Been married for 20 years but just can't tell her

Welcome! You've come to the right site. There is a way forward if you work hard and fight for the life you want.

Others may differ legitimately in their opinion on this, but I would say start working on yourself--on your own self-improvement--right away. You don't need to tell anyone "in real life" yet, unless it feels right. Commit to 90 days of hard mode NoFap to start. (If the opportunity for sex with your wife does come up, which sounds like it's infrequent anyway, you could switch to "soft mode" for that relationship-building moment. That's your call...) Connect with an Accountability Partner (or multiple APs, or a group) here for support and productive "peer pressure". Use all your extra energy toward exercising every day if you don't already. Your confidence and self-image will build, which strengthens your resolve. Your family will notice a difference in you and probably be pleasantly surprised, but they don't need to know the cause. At some point you may decide to be more open with your wife, but this will be from a place of strength and showing that you have cared enough to make a difficult change. Well, that's one way to go about this... you'll have to assess it yourself since you know your relationships. Good luck!

 

Hi buddy congrats for your decision.If you feel that is important then tell her that you have something important to share with her,if you feel like that then go ahead and tell her.
If i m in your shoes i will not tell anybody,i will just work on myself.Because i don't think you need to tell anyone that,but it is your choice everyone is different,good luck.

 

Thinking that after 20 years of marriage she does not know (or at least suspect) anything is childish. Porn affects your marriage, either she wants to know it or not. Going through the "shame" of telling your wife will help you to overcome your addiction, because that will really *force* you to change. From that point, you will have to do some commitments, to yourself and to her. Keeping it secret is the recipe for secure failure, what is this community all about? If your wife supports you, it will be an example of true love in a marriage that wants to grow and improve each other; if she rejects you, you can draw your own conclusions... She is supposed to be the person with your highest level of trust, do you really want to live a lie? Talk to her.

 

I'm so confused. Are you seriously saying you have been betraying your wife for years and she doesn't know a thing? How can anyone with basic human decency possibly think that is okay? You are trapping your wife in a situation where she doesn't have a choice, she doesn't have the choice to move on and live a happy life without being betrayed by the one person who should always be trustworthy and honest. I feel bad for her.

 

You mean the marriage and happiness that is built on a lie? Sure you can keep things hidden, but not if it affects your significant other. I am not trying to be judgmental at all, I just drew a logical conclusion from your OP that your wife would have an issue with you watching porn, that she would view it as a form of cheating. Now if you violate her boundaries ("cheat" on her), then you are obligated to tell her because she relies on you and trusts you to respect her boundaries and that at least if you don't for whatever reason - addiction being a good reason since it's hard to control - you will be honest with her and she can decide if she is willing to forgive and forget. But perhaps I misunderstood you then and it's not a violation of her boundaries.

 

Don't listen to Angel. You're right, no marriage is truly without it's secrets. And frankly, I don't think this is that serious of a concern considering most married men watch porn to some degree. I didn't get the impression from you that your wife would consider it a betrayal, I just got the impression that she would not understand and would not be comfortable enough to support you. It's not about her boundaries with porn, its about her acceptance of porn addiction as a real thing. Well fortunately for you, she doesn't need to accept it if you can beat it on your own and with the help of this community. You sound like a good person and your wife is fortunate to have that in her life.

 

I understand you need support. And I hope you will find a lot of it here.

To your wife, porn might be cheating. This is, as you say, a black and white issue to her. She doesn't want this in her life, and as long as you do not respect that, you do not give her the right to choose. Her "happiness" and "fulfilment" is a castle built on air. I don't think @AngelofDarkness meant to be judgemental, but rather trying to make you see your own issues from a female perspective (an issue that is now your wife's burden too), which can differ rather radically from a male's.

I've been cheated on, and I've been living with porn in my marriage. To me, as to most women, this has been about equally harming. The physical woman was one person. Pornography is maybe 10,000+ women. If your wife showed herself on webcam to 10,000+ other males, you wouldn't care that she is a good cookie baker or great listener. You would feel sick and betrayed for not being able to choose a life with a woman who treated you as a king and her own body as a temple.

Pornography addicts often believe that it's normal to watch porn behind their partners back, that it's normal to lie if you need to, and that it's normal to have an all around secret life because "everyone does it". A big part of recovery is to challenge that view and recognize that porn and lies are choices some people make, and some people do not choose to live like that. I chose not to have a secret life, because I felt that was the fairest to my spouse and most in line with who I want to be as a wife. I'm not unique at all in making that decision.

I am well aware of the fact that you might be a good person, that you want a happy marriage, that you do not intend to hurt your wife and that porn addiction is a difficult obstacle in your life. I also respect that this might be something you want to start working on either by your self but hopefully together with a therapist or a support group. Ideally, going to couples therapy could move you two in the direction of having more sex, which should absolutely be set as a positive goal. Having a sexless marriage is not fair if you are unhappy about that, and maybe probing deeper in this issue with a professional could prove beneficial.

But you also need to consider your wife's feelings in all this, because she is in fact an innocent victim of circumstances she had no say in, and there is simply no other way around that fact.

 

You can google csat, that’s how I found mine.

 

This is excellent. Actually, most women don't even get this explanation, even after years of trying to communicate with a PA spouse.

In my case, I do think he stopped when he met me and it was his intention to not do it anymore, but real life happened and he reverted back to his previous ways. There was also an escalation from pictures to videos, from videos to more extreme videos, and from more extreme videos to another woman, who he physically put his penis in despite clearly not having feelings (or even attraction) for her. All of it hurts about the same for me.

My point is (having had 3 months of burning pee and 14 months of a burning heart): He could have just told me his issues early on and I would have been far more empathetic. Finding out myself was the biggest part of the trauma.

 

Hey... firstly, fascinating thread with a lot of differing opinions which is exactly what's needed. I can understand all points of view in this and really the only thing I'd add is that this level of porn use is cheating. And that's coming from someone who's been there, done that.

I convinced myself that it wasn't for years! Made excuses for continuing to do it that it was helping me not physically cheat in a fairly vanilla marriage when I wanted more. I deluded myself that sexting other women was fine, "I want doing anything for real". That camming to them, and groups of total strangers, was just some fun. Escalating to other mute extreme genres was interesting, ending in building relationships with trans and femdom partners wasn't harmful... It's a horrible slippery slope, and yes it is CHEATING and BETRAYAL.

But.. and here's the big one. I haven't opened up to my wife either. Saying that keeping it a lie is a sure way to fail is bullshit. I'm getting close to the 3 months now and I feel amazing without pmo in my life anymore, but I've done that internally. I've looked at my initial reasons for adding which were, and still are, for my wife and our relationship. I've understood my own reasons and why I used porn which started long before we got together. And I've made my own additional commitments to myself to not go back there.

There's so many more reasons I can't disclose it all to my wife than just a fear of her leaving me, but that is a big one. Others around us would also be impacted and my decision was that by bettering myself I would be able to become that husband she deserves without giving her the trauma and pain of knowing. This is what is best for us, in our situation.

Will everyone agree... doubt it. Will I tell her at least some of it all one day, probably. Do I care what someone who doesn't understand it all like I do things, nope. But should I, and do I listen to differing opinions to form and take forward my own path... ABSOLUTELY.

Good luck @Thelasttime1092 . Find the reasons to stop, and do it.

 

I have to agree , I knew something was wrong. No sex or intimacy but thought it was a problem with me. And kept quiet. I however then found out & that has been the biggest killer for me. 6 months in and I'm still extremely angry & hurt. Had I been told I think it wouldn't have been so bad. He's lucky I'm still around tbh

 

This is a fallacy that porn addicts tell themselves. I have never kept anything from my husband. I do not lie, lie by omission, or betray him in any way. Hence the reason his betrayal was so devastating, to realize he did do those things. Not everyone keeps things hidden. You may not equate your porn as cheating, but then I wonder why hide it? Is it because you know your wife would equate it with cheating? If that’s the case, then yes, it’s cheating. My husband also thought I was getting a lot out of our marriage, after all, been with him 33 years. Once he got clean, really clean, he was horrified to see the truth about his actions. He looks back with deep regret and hates who he used to be. Obviously, every marriage is different, but there are a lot of similarities in the destruction porn addicts reap on their families. Most of it comes from the secrecy and lies. I’m sure you know how difficult quitting is. I don’t think you’ve been doing this for 20 years without having tried to stop. One of the biggest steps you can take is opening up and sharing with someone you trust. If you can’t do that with your wife, then who can you do it with? The first person will be the hardest but it will be one of the biggest steps you take to quit. Perhaps then you can eventually open up to your wife. Your wife does not love you, she loves the person she thinks you are. Who knows, she may really really love you, the authentic you, but you have never given her the chance.