"It's all we ever talk about"

maria

Member
That's the comment I got from my PA SO last night.  It has been 30-something days since the 5th time I caught him using porn, and there has been a significant amount of therapy sessions, reading and research that has been done on porn addiction, and YES we have had a lot to talk about, but it infuriates me to hear such a flippant comment. 

Listen, addicts of porn, IF YOU HADN'T MADE THE CHOICE TO CONSTANTLY MASTURBATE AND LOOK AT PORN, and then destroy your partner's self esteem, their sexuality, and their hope for a future, THERE WOULDN'T BE THIS CRAP TO TALK ABOUT.  You have broken our hearts and for many of us, a lot of talking needs to happen to begin the healing process.

So, instead of acting like a martyr, how about giving US some of the patience that YOU have asked for during your reboot. And be realistic.  Step back far enough to see that while there may be quite a bit of discussion happening regarding your porn use, it ISN'T the only thing being talked about.
 

aquarius25

Respected Member
I completely understand what you are saying. My husband has made a few comments like that over the last year. It was really hard to hear and yes, I was completely infuriated for sure, lol. At the same time (and this is just something I had noticed for myself) but we were talking about it quite a bit. Every day in fact. But I didn't feel like it was very much because in my head I was thinking about it about a thousand times more! It was completely consuming me. Every waking hour. I was on the verge of tears all the time. I was depressed. Like really depressed. The other important thing I realized was part of why I kept bringing it up and talking about it was because I had a desire to see him trying. In all honesty, what I was really wanting was for him to bring it up. For him to initiate conversation and show me his effort. But he couldn't do that when I was always bringing it up first.

I am not saying that you are in the same boat, but I would encourage you if you find this is really consuming you to seek some help. It is a lot to process. Support if crucial. This forum has been amazing for me but I was finding that I still wasn't moving forward, instead, I was becoming resentful. I finally joined a group for women and that has been a huge help. The way I see it is porn has already taken so much from me, it does not get to take my mind too.  I really hope that he can see and start to make some big steps toward is a recovery process. That is really one of the best things for both of you. Keep communicating even if it is exhausting, but don't forget to enjoy each other too. The man you love is still in there. Don't loose sight of that.
 
N

Numez

Guest
i think blaming your partner for your self esteem, sexuality and future is funny. try to be little more responsible for your own life.

i see some porn addicts blame their partners for their porn use and its the same thing. he can probably find a way to blame you for his decision to use porn and how much truth is in that.

lots and lots of partners are having a victim mentality, they put blame for their feelings and life on someone who can barely hold their own life together. looks like a good period of life to practice responsibility.


 

Emerald Blue

Well-Known Member
One month in is very, VERY early in recovery, and certainly in terms of the recovery of your relationship as distinct from each of your personal recovery.

I suggest you find support for yourself. Online support is accessible for everyone and forums like this one are free. BUT there is one caveat with looking for info and advice online, and that is exposing yourself to stories, confessions and behaviours that are probably way more extreme than your partner's behaviour. You may actually become anxious about things that didn't happen at all and nobody can prove something that didn't happen. So, just beware of the 'imagination escalation' syndrome because it can bring you down even more.

Finding your own support is probably an essential step in any partner's recovery, so if you are able to have access to counselling or therapy then do so. You need someone to work with YOU on YOUR issues.

I have to take issue with the above post because compulsive porn use by one partner in a relationship will DEFINITELY have an impact on the other's sexuality, self esteem and the future of the relationship, and hence the future lives of the individuals affected.

If someone makes a lifelong or long term commitment where both partners are expected to be exclusive and faithful, but one partner diverts their sexuality away from the relationship and expresses it outside of their partnership, OF COURSE it's going to have a huge impact on the other person. How can it not? I've been through it and I know how it feels. My sexuality actually closed down. The untouched begins to believe they are "untouchable" and eventually the feelings of rejection and sexual apathy will have a significant impact on that person's self esteem.

I was well aware that I could have made the decision to have sexual relationships with other men but I obviously didn't see that as solving anything. It was emotional connection I wanted and needed above all else and having sex with some random guy wouldn't have made me feel better in any way. I was still committed to my relationship. It's not about sex or lack of it, it's not about being attractive or good looking or having someone tell me. It was a very lonely place to be, and also very upsetting to carry the shame of a sexless marriage in my head and in my heart. I told no one.

It's certainly true that relationships which are affected by porn addiction have some pretty serious issues. Most porn addicts have difficulty with intimacy, both emotionally and sexually. Porn is a one-sided relationship with a computer screen. It isn't sex, it's masturbation. There is no other person in the room and done in secret. If that's how someone expresses their sexuality when they are in a relationship and they are choosing porn over sex, then that person has big problems with intimacy.

Maria, in these early months both partners are completely out of sync in their recovery stages. It takes a while for the addict to realise that it's not just about quitting the porn habit, it's about rebuilding the relationship too. Both addict and partner have to heal as individuals too.


 

AnonymousAnnaXO

Active Member
i think blaming your partner for your self esteem, sexuality and future is funny. try to be little more responsible for your own life.

i see some porn addicts blame their partners for their porn use and its the same thing. he can probably find a way to blame you for his decision to use porn and how much truth is in that.

lots and lots of partners are having a victim mentality, they put blame for their feelings and life on someone who can barely hold their own life together. looks like a good period of life to practice responsibility.

I am sorry but some of your posts have been very good and others way off the mark, and I assume it's due to your own recovery stage. Any addict who has been in true recovery for over 6 months with a partner knows where responsibility lies. It's a JOKE to say that we partners play the victim. Is a rapist not to blame for raping someone? No rapists are the perps, and the raped person is the victim, and why is that? Because the victim didn't have a choice, and their choice was taken away and so it affected them detrimentally.

Same thing with addicts, they are the "perps" knowing they are hurting their partners (or they are consciously unaware or could repress that) whereas the partners are the "victims" simply from the lack of choice and knowledge.

I as well as others have PTSD (or PTSD like symptoms) due to our partner's porn addiction. You lack knowledge in psychology. Environment can shape someone in either a positive or negative way. Sure everyone has their genetic predispositions or personal issues, but to say that a partner's porn use has no effect is simply ignorant. I used to be the most sexually confident woman knowing I had amazing sex skills because of past partners who either complimented me or was just shocked at how good I was at things compared to others. I never doubted myself sexually, and then my partner's porn addiction surfaces and I suddenly wonder if I really am as good in bed as I thought. I've worked through that for the most part, but it devastated me for a while.

Now I don't know your personal experience with relationships but I can tell you that my partner knows that the girl he met is not the girl who is with him anymore due to the gaslighting (aka emotional abuse) he put me through. I say to educate yourself go to NoFap because those addicts over there are amazing. They are respectful to partners, they own their actions and the consequences (aka destroying the relationship and the person they claim to love) and they have much more time in recovery.

 

Emerald Blue

Well-Known Member
Anna, you are so right about this "victim" label because porn habits are kept hidden from the partner, and deliberately so. Some addicts go to great lengths to avoid detection, and even if they are found out they still carry on and lie to their partners. So yes, where is the choice? It's entirely the addict's choice and not the partner's.

Now, I appreciate that NN is a single man so he may not fully understand that long term and lifelong committed relationships are immensely complex and are a long way away from the young love boyfriend/girlfriend situations. Our relationships with our partners are more akin to the relationships we have with our birth families rather than our "best friend" relationships of our teens. It's possible to be in a relationship with a porn addict AND have a very good relationship in many other respects. That's why there are many partners on here that have been in such long lasting relationships in spite of the addiction issues.

Here are a few things that feel familiar to partners ?
We can love our partner very much AND hate them for their addict behaviour and its consequences
We can be totally committed to our relationship AND feel that we want to run from it at times
We can have intense sexual desire for our partner AND feel repulsed by them

And you know what? These contradictory and conflicting feelings are perfectly normal during a partner's recovery process. Eventually it begins to even out but along the way, when you've questioned everything you believed in and you've lost faith in your own judgment, of course you're going to experience the full gamut of emotion, the good and the bad.

When it comes to porn addiction in relationships, it's tempting to see everything in terms of porn use and the effects of quitting porn but there comes a point when it must be acknowledged that the porn behaviour very likely masked other problems in the relationship too. Undoubtedly, the porn habit CREATES new problems too, and over time partners adjust consciously or subconsciously, in subtle ways, to the changes in the dynamic of the relationship. The addict will then adapt to this new dynamic, and then the partner readjusts accordingly and this action/reaction cycle continues. It becomes difficult to know what is the problem and what is the adaptive coping strategy if the behaviour has gone on for years, but there is no doubt that any existing problems in the relationship are accommodated by the adaptive processes. When the porn stops.... where do you begin?

One of the original problems in the relationship may have been inadequate communication skills about sexual needs. If one partner develops a porn addiction and hides his behaviour through lying, secrecy, omission etc, then how can the communication problem ever be addressed properly when it's "normal" to lie and pretend nothing is going on? Over time, the addict has become the expert in concealment and deception. Meanwhile the partner has adapted, consciously or subconsciously, and has probably learned that talking about sex is off-limits or that her partner shuts down at the first mention of anything to do with intimacy. It's not only problems to do with sex and intimacy that arise, but all sorts of things including money, work, or friendships. The sex and intimacy are probably all that is affected at first but as the habit progresses, it's the partner who becomes compartmentalised from the rest of the addict's life and not the porn and/or sexual compulsions.

So yes, I agree, there are very likely going to be problems in the relationship which need to be addressed and that both partners need to share that responsibility equally. It's not a case of partners playing the "victim".

 

stillme

Active Member
Nikola Numez said:
i think blaming your partner for your self esteem, sexuality and future is funny. try to be little more responsible for your own life.

i see some porn addicts blame their partners for their porn use and its the same thing. he can probably find a way to blame you for his decision to use porn and how much truth is in that.

lots and lots of partners are having a victim mentality, they put blame for their feelings and life on someone who can barely hold their own life together. looks like a good period of life to practice responsibility.

Way, way, way off the mark with this one. Let me tell you why partners of addicts have a lot of anger and a lot to overcome because of their addict spouse. First, I have yet to hear from one partner where some amount of lies and deception was not involved in their addict partner's use. When someone introduces lying and deception into the relationship it creates a LOT of issues. If you are lying about X are you also lying about Y and Z? If you lied yesterday, how do I know you are telling the truth today? Find out you are in a relationship of any kind with a liar, especially a very good liar, and I guarantee you that it will have a big impact on your day-to-day life. You have to play detective about so many areas and aspects of your life. Secondly, trickle truth. Again, I do not know one addict that came forward with the entire truth of their use day one. As a result, you have no idea what you are going to hear or just how far outside the relationship the person went. Third - escalation. This is aligned with trickle truth. While not all addicts escalate to more fringe content, some act out. Now you have to sit around and try to either wait for full disclosure, play detective, or hope and pray your partner didn't do something stupid like escalate to kiddie porn. You have to hope they weren't getting turned on by rape porn or some other disgusting areas of porn. You have to hope they didn't progress to going to massage parlors and screwing the neighbor trying to recreate some fantasy. It is extremely stressful waiting around to see if another shoe is going to drop (or if your partner is going to get handcuffed because they crossed some crazy line you didn't know about).

The self esteem aspect comes in because PORN ADDICTION IS RIDICULOUS! No really, it is ridiculous. Grown men jacking off to porn like they are a horny teenager - really? Men preferring to jack off in front of the camera than to have sex with a real woman - that is nuts! Jacking off so much they break their dick and can't even get or keep an erection for real sex - CRAZY! So yes, you get a complex trying to figure out if your partner was always  this way or if something changed in the relationship. Because to the logical mind - some grown man sitting in front of the computer rubbing his penis instead of living life in the real world does not compute. So yeah, you kind of get a bit of a complex. It is utterly embarrassing being married to a man that masturbated so much he literally couldn't even get it up anymore. Sex dwindles to nothing in the relationship and yes - you get a complex when you find out your husband was turning you down for sex so that he could rub his own penis while sitting in front of the computer. I am really not understanding how that is hard to get.

As for 'being responsible for our own life' - umm, generally when our partners where in the throws of porn addiction we were responsible for the WHOLE DANM HOUSE. The kids, the responsibilities, the real world - we were keeping that going. Hell, I didn't have time to even focus on myself when I first discovered my husband's porn addiction because he was talking about killing himself! He was so embarrassed and ashamed of just how much he checked out on his responsibilities as a husband and a father he literally wanted to die. Porn messed with his head so much he thought about ending it all. I didn't have time to "be responsible for my own life" because I took my marriage vows seriously and helped my husband get the help he needed to not only dump porn, but to get his head back together and drop that talk of ending it all.

So please, don't come at the partners on this forum with that arrogant mess. We didn't do one damn thing to cause our partners to become porn addicts. Our lives were negatively affected by our partners' porn use and abuse. We get to take all the time we need to heal and it isn't about being a victim, it is about being authentic.

I mean really, how dare you come on this forum and talk bad about partners. Half the folks on this board would feel like fools if we and everyone else in the world went to your journals and laughed at you for getting addicted to jacking off to porn. Look, I don't get it and still don't understand it, but we don't go to your forums and laugh at you all- so have some respect for this forum.
 

maria

Member
Stillme, EmeraldBlue, AnonymousAnnaXo and Aquarius25,  THANK YOU for the empathy and support.  FYI I am and have been in therapy for at least 9 months and am doing all I can.  I can't make the addict stop being one, he has to do it for himself.  I AM working on me. 

Again, THANK YOU to everyone except Nicola for your input. 
 

AnonymousAnnaXO

Active Member
Maria, like you my partner was addicted PRIOR to the relationship he was addicted for 12 years. I also told him PRIOR TO BEING WITH HIM that porn had no place in a relationship with me (due to my anorexia). It's ridiculous for an addict to say the partner is responsible in any way when the addiction was there prior to a relationship, and even when it wasn't, what if the addict was using but not yet addicted fully? It's just stupid.

I am glad to hear that you are taking care of yourself, that's all you can really do. It's true the responsibility is on the addict to get better.
 

maria

Member
AnonymousAnnaXO,

AMEN to what you said.  And I'm sorry to hear about your anorexia.  I am pretty sure I have body dysmorphic disorder and have struggled with anorexia ever since I was about 8 years old.  You're not alone.
 
N

Numez

Guest
wow maria... i love you too

i never said that there are no effects of porn addiction, there are effects of everything. all i wanted to say is for example rape victims start to get better when they start looking at themselves as a survivors not victims. shit already happened, who is responsible now? how rapist have the responsibility for a victims recovery after a rape? are you destined to keep living shitty life and blame your rapist for your shitty life and be a victim forever? thats just that example because someone brought up the rape scenario.

you caught your husband 5 times watching porn... keyword is caught. so he keeps hiding? keeps lying to you? why would you make him responsible for how you feel if he is like that? its not easy to take charge but its very frustrating, totally out of your control and disempowering to make someone who lies to you responsible for big chunk of your life.







 

Emerald Blue

Well-Known Member
Maria, I also found myself with something akin to Body Dysmorphia Disorder at d day. I had no history of eating disorders, I've never had weight issues and I made it well into adult life with a positive body image. Once my husband could watch all the porn he wanted for free, I internalised all those "not good enough" messages.

No one can fully understand how it feels to look in the mirror after 15 years of being neglected in favour of stupid dumb porn videos and feel OK about being that person in the mirror. Because to reject my body is to reject my physical presence on this planet. It tells me I'm not entitled to take up the physical space I occupy. When I told my husband that his behaviour made me feel like 'nothing', that's because he was rejecting my physical existence. In favour of what? Pixels on a screen?

Grown men jacking off to porn like they are a horny teenager - really? Men preferring to jack off in front of the camera than to have sex with a real woman - that is nuts! Jacking off so much they break their dick and can't even get or keep an erection for real sex - CRAZY!

No, I don't get it either. And then there are all the lies and deceptions, and you wonder what is so great about this shit that it's worth protecting.

Sure, there are going to be problems in the relationship. It's inevitable. The biggest barrier to putting things right is the addict's lifelong habit of lying. If you go to couples counselling, it will be a waste of time and money if the addicted partner lies or fails to disclose the important details ? just like my partner did. "I didn't think it was relevant" he said years later. Yet at the time when the counsellor asked about our sex life and questioned the avoidance of intimacy, well.... if you throw porn and strippers into the mix you get an entirely different perspective on avoiding intimacy. So, there was a failed opportunity to flag up the danger signs that his porn habit would escalate. Which it did. These are the consequences of lying. HIS lying.

So who exactly is not taking responsibility for themselves? Trying to get a porn addict to take the responsibility for his lying is practically impossible.

The difficulty the most partners face is that they take on the responsibility for the recovery of the relationship and at the same time recovery as an individual, AND support a recovering addict. In contrast, the addict takes care of himself. The relationship is somehow expected to miraculously heal it self because he quit porn. And just how many of us have felt truly supported by our partners in our own recovery? I've yet to come across a partner who doesn't remark on their spouse's lack of empathy.
 

Emerald Blue

Well-Known Member
Nikola Numez said:
wow maria... i love you too

i never said that there are no effects of porn addiction, there are effects of everything. all i wanted to say is for example rape victims start to get better when they start looking at themselves as a survivors not victims. shit already happened, who is responsible now? how rapist have the responsibility for a victims recovery after a rape? are you destined to keep living shitty life and blame your rapist for your shitty life and be a victim forever? thats just that example because someone brought up the rape scenario.

you caught your husband 5 times watching porn... keyword is caught. so he keeps hiding? keeps lying to you? why would you make him responsible for how you feel if he is like that? its not easy to take charge but its very frustrating, totally out of your control and disempowering to make someone who lies to you responsible for big chunk of your life.

Words fail me. The shallowness of this attitude is astounding.

NN, you're a single man "advising" women in long term relationships without the life experience to qualify it, and now you believe yourself to be able to talk about rape "survivors" as opposed to rape "victims"??!! Sorry, but you ain't got a fucking clue. There are women on this forum who have experienced rape. I experienced a serious sexual assault at the age of 12. These experiences can affect someone's life forever and it has fuck all to do with whether you call yourself a "survivor". The only word I can apply to you is "clueless".

Likewise this stuff about being lied to. Well, you often don't know you're being deceived at the time. You can't spot the difference between a truthful statement and a lie. Not until you have evidence to the contrary and that might even be YEARS later. And some people can give oscar winning performances when they lie. If you didn't know otherwise you'd be convinced too. Every time an addict gets found out, they just get better at hiding the clues. If you get suspicious, they'll go the extra mile to "reassure" i.e. employ more sophisticated deception. And as for your previous "advice" about leaving, we KNOW it's an option. We stay ONLY on the grounds that things change, and change is a slow process. Besides other parts of the relationship may be very positive. So again, your voice of inexperience is just trite.
 

AnonymousAnnaXO

Active Member
wow maria... i love you too

i never said that there are no effects of porn addiction, there are effects of everything. all i wanted to say is for example rape victims start to get better when they start looking at themselves as a survivors not victims. shit already happened, who is responsible now? how rapist have the responsibility for a victims recovery after a rape? are you destined to keep living shitty life and blame your rapist for your shitty life and be a victim forever? thats just that example because someone brought up the rape scenario.

you caught your husband 5 times watching porn... keyword is caught. so he keeps hiding? keeps lying to you? why would you make him responsible for how you feel if he is like that? its not easy to take charge but its very frustrating, totally out of your control and disempowering to make someone who lies to you responsible for big chunk of your life.

Second what Emerald said!

BTW I have survived one sexual assault and 2 rapes. Three different men preyed on me (or should I say immature boys with their actions). I used the rape analogy because as a VICTIM I didn't have a choice that someone VIOLATED my boundaries. I used the analogy because you addicts VIOLATE your partner's BOUNDARIES. That's as far as the metaphor goes.

I can say I'm a survivor, but I am also a victim. I don't want to "sugar coat" someone violating my body for their sick pleasure to get off because they "can't control themselves" with the term "survivor." Let's use the correct terminology here. Rapists are CRIMINALS/PERPETRATORS/PREDATORS and the women they rape are VICTIMS. Seriously. I know I can switch between terms, but seriously, when I say I'm a survivor, I only survived the physical part, not the mental part. I struggle with that, and forever will because some assholes didn't have any respect for women.



We partner's DIDN'T HAVE A CHOICE. We weren't allowed to! I can say that when I found out about my partners addiction, we had just signed a year lease together and got a kitten. I felt TRAPPED because I had NO CHOICE. I wouldn't have signed a lease or gotten a kitten with him at the time had I been aware of HIS DECEPTION. Responsibility lies on him for the fallout.



Here is something to think about NN.

Imagine you fall in love, and I mean truly in love, you love them for every part of them. When you're with them everything seems amazing, and even when you fight you still know you love each other. You are faithful to her in all manners and *know* she is faithful to you. Then a year later, after having a talk about how you feel betrayed about, let's say her getting off to webcam guys and denying you sex, you find she has done it the entire time behind your back with more than 72 guys. You are devestated, thinking "Wait, she refused sex with me for a year to get off with these guys who are toned and physical 'gods'.... shit I am the biggest idiot"

SEriously put yourself in our shoes, show some EMPATHY! Oh wait, you haven't even had a month clean, you still might struggle from selfishness and the inability to empathize with someone. But let's say it was your sister (if you have one) who got cheated on for a year by her fiance. You see her devastated, crying her eyes out, having PTSD symtpoms. Are you going to say, "Stop playing the victim, and get your life together?" Or are you going to say, "How could he do that to you! I understand how hurt you are."

Also, again GO TO NoFap. There are REAL RECOVERING ADDICTS there, and by real, I mean they have made progress, and they are kind to partners. They set a good example. And for your edification, here is a link to my partners success story, and all the addicts who responded to him and my posts saying how amazing I am for staying with him, and seeing that he took responsibility for his actions.
https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/1-year-off-pmo-still-recovering-in-the-relationship.107395/

EDUCATE YOURSELF! Seriously, I dare you to click all the links I posted at the end of the thread to help a man recover the relationship with his wife.
 

aquarius25

Respected Member
Ok, so I am going to play a little devil's advocate here. Please don't hate me, lol. I don't necessarily agree with the statement but I think part of it is true. Whether or not he was intending to say this or not (and it certainly could have been worded better) but...... from today, right now, we partners have a choice.

We choose each day whether we want to keep being the partner of a PA or whether we want to pack up our shit and leave. We have a choice. Yes, there are things that cloud that choice. Depression is a huge one, I experience it for sure! But at the end of the day, I choose to stay. I understand that is my choice. So from today forward, I am responsible for myself, my recovery, and my choice. I am not a victim, I am a warrior, choosing to fight for my marriage. It is not easy. Do I have bad days where I have regrets? Yes.  Do I sometimes loose sight of my choice? Yes. But that doesn't negate the fact that I have that choice. It is easy to loose sight of that when there are things that you didn't choose that are deeply impacting your life. I didn't choose my husband Porn Addiction. I do choose to stay with him and work this out. Sometimes the choice is hard. There were times when leaving felt impossible, but at the end of the day, if I am going to be completely honest, leaving would be extremely hard but it is never impossible. No one is holding a gun to my head and keeping me here. I still have a choice. I might not always like my choices but I still have them. If I don't like them then I need to figure out a way to change that. It is up to me. And each woman here has a choice too. So I don't know if that was the point that the young man was trying to make or not, but that part I can agree with.

 

AnonymousAnnaXO

Active Member
I can agree with that, we have a choice once all the dust settles per se. But the initial D-day and shock and all that, we don't have our head on straight due to the shock and trauma of the discovery and Maria is brand new to this, and she is going through that stage, it seems, from what she has described.

I can honestly say at a month past d-day I still was devastated and depressed and couldn't think straight because I was still trying to figure out what is reality and what isn't, and I needed to know what reality was before I made a choice of whether to stay or not.
 

Taffer

Member
Lol at the repeated suggestion rape is a female only victim club. I've been raped by a female perpetrator. Even if I hadn't been raped, I'd still see that Numez has valid points. Once the female hive mind has become offended it doesn't matter what you say, being "insensitive" is a greater transgression than being incorrect.
 

aquarius25

Respected Member
Anna, yes you are right. A month after D-day is a pretty overwhelming place. That is why understanding, education, and self-awareness (knowing who you are and what your options are) is more important than ever. It is hard to do, I certainly didn't do a great job, but I can see now how that would have benefited me more then.

Taffer, your response isn't kind.
 

Taffer

Member
aquarius25 said:
Taffer, your response isn't kind.

Probably not, but Numez never intended to be unkind, either here or in the porn addiction section, didn't stop partners from throwing it back in his face with a sh!tstorm of unwarranted insults. In other words "bite me", although you seem to be a voice of reason, so congrats on that ;)
 

stillme

Active Member
Sorry, I don't agree. Trauma is - traumatic. No one, absolutely no one, gets to dictate how a victim of trauma deals with that trauma. Just because one person was able to 'move on' from their traumatic event relatively quickly (or not) does not mean that a different person is someone moving too slow, dwelling too long, or healing the 'wrong way'. Every person is unique, every experience is unique.

The other issue is that, we are dealing with porn addicts here, the key word being 'addicts'. If you want to be able to use the word 'addict' when it comes to relapsing or the hardness of getting over porn, then you have to be willing to accept the other aspects the come with addiction. Addiction behavior almost always comes with gas lighting, projecting, and blame shifting. A recovering addict that accepted the trauma he or she caused their partner would never, ever insinuate that issue is being talked about too much. The partner might have legitimate questions. Guess what - if the questions keep coming up that is because the issue is not resolved in the mind of the partner. Sometimes a recovering addict might have to answer the same question 100 different times, so what - deal with it. That is a direct result of the lying and deception that comes right along with the addiction. If you have lied to someone once, twice, and more likely a hundred different times, how arrogant to believe that you word alone is enough.

If the partner is still wanting to talk about it, they are still processing aspects of it and that is their right. A recovering addict cannot say they care about the relationship or the partner, then try to rush the partner along in their healing.

As for other partners, we don't know someone else's situation. I am NEVER going to tell a partner to 'move on' or they are dwelling too much or they need to just focus on themselves. Guess why? Because I got burned BIG TIME from that. My gut was saying there is more, there is more, there is more. It was five months after d-day that I found out my husband had gone to a massage parlor and had a hand and blow job from a prostitute. Guess what? That means that he and I both had to be tested for STDs/STIs. Thankfully the tests came back negative for both, but my gut was telling me there was more. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't like having my health and safety put in jeopardy and all those folks saying "move on" or "you are sulking too much" or "you need to focus on your own life" didn't have squat to say when I came back and said my husband admitting to physically acting out. Because yes, if your partner has had sex with another person (even with a condom) they have potentially put your own health and safety at risk. So, if the partner still has questions and they are still needing to dwell on the topic and they are still needing to talk to their porn addicted spouse - there is probably something to that gut feeling.

Hey, if your porn addicted spouse has had a full therapeutic disclosure with a polygraph AND has had a full medical workup and has turned over all devices and you know for a 100% guaranteed fact they you know everything - thing I would say - yeah, you can move on. How many folks here have had all of those things?

We, as partners, are being asked to trust people that died, deceived, betrayed for significant amounts of time - sometimes years or decades. That is not something to be taken lightly. If part of one person's healing is that they need to talk about things often - their partner should be willing to let that happen.

It is an absolute red flag for me if a porn addict in recovery is trying to shut down conversation.

If someone 'got over' their trauma within a few months or a year - congratulations. But, it is never okay to try to dictate someone else's recovery.
 
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