Alone

I getting that feeling of being alone. Finding the forum has been a blessing, and have my counselor to talk to is a blessing as well, but overall I feel even more out of place in the world than I use to, and I've never been one to feel like I fit. Unfortunately I also have past traumas too and the traumas on traumas is too much. This one broke me like no other though, the counselor says it's intimate partner betrayal and on of the worse traumas a person can experience.

As for the whole human nature thing I would guess those addicts coming on here making unkind or thoughtless comments are probably doing so from their own need to protect themselves, it's hard for people to admit their behaviour could be so damaging to another (or even to themselves for that matter). I know my husband has struggled and still does struggle to reconcile that what he was doing was that bad (but all men do it, it's not like an affair), I guess they lie and keep the secret so long that they internalise their own rationalizations until they become like a truth to them and to have that explode in their face and to find actually they've been deeply wounding the person they love must be a lot for them to deal with.

I get where you are coming from but I am angry and I dont care what people might say etc, I am over it... If I dont like what i see on TV I say so or change channel he never gave a flying F about how I felt while he was busy perving and lusty after every women in sight or not ... As far as any Nay sayers go, if any women or right minded bloke thinks that going online and masterbating over some poor girl in  another part of the world is ok and normal, or chatting and carrying on wishing that the person you are with is just like them then they are deluded, yeah I get the whole Men are visual thing, yeah well so are women, we just dont get the same amount of eye candy they are exposed to, if that was to happen OMGoodness, men would be in a spin feeling all crap about their fat guts and bad odour ha ha, bald heads thats a big one, men hate going bald unless they shave it off or they are Vin Diesel, but what we see on TV at a guess is mainly ran by Men... and if it isn't, then the women are being influence by the Studio head who I would believe are Men!!
I have sneaking suspicions  that my partner is just waiting for it to all blow over and then he can go back to his little fantasies ha ha well that aint gonna happen bucko, I am on a mission and that mission is justification and if its only in my relationship then thats just fine with me, you are not alone, we are all in this! Yeah I trusted him as well, he was my buddy but now he is part enemy to me I dont know who he is and I am going to sort this one way or the other... Don't let morons try and highjack our comments, they obviously lost a lot to porn and are bitter, life is more than this, get it off your chest on here or with your councillor do what you have to do to get your life back again ...

Sorry to read your post, Trustandnewbeginnings. I feared that some partners would feel uneasy about expressing themselves on this forum after what happened a while back. I put forward the idea of having an additional private section specifically for partners of porn addicts to be able to share their often very raw emotions without some 9-day wonder rebooter coming along and telling us we don't know what we are talking about, or even worse, be on the receiving end of barely disguised misogyny from some fuckup. At least we have a moderator now in Gracie, who has already taken steps to root out any offenders.

I'm with Kimba on this one. When I look back, I was prepared to live with a situation that I didn't want and that wasn't my choice. Like the therapist who presented the TED talk on sex starved marriages, it's the one who doesn't want sex so much that holds the power, and in my relationship, my partner was denying me any kind of sexual activity because he chose to have an exclusive relationship with porn. My recovery is as much as taking back my power and being able to stand my ground in my relationship and in my live in general. His porn habit, and all its collateral damage, slowly eroded my inner core to the extent that I barely recognised myself. Where was that confident, spirited girl with lots of grit and attitude? What happened to that girl who wouldn't take any shit from anyone? The one who would never hold back from saying "this is not right" or "I'm not standing for this"? Well, I've got news for you. She's back!!

Yes, recovering porn addicts, these 9 day wonders who know best.... They say "it's the dopamine, stupid!" but we know there's a lot more, like being socialised and brainwashed into believing that women exist just to server their needs whether it's some model/actress/wannabe posing and pouting in a video clip as a masturbation aid or their wife/mother who exists to cook their meals and iron their shirts. And that shit about men being more "visual" but do they actually question the cultural norms that allow and indeed encourage men to look at women to sexualise and objectify them? But for women, these same images exist to tell us we're not good enough and sell us shit we don't need - because it's actually culturally acceptable for women to feel anxious about every aspect of their body because we're under the scrutiny that our culture dictates. If our environments were populated with images of handsome, athletic, toned young men not wearing much and doing much in billboard posters that advertise diets and cosmetic surgery for men, or buy this make up, or wear this overpriced brand, or have every hair on your body ripped out by the roots on a regular basis (painkillers recommended) then we'd be living in a very different world. Women could just sit back and enjoy all these fit young men coming into our field of vision everywhere we would go. Could you imagine men's magazines with covers saying things like "7 Days To Lose Your Beer Gut" and "Drop 2 Belt Sizes For Summer"? If you haven't seen it, Killing Us Softly by Jean Kilbourne is worth watching. It looks at how women are used in advertising and how corrosive these messages are.

It's true, we do feel very isolated. There are so few online communities where women can say "my partner is using porn and I'm finding the situation intolerable" because the overwhelming opinion tend to be "get over it" and even worse, some idiot saying "you must be insecure" or whatever. No, I'm fucking fed up with living with some guy who hides away to masturbate to a computer screen and never wants to have sex. That's not normal!! And if you haven't noticed... IT'S NOT SEX!! That's why this place is so valuable. We can tell it like it is. The dumbfuck porn fans who are intent on being the centre of attention have no place here.

I just want you to know that I come to these forums at least twice a day looking for  signs that someone is undermining the partners.  I stay on top of it as much as I can.  If you ever feel something is inappropriate, please pm me or report it.  I feel the SO forum has improved greatly now that I am moderator.  But I know that someone can come along and change all of that.  So please do not feel you cannot post.  And please do not think all the men here are waiting to pounce on what we say.  As I said in another post, I received a lot of support in a primarily men's site.  Did some challenge me?  Yes.  I was actually called a troll when I posted that someone had that "man entitlement" thing going on.  I was not disrespectful in that post.  I just hit a nerve. 

I think to us it is discouraging to see how long it continues or how many relapses occur when we are here reading.  It is hard to remember these are not our husbands and our circumstance and what works for us is just that.  It is ours.  We also see first hand how porn changes a man's thinking and view of his wife family and job.  I have to admit, sometimes it is scary to think my husband actually could think any of those things.  And those are things we can talk about here.  And get support.  This is why this Partner section is so important to us as women and why it is different than the men.  We need to explore our emotions. 

So please stay and I will try to make it as safe as possible.  Welcome back!