His porn and your relationship are separate

used19 · Aug 27, 2020

1000_Cuts said: ↑

As to point #2, there is no help or solace in knowing that for any SO. It is just a reminder that the PA creates a space in your marriage in which your partner is able to mentally "separate" conflicting parts of himself by temporarily deleting his "SO" file, in order to open the "P" file, imagining you out of existence so that he can have his pleasure while denying your reality, and your pain.
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Not only does it kill us knowing that our husbands are deriving such pleasure from viewing the same body parts we have, but they are able to delete us so thoroughly that *while* seeing them, we're just gone, our bodies so unmemorable from the moment.

RiverBlue · Aug 27, 2020

1000_Cuts said: ↑

I think there is a critical difference between saying that a PA's desire for P is *different than* their desire for sex in a relationship (which seems to be OP's actual point), and saying that an SO should accept the idea that a PA's addiction to P is *separate from* their relationship to their SO (which is the title of this thread).
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First, let me say I am sorry for all the pain you have suffered. I truly feel for you.

You are right about the original point I was attempting to make, and I think I've elsewhere noted that my original wording, including the title of the thread, was not perfect. I agree with you.

The one area I would perhaps build upon are your thoughts on the idea of "accepting." Accept, in the sense that the partner has to accept and live with the porn addicts actions, is not at all something I would advocate or expect of a partner. Accept is not actually a word I have used.

My comments are directed at "understanding" -- as in understanding where a porn addict's behavior comes from. What I see on this forum and elsewhere are partners in many cases who are conflating a porn addict's desire for porn with the addict's desire (or lack of) for them. I think this leads to some unhealthy situations for the partners. Some wonder if they could do something in the bedroom to entice the porn addict away from porn. Or, even worse, if something they didn't do drove their addict to porn. That is absolutely false in all cases. The addict's desire for porn and his desire for his partner are separate. That's the differentiation I am trying to get at.

I hope that that understanding might actually be comforting to some who find themselves in that situation wondering what they may have done or what they could do. While understanding won't heal all the pain for all the reasons you have stated, I still hope it can relieve at least that one component of pain that some partners have.

Lilla_My · Aug 28, 2020

1000_Cuts said: ↑

I am new to this forum. This might be heavy-handed for a first post here, so I'm sorry for that.

I think there is a critical difference between saying that a PA's desire for P is *different than* their desire for sex in a relationship (which seems to be OP's actual point), and saying that an SO should accept the idea that a PA's addiction to P is *separate from* their relationship to their SO (which is the title of this thread).

These are *very* different assertions.

I can easily accept the idea that a PA is seeking something from P that is qualitatively different from what they are seeking from sex with a partner.

But this does *not* mean that having a relationship with P is naturally compatible with having a monogamous sexual partnership with an SO. People who have casual affairs or hire prostitutes while married are seeking something "different" from those encounters than what they get from their partners. That doesn't make it any less the betrayal that it is, and no betrayed spouse should just accept the rationale that "it wasn't about you," as though that makes it any better. Because in fact, it makes it worse.

If your SO betrays you sexually, by violating whatever the contract of your sexual partnership is, it *is* about you, because your trust has been betrayed, and it becomes part of the relationship, because the relationship contract has now been violated.

So, the "it isn't about you" argument essentially asks a betrayed SO to accept the upside-down logic of the *dysfunctional compartmentalization* that an addict engages in when they tell themselves that their relationship with P is *separate from* their relationship with their SO (sexual or otherwise). Which is to say, it is asking the SO to deny her own reality within the relationship (which is that she has been betrayed), and to accept the invalidation of every perfectly valid feeling the SO is having.

We SO's *know* that addicts compartmentalize and rationalize in this way. We know that for *THEM,* these things are completely separate (and thus, on some level, there is an ever-suppressed belief deep within the PA that we have no right to feel the way we feel). But the point a lot of PA's seem to miss is that *this separation,* far from being a comfort or a relief, is the *whole problem* for us. It is the *primary source of all our pain.*

Because where this addiction is concerned, the people we count on the most to love us and protect us and cherish us...can simply "separate" us from their whole decision-making process. They can erase all thought, feeling, or concern for us, completely and absolutely, in an instant, in order to indulge their own craving for this thing that they have mentally "separated" from us.

Not all of us have the capacity to create that kind of mental "separation." If I am doing something that I know would hurt or damage or betray my husband, that knowledge and the feelings that go with it, are not disposable by me. There is no "mute" button on my love and care for my husband, such that I can just do what I want without actively *feeling* the ways in which I am acting to hurt or betray him. So those feelings stop me from doing those things.

Regardless of what I am doing, my love and concern for my husband is a constant mental and emotional presence in my life. If I am doing something solo that is innocuous (like reading the news), he is in the background of my mind. But if I am doing something with known consequences for him (like considering buying something for myself that is expensive), he is instantly in the foreground. And so I take him, his feelings, his needs, into *conscious consideration* before I act.

My *desire* to buy the thing probably has nothing at all to do with him, nor is it indicative of anything he is failing to provide to me, but the *choice to make the purchase* has *everything* to do with him, because we are financial *partners,* so my financial choices *affect him* and I *know that* and can't just *unknow it* at will because it's inconvenient to my ability to do as I please.

If I buy the thing anyway, and then because of that we can't pay the mortgage, is he supposed to get any comfort or relief from the idea that my choice to buy the thing "wasn't about him"? Of course not! Because it was *supposed to be* about him, and us, and not just me, and that's the whole point. *That's* the *betrayal.*

A marriage is a sexual partnership, just like it is a financial one. When a PA makes sexual choices that damage the partnership, those choices are *only separate* from the partner to the extent that 1) the partner has no *control* over them and; 2) the PA continuously enables those damaging choices by engaging in toxic compartmentalization that allows them to act *within* a partnership as though they are operating in some magical, fictional "separate" space that exists *outside* of it, where it can't or shouldn't hurt the SO.

Point #1 is valid and important, and all SO's should remember it.

As to point #2, there is no help or solace in knowing that for any SO. It is just a reminder that the PA creates a space in your marriage in which your partner is able to mentally "separate" conflicting parts of himself by temporarily deleting his "SO" file, in order to open the "P" file, imagining you out of existence so that he can have his pleasure while denying your reality, and your pain.
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Outstanding post.

Reverent · Sep 21, 2020

Who is this masked women? Great insights @1000_Cuts

1000_Cuts said: ↑

We SO's *know* that addicts compartmentalize and rationalize in this way. We know that for *THEM,* these things are completely separate (and thus, on some level, there is an ever-suppressed belief deep within the PA that we have no right to feel the way we feel). But the point a lot of PA's seem to miss is that *this separation,* far from being a comfort or a relief, is the *whole problem* for us. It is the *primary source of all our pain.*
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Yes, Yes, and more Yeses. It has taking me YEARS to come to realize and truly feel how: any attention, time invested, lying to protect, spending money on, curiosity over, longing for, efforts to remember, simulating, or defending the addiction in any way was a complete betrayal of the relationship. All of these excuses are just selfish ways of keeping a relationship going with the addict behavior.

We have a choice, our SO's have been pleading in various forms forever, for us to choose them over the monster. And yet we rationalize, compartmentalize, justify, excuse, etc. our behaviors trying to keep the ugly addict relationship in tack. This duality of relationships is the whole problem with betrayal. It is an scary house of cards precariously, and meticulously crafted by the addicts hand. It can not survive.

Again, great insights to all, I sincerely appreciate the discussion.

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His porn and your relationship are separate

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