Today is day one since my husband (38M) of 3 years admitted he has an addiction. He says he’s had it since he was a child.
I’m (33F) in shock, I feel raw and numb. I don’t know where we go from here. I’m 5 months pregnant with his first child (my 3rd), we have a beautiful life and business together, he’s a wonderful step father.
I’m still reeling. He is saying all the right things, promising to change, set boundaries, seek counseling if he needs to. Im still processing what this means, what is to come, what to do. He’s asking me to be patient and stand by him as he deals with this, that he wants to prove that he is worthy of me, of our family.
So for those that have dealt with something similar, what advice do you have? What did you wish you did? What did you wish you knew? What can I expect? I know that whether I stay or go, I’m in for a long recovery for myself.
Comments
r/loveafterporn
My husband’s therapist had him read the book “Your Brain on Porn” which dives into the neuroscience of how harmful a porn addiction is to the brain.
A lot of men (and people in general) are highly motivated by scientific data. It helps them come to terms with the fact that the addiction is ACTUALLY harmful, not just perceived as harmful by their partner.
I have an ultimatum including making it for him myself lol
He just got addicted to other stuff to replace it. Beer, Xbox, Twitter, etc. nothing “hard” but still,
I’m so glad we aren’t together anymore. It ruined my brain.
I’m on the end of your husband and been free from it a couple months, went back to it last night and kinda regret it. Same, since I was a child essentially (13-14). I’m not in a relationship, however I was in previous years.
Even if he is saying the right things, an addiction is an addiction. I’m recently 8 months clean from opioids, and it’s something I spend hours a day working at. As for porn, I was only able to quit for long periods with the methods I learned at my drug program. The porn thing, isn’t as simple as he is making it sound to drop. Sorry to be blunt just want you to have the truth. Wishing you the best.
Happy to answer if you need any q’s your husband isn’t getting to.
I’m sorry you’re going through this. Your last statement about a long road to recovery is true. You’ll question everything, and it really changed my respect for him and men. I went through every stage: anger, hate, indifference, even a habit of watching it daily myself to try to desensitize it.
The good news is he’s coming to you from an honest place and desire to change. I would say 99% of the work is the man actually believing it’s problematic for his brain and the marriage.
If he’s up for working with a counselor, even better. Many times porn is a cover for insecurities and failures that have nothing to do with you. Even though it feels like a punch to the gut.
Society has told men for a long time that porn is harmless, and in some ways it is. But the amount of men who have legitimate problems (hidden accounts, lies, gaslighting about sex life) is incredibly high for our generation and a testament to how little internet monitoring we had growing up. These habits they formed from a young age masked their egos being hurt, the rejection they faced, and allowed them to falsely feel validated by women.
There is so much depth to what’s wrong with how this generation of men were raised, I could go on& on.
Most importantly you deserve to be happy, safe, and free of this. Give him a chance and offer support to repair his person. But be strong in the face of betrayal and relapse. This life is too short, love.
I’m curious: how did you find out? Did he tell you out of the blue or did you discover something that made him admit it?
>seek counseling if he needs to
This would send up alarm signals in my head. Real addiction is not something you can just strong-arm your way through. What are his solutions to deal with this, aside from “I promise I’m not going to watch porn anymore”? Mine is an addict in recovery and he has a sponsor, goes to a 12-step AA program, has his own addiction therapist, and we do couples therapy. He has tried to work through the addiction by himself and it doesn’t work. You need accountability, you need professional help, you need to do the hard work.
My partner told me he was addicted to porn less than a year into our relationship. He hasn’t watched porn since and stopped masturbating as well. Our sex life has improved a lot. Sometimes he still struggles to come while having sex and it’s definitely easier if I use my hand but it’s so much better than before. We had a little crisis a few months after he first told me. I happened to see his insta feed and honestly that wasn’t just soft porn. He understood that he was lying to himself and to me by saying he quit porn but kept scrolling through content like this. I struggled with this as more than porn it made me feel like I had to compete with an insta beauty standard that is impossible for me to achieve in real life. He was really sorry for causing these insecurities. He cleared it up and now nothing really pops up anymore.
I don’t know how the addiction was affecting you but I am sure this is more common than we think. It might be helpful for you to see a therapist to navigate your emotions. I am sorry you’re going through this. For myself I’d say that things improved a lot since my partner was honest to me about it and I hope that’s the case for you too.
That it was never going to get better on a permanent basis. That just like other addictions there would be a lot of relapses . That society would blame me and refuse to acknowledge it was a real addiction.
The timing of this post is uncanny. I’ve finally had to accept that my husband is addicted to porn. We have two kids, house, both work full-time, the whole nine yards.
I realized lately because we only have sex when he wants to (I’m rejected if I initiate), the sex is mechanical and perfunctory on his part, and all efforts to amp up our sex life by me have gone largely ignored by him (he says things will change but they don’t). For a year I’ve been trying…
It’s easy to hide – and they’ve been doing that since they were young. When we moved in together he’d reject me when I initiated or hinted but we were still having sex a few times a week anyways, so I just assumed he was lower libido and put the ball(s) (ha) in his court. I had no reason to really think much more about it.
He’s also not a good liar. I eventually asked him about porn six months ago.
I’m frustrated, but mostly with myself. I feel stupid. And betrayed – he chooses porn over me on a regular basis, how could I not? I also betrayed myself by ignoring my sexual needs and letting him decide when/how we have sex, not realizing that lets him have his cake and eat it too.
Ugh.