Quote From: procookieI am not sure what to do here. I saw a post from a pregnant woman that was going through close to the same thing I am, but now I cannot find it.
Back in November, I got tired of my husband closing windows on his computer when I went into his studio. I became curious, waited till he went to work one day, and discoverd hundreds of thousands (honest-no exageration) of pictures of naked women, videos of pornography that he took great pains in downloading. I was so shocked.
I took some time and deleted quite a bit of it. Then when he got home from work, I told him I had discovered his "secret"
He told me he had always been a 'voyeur', that viewing women online was quite normal (he has friends that always e-mail him nude women), and that he had so many because he could not look at the same thing twice. He proceeded to retrieve off the internet what I had deleted, after I cried and told him how this all made me feel. He said sorry for hurting me, but he just continues to do it.
Since then, I have spoken to some other women, wanting to find out if I was just being too touchy. We have been married for 3 years, together for nearly 5, and I really take this personally.
I went through the whole "am I not enough for this man, what have I got that those other women don't," pretty much the whole self-blame thing.
I dont know what he does with these pictures and videos, I think I would be afraid of the answer.
Yes, I have asked him, and he says he just looks at them
This April 1, it was our anniversary, and he took the grand gesture to turn off his internet downloading. Two weeks later he turned it on.
I recently have started going for counselling, because I do not know how to handle this. I love this man, I would do (nearly) anything for him. My cousellor told me that he could very well be a sex addict.
That hit me like a ton of bricks. I asked my husband if that thought had ever occured to him. He didn't take that well, needless to say. He then proceeded to say that "it's normal to be addicted to sex" ewwwwwww! I don't think so.
I have read up on sexual addiction as much as I could, I know he was sexually abused when he was 5 or 6, which according to specialists, this has lead to today's activity. I am not supposed to blame him, I am not supposed to confront him and so that leaves nothing else to do. Being a typical man too, he tells me he is tired of discussing this with me, but it constantly bothers me and I don't know what to do. I am 39, and he is 47.
Our sex life is somewhat sluggish, he went through Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (he's a firefighter) for nearly 1.5 years, where our sex life was non-existant. He always told me it was because of the anti-depressants he was on. Now I look at what's on his computer, and a lot of it dates back to his stressful time!
Any advice?
My husband started doing the same thing a few months ago when I was big pregnant with our second child and it had been a year since he had graduated and he still didn't have a full time job. Needless to say he was definately feeling stressed and depressed. We had the same argument about whether it was normal or not. Dr. Phil has some great information on this by the way. I copied and pasted it into a letter that I wrote to my husband. In the letter I told him how it made me feel and that that I would like to talk to him about it so we can figure out why he feels the need to look at them and why it hurts me so much. I tried talking to him and all I got was a "I dont' know why I do it." and "I'm perverted I guess." We haven't taked about it since and I try not to check the computer to see if he still looks but I do sometimes. I've tried to be more positive toward him and have started helping him look for jobs. After having the baby I was back to normal in the libido department but he has started working a second job so now I'm the one whos missing the sex. I don't know why my views changed. I used to think porn was a normal thing fo rmen back when I was in college but I guess I feel that we are supposed to be so connected that he shouldn't need it. I tried being ok with it but I'm not. I still go in and block any websites I don't like. There haven't been any lately, Thank god. Thats probably not the right thing to do but since he won't really discuss it with me and won't go to therapy for it I figured it was my little way of sending him the message that I don't like it without being in his face all the time. I think part of me is scared that if he needs porn when we are only 27 is he going to need a girlfriend when we are older. I just couldn't live with that and I love him to death and can't imagine ever leaving him. Thanks for opening up. I've been needing to get this off my chest but my best friend is my mom and I am not talking to her about this. I probably wasn't very helpful but I hope you can gain some peace of mind that you aren't the only one.
