Im so confused right now because this whole situation has different takes and I don’t know what to think or feel, I really will love another person’s opinion.
My husband (29M) confessed to me(30F), almost in a panic attack, that he had been addictively consuming porn. He did it while I was sleeping, waking up at 2am, 3am, 4am, and doing it for hours and hours (about 6). He then confessed to me that he had also been visiting camgirls for about a year. He paid them a little to get their attention in private messages, asking about in-person meetings, entering into the whole “fantasy” that he was in their country, what they would do, how much they charged, threesomes, which day, etc. This could last 30 minutes. What impressed me is that when they arranged meetings outside of the platform, his account was banned constantly, but he created hundreds of new emails, also he would opened 20 tabs in the search and asked the girls. This weekend he realized that a girl was banned from the platform because of him, so he sent her what was worth a month’s salary from her country to make up for his mistake.
He said he did it because porn no longer had the same effect on him. This gets a little complicated because I was a camgirl for 2 or 3 months 9 years ago and that’s where we met; I’ve always been very sexually open, but he knew that visiting camgirls was a no-no for me for obvious reasons.
He then told me that his compulsion stems from his teenage porn use (he started at 15), when after 2 years he started to feel numb, and because he grew up in a homophobic religious community, he then began to fear and obsess over the idea that maybe this numbness happened because he no longer liked women and maybe he was gay. He has this idea so constantly and the only way to calm it is by watching porn or cam girls and feeling aroused by it. He says he’s very attracted to me, and I’ve always noticed it, but he must irrationally make sure it’s with this type content.
I love him very much, and I notice this love it’s preventing me from feeling the betrayal. For example, when he told me he was asking about the price of the meeting, I cried deeply for 20 seconds,then calmed immediately and continued asking. Before he told me this, I considered him an excellent husband, very kind, gentle, patient and supportive. Also we had a good sex live.
tldr:Half of the live of my husband he been a compulsive porn user, he can’t take it anymore but he was snicky crossing a line for a full year. How can it process this? How can I trust him?
Comments
Sounds like he needs some therapy to address a lot of this. You alone won’t be able to help him.
If I was in your shoes I would pretty much say if you wanna continue this you’ll need to commit to therapy
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You should maybe look at r/loveafterporn. I’m so sorry this is happening to you.
Uhmm…I think you should mention the fact you guys met while you were a cam girl earlier in this giant mass of text. I dunno who he is but obviously he has problems that you didn’t pick up early in the relationship. Probably because you were a camgirl too you ignored those issues…
Imo, he’s bullshitting about being gay and has an addiction to camgirls that he can’t admit. Or he wants other women and can’t admit it to himself or you. The first option is less painful, probably can work through it…second is more of a dealbreaker if you can love and respect yourself.
He needs a good therapist and some good SSRIs.
Therapy asap, porn is just as addictive to your brain as anything else. It’s going to take a lot to quit it because he’s likely rewired his seratonin and dopamine production. You need to approach it like this I’d think, “is this who you want to be for the rest of your life, or is there a version of yourself that you dream to become”. He needs to see that he has a future after this stage. Going to be very hard to break if it’s been an addiction for majority of his life