Good conversation over on
@GBS journal prompting me to write here. Sorry, this got really long, I hope you can read it all...
In reference to partners not getting back to "normal" quickly enough (paraphrasing here)
@joepanic said
Would that be the "price" you are paying or is it punishment. Yes you have hurt her or frustrated her or whatever but now I guess it's your turn. I just never figured 2 wrongs will make a right,
My partial response was
I would guess this is how my husband feels. He has told me that he "understands" how I feel about it but he doesn't see it as cheating. (I'm going to write more about this on my thread so as not to hijack GBS's journal)
A couple weeks ago my husband was running low on patience and I asked one too many questions prompting him to say what he really feels...it was something like "I've been thinking about it, and if you told your friends your were leaving me because I was looking at porn they would laugh at you"
(by the way, me leaving had NOT been part of the conversation.)
He's probably right. It definitely made him feel better to say this to me, and he had an "I Win" look on his face. It crushed me. I felt as though "him being right" was the goal rather then fixing the damage. It made me question his sincerity regarding all of this. I didn't respond, but a very large check mark ended up in the "Don't Trust Him" column and all the "Trust Him" check marks he has accumulated are barely visible and at high risk of being erased. (And boy, if he put half the thought into fixing us rather than being right...just wow!)
Back to his comment - I would have to explain to my friends about the addiction and the deep dark turns it often leads to. I would have to delve into our private life and tell them all the things I did to keep him interested in us (I would venture to say that any man not addicted to porn would have felt extremely lucky to have a wife as attentive as I was). I would have to explain what a fool I felt like for putting on sexy lingerie and dancing in the kitchen, and for sending pics when he traveled etc. - how ridiculous I must've looked to him compared to the 19 y.o's he was looking at for hours on end on a daily basis, that he would view P up in his office before coming down to be intimate with me
.....OR I could just say He's been lying to me for most of our marriage - possibly our entire marriage and now I can't trust anything he says or does.
I am back on full alert, mentally questioning everything. But he got his win!
So, I guess I would answer JP's question with a question - aren't we both paying the price and being punished for his choices? As I said on the other thread, the fear that remains now causes me to need consistent reassurance. It is not a punishment, but rather the situation has left me ridiculously needy (and I HATE that! In my mind needy is ugly and frankly the last thing I need right now is to feel uglier.)
@Gracie said
I think something else that holds us back as partners when trying to recover our marriage is the mind comparison we have. We women are taught if we do everything right: Stay slim, stay young, give our man whatever he wants in bed, take care of the kids he won’t watch porn or cheat. Ie be the perfect wife. And then this surprise hits us or we realize the watching has affected our intimacy with our husband. Either way the head thought is we failed. Then it sinks in who was chosen over us. Young ones. We are not young any longer. Society teaches women we should be a 19 yr old “10” our entire life. Using make up, plastic surgery or whatever. And men are taught they should have that “10” in bed with them there entire life. However it is not possible for women to be that. So we think that was what you chose so that is what you want us to be. And we know we can’t. So we feel second choice to pictures. Pixels. You weren’t choosing us before, why now? Yes sex gets shoved at men in ads movies and shows every day. But why are we not chosen?
Well said, and so true, and a truth we can not change.
Prior to finding out I was flipping through channels and saw a quick clip of (I think it was) Calvin Klein speaking about how sex sells. How he knowingly
used a young Brooke Shields because sex sells. I wish I could find it to post. He was so "flip" about it. It angered me so I changed the channel.
I guess it's normal that people want to look - but isn't also normal for people to want to feel safe, secure, love and respected by their spouse? Does the addicted spouse realize that the result of their choices was that they completely removed all of our sense of safety, security respect and love? Can they truly understand that the deceit and lies make us wonder if we ever really knew them at all? Can they take a step back and truly
FEEL what it would be like to have all of that yanked out of your life?
I can tell you my husband can't. He says he understands that
I feel like it is cheating, but he does not see it that way. If he can't see it than he certainly can't feel it. Honestly, I believe if he read this he would be angered by the picture it paints of him rather than be concerned about any pain I feel.
One last thing - And maybe the most important (to me) - This is what my husband is doing to fix us, he is (supposedly) not looking at P and he is trying hard to be patient with me - OH - he did read Love You Hate the Porn, but felt like what he had engaged in was less extreme than the examples in the book so it didn't really apply to him (I'll save the commentary
)
No counseling (he thinks it's all a crock and for weak people, not to mention too busy), no forums (he's too private), he is tired of talking about it and us, and he doesn't go out of his way to make me feel like he really loves me (he says that it's because he's not sure where I'm at and I tell him I need that from him). The only thing I have gotten from him as far as being more attentive is a bouquet of flowers (early on, so I was way too pissed to enjoy them) and a "nice butt". In his mind, (supposedly) not looking at P and being patient should be enough. (To be fair, patience is not an easy thing for him.)
I think if someone else wrote this and I was reading it I would believe their marriage doesn't stand a chance and the husband has checked out, and is probably still using P. I hope I am wrong.