Cheap Forgiveness versus True Forgiveness

[stillme]

I read a lot of resources on trust building and forgiveness and one of the most eye opening was on the concept of 'cheap forgiveness'. It happens when the emphasis is placed on the person wronged to forgive quickly because they 'love' the person and what matters is love. The big thing with cheap forgiveness is that is stunts the growth of both individuals. Waiting for authentic forgiveness is not punishment and it doesn't mean forgiveness will never come, it also doesn't mean that trust will never come. However, when the message is, love means I have to swallow my hurt and my pain and not stand up for my own emotional and mental health and wellness by waiting until I see CONSISTENT change and growth, it devalues both people in the situation.

First, it devalues the person that was wronged, by saying their pain and their suffering is a secondary need to an intact relationship. It says they must simply accept or demean and lower themselves and their needs for the sake of the relationship unit. It also devalues the person who did the wrong, saying it is believed that they are actually incapable of appropriate growth. Some people go for acceptance, however - this technically should be utilized when there is no opportunity for true forgiveness. Basically, when the person who wronged you has died before they could appropriately make amends or they refuse to make amends. How healthy could a continued relationship be when the wronged party simply comes to accept they were wronged and will never received the reciprocal nature of true forgiveness.

I really like these short articles on the differences:

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/relationships/2012/04/four-approaches-forgiveness-ranging-from-cheap-to-genuine/

http://www.affairhealing.com/fake-forgiveness.html

http://www.affairhealing.com/premature-forgiveness.html

On the topic, I highly recommend the book, "How Can I Forgive You?: The Courage to Forgive, the Freedom Not to.
This book was really good in showing me that rushing into forgiveness to try to move things along and get 'back to normal' was actually damaging any opportunity for true restoration of the relationship. In taking my time, it is helping both my husband and I grow.

It was just recently that my husband said, "I am finally starting to get what it is like to be going through what you are going through." I asked him to explain and he finally started to be able to distinguish between the various emotions - what hurt, versus what caused anger, versus what caused embarrassment. That wouldn't have come if I didn't allow myself to be honest, if I rushed myself through the process, if I sat my needs aside and just opened my arms and said, "All is well!" No matter what happens in our relationship (we are just over seven months, no big decisions for a year), watching my husband figure out the layers of what he did has been good. Even if we aren't together in the future, him really understanding hurt and pain will help him relate better the children, and you know what - if things don't work out with us I hope he finds love again, and knowing and understanding true feelings will help in that.

When we say the words, "porn addiction", it doesn't quite get to what happens when there is a partner involved. It wasn't just watching and masturbating to porn (and in my husband's case - going to a massage parlor once). It was the denial of true intimacy, spending time away from being emotionally attached in the marriage, lying, hiding, spending household funds for videos or chat sessions, saying one thing and doing another.

We are finally getting to the deep hurts, those things that are truly hard to talk about. Like how hard it is to come to terms with the fact that my husband could look me in the eye and tell a lie. Like reading through letters my husband wrote me - where he said he understood he had been selfish in the past, but he would do better and I was the most beautiful, most intelligent, most kind, and loving woman and he would do everything he could to the best husband - and then two weeks later was when he went to a massage parlor and got a blow job. Yeah, he wrote a note that absolutely touched my soul and restored my faith in him, and he was still knee deep in porn (this was all before my discovery). We are getting to the nitty, gritty, ugly things that caused the wounds. Yeah, it was pretty easy to forgive ogling naked ladies, but this part - the lying, the deception, the intentional emotional manipulation just to get me off his trail - that deserves all the time it takes to get to true forgiveness, or not.

[Kimba]

Thank you for the links - it could possibly give me strength to stay, I need to seek the genuine not the cheap ...

[Emerald Blue]

I have found forgiveness to be a long and complicated process. I wanted to forgive early on it was difficult because there are so many aspects to going through what we've been through that it's nowhere as straightforward as I imagined. In fact, this level of forgiveness is something I had not experienced

I read the articles and I found the section on acceptance very relevant, and probably a necessary step before true forgiveness is possible. It's also true that it's a two-way process - didn't see forgiveness in that way before – and it's far easier to forgive when you know the other person is genuinely sorry. They have to earn forgiveness in the same way that they have to earn trust. In my husband's case, I had the impression that I was under some sort of obligation to forgive and trust him again just because he owned up and quit. He said he wanted to move on and put it all in the past which also meant he didn't want me to talk about it or even ask questions. That didn't seem right to me because I was still in the dark about the reality of his behavior, so how can you forgive what you don't know or haven't even begun to understand?

It's impossible to forgive if you don't know what you are forgiving. I can only truly forgive the things I already know. I can't forgive what I don't know. I think my husband thought forgiveness was a one-time blanket pardon, that he would be absolved for all his wrongdoings including what he didn't admit. And besides, anything he has concealed is an ongoing lie, so how can you forgive what someone doesn't want you to know AND remains a lie of omission.

Acceptance is an a valuable way to make peace with oneself. I know I am living with a lot of acceptance because although I believe I know most of it, I actually think there was more going on than he admits to. The unknowns may well be comparative minor (or there may be a huge bombshell I have so far been spared) but if these transgressions exist then they will remain unforgiven. As I said, there is no blanket forgiveness but I can accept that there are unknowns and from there I can rebuild my life. Acceptance does have a sort of "forgiveness on hold" feeling to it. I feels almost like advance forgiveness, like  the groundwork done in preparation for future forgiveness, should anything else come to light.

The viewing of porn and masturbation was the easiest to forgive. Most of the lies told to cover up the extent of the porn/masturbation are forgiven. The visits to the strip bars that he has admitted to are forgiven, but if there were more visits and if it all took place prior to d day, that's one of those situations where acceptance would allow me to forgive more easily. But if he had been paying for private dances, even if it was before d day, then his lying would be a more serious breach of trust because I did ask him outright. It would also be another addiction-related behavior that I'd have to get my head around.

The biggest betrayal for me, as it is for all of us, is whether he went as far as to act out in the real world. We all know how it goes. They get into porn and then they choose porn over us. They effectively check out of the sexual side of the relationship and then somehow believe we're the ones who were unavailable – even when they turn us down. When sex happens it's so rare, you'd think they'd be desperate for it and yet they're so blasé. When we try our seduction techniques we get a lukewarm response that ends in ED. So it's back to porn because they're not getting enough and they can't raise any interest in us anyway. Sexless marriage to an ice maiden wife – what a convenient excuse! And is masturbating to porn all they're going to get? With all these opportunities out there? Is their moral compass going to say "infidelity is bad, don't do it, think of your wife and how she's going to feel?" Or is it "my sexless marriage, my wife is never interested, and I can't even get hard with her anyway. I haven't had sex in I don't know how long. If I had the chance, what is there to lose? She doesn't need to know." Etc etc. To me, that's going way too far. I asked him about it. He has denied any infidelity but then when I did ask him outright some months before d day he did everything to avoid answering my 'yes or no' question with a straight answer. Perhaps I might be better not knowing. I have thought about this. The only way I can ever find out is if he tells me. The real issue I have is do I take his denial at face value because I ACCEPT it's the only answer he'll ever give me. It could be true. It could be false. So I remain in the "acceptance" zone with this one.

I used to believe he'd never pay for sex but  1 in 10 men have done so, and we're dealing with men who are porn addicts - and we know that porn addiction is part of the spectrum of sex addiction. We know they can detach themselves from emotional intimacy, or have become detached. We've all felt the distance in our relationships as the addiction progressed. We've also been lied to, barefaced lies and lies of omission. So after all I've been through and all I've learned about porn addiction, nothing is off limits. I've had to think the unthinkable. I've had to consider affairs. I've had to consider sex workers. I've had to consider casual encounters. Sometimes it drives me crazy. Sometimes I don't know if it's just my imagination creating a monster that torments me unnecessarily. Acceptance is all I can do otherwise I'm stuck with the phantoms in my mind.

[stillme]

Emerald Blue,

Believe me, I understand. When my husband finally admitted going to a 'massage' parlor, I could hardly believe. Even with that, it was trickle truth. First it was just getting a hand job (which would have been bad), then he finally admitted to the blow job. A polygraph confirmed it was a blow job and he only did it once. I will say, it was almost impossible for me to believe. No one that knows my husband would ever in a million years think he was capable of such a thing. He is the nicest, most kind, most gentle person I ever met, I can't believe he had it in him to do. Even after finding out months ago, I am still trying to come to terms with it, but I needed to know.

According to my husband, he started feeling an overwhelming need to experience what he was seeing on the screen. The massage parlor seemed 'safe'. There is a website that pops up on a number of porn sites that you can type in where you can get these 'happy ending' massages all over the world, I guess so guys won't be 'embarrassed' if they end up in a place that doesn't do them. In the U.S., prostitution is illegal, so it was again important to go to the 'right' place.

My husband also admits that had I not confronted him when I did, he may have acted out more. He was feeling overwhelming urges to to experience what he was seeing - he admits to visiting adult 'hook up' websites. Thankfully the polygraph confirmed he created a profile and web chatted, but never arranged to meet anyone and never followed through. But, the idea that he very well may have if I hadn't found evidence to confront him when I did - wow.

It is hard because this is NOT the man I married. The man I married would never, ever do such things. This isn't ignorance or being naive, he really wasn't that types of guy. For instance, although neither of us were virgins, we decided to wait until our wedding night to have sex. He would help anyone, a gentle and kind father, always looking out for his parents, just doing the right things. He wasn't even a porn watcher when we got married, although he had seen it before and had watched it in college and had Playboy magazines. He thought he grew out of that stuff. Apparently, seeing a story about a naked celebrity and clicking to find the picture is what opened the door to porn addiction for him. The first few years it was just videos, then he found web chat rooms and that is pretty much what led him down the road to all out addiction. At first he says he would just go in the rooms and watch as the other guys interacted with requests. Then he got up the nerve to start chatting and got enamored with being the 'chosen one' when the webcam girls would pay attention to his chats even though other people were in the chat room. It made him feel big and important and then fantasy could start becoming 'reality' because you could ask the girls to do something and they would if you gave them enough tokens or sent them a gift. Your very own custom made porn - he was hooked. He progressed to private chat sessions and had a favorite cam girl that I would 100% classify as an emotional affair. He admits that he had feelings for her and thought she had feelings for him - but not realizes when you are willing to pay $100 a session for someone to cam to cam so you both can masturbate - that isn't 'feelings', that is finding a fool. I could not believe my amazingly intelligent husband (multiple degrees, great job with lots of responsibility) feel for the scam. I asked one time what even happened during the sessions and he said after he would climax (to his own masturbating) she would be climaxing at the same time (how convenient) and tell him how good he was and how wonderful it felt and how awesome he was. He feel for it all. There was also snap chatting (guys pay for the web cam girl to follow on snap chat) and he paid for a telephone number (no talking, the woman would text, mainly when she put up a new video for guys to purchase). When the webcam girl he was having a one way emotional affair with ghosted (they change their user names often and start over in a different forum or just leave porn), he was hurt. Yes, he really thought there was 'something' between them and he started trying to find his next great web cam love. When he couldn't find the 'right' one, he started to see porn where normal guys got to have these fantasy experiences. Hey, Mr. Average Joe can find someone that it make everything you see on camera happen just for you! By the time is stumbled upon to that world, his mind was porn mush. I didn't have a clue what was going on until he started down this path. I had some hints - a sexless marriage being the number one hint. The other hint was him staying up late, well after the kids and I were in bed. I would even ask him to come to bed with me and he would make all kinds of excuses. But, when he turned the corner into wanting to have those porn experiences he saw online for himself, he changed. One big change was actually a change in his underwear of all things - he decides to start wearing 'sexy' underwear in his forties? Really? That was because he was taking pictures of himself and sending it to webcam girls to get them to send him pictures (through snapchat, so I never saw the pictures). But, really his personality changed. He never started being mean or unkind, just - gone. Emotionally, there was just nothing between us. He seemed focused on something or like his mind was elsewhere. I knew something was really, really wrong. I actually contacted a private investigator, but decided to try and search for myself before I hired someone. I wanted to confront my husband with proof. I was sure he was either gay, having an affair, or both.

I say all this because I want to show the progression. Porn is like a cancer, it grows silently and the person doesn't even realize what is happening. I can honestly say that my husband wasn't in his right mind by the time he acted out. However, that doesn't excuse it or minimize the pain in any way whatsoever. If fact, it infuriates me even more, because I reached out to him before he took the plunge off the cliff. I asked for a timeline and I could trace back that every time he took another step deeper - I felt it. I would write him letters and emails saying that I could feel something wasn't right, but I was here for him and if there was something happening between us we could go to counseling and if he was just going through something he could talk to me or get counseling himself. These were so heartfelt, so gentle, absolutely no judgement whatsoever. He rejected every one, usually by writing me a loving note saying how he had just been tired or unfocused, but I was the love of his life, his one and only, how I was the most beautiful and wonderful woman in the world and he would do better as a husband because I deserved better. His responses were beautiful - and all lies. He was trying to get me off of his trail because he enjoyed porn, he wanted to keep porn. He knew if I found out what was happening he would have to give it up, so he did whatever he felt he had to to calm down my fears and have my second guessing my intuition. The only thing that shock him out of porn was d-day. That letter was different because I had found porn as well as pictures of a woman who was fully clothed. I thought it was someone he was having a real life affair with. Nope, it was a porn girl who sent him that picture as a 'thank you' for saying Happy New Year (since he only said it with no money attached, he got a boring picture, if he would have sent money he would have gotten a naked picture). But, he still kept that picture. My letter, probably ten written pages, front and back, was still kind and gentle, but also let him know I was filing for divorce. He knew I was serious and that is what snapped him out. He admitted to porn use and sexting. The rest came with trickle truth and finally a polygraph disclosure session. From him first looking at those celebrity photos to d-day was just over five years. So, he went down hill relatively fast.

But, I know it all, including just how sick in the head my husband became. My biggest obstacle to overcome isn't anger, it is fear. Relapse is not an option. Even though my husband says a condom was used during his blow job session, he still endangered my life. Anyone willing to have sexually contact with a stranger isn't the brightest bulb in the pack, meaning the risk of a sexually transmitted infection is very high in that world. I could have punched my husband when I found out he had any contact outside our marriage, because it could have potentially exposed me to something. I was faithful and now I had to go get tested for a sexually transmitted disease. I made him get tested as well and thankfully we were both negative for anything. The risk of contacting something from a blow job is small, but that risk isn't zero. Prostitution is illegal here, if the massage parlor would have been raided while my husband was there - he would have been arrested. That would have cost him his job, I would have had to come bail him out of jail in another state (he went out of town to partake), and who knows how much it would have cost in legal fees. We have children, they may have had to endure teasing and taunting about their father getting arrested for being in a prostitute (if he would have gotten arrested, arrest records are public here).  Massage parlors are filled with trafficked women, sex slaves. My husband swears he didn't know it at the time, but when I sat him down and showed him the statistics and he did research for himself, he got physically ill. The chances of the worker that gave him a blow job being an unwilling sex slave that was captured and drug or lured here for with a promise of legitimate work, only to have her identification stolen and her being threatened with her very life if she doesn't suck every penis that comes through the door is very high. The chances are, he was an active (albeit ignorant at the time) participant in slavery.

For all intents and purposes, he has been scared straight. No relapses, he is in counseling and doesn't have any plans of ending that soon, he is working hard to make positive changes in his life, but I am still scared out of my mind. I don't feel safe with him. Not that I think he would ever do something intentionally to harm me, but because he went down a very dark road that I never, ever thought was possible with him. Before d-day, if someone had told me that my husband did the things he did, I would have called them a liar and laughed in their face. Okay, maybe he watched a little porn, but no way on earth would he act out sexually. Nope, I was wrong and that scares me to death. How could I be so wrong about my husband. How could I live in the same house with him and have no idea he was leading a double life. And, when I confronted him, he wasn't at rock bottom yet. I hadn't gone as low as he could have - I forced his hand to rock bottom, because he admits he probably would have acted out more. Porn consumed him, wanting fantasy to become reality consumed him. My gentle, kind, loving, wonderful husband, who was shy and sweet and polite and giving turned into something and someone I hardly notice. Even in his acting out, you could still see there were pieces of the old guy in there. A 'happy ending' should cost $20, he paid $200 - because he had no idea how they worked. He was just as horrified at what he became.

Believe me, I give my husband all the credit in the world for the changes he has made so far. He has come a long way and is fighting his way back to the man he was, the man he wants to be. But, I can't shake the fear. It is at times, overwhelming. This man could look me in the eyes - and lie. He could manipulate me by telling me just what I wanted to hear, knowing he was doing it to manipulate me so I wouldn't find out about his beloved porn sessions and take away his 'fun time'. He could crawl back in bed with me as if nothing happened when he has just had a sexting session with a webcam prostitute - spending household funds to jack off while I saw there denied sex for months and sometimes even years at a time. He came home after getting a blow job - and never said a word. What hurt worse is that blow job session took place two weeks after my birthday, where he had written me the most beautiful note pledging me his love and dedication, saying he knew he had been acting selfish lately but that was going to change. Here is was on cloud nine thinking I was finally going to have the loving husband back, and just two weeks later he was physically acting out with a prostitute. How do you relax in the arms of a man that could lie to you so easily? How do you open yourself up and be vulnerable again with a man that hurt your and violated your trust in the most horrible of ways? He desperately wants forgiveness, he desperately wants to start over. But, I know my heart and my soul and my mind - I could not take another blow like this. Opening back up to him means opening myself back up, he dropped my heart once, I don't know that I can risk it to him again.

[Kimba]

Yes I agree it's definitely a gradual decline into the world of porn and lying. When I first found out about any of it, it was prob bout 3 years in to our relationship and it was a porn video on the laptop which he got rid of said yep never again blah blah, I thought yeah ok no problem, next encounter with porn was about 1 year later and it was on the PlayStation 3 web in history, it was playboy porn movie two Perfect blonde bombshells together, ok gutted devastated, talked all night cried all that stuff, summed it up with me or porn, ok no brainer choose me ummmm well that's what ol muggens me thought! Roll on we shifted state here in Aus and I New something was up but I had frozen shoulder a bad back from shifting menopause so I was busy trying to get myself right but around  march 2015 I found cookies on the work computer, I checked the site ok a lot of home made looking porn etc so I cleared it and thought I'll just watch and get some concrete proof, of course before that he was on Facebook stalking every half naked chick. Roll onto 2016 sept completely caught out, deer in the headlights or so u would think but nup, deny deny deny, this time the Porn heavier and Cam girls which last night when we had another big talk he insinuated that the iPad was left around and was probably my son. I asked him for disclosure or what's been going on for the sake of our relationship, still ducked and weaved. Just a question, when I asked how often he was watching porn etc he said he can't remember, I asked was it weekly monthly but said he never kept track, what's ur interpretation of that, I would think u would have a rough idea wouldn't u? I asked if he had watched at home he said no, so i am going to go through the home computer and see if I can find anything, is there any sort of windows based program that helps find that sort of crap or should I send to a comp expert and bare all ??  I am going to go to councelling as well, I'm suspecting he is showing narcissistic behavior and pathological liar, he said he will do councelling too. He has also called in to questions that I am controlling and to me he is again sidestepping his responsibility in all this by accusing me, does that sound like someone apologetic or really getting where I am coming from. Anyway I feel no better after our conversation so sometimes it takes him a few days to digest, I am hoping. 

[stillme]

Yes I agree it's definitely a gradual decline into the world of porn and lying. When I first found out about any of it, it was prob bout 3 years in to our relationship and it was a porn video on the laptop which he got rid of said yep never again blah blah, I thought yeah ok no problem, next encounter with porn was about 1 year later and it was on the PlayStation 3 web in history, it was playboy porn movie two Perfect blonde bombshells together, ok gutted devastated, talked all night cried all that stuff, summed it up with me or porn, ok no brainer choose me ummmm well that's what ol muggens me thought! Roll on we shifted state here in Aus and I New something was up but I had frozen shoulder a bad back from shifting menopause so I was busy trying to get myself right but around  march 2015 I found cookies on the work computer, I checked the site ok a lot of home made looking porn etc so I cleared it and thought I'll just watch and get some concrete proof, of course before that he was on Facebook stalking every half naked chick. Roll onto 2016 sept completely caught out, deer in the headlights or so u would think but nup, deny deny deny, this time the Porn heavier and Cam girls which last night when we had another big talk he insinuated that the iPad was left around and was probably my son. I asked him for disclosure or what's been going on for the sake of our relationship, still ducked and weaved. Just a question, when I asked how often he was watching porn etc he said he can't remember, I asked was it weekly monthly but said he never kept track, what's ur interpretation of that, I would think u would have a rough idea wouldn't u? I asked if he had watched at home he said no, so i am going to go through the home computer and see if I can find anything, is there any sort of windows based program that helps find that sort of crap or should I send to a comp expert and bare all ??  I am going to go to councelling as well, I'm suspecting he is showing narcissistic behavior and pathological liar, he said he will do councelling too. He has also called in to questions that I am controlling and to me he is again sidestepping his responsibility in all this by accusing me, does that sound like someone apologetic or really getting where I am coming from. Anyway I feel no better after our conversation so sometimes it takes him a few days to digest, I am hoping.

Kimba,

What you are describing is the behavior of someone with an addiction, who is heavily involved in the addiction and not yet at the place where they want to stop. Remember that porn addiction manifests itself similar to other types of addiction. So, lying, gas lighting, blame shifting are all normal elements of porn addiction. He is going to continue to do all of those things until he is ready to stop. The thing is, you can't make him stop. You found it in the past, asked him to stop, and he didn't. Deciding to give up porn has to be his decision, mainly because it is so hard to actually do.

According to my counselor and everything I have read, narcissistic tendencies is common with people that get addicted to porn, they are NOT usually full blown narcissists, but they have tendencies. As a result, you must protect yourself in conversation to avoid being gas lighted (where things are turned back on you and it is insinuated that you are crazy, your memory is bad, you are making things up, or you are even the one with the problem). Gas lighting can REALLY mess with your head.

I don't know what might bring your partner to the point of deciding for himself he is ready to quit, everyone has their own 'rock bottom' moment. For my husband, it was when I told him I was filing for divorce. He knew that I was serious (very serious), so he saw that jacking off to porn was really about to cost him his wife and children. He realized he wasn't going to be able to hide it, so it really was me and the kids or porn.

Definitely get counseling for yourself if available. Whether or not he decides to quit porn now, you deserve to still get healing from what you are going through. Try to find someone who understands what partners of porn addicts go through and counsels from a trauma perspective rather than a co-depenency perspective. They can be hard to find, I work with my counselor via Skype because she isn't local. I figured that was better than sitting in someone's office who didn't understand my situation and would end up making me feel worse.

Hugs to you, this is hard.

[Emerald Blue]

Kimba, definitely similarities with how things were in the early days of my partner's addiction. As stillme says, he has to make that decision for himself. You can't really fast track an addict into the decision to quit, otherwise they'll just go through the pretence of swearing off porn but will still carry on and hide it better.

There is such a thing as file recovery software but it can be a bit hit and miss in what it recovers. The trouble with finding evidence is that most porn is streaming video so it doesn't need to be downloaded. Incognito browsing takes care of tell tale traces of internet history. My advice would be to go through any external storage devices, like portable hard drives, backup drives, USB memory sticks and even digital camera memory cards like SD cards. He might think hiding the files on a card he can sneakily keep in his camera is a smart way to protect his stash, if he has one. Same goes for any memory cards that can be used with a mobile phone.

This kind of near forensic investigation is very time consuming and frustrating with someone who is very careful about being found out, but it's an invaluable learning experience.

A word about filters. I used the service from my internet provider which is effective in blocking porn sites by default. However, my partner got round this easily by using free online proxy servers. He could still get to all the porn he wanted, it just took one or two more steps to get to. I thought I had effective filters in place but no, he took no time in getting past the filters.

The internet provider I use has the controls switched on by default and they made it so you have to switch them off via the account's control panel. Now, the account is in my name but when I found some of his internet history which he wasn't thorough about deleting, he had been able to access a porn site without any filters to block it out. I tried to recreate the same cookies and browsing history, and the only way I could do it was to deactivate the filters. So.... needless to say I changed the password, and several times since, to ensure he can't guess the pw and go into the account settings and change them.

Years of living with his habit took its toll on my emotional and one day I just broke down. My subconsciously mind, and my body to some extent, had kicked in with its own numbing and dampening down my feelings. I had been in denial for so long. I knew that if it carried on it would lead to some kind of catastrophe in my relationship. I had already felt it. My gut was telling me "everything is NOT fine" and I suspected an escalation or development had taken place or was about to. I had to reach rock bottom, and that's when he quit. The thing is, he had reached the stage when he wanted to be free of it. He needed a reason to quit and his habit had to be out in the open.

I believe I paid a price that was too high just so he could watch some shit on a screen and masturbate along with it. I inadvertently became the 'enabler' because I didn't do anything after all my previous attempts had failed. So I would say, do everything in your power to put a stop to it. It is a toxic poison and it is very corrosive.

[Kimba]

HI everyone, thanks for your feedback, we had another big talk, I was done and he opened up a bit more stating he finds it very uncomfortable to be emotional and talk about feelings, he has had a bit of a dysfunctional childhood plus the only boy with 5 sisters, not sure if that pays a part but he closes up when we start trying to talk about emotions and love and honesty.  Its like he has always gotten away with lies and lying so it has always worked for him, I said I let it go in the past but I am making a stand and wont tolerate any more lying.  Which is easier said than done, anyway he still empahtically swears he is not looking at porn and I have to take that.  I will go and talk to someone about this all and start like you say, work on me and get me happy secure in myself again.  I am still considering a lie detector test, but down the track a bit, Stillme what type of questions did you ask, I dont expect them all just the ones that seemed crucial to u at the time.  JKS as far as saying my son, he has since moved out, he's 20 so not a child, but I am still going to lock down the internet at home.     EB yeah we have some real similarities I just hope he isn't saying one thing to my face but continueing on, when I asked him about why he thought he could get away with it forever and that he got sloppy he said he got complacent, that word has disturbed me since he said it.  Anyway I am trying hard to move past it, he has not asked for forgiveness so thats another story for another day.  He did say some stuff which was enlightning.  Thanks  again  guys appreciated it xx

[stillme]

HI everyone, thanks for your feedback, we had another big talk, I was done and he opened up a bit more stating he finds it very uncomfortable to be emotional and talk about feelings, he has had a bit of a dysfunctional childhood plus the only boy with 5 sisters, not sure if that pays a part but he closes up when we start trying to talk about emotions and love and honesty.  Its like he has always gotten away with lies and lying so it has always worked for him, I said I let it go in the past but I am making a stand and wont tolerate any more lying.  Which is easier said than done, anyway he still empahtically swears he is not looking at porn and I have to take that.  I will go and talk to someone about this all and start like you say, work on me and get me happy secure in myself again.  I am still considering a lie detector test, but down the track a bit, Stillme what type of questions did you ask, I dont expect them all just the ones that seemed crucial to u at the time.  JKS as far as saying my son, he has since moved out, he's 20 so not a child, but I am still going to lock down the internet at home.     EB yeah we have some real similarities I just hope he isn't saying one thing to my face but continueing on, when I asked him about why he thought he could get away with it forever and that he got sloppy he said he got complacent, that word has disturbed me since he said it.  Anyway I am trying hard to move past it, he has not asked for forgiveness so thats another story for another day.  He did say some stuff which was enlightning.  Thanks  again  guys appreciated it xx

We did a therapeutic disclosure session. Basically, he wrote a letter detailing all of his sexual encounters, with details on the porn. I then had five additional questions I asked. One was when was the last time he looked at porn, specific details on any acting out, number of sexual partners before marriage, and if he had any sexual contact with anyone in the real world besides the one massage since we had been married. Also got details on how much money he had spent on porn.

His therapist and my therapist were both present during the disclosure session and the polygraph was someone who works with these type of disclosures (as opposed to criminal cases).

[Kimba]

Thanks Stillme