Love & Porn...???
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| Wed, 05-04-2005 - 4:15pm |
Ok everyone, I am asking first of all for all of you to put all of your personal opinions and beliefs aside for a moment and try to speak objectively for a moment.
I am madly in love with a man who is also in love with me. We plan on getting married eventually. Since we were first together we've had a lot of ups and downs but we are each other's best friend and we share everything including a love that for both of us runs very deep (we call it "movie love"). I have felt from the time I met him that I was the luckiest girl in the world but unfortunately one subject has taken away the sweetness of what our love was.
Both this man and I have been married before and we have discussed the problems of our marriages and how we dealt with those problems. One of the habits he developed (which I understood) was the use of porn because he was hardly satisfied sexually. However throughout the time we've been together we have talked about it on a few occasions.
My view - from the getgo I have told him how I did not like it and how it bothered me. I have conservative views on sex and how it is something very special shared between two people. Even while we have been together we have been experimental which I have been open to to show that I am willing to keep our intimate life exciting. I have only been with 2 other people besides him (though I have dated many people), 1 of which was my x. But he has always known (at least I believe) how sacred being intimate is to me and how I feel porn invades that intimacy.
His view - throughout our conversations since we've been together about this subject he told me why he used to use it so often in his marriage and which I have been able to sympathize with but at the same time we usually are intimate at least a couple times a week and sometimes it's just been for him...which I haven't minded doing. He had said a couple times a long time ago that he said he felt it was wrong, and another time he said that if you're really in love with someone and you have a very healthy sex life that there isn't any need for it. He also told he that if he looked at anything it was usually two people together (which kind of made me feel somewhat relieved in a weird way that he wasn't just looking at women). Recently on a few occasions I have found things on his computer (searches that pop up without really having to look) that he says his friend looked up when he was over or that he was downloading to put on a cd for a friend (which I know he was doing). However I recently used his laptop which I don't usually use and I know only he uses and I wasn't even really looking (well maybe a little) but I actually saw some sites that we had looked at like for things we wanted to do together (outdoor activities that is...!) and I thought it was sweet, but then I noticed too that he had a porn site just of women saved on it. I was so heartbroken, angry and sad that I was literally shaking.
Another factor is that even though I was shy about it he had taken pictures of me at one point and said that he wouldn't need to look at other things if he had pictures of me...
When I confronted him about it he said that he possibly even looked at something about a week ago when we had a huge discussion about it about a month ago but yet he told me he didn't realize I felt so strongly about it. I was extremely angry at the fact that throughout our relationship I know I have brought it up to know whether I was enough for him and that he didn't need that. Not only this but obviously every woman knows that her own body (esp mine after 2 children) cannot compete with these women's perfect bodies in sexual poses....I am also totally fuming because I asked him why he even took my pictures if he was going to look at that crap...his excuse was that I seemed to look nervous. He also said that it has been a bad habit and that it's one he hasn't broken completely. I said I couldn't understand when you're intimate with someone so frequently how it is you are so horny that you need to get off all the time?????!!!! Is there no such thing as self control?????
Right now I am a mixture of so many emotions - I'm SO angry because I feel like he knew how I felt about it, extremely sad and brokenhearted because I trusted what he had said about being in love, and because I felt like I put my trust in him when I have said how special it is for me to make love to him. I'm also devastated with my own self consciousness because I feel like I wasn't enough. I even feel very uncomfortable being intimate with him because I think of what these women look like compared to me... :o( All I can think of is him looking at them........The crazy thing is that on a few occasions he has been insecure about me looking or thinking of other guys but how is it that looking at naked women is ok????!!!!
The unspoken ultimatum - now because all of this blew up he has said that he didn't realize how important it was to me (which I don't get at all) but that he is willing to change it and to not do it anymore because he loves me (which I do know). Even when we've been intimate since then I feel very uncomfortable with him (which I hate because I felt so comfortable with him before) and he has admitted that he knows it will take time and that it's his fault I feel uncomfortable. (YES, it is HIS fault!) I also told him that sometimes it bothers me that some people consider cheating being only physical but how is it so different when you can be with any woman you want in your mind? I've personally never felt the way I do about him with anyone, I don't think about anyone else and am not even the slightest bit interested when people hit on me...he tells me that if he looked at women they were women that resembled me (yeah like I'm a frickin supermodel -I know I'm attractive but my body's nowhere near perfect).
Here's the situation, right now I am so confused because I know he loves me and will change it, I believe and trust that he would. However the problem lies in the fact that I thought a lot of this time I THOUGHT I could trust him and now I feel betrayed because I really believed he understood where I stood and when I would ask him I thought I could believe him that he wasn't looking elsewhere. I also don't know how to feel completely comfortable with him again though I want to very much. I'm also feeling as though my self esteem is crushed because I really feel like I wasn't good enough and don't know if I can feel as though I will be good enough (physically).
I love this man very much and am so sad that all of this has happened. I feel very lost because he's my lover and my best friend but I cannot help but feel so distanced from him even though I know how hard he wants to try. How can I erase this? I don't know if I can forget so easily....please tell me what your opinion is of how I feel and what I should do. Thanks

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I think that many women feel that "porn" is in fact the "other woman(women)." It may not seem rational to you or I, but it's perfectly logical to them.
And its perfectly logical to my friend's husband that any time his wife is in a meeting with a man, they're either having sex or planning to have sex. That doesn't make it so.
People in a relationship have to have realistic expectations of their partners, and they have to make reasonable allowances for differences with their partner. And just as it is reasonable that someone who enjoys porn to enjoy it in private, keep it out of public view, and not let it interfere with their relationship, it is also reasonable for their partner to avoid snooping for porn and not to obsess on what their partner might do when he's alone.
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martinisnsushi - living the good life since 1963
CL Redbook "Get Inside His Head"
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martinisnsushi - the two most important food groups!
Quirkygirl, I have no doubt that you and your guy can work this out if you both want it badly enough. And just because a man has done something, perhaps, his whole life, doesn't mean that he can't change if the incentive is there. And it sounds like it's there for him. Just be patient with him.
However, make sure that this is HIS choice, with no pressure or coercion from you, or he could become resentmentful about it in the future.
Best of luck to you!
Thanks again kat, actually today was a day that I think marks the beginning of our relationship, starting over that is.
Over the course of our relationship we've had times where we've allowed things to come between us and in a way kind of surrounded ourselves with things we don't really want. It's too long of a story to explain the entire thing but even he has admitted that sometimes he's let other things or people influence him to fall into doing things that he doesn't think are right.
We had a very long talk about it and how we both want the be the best people we can be for each other and that what we have is simply irreplacable - most people will look their whole lives and never find what we have...it's a love that is the kind you dream of, a love that lifts you up, a love that brings out the absolute best in you....
He brought up this subject along with others and said how he has realized how he hasn't felt like it was something good and he wants to change those things for me because our love is so deep. He says he wants to be a team with me and look to me for support in making better decisions as I want to look to him to make better decisions too.
You know that feeling where you wake up in the morning and even if it's raining, snowing, sleeting...inside your heart there is a sun that burns more brightly than the sun itself. This is our love for each other.
Not only do I think he will not do it anymore but I know deep down in his heart how he feels about it and other things and he wants to change, not just for me but for himself. Our love is a force to be recogned with and he has seen how things like this have totally come between us and he said he doesn't like that because when we are totally in sync with each other we're rock solid. We're like one heart, one mind, one soul - there is no you by yourself or me by myself. Before in our marriages there was not an "us" it was a you and then me. Both people have to want the same thing to work as one and we do and we will.
This isn't something I'm forcing him to change, I believe he knows how he feels about it in his own heart and wants to change it for himself. I know no one is perfect and we all will make mistakes but I believe that what is important to me is also important to him and letting things that we think interfere with our close bond will break us apart instead of making us stronger.
Let me just tell you, I am the luckiest girl in the world. We both feel like what we have is a "once upon a time...and they lived happily ever after" kind of love. Movies, books, whatever, they ain't got nothin on my man and me. I know it's so corny but we've even said we feel the "romeo and juliet" kind of love, without the tragedy...
So all I'm gone now, thanks for the responses, positive, negative, indifferent...I'm off to live a beautiful life now with the man who I know loves me more than anything. No I'm not naive because I know he earnestly wants this too...
I hope you all have or find the kind of love we have because there is nothing more beautiful, more exquisite, more precious than it in all the world.
>>>I know my DH doesn't! I will TELL him when some woman is trying to make eye contact or flirting with him. Most of the time though, he has no idea.<<<
See, we do have our "blinders" on.
Or, we're just oblivious to the world when we're out with our SO.
Yeah, that's it.
Yes, that's what a good relationship is about, alright...wanting to be a better man or woman, for yourselves and one another.
I found my guy 29 yrs. ago and a lot of the lessons we've learned, we've learned the hard way. But it's truly worth all the effort, adjustment and compromise to have a true partner, lover and friend for life.
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