The worst case scenario has happened s/o to a PA

Porn use, lying and gas lighting is always abusive to the partner. Very abusive.

 

I set up parental controls on my kids' laptops--but they managed to bypass them by installing a separate operating system on a thumb drive! Kids these days are far more tech savvy than the past generation. I hear you about not looking for it this time. I really am saddened to hear your story, and totally understand your anger. That is truly a "righteous indignation."

 

A Christmas / new year's present for your spouse:

https://www.amazon.com/Porn-Myth-Exposing-Reality-Pornography/dp/162164006X

Addiction, morality, sexuality, marriage, parenting, faith are not elements that we are ever "done" with. We don't have things under control. These areas take continuous work. We are either progressing, or regressing. There is no standing still.

 

Well preacher… you agree with the idea of having boundaries but see no benefit at all? To who I might ask? Him? The boundaries aren’t for his benefit anyway. They are for her. It doesn’t matter whether he benefits from them or not. I take exception to the way you worded the “It was when she left for awhile that he relapsed; and isolating herself from him within the home.” That is victim blaming and it is a form of gaslighting. She left the home for a while because her Father passed away for God’s sake. Perhaps she should have said “Sorry…can’t make it…gotta keep my husband from jerking off”. WTF! When you went down this path of “isolating herself from him within the home” do you think that is to punish him or to provide safety for herself? Then you continued on with this “encourage more of the same as I see it”. Really? It occurs to me she has been encouraging recovery all along and gotten absolutely nowhere with it. Again that’s gaslighting her because it implies that she is to blame for his acting out behavior, and she’s not.

While I concur that sex within marriage should not be a bargaining chip, it should also not be a mandatory requirement. With the way all sex addicts put such heavy emphasis on sex they lose sight of the intimate bonding experience that sex should become. Your note to self should be that sex and affection aren’t one and the same anymore than intimacy and sex is. Personally, such outrageous behavior would not only make me not want to have sex with him but to run away as fast and as far as I could go from him. It’s not penalizing him. He’s put himself in the penalty box. For the record you can have some pretty satisfying sexual gratification and still be abused. Just sayin’. And yes, she is being abused and not just by her husband either.

 

Humans all have emotions and certain natural responses. While some may become hardened, and have weaker responses to certain behaviors or stimuli, I do not believe that anyone is past hope as long as he or she still has a beating heart.

I can understand your feelings, but I would point out that while a person may put on a confident or hard-hearted exterior, the heartstrings, behind that mask, may still be pulled, unbeknownst to the observer. In other words, you may perceive that your best efforts produce no desirable effect in the mind or attitude of the addict--but you are unable to read his or her heart to know whether your perceptions are accurate.

First, I have not suggested that she is at all to blame for his choices. Nor do I feel it is fair to suggest there would be any relevance, in attributing blame, to whether or not she had first "been destroyed." Regardless of her own state of mind, he must accept responsibility for his own course.

Secondly, I agree that the husband's decisions are "100% his choice"--as long as his wife is not goading him into it. One of my friends with whom I just spent considerable time today quit alcohol and did not want to drink it anymore. Not long later, he took ill, and had some difficulty with either his heart or his breathing (I don't remember the exact details). He had been alcohol-free for a few weeks, and his wife apparently thought it had something to do with his illness. She bought him a bottle of brandy and took it to him, pleading that he drink it, for his health. She thought he might die without it, and, even though he initially refused, at her persistence, he at last relented and drank a glass of it. He has never since been able to quit again. Would you say the wife had 0% responsibility for his present addiction? On the other hand, would you think it were 100% her fault?

I freely acknowledge that this is a different example than the case of most porn addicts where the wife is opposed to her husband's addiction and would never encourage it like this. But I believe the example serves to indicate that the determination of responsibility is not so black-and-white. There is a continuum, something like what many insurance companies arbitrate in cases of car accidents--percentage fault. It is a minority of cases where 100% of the fault will be attributed to one party or the other.

With those facts hopefully clearer, what I was suggesting, and I will stand by it, is that her responses toward his actions can, do, and will have an impact on him. While they cannot be "blamed" for his actions, they certainly can affect the odds that he will be motivated to make a positive change. There are no guarantees--it is, in the end, entirely up to him. But she does have considerable influence as one of the persons in his life closest to him. That influence can be a force for good or for bad.

Every one of us has an influence that impacts everyone else around us. We are each responsible for that influence. We are not responsible for others' decisions; but we are responsible for our own and for how our actions have influenced them.

In her specific case, trusting him will not likely prevent him from continuing in his addiction. But distrusting him will make it less likely that he will be motivated to quit. Sadly, it's almost a lose-lose for her: she can hardly win, but can easily lose. Nor does she win to separate herself from him, either physically or relationally. It's a tough place to be, with no easy answers.

I fully agree with what you have said here about lies.

I agree with you here. That said, I think it's in the nature of some people to be constantly curious about others, particularly when those others are unaware of being observed. When I first got married, my wife had my password to all my electronic accounts, e.g. email. Having nothing to hide, it did not, at first, bother me that she would read it all. But I soon realized that she seemed addicted to reading everything there, as if she were "checking up" on me--and this attitude, in addition to the amount of time she spent in it, caused me to feel it was not best for her to have continued access. I explained that perhaps we should each have some privacy, and I changed my password. I don't go nosing into her electronic communications, nor does she with mine anymore. This mutual trust, and privacy, has served us well for many years now. Of course, we don't have anything to hide (as far as I know). Recently, in fact, I've been considering giving her my password again in case something were to happen to me and she needed to tie up loose ends with my contacts.

To a point I will agree that this is so. BUT, I would humbly submit that she is the one most hurt by cherishing hard feelings. What's it to him if she chooses to be bitter and unforgiving? Her anger won't give him a heart-attack. But it will affect her own health, both physical and emotional. The best policy is always to forgive quickly, even when the one forgiven doesn't deserve it. The forgiver, not the forgivee, is the one who stands to gain the most--a counterintuitive fact which many have not considered.

And, once again, I agree. It would certainly be naive to think anything would "suddenly make him appreciate her enough to just not continue his addiction." But it would also be naive to think that, given time, her continued and habitual actions would not have an impact. One action is just that--a one-time affair; but repeated actions have an effect which strengthens over time.

Fully agree--and I think you may have misinterpreted my perspectives on this matter to suggest that I would have thought contrary to this.

I think it's unfair for you to assume that I was doing this.

One cannot always know that "it made no difference." We aren't able to read another's heart.

Of course she can't. But who says the higher power can't?

Agreed. Mandatory affection is not affection at all. If it isn't offered willingly, it is of no value.

 

Well since children are in this now. You gotta go super mom/wife.

Take every phone amd internet out of this house. Firstly your husband has now exposed your children to this curse. Either he gives you all of his devices and forcefully changes…..or you divorce his ass into next year. Once you take all his devices you forcefully tell him that he cannot buy any new device or anything of the sort. Plead with him that his childrens future are in danger.

As for your kids, take their devices for a few weeks….and show them punishment for watching what they have watched. Explain to them the dangers of porn, since a lot of kids watch due to not knowing the effects of it.

Once you give back their devices, you set up parental porn blockers. Threaten that you know everything theyre doing on their phone. And tell them if they ever want to keep, to stay out of watching filth.

The important thing is that you also explain to them why porn is so very bad. So you can justify your actions to them. Setting up a family meeting and explain tomyour sons and husband would do.

As for your husband, you gotta tell him how his disgusting actions are effecting your children. You are to suspend all devices from him and snap him back to reality. If you truly love this man, and he loves you…..then you’ll fight for this marriage and he will try his hardest to get better for you.

If not….divorce him. Its not worth having your children ruined for this.

 

I am not surprised that those "two little lines" are hard to take. Sometimes truth is hard to swallow. It can even hurt. But in the end, it leads to healing.

I do not wish to compare your betrayal trauma with what I went through, because they are not the same circumstances and perhaps neither of us has experienced what the other has. But, it might help you to be less prejudiced/judgmental toward my position to know that this understanding came to me after I was raped. Repeatedly. At first, I hated the perpetrator. Every time I saw him, it was as if a wave of hatred came over my entire body--I could feel it to my very toes. I had never in my life experienced an emotion like this. And I could not forgive. It was humanly impossible for me. The hatred, the feelings that came with the betrayal of trust, the total loss of self-respect--consumed me. As I was a student at the time, my grades went from nearly straight A's to mostly B's and C's. I couldn't concentrate. I felt like I struggled alone in a world that rejected me. I had one teacher in whom I was able to confide. Thank God for his help and support! Arrangements were made to keep me from being in contact with the perpetrator--who was sent to professional counseling. Nowadays, perhaps _I_ would have gotten such counseling as well. In the end, God helped me to forgive. The effect on me was almost immediate. I was released from all those negative emotions I had suffered. Did forgiving the perpetrator affect him in any way? Precious little, I think. But it did wonders for me.

I know whereof I speak.

Of course she will tend to respond in kind to his actions. That is human nature. In that case, however, she is letting herself be controlled by him. This is not necessary. She can choose her own course of action. Just because someone abuses you does not mean you must abuse them back.

This simply would not work. A man cannot be compelled in such a manner as this and still retain any dignity, and a man who loses his dignity, loses his self-respect--which would drive him the more forcibly to his addiction.

This might work. It seems she's already doing something like this.

 

Was the rape by an intimate partner? Was it continuous for years? You were able to forgive when you were no longer in contact and no longer subject to the abuse. It’s impossible to move on while the abuse continues, which is where this woman is at.

 

I want to take a second to touch on something here. I asked my counselor about this and he had this to say about it. "One of the biggest mistakes people make when judging the reactions of others is to underestimate their wounds for making those judgments. They're not judging the person. They're judging their words actions and behaviors and if you stick your hand out again after the animal has already bitten you you're less inclined to stick it back out there again and again to get bitten multiple times. Otherwise you're fulfilling the definition of insanity" He also pointed out that he didn't recall anywhere God made any requirement conditional upon someone else's words actions or behaviors. It is only contingent upon our own. And last because this just rubs me the wrong way. Don't you dare punish those children for what their father has done. Don't punish them regardless. We learned about consequences. Not punishments. Punishments never work. They only serve as a temporary fix.

 

My roommate. We'd been very good friends. I was still in contact. I think I'll claim the next two verses after yours.

 

I sincerely hope you brought charges against him. If he did it to you, he’s done it to others and need to be stopped.

 

You know, this isn't my thread and I'm not hijacking it. This experience of mine is not one I like to talk about. I only felt compelled to divulge this by the prejudice here against me, as a man, who surely could not have ever had any reason to understand what women have experienced. This forum is full of posts in which the poster thinks no one else could have had it so bad; no one else could possibly understand. Particularly is this attitude cherished by many of the SO's. This attitude is unfair; it is prejudiced, for it precedes any knowledge of the facts.

SO's do have a hard time. They do have a difficult journey. I understand that. But difficulty in life is not unique to anyone, and the lessons learned by one person in difficult times often have suitable application to others in a similar, or even a different, experience. Pouring cold water on the wisdom of others, for no other reason than that you think he or she could not possibly understand your situation, is ill advised. You have no idea what that person might have gone through.

In my case, perhaps I was too young and naive to know I even had the option of bringing charges against the perpetrator. And I was too hurt to even think of it. The trauma and hurt of the situation lingered with me for several years, even after I had forgiven. But the anger and hatred instantly vanished the moment I forgave.

Forgiveness does not mean that one releases the guilty party from all responsibility. It does not mean that one must continue to put oneself in harm's way to suffer continued abuses. It means only that one no longer chooses to harbor a grudge against that person. It means that, as much for oneself as for that other person, one chooses no longer to dwell on the wrongs done, nor to talk about them; e.g. spreading the dirt on what so-and-so did to you to all of your friends. As the saying goes, "Forgive and forget." You will never put something behind you, never actually forget it, if you haven't forgiven. As I was just now trying to call to mind some of the facts of my experience, I realized that I do not even remember if he ever apologized. I think he might have--but I had already forgiven and it made no strong impression on my mind. Or maybe he didn't--I don't remember clearly anymore. It doesn't matter. I've forgiven, and the wound has healed. The pain is gone for good.

In the case of the OP, her pain is still very fresh. And it will last for yet a long, long while if indeed her children follow in the addiction of their father. On the other hand, if the children become wise to the truth of the situation and choose a different course, this particular turn of events, as ugly as it may seem now, may work to their benefit. There is no better time than childhood to make lasting decisions for life. It was as a child that I determined never to smoke, drink, or use harmful drugs--and I never have. It was as a child that I learned not to swear--after first having developed the bad habit. It took a little longer to see the evil of repeating the dirty jokes I learned at school--but that, too, changed while I was yet young.

 

That was not to imply you were punishing your children. That was a reference to Zombies punishment comment. Sorry for that confusion.