychologically abused (when I would feel insecure and ask, and he would tell me I was just insecure and needed to trust him) and now sometimes he can't even have sex with me because it doesn't work.
3. I get triggered. I had a panic attack going to the grocery store by our house, because he admitted to looking at other women there. I felt sick and my heart was beating so hard.
I have thought about leaving. I don't deserve this for the rest of my life, none of us do. I know some of this will get easier, but how can I ever trust him again. Sure he might not be able to look anything up, but there's women everywhere all of the time. I can't even see a beautiful woman without thinking "I bet my husband would love watching her get f*cked." It's miserable. But at the same time, he is remorseful and has shown so much progress. I love him so much, and don't want to leave him, but I can't even look at pictures of my husband before I found this out. Pictures of him holding our babies or at Disney world with our family. I just keep thinking how stupid I was for thinking he stopped. I had no idea he had an addiction. How sad.
My big questions for the addicts: like I said he says, there wasn't really a progression for him. He would watch whatever was in the top videos and scroll through for a few minutes until he found the right one. He would watch that and get off, then go about his studying. A 5-10 minute process. He liked to see the male controlling the situation (the majority of p), but that was really it. He said that's basically been his thing since he started watching it over 10 years ago. He said he would watch different stuff every now and then, but he didn't really have a "this isn't working anymore, I have to watch x to get off." From what I've been reading, that doesn't seem possible? How can you watch the same stuff 3 times a week for years and not need something more exciting/intense? Maybe I'm looking into this too much. I'm just so afraid there's something he isn't telling me.
Thank you if you read all of this. I'm so heartbroken and it feels so good to get this off my chest. I thought we were happy. If you are a male struggling to stop, please do everything you can to never fill your head with this toxic stuff again. It will ruin your life.
Anyways, I was hoping for some clarity from other spouses and addicts as well. Sorry for the long post.
I knew before we got married my husband would sometimes watch p. After we got married we talked about it and I assumed it would stop. Well, I found it on his computer and that led to a fight and he told me he would stop. Shocker, he didn't. I found out after I had our second child that he had been watching it sometimes. I was devastated. I cried and told him how horrible that made me feel, that while I was growing our child and my body was changing, he was looking at those perfect women. I threatened to leave, he cried then he promised he would stop. That was 3 years ago. The past 3 years, I would sometimes check on him and ask him (I needed the reassurance) and he would deny it, saying he didn't have time, etc. He is in graduate school, very busy studying all of the time (or so I thought).
About a year ago, I took our daughter shopping during my son's nap time. Hubby was 100% on board, and told me to enjoy my time with my daughter. I came home after a good day, and found evidence of ejaculation in the toilet. I questioned him, and he claimed it was just masturbation, no p (that was a lie). When I asked him what he was thinking about, he confessed it wasn't me. We talked about it and agreed that is not okay in our marriage. I thought that was the end.
A month ago, I felt insecure. I had a gut feeling and asked him. He said yes he had looked at a video about 2 months ago, but stopped because he "felt so awful". I cried, but forgave him. The next day, while he was out of the house, I sent him an article talking about how to overcome p use once and for all, and how to be honest with your spouse. I didn't think anything of it, but then he told me he was headed home and needed to talk. Shit. He got home, and he looked like he had aged years: dark circles around his eyes, visibly stressed. He told me that he had been watching p the entire time. About 3/week. I was shattered. I absolutely lost it. I'm pregnant with our third child, and he's still doing this. For the next week, we talked all of the time. Every time we put the kids to bed, we would stay up until 1-2am. I wasn't eating or sleeping (I'm pregnant, so I started feeling sick). He said he decided to stop watching once we found out about the third pregnancy, and in the withdraw process, he was only looking at pictures. Then he stopped doing that, and was sexualizing women he saw outside of the house. That hurt so bad. He told me it was bad for a few weeks, to the point he was looking at women in other vehicles while he was driving. He would imagine them naked and sometimes having sex.
He cried harder than I've ever seen him cry. He left the house and came back with a flip phone and immediately sat down to look at filters on the computer/devices. He is so scared I'm going to leave, so he wanted to show that he is never doing this again.
I honestly feel like he's remorseful; and from reading other stories here and other places, he's making huge progress on his own and doing more than a lot of men in this position. But I'm struggling hard. For the first two weeks, I questioned him on everything. I wanted to know exactly what he watched, how long, how often, etc. I started watching the p he claimed he liked and hyper analyzed everything. I wanted to know who he was what he liked, etc. It caused so much pain for me, so I stopped. But I can't stop thinking about what he watched. I get random images during sex. Like maybe he would like it if I did x like the woman in the video. It's miserable and makes me feel so sick.
Here's my big issues right now:
1. He claims his addiction didn't really progress into anything else. He said he started watching rougher things towards the end, but he liked a little bit of everything. I asked him to elaborate and he said he liked a little choking and slapping, but nothing that looked painful. But from everything I read, it seems it would get to the point the "mild" stuff wouldn't do the job anymore? He claims it did for him. Is that possible? I have trouble trusting anything, but then again he has been completely open about this and willing to help in any way he can. So I feel like I should trust him? But that's so hard.
2. I'm having trouble with my self esteem. I can't leave the house without worrying if I don't look pretty enough, he will look at other females. We also started having a lot of sex. I've always been a very sexual person, my drive was much higher than his, which is why none of this makes sense to me. I've always been right there in the next room. I've begged him our entire marriage to initiate things, but he never really did. It was always me initiating. Now he is experiencing PIED, which he struggled with mildly throughout our marriage, but I just thought it was stress. I now know it's because he could access a full library of anything and everything he could imagine, and I'm just one person. In that, I have completely lost my self-esteem. We will start, and everything is fine. Then something won't feel good for him for a second and he completely loses it. I'm so irritated. So not only have I been lied to for the past 7 years of our marriage, I've also been sexually neglected, betrayed, psychologically abused (when I would feel insecure and ask, and he would tell me I was just insecure and needed to trust him) and now sometimes he can't even have sex with me because it doesn't work.
3. I get triggered. I had a panic attack going to the grocery store by our house, because he admitted to looking at other women there. I felt sick and my heart was beating so hard.
I have thought about leaving. I don't deserve this for the rest of my life, none of us do. I know some of this will get easier, but how can I ever trust him again. Sure he might not be able to look anything up, but there's women everywhere all of the time. I can't even see a beautiful woman without thinking "I bet my husband would love watching her get f*cked." It's miserable. But at the same time, he is remorseful and has shown so much progress. I love him so much, and don't want to leave him, but I can't even look at pictures of my husband before I found this out. Pictures of him holding our babies or at Disney world with our family. I just keep thinking how stupid I was for thinking he stopped. I had no idea he had an addiction. How sad.
My big questions for the addicts: like I said he says, there wasn't really a progression for him. He would watch whatever was in the top videos and scroll through for a few minutes until he found the right one. He would watch that and get off, then go about his studying. A 5-10 minute process. He liked to see the male controlling the situation (the majority of p), but that was really it. He said that's basically been his thing since he started watching it over 10 years ago. He said he would watch different stuff every now and then, but he didn't really have a "this isn't working anymore, I have to watch x to get off." From what I've been reading, that doesn't seem possible? How can you watch the same stuff 3 times a week for years and not need something more exciting/intense? Maybe I'm looking into this too much. I'm just so afraid there's something he isn't telling me.
Thank you if you read all of this. I'm so heartbroken and it feels so good to get this off my chest. I thought we were happy. If you are a male struggling to stop, please do everything you can to never fill your head with this toxic stuff again. It will ruin your life.
. She's been my rock and my True North since day 1, even after betraying her multiple times. Knowing this is my last opportunity to prove to her the type of man I can be. I've tried many times to stop, as I'm sure your husband has. I truly believe the difference this time has been support. Support from my wife, reboot nation, and just knowing I'm not the only one struggling with this. This is not a path anyone can take solo. There is a wealth of resources and knowledge in this forum, and I encourage you ( and everyone else) to use them. Tell your story and read others. We can all learn and grow together and live a lifestyle that we don't have to hide from, that's my ultimate goal.