Feelings that haunt me....

Oh my god . You are kidding . Have you guys gone to counseling?? I don’t think he is even close to acknowledging he is an addict !! That’s the first step to anything . You are a more patient woman than I , he would have a crack down his effing forehead or I would have choked him

 

His things would be out on the front porch already.

He is gaslighting you, @Loveless .

 

If HES not ready , YOU make him ready . Lay it ALL out , the hard truths etc . You get to decide YOUR path . If my SO didn’t take me seriously on DDAY I would have been gone a year ago !!

 

I agree, I would have kicked him out or walked out but that's just me. I don't mess around when it comes to my heart, and if someone chooses to hurt me well... it's not going to be good for them if they don't change a damaging behavior.

 

Ugh. It sounds like he's still in denial… he demands that you trust him, and provides absolutely no reason for you to. He has got to take ownership of this instead of attempting to make you feel guilty for his mistakes. He's gaslighting you.

 

Ugh @Loveless this is HARD stuff. He is knee deep in denial and showing classic addiction behaviour. His rock bottom might be you kicking him out. Make your boundary and stick to it.

PAs use PMO to regulate their moods. Dopamine is their drug of choice. My husband said he was rarely "horny" but would force orgasms to forget about his stress.

Woah. He needs to want to change. Right now he is terrified to lose his coping mechanism that has served him for so long.

 

I completely agree with what everyone is saying. When I found my husbands collection I sat with my husband for a few hours watching everything go by by and scrubbed the hard drive to make sure it couldn’t be recovered. Out of the house no temptation, I don’t want anything related to porn in our sanctuary! The only thing that ever to be on that hard drive was our music collection only or I most likely would acted on my vision of taking a hammer to it.

 

Hammers can be fun. If you want to take a little more time you can go find a bit set with a bunch of torx bits, take the top cover off (the one with the label), and then do your best DJ impression and scratch some disks! Then for added fun leave it open to the air, dust and perhaps some water to ensure nothing is retrievable.

 

I think it’s good now. We have our large music collection on that hard drive so I do want to keep that. I was initially pissed because when download all our music I put my foot down stating nothing but music on it as it’s shared.
The last thing I wanted was someone like my daughter or friends even seeing it. That was years ago before I had any clue what was happening.
It was a few months ago when pulled it out of box (boxed in storage for a while moving) to add music to my new phone that I found his folder. I went through all of that I could. There was so much on there that it was corrupting the hard drive.
When he got home from work we had one hell of a serous talk and got rid of it.
After it was done he felt better and I did too.
But ya, if it didn’t have the music I would have taken a hammer to it.

 

Wow! Sounds like it’s a pretty serious situation. I’m sorry this is your life right now.

 

I love you!!! You are a total badass!

 

Thanks for the support, everyone. Today has been an emotional whirlwind in the Loveless household. After reading your posts, I realized that this is my last chance. I went upstairs and grabbed the rest of the dvds and replaced them with blanks. The "loaded" dvds are going to have an "accident" tomorrow.

 

I think it is great what you are doing @Loveless ... it's the same thing as finding an alcoholic's secret stash of liquor and pouring it all down the sink.

BUT, the problem is there is a liquor store on every corner....or in your case, there is the Internet just a click a way.

As someone pointed out earlier...if your husband is not the one deleting the files / realizing he has a problem, an addiction / is he really going to change??

...

I don't mean to discourage you .. But I do wonder in the long run, if this is doing any good -- you simply smashing his DVDs.

Now, if it gets his attention and he acknowledges that he has a problem (and then does something about it) ... then yes, your actions are helping him start the path of recovery.

 

That was the point in my post earlier. I would do it to see his reaction to gauge my next move. And to get that crap out of my house.

 

Speaking of gauging reactions -- @Loveless: do you feel safe? Some of what you wrote earlier about how your husband responded kind of worried me .... I could completely be letting my imagination run wild, but if anger/temper/violence is at all part of your husband's character, please be careful.

 

Here's to hoping he will finally get the message… But as was just pointed out, there is nothing stopping him from replacing what you've thrown out. I know its easier said than done, but you need to give him an ultimatum… he destroys all of it and surrenders, or you move out. And be prepared to follow through when he tries to call your bluff. Something to ask yourself…. have you threatened him with divorce/separation before? My only point in asking is that if you have, you've given him the message that there are no real consequences to his actions…. and him facing the real consequence of losing you may be the only thing that will make him realize he has a problem. Over the past week I have been on here, I have had the thought that a lot of the couples struggling through this have a lot of other fundamental issues with their relationships beyond PMO… retreating to porn can be a symptom of other issues. Its sort of a vicious cycle… relationship is lacking intimacy, communication, etc etc… the addict begins trying to fill this void with PMO, which causes a further erosion of intimacy, communication, etc etc, and the cycle becomes worse and worse. I am thankful more each day that I have finally recognized my behavior and begun to stop the cycle I was perpetuating.

 

I can't tell you all how grateful I am for your support. It really means a lot to me to read your posts. Thank you for reaching out and showing that you care. It has been so hard here. I will follow mcgrim's badass example and get a hammer out. The thought of anyone, especially a kid, finding this giant stack of disks is just too harrowing for me to consider.
And Sadgirl, you are right that he is terrified of losing his coping mechanism. He is going to therapy now, and amazingly, he is responding well to it.

TryingHard2Change, SO has said that he refuses to go online again. The internet was the wormhole that led him to addiction one click at a time, and he knows this. He also knows that he went to more and more extreme sites the longer it went on, and he ultimately confessed that he needed help. I agree with your analogy that I'm pouring out the liquor when there's a liquor store on every corner. But I do think he will stop and think before he browses and downloads. That doesn't mean he won't ever do it again, but he will at least think about it. His reasons for hesitating before browsing might be entirely self-centered, but that is ok. When he realized that he could have written a book with all the time he spent browsing and downloading and organizing his P, he realized that PA was ruining both his marriage and his professional life. And all he had to show for it was a gigantic stash of fetish P. That was a humiliating realization for him.

I know that I made him very angry when I confessed to the big data dump. Thank you for your concern for my safety. To be honest, despite the anger and the mental games, I think he would hurt himself out of self-loathing before he would ever consider physically hurting me. And I am looking out for myself: I have a small overnight bag in my car trunk so that if I ever have to leave, I only need to grab my keys and go.

PaleAle76, your words are very reassuring, and yes, I did say this morning that I have given up on our relationship and have nothing left, so unless he is ready to make radical changes, I'm done with us. I made two ultimatums: 1) no more humiliating behavior (mocking me, belittling, etc.); 2) no more objectifying me in ways that justify his narcissistic behavior (wife is like this, so she won't do that; she functions this way in my world, but not like that, etc.). The first is to protect myself and my dignity. The second is the condition that led to our alienation from each other, which is the real cause of the porn addiction. Using people as objects is a symptom of his narcissistic imagining: he created a world in which porn serves a function, wife serves a function. Both are "feel good" objects that he controls and keeps separate and uses when he wants to, the way he wants to. But now that his fake fantasy world has come crashing down, he better not try to build it up again. Porn wasn't under his control. It controlled him. I admit I was under his control and played the "wife" role for years, in ways that served a narcissistic function for him. But I'm demanding autonomy now. If he breaks either ultimatum, I'm out the door.

Thanks again, to all of you for your kindness and concern.

 

It’s good and healthy that you have set clear personal boundaries/promise for your self, that’s not a threat or ultimatum in my opinion. You sound like you have a renewed empowerment in your last post.

 

Thank you, Jennica. That means a lot to me!
It has been a very difficult few months, and it seems that every argument has been worse than the last. But a few things have helped. My therapist asked me to make a list of relationship dealbreakers, so I did that, then decided to draw a line in the sand during the last argument. Reading about narcissism, how it works, and how to talk to a narcissist has been eye-opening. I feel like I've unlocked a door, and finally learned how to talk to someone who was used to talking over me. Very importantly, reading the posts from the good people here has helped to keep my spirits up when I've been very down. Getting to the point of not caring about our relationship and being ready to walk away took time. But with nothing to lose, I see now what I can gain, whether the marriage is over and I'm free to be on my own, or we get it together and work things out for ourselves and each other.

 

That sounds like you have found the strength and understanding you needed @Loveless. Hopefully he has listened and really heard you. When he realises what he needs to do to heal and keep the woman he loves he will focus on his own recovery. Do you think he'll come here and keep a journal?