"It's all we ever talk about"

[aquarius25]

I am not sure where I have stated how someone should do their recovery. I don't think I have ever started that someone is doing recovery "wrong". I don't really see that anywhere. I did encourage educating, seeking support, and knowing who you are and that you have a choice. I never told anyone what to do. Trauma is traumatic, which is why it is more important than ever to equip yourself with all of the knowledge and support you can. It is also important to start trying to grapple (to the best of your ability) with boundaries. I really believe that this is something all people should do in every relationship, porn addiction aside. Boundaries are healthy, knowledge is healthy, support for life, in general, is healthy. Each day we do not leave is a day we choose to stay. That is the truth. Each person is different and on their own path to recovery. I am not telling anyone how they should do it or when it needs to be done. I am merely trying to offer support and encouragement. I found it very empowering and healing to realize that I have a choice, that I am not stuck, and that it is ok to leave if I want to.  I thought sharing that with someone else would be helpful.

Sorry to offend.

[Numez]

maybe we describe responsibility different.

im responsible for my addiction, its only me and nothing and nobody else. being responsible only means im not blaming nothing else on my relapse. i still want to kill myself sometimes, especially after i relapse but im not blaming stress or friend or anything on it. if i blame anything else, what hope i have to change for the better? taking responsibility actually may feel worse than blaming world or others but its the only way to solve the problem. taking responsibility is not moving on in the sense of not giving a damn about your partner or not experiencing bad effects of whatever is bothering you. taking responsibility is merely taking a charge and being able to change the life circumstances for the better instead of just depending on someone else to change in order for you to change.

i said that, in my own mind, leaving would be the solution but everyone is different, thats why i promote responsibility instead of specific way of dealing with it. when you take back your seat, you will see what is the right for you to do in your situation, but only when you take back your seat... taking back what is yours is all im talking about. all that ignoring the problem and effortlessly moving on is not what i mean by responsibility.

[Emerald Blue]

NN, I doubt very many partners on this section expect their porn addicted spouses to "make them happy". We've mostly been in our relationships for many years. As a couple, we've shared our big life events, the good and the bad. We've seen each other at our best and our worst. We've shared the happiest days of our lives and the deepest sorrows. And none of these experiences that come to mind have nothing to do with porn. We are committed to our relationships because these are part of the foundations of our lives. We draw upon our relationships to give us strength when we need it and give strength to others. That's why our relationships are worth caring about.

The difficulty with porn addiction or any kind of betrayal trauma is that the one who was once the source of strength and support in our lives becomes the source of our pain. Yet we know from experience of negative life events that we can very probably survive this too, but it's not easy because neither partner can turn to the source of their pain and realistically expect safety and reassurance. Hence the wildly conflicting emotions throughout recovery, especially in the early stages i.e. the first year.

Regarding trauma, it's not the porn per se, it's the deception that was used to protect and perpetuate the habit and the withdrawal from sexual and emotional intimacy. In effect, the addict rejects the partner in favour of the artificial high. The sexual relationship sustains the very close bond of a committed relationship, and in time, the behaviour of the addict will start to erode one of the very important foundations of the relationship.

The trauma for me was the discovery that he was addicted to this shit and it had altered his sexual template. That this shit was everywhere, on all his devices, on his phone. And then I found out about him going to strip bars which I had no fucking idea about. So I was like "who the fuck is this guy?" And the worst part of it was until all this online porn shit started, we had an incredible and beautiful sex life. And he gave it up to wank to a computer screen? Even he can't believe he actually did that. The sexual aspect of our relationship was probably the easiest part of recovery but the emotional baggage from his porn addiction is where the real difficulties lie.

Porn addiction and all the other behaviours along sex addiction spectrum are almost always rooted in difficulties with intimacy rather than sex. Emotional intimacy and porn addiction can't coexist. That's why porn addiction is so corrosive because as the habit progresses the addict withdraws emotionally from the relationship, yet in other aspects of the relationship that are more about companionship and sharing time together, the relationship can function pretty well. But up to a point, because eventually the addict checks out of those areas too.

It may well be true that each of us is responsible for our own happiness just as we are responsible for our own behaviour. But in a relationship, there is a dynamic. Two people are jointly responsible, but neither can control the other. I can be honest about my feelings but I can't force my partner to be honest about his feelings. I can eat well and look after myself, I can read, i can dance, I can do all sorts of things that feel good and create happiness for me as an individual but none of this has much  the partner and the relationship. Unfortunately abstaining from porn isn't recovery and when the porn stops the addict has to face up to all sorts of issues of his own that are rooted in early life, the problems his addiction created for himself and the relationship.

I'm saying all this to show that porn addiction within a long term relationship can be hugely complex.

[Loleekins]

Nikola,

The getting over "rape" analogy is a poor one in the way you are utilizing it. Rape victims typically have the benefit of distance from the perpetrator to heal. Domestic victims of all varieties do not. Healing while your "rapist" is there everyday in the place that is your refuge from the world - your home - is a continual mind fuck. You never get a reprieve from the victimization. It makes the processing and working through it all very difficult and in a significant percentage impossible.

The ladies here are dealing with something unusual. They are literally discovering who their partner really is. Not what he projected and lied, not what she thought and got fooled into, but what is reality. What ends up happening on the other side is literally "This is not what I agreed to. Not what I signed up for. There's been a bait and switch. Can I do this? Do I even want this?" line of questioning and investigation. It's all very clouded, this investigation, by previous feelings, shared experiences, memories, and sometimes children. It's like trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together in a dense fog. The fog being the combination of what she emotionally feels about their past, and the reality and destruction of the present. Because it's a fog, every once in a while, you can see a bit and snap a piece into place. Snapping that puzzle piece into place can be a positive thing or a negative one. Perhaps you find an answer that you can support and work with and a door swings open. Perhaps you find an answer that is non-negotiable and a door firmly closes. This process takes some time.

Ladies,

Read beyond his clumsy analogy and language trouble a bit (english is not everyone's first tongue). There does come a time when recognition that you might be pursuing the impossible should come about. I do advocate for mitigating your damages in cases where the wounds are so extreme for you, you know you'll not be able to move beyond it. We all have our points of 'no going back' along with a measure of internal knowing of what those points are. Self care and self concern must be a consideration for us. We require it to be healthy for ourselves and any children we might have.

[Taffer]

Suggests people stop thinking of themselves as victims with no agency, and work towards recovery, gets labelled a "victim blamer", sounds about right
Have fun Numez, it's a steep climb from down there

[Loleekins]

Mik (or Nwalt, whatever). C'mon, man. You're working on being a better person. Remember? No need to pour gas on the fire.

What's gone on here is miscommunication. It's easy for misunderstandings to arise in topics where emotions run high. Forums don't always allow for fully grasping where another person is coming from. I do not believe Nikola meant to be hurtful. I believe he means to be helpful and merely conveyed it in too abrupt a manner.

[stillme]

Very, very good points EB

I can tell that NN is very young, because even putting out there things are as simple as "leave or stay" show a life with limited complexity. While not everyone on this site has children, I do. We have three children together and they are all at one of the more vulnerable stages of childhood - the tween/pre-teenage years. Having children that are young and vulnerable means that it isn't about simply thinking about what would make 'me' happy, I have to put their needs above mine for the time being. And honestly, the 'time being' is probably another eight to teen years until they are successfully launched into adulthood.

The other part of having kids is there is really no such thing as 'leaving'. You will be co-parenting along with the person. Whether my husband and I stay married or get divorced, he will be an intricate part of my life for the rest of my life because we have children. It isn't just organizing visitation schedules and doctors appointments. It will be figuring out who sits where for high school and college graduation, what role we each play in weddings, how do we handle family holidays that we all used to share together. You can't just get up and walk away - those children have tied us together for the rest of our lives. We will not only share children, but hopefully one day grandchildren and great grandchildren. We will always be a part of each other's lives, there is no such thing as 'walking away' at this point. We are joined forever on at least some levels.

Even if you don't have children, many couples that have been married for a significantly long time share assets. Who gets the house? How gets the car? What about the retirement accounts? When you are in a committed relationship, you don't just share a bed - your entire life gets intertwined with one another. Divorce is complex and even simple ones take months. If there are children involved and/or significant assets - legal divorce can take YEARS. Some countries require couples to live apart a minimum of one year before divorce proceedings can begin. That means you have to be able to financially juggle two households while your finances are still entangled. You can't simply leave town for a better job or to start that 'new life'. If it was a simple as just walking out the door, I believe most people would have already done that.

Then there is the emotional entanglement. For over a decade, my husband was my best friend. Even when the sex had died out in our marriage due to his porn endured erectile dysfunction - he was still my best friend. He is honestly the only person on the planet I have ever shared my true heart with. My hopes and dreams, my fears and disappointments, everything. Walking away from someone you didn't just love romantically, but you loved as a person. When we are deciding whether or not to walk away, we are decided whether or not to leave a relationship we had for most of our adult lives - and some of us aren't that young. Some of us have lived with our spouse longer than we lived with our parent. This wasn't a fly by night relationship, this was decades together. My husband and I have been married just shy of fourteen years - that is a LOT of life together. A lot of laugher and tears, a lot of sickness and health, a lot of good times and bad times and even great times.

That is what makes the betrayal so hard, so bad. It isn't like we were married to someone who was outwardly lying and deception, absolutely not. The reason why this was so traumatic was because it was so unexpected. Absolutely nothing that my husband showed through his use of porn was any aspect I thought was a part of his character. No, I didn't think he was perfect. I knew and accepted his faults that I was aware of, just like he knew and accepted mine. But, this journey through porn - never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined my husband would do something like that. If someone would have walked up to me before d-day and said, "Hey, I saw your husband coming out of a shady massage parlor, he probably got a blow job." I would have honestly laughed at them. Nope, no way. This man was a dedicated husband and father. He loved his kids too much to risk getting arrested going to some illegal massage parlor for something as stupid as a blow job! And, he would never be stupid enough to have some stranger's lips on his penis! Or, so I thought. If someone would have said, "Your husband was in a webcam chat room telling some women to stick or fingers in her vagina then lick them." again, I would not have believed it. Again, I didn't assume my husband was perfect, but I honestly to goodness never thought that was his thing. I never turned him down for sex. I was pretty much up for anything he even suggested (when we were having sex that is). He was such a vanilla sex person I pretty much tamed myself down for him. I have a pretty high sex drive, but never would impose myself on my husband. So, to find out he was paying women to watch them masturbate while he masturbated - when I was in the bedroom ready and willing? And nope, I am not unattractive or out of shape or anything else.

So yeah, it is traumatic when someone you have known for years and have been married to for almost 14 years, turns out to have characteristics and qualities you never, ever would have imagined. I never thought of my husband as a liar. Sure, I thought he would lie to save his life, maybe to get out of silly trouble. But, to actually be a habitual liar - never would have thought that. I would never have intentionally married and had children with a habitual liar, never. So yes, it is traumatic to find yourself in a long term marriage with a man who turns out to be someone you literally never would have married if they would have shown their true self. And to sit there and pipe up, "just walk away" - if only if was that easy. My entire life is on a different path because of this marriage. For the good of the family, I turned down a career path that I had worked hard, really hard for. I am living in a town that my husband chose. These things were not an issue and not something I complained about because we were in this 'together', it was the part of the sacrifices made because that is what family does. Now, come to find out - things were so one sided and the sacrifices were all on my end and now I am supposed to just "walk away". Did you know that a court could NOT let me move even if I wanted to because we have children together? Even if I wanted to move, because my husband is rooted here a judge could tell me that I am required to stay in this area. So no, walking away isn't that easy.

[Numez]

Nikola,

The getting over "rape" analogy is a poor one in the way you are utilizing it. Rape victims typically have the benefit of distance from the perpetrator to heal. Domestic victims of all varieties do not. Healing while your "rapist" is there everyday in the place that is your refuge from the world - your home - is a continual mind fuck. You never get a reprieve from the victimization. It makes the processing and working through it all very difficult and in a significant percentage impossible.

rape victims may not benefit much from distance from the perpetrator if they keep blaming him for their self esteem, sexuality and hope for the future afterwards. nobody is holding a gun next to your head and makes you live with a "rapist". all i suggest is for partners to stop waiting for their husbands/boyfriends to change when there are no signs of the change that is supposed to be coming. i suggest actually doing something about your life instead of waiting on someone to do something for you.

waiting on someone may be easier than doing something, especially in these situation when there are no pleasant choices to make, so that may be a problem too.

i want to be helpful but i see that i can get misunderstood in too many ways too easily. i only try to promote what i already said, little more responsibility because OP wrote about self esteem, sexuality and hope for the future. those are the big things that you should be responsible for. making a porn addict responsible for your self esteem, sexuality and hope for the future is very hurtful for you.

i said that there are many ways to solve the problem because everyone is different so that is why i dont suggest leaving someone or anything specific, yet in the very first sentence of the latest post, stillme said im putting things like "leave or stay". stillme, i actually said that im not suggesting leaving or any specific thing to do. all i suggest is what attitude/mindset to have...

also some people misunderstand what responsibility is, its not ignoring, its not effortlessly moving forward, its not "not giving a fuck". i might try to say what is responsibility one more time but maybe not...

maybe its my clumsy language, i learned english only through music, movies and video games and thanks to spell checkers i am able to write this.

[stillme]

Really good video on the myth that partners of sex/porn addicts "like being victims": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovZA2KQCrXo

[AnonymousAnnaXO]

So because I can't have sex in certain positions it's my responsibility? It's the responsibility of the rapist who traumatized the victim by abusing them. If a rape victim can't have sex, is it the victim's fault? The victim may be getting help but that doesn't change the fact that the victim may not be able to have sex, or gets triggered by sex.

I still can't have sex with the lights out or I have a flashback and can't recognize or remember who I am having sex with (it's a very terrifying experience). Is that because I didn't do enough to move on and help myself? It's been 4 years since the rape and I've done 4 years of working on myself with a therapist trained in EMDR and trauma and I went through that EMDR hell and re-lived my rape a thousand times, yet I still can't do certain things. Trauma can only be healed so much depending on the intensity, and how many times it was repeated.

So when an addict ABUSES their partner,  OVER AND OVER AGAIN FOR YEARS, is the partner, even when they've gotten help from every source (articles, forums, therapists, books, friends, etc.) responsible for when they still can't feel something/do something because of the trauma?

Trauma, for most, is a forever impact. I can say I've worked my ass off to recover from my rapes, and from my partner's porn addiction, yet, I still get triggered, and I still sometimes can't handle things though I've worked on them. I've taken responsibility for taking care of myself, yet there are still lasting effects which cannot be healed if the addict does not help out (i.e. start being honest, trying to prove they are sorry, being in recovery and so on). In a relationship, it takes two to heal damage. We can only do so much before we need the other person to chip in and support or help us out. We are responsible for taking care of ourselves, but what if we've done all that and there are still issues because the other person has yet to do the same for themselves or for the relationship? That is where the addict needs to take responsibility. Even if they quit porn, that doesn't begin to solve anything. What about the lying, the cheating, the fact they could do that to you over and over? Environment can profoundly damage the human psyche.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201311/the-neuroscience-post-traumatic-stress-disorder



This is a bit off topic, but explains my point perfectly. I am writing my senior paper on psychopaths, specifically what makes certain psychopaths violent ones. Psychopaths have certain genetic predispositions and brain damage. The thing that makes a psychopath violent or not violent is whether they endured EARLY CHILDHOOD ABUSE/ABANDONMENT (i.e. environmental factor). Now, the psychopath is responsible for killing those people, but the psychopath wouldn't have been violent had they not endured years of abuse or neglect. It literally changed the expression of the genomes in their DNA and "activated" those violent genes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx8RxRn6dWU

So I can try to make the argument that a person who has been abused might be predisposed to anxiety or depression, but may not have had that issue impact their life a lot, but once they were abused, the genome expression for anxiety or depression was "turned on" so now the person is depressed or anxious all the time. So yes the individual has a responsibility to help themselves, but the responsibility of hurting and changing that person falls on the abuser.

Hopefully the neuroscience talk was understandable, I tried to make it simple. Does that make sense?

[AnonymousAnnaXO]

Great video Stillme!

[Tomte]

The amount of miscommunication here is astonishing. As Nukola Numez tried to explain several times, what he means by "be responsible for your happiness and self esteem" is:
take charge of your life, try not to make your happiness depend on somebody who can not get his own life together, try to make your own decisions, do what you think is best for you and your children.

He never said it is the victims fault for getting hurt. And he never said to just walk away. Just tried to give advice on how to regain power.

Not everyone here is a native speaker.

[JediMaster]

All of these partners are doing exactly that. For most of them, that means fighting for the relationship and hoping that they care as much as their partners do. And as for any children, fixing the relationship would be the best thing for them. Nothing is worse for a child than divorced parents.

[stillme]

Mik (or Nwalt, whatever). C'mon, man. You're working on being a better person. Remember? No need to pour gas on the fire.

What's gone on here is miscommunication. It's easy for misunderstandings to arise in topics where emotions run high. Forums don't always allow for fully grasping where another person is coming from. I do not believe Nikola meant to be hurtful. I believe he means to be helpful and merely conveyed it in too abrupt a manner.

Whom do you speak of madam? I only know what I see, which is Nikola politely disagreeing, and getting dumped on by immature children as a result. I suspect there is a reason Malando is warning newbies signing up to stay the heck away from the partners section, unless your only intention is to kiss the ground they walk on. Duly noted, I'm not getting involved, though I may comment from time to time on the antics

Wait, we are "immature children". Dude - weren't you jacking off to porn so much you broke your dick - or are you just here for fun. This is HILARIOUS! Yeah, being a porn addict is a sure sign of maturity.

[AnonymousAnnaXO]

try not to make your happiness depend on somebody who can not get his own life together,

Okay but most of our partners ARE capable of getting their life together.  If we can't say we are depressed neither can they. They're responsible for getting better right? If we need to take responsibility so do they. We go out and learned and got support, and implemented coping strategies. What about these addicts? Where is their effort? What about their responsibility to themselves and to the relationship? They can't just say, "Oh I hurt you I'm so depressed" and then do nothing. The difference is we express our pain, but we ACTIVELY do things to take care of ourselves. The addicts seem to "love" to just be complacent because their brain has been "trained" for no work = rewards. Well, real life isn't like that, so they need to get off their arse and get in therapy, talk about their emotions, take steps to move forward. Accomplishments and moving forward require work.

Again, two people who have been together in a serious committed relationship, their lives are intertwined. It's unrealistic to think that one person's actions won't affect the other. I affect my partner, and he affects me. We can take care of ourselves, but they need to as well.

[JediMaster]

As for responsibility, first language or not, it's the same definition. By that definition, the addict is the sole cause of the partner's pain and feelings.

The addicted partner uses porn and most likely lies. The other partner says it makes them feel hurt, this that and the other. The addict is then the cause of all those feelings. If the addict wasn't an addict and never lied, the feelings wouldn't be there. How is it then, that the faithful partner is responsible for their own happiness when the addict is the one that took it away? All the partner wants is the addict to show they care. They want nothing else but for things to be ok, which in most cases they will never be the same but both partners can be very happy together if the addict takes responsibility for fixing the damage that THEY caused. "they caused" being the keywords that define responsibility.

[JediMaster]

The only thing that's changed for you is your user name

[Taffer]

try not to make your happiness depend on somebody who can not get his own life together,

Okay but most of our partners ARE capable of getting their life together.  If we can't say we are depressed neither can they. They're responsible for getting better right? If we need to take responsibility so do they. We go out and learned and got support, and implemented coping strategies. What about these addicts? Where is their effort? What about their responsibility to themselves and to the relationship? They can't just say, "Oh I hurt you I'm so depressed" and then do nothing. The difference is we express our pain, but we ACTIVELY do things to take care of ourselves. The addicts seem to "love" to just be complacent because their brain has been "trained" for no work = rewards. Well, real life isn't like that, so they need to get off their arse and get in therapy, talk about their emotions, take steps to move forward. Accomplishments and moving forward require work.

Again, two people who have been together in a serious committed relationship, their lives are intertwined. It's unrealistic to think that one person's actions won't affect the other. I affect my partner, and he affects me. We can take care of ourselves, but they need to as well.

I do recall something about addicts also being responsible for themselves, in Nikola's many repeated attempts to make the same point.

[Tomte]

Wait, we are "immature children". Dude - weren't you jacking off to porn so much you broke your dick - or are you just here for fun. This is HILARIOUS! Yeah, being a porn addict is a sure sign of maturity.

1. "People jerking off to porn so much that their dick breaks are immature"
2. "I never jerked off to porn so much that my dick broke"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion: I am not immature.

Classic logical fallacy.


I'm out of this topic, nobody is really replying to the arguments of anyone else.

[Emerald Blue]

NN, most of the people on this section are not "waiting for their partners to change" nor are they expecting their partner to "make them happy". Many of our partners have made significant changes in their lives besides quitting porn. Many of us, the female partners of recovering porn addicts, have also had to decide what they want their relationships to look like, and what they want their lives to become. As I said before, when you take away the porn, what do you have? And as I've said many, many times on this section, porn addiction can mask a multitude of issues within a relationship, some pre-existing and some as a consequence of the porn addiction. And repeating myself again... where there is a relationship, "recovery" has three distinct strands — the addict's recovery, the partner's recovery and the recovery of the relationship as an entity in itself.

For some people who join this section, they've only just discovered the extent of their partner's habit and in those cases, sometimes he will not or cannot quit. At one time I may have been in their shoes. If someone shares a home and family with a porn addict it's an entirely different situation than with a 19 year old who has only known their boyfriend for three months. In my own family I have a relative who is a sex addict throughout their marriage, but there were kids, and there were properties, an acrimonious divorce. One of the kids has nothing to do with the addict/betraying parent, and the addict/betraying parent is still creating disharmony within the family. Ending the relationship does not mean "problem solved" where kids are involved. And don't forget, kids grow up and become adults but they don't forget, they have divided loyalties. The betrayed spouse can never leave that relationship even though they were the one to initiate the divorce. The kids were also betrayed and they feel it even when they don't know or understand.

But getting back to NN. Yes, we are responsible for ourselves, but a relationship is just that. People RELATE to ONE ANOTHER. It's a dynamic situation. We aren't two strangers, or two robots. What one does affects the other and vice versa. And as every relationship is a unique product of two unique individuals, there's no rulebook. It's our very own creation. It takes two people who act and react with each other, so obviously what one does, or says, or thinks will affect the other. Both are responsible for the relationship. If one acts in a harmful way towards the relationship it will happen negative effect on the other. So if Maria's partner is not respecting their commitment and acts in ways he knows will hurt, then of course she's going to feel it. If her self esteem is undermined, I get that. If her sexuality has become a source of unhappiness, I get that. If she questions her future, I get that too. She's only at the beginning of a long journey back to recovery, and she needs safety and acceptance so she can express herself. We should give her the time and space to do this. Nobody can predict how their relationship will work out after porn addiction. Nobody.

[Numez]

So if Maria's partner is not respecting their commitment and acts in ways he knows will hurt, then of course she's going to feel it. If her self esteem is undermined, I get that. If her sexuality has become a source of unhappiness, I get that. If she questions her future, I get that too. She's only at the beginning of a long journey back to recovery, and she needs safety and acceptance so she can express herself.

so there we go, all i said is that the beginning of a long journey back to recovery starts with little less blaming and little more responsibility... and hell broke loose. as far as we know, the way she described it, her husband might be jerking off to porn right now. its been only 30 days since the last time she caught him. start of the long journey of back to recovery starts with practicing being responsible for your self esteem, sexuality and hope for the future, right? you cant put your cards on someone like a porn addict and depend on him to quit porn in order for you to have a future? especially if he is hiding and lying to you and you keep catching him in his lies.

i think the main misunderstanding comes from defining what responsibility is. some people think its ignoring the problem, some people think its quick fix, some people think its not giving a damn, some people think its leaving, some people think its staying, some people think its not caring, some people think its the victim's fault for getting hurt if they are responsible, some people think its being selfish (ignoring the kids  ?)... i probably missed some misconceptions because there are so many.

this is working both ways, i will say it again. porn addicts are responsible for their addiction, if they blame partners, they are stuck and its simply not true that anything outside of them is responsible for their relapses. we may get addicted unknowingly (starting before high school) because we did not knew it was addictive and dangerous, but when we find out, its our responsibility to recover. no amount of stress, boredom, partner's behavior etc. is responsible for our relapse, its all on us.

[Emerald Blue]

There is one important issue in many relationships where one partner is a porn addict and that is that the addict has no idea what effects their is having on the relationship and even on the family. Addicts minimise, hide, lie, etc, and don't realise they have this weird reward/feedback loop going on inside their brain. So getting the addict to realise the consequences of their behaviour can take a very long time. Also bear in mind that some of the partners had no idea about their partner's porn habit. Some partners have tried to "join in" with the porn and include it as part of their lovemaking but what usually happens is that the addict still needs the porn fix and for some reason the secrecy seems to be part of it. Also,in this situation, what the addict watches alone can be very different and more extreme than what they watch together. In any case, this strategy rarely helps and many partners regret this "watch together" thing.

Sometimes yes, partners do choose to stay even if the porn behaviour continues. It's a valid decision too, but like the "watch together" situation, it's often a temporary solution. If the addict's sexual energies are diverted away from the relationship, if there is deception, if there is emotional distancing, it's not good for the health of the relationship. No one knows what the consequences of any decision will be. As I said, relationships are dynamic. In life there will always be changes. Nothing stands still. A good decision today might look like the wrong decision next year. We just don't know.

You see, for partners there is no "reboot", no "hard 90", no "flatline". There is no set path for the partner's recovery. If the addict quits it's an entirely different situation from one who continues to relapse. A partner's decision could depend on the addict quitting but we don't know if he will or he won't. And then decisions have to be made all over again.

[Squidoll]

Blame yourself for not admitting that you're addicted to porn. I think only you and no one can admit it, once you do that you are one step ahead on making changes in your routine.

[maria]

To just about everyone except NN, thank you for your input.  I never imagined there would be so many responses, but this is obviously a very common issue between addicts and partners.  I want to say that for all of you (myself included) who have been raped and abused, I agree with all of your comments.  It is too bad that NN is so fixated on being right and being heard that he has now dug himself a hole large enough to reach China.  Hopefully he finds a nice province to live in while he's there and we never hear from him again. 

I applaud all of you who took the time to provide support and HELPFUL advice for this original comment made to me which left me feeling like I can no longer ask any questions or open any discussions for fear of imposing on him.  You all could see that I am new to this process of healing and I appreciate everything you have said.

Good luck to all of you in your journeys.

[Emerald Blue]

Maria, I'm very sorry you had to endure these unhelpful responses to your post. Unfortunately the partner's section will sometimes attract male porn addicts, often those who seem to be incapable of quitting porn for a week or two, and often single, but for reason feel they have the experience and authority to believe they can "help" the partners of porn addicts in long term committed relationships. Are they in any position to "advise"? Rarely, if ever. Sometimes recovering addicts who are committed to the recovery of their relationship as well as their own recovery from their porn habit have made valuable contributions to this section but they are the ones who truly "get" recovery. Even some genuinely well-meaning porn addicts come here to ask us about their relationship issues, but they will not or cannot even tell their partner they've been using porn and they're having problems with it. As soon as someone suggests disclosing their use of porn to their partner they make excuses as to why they can't.

This partner's section is supposed to be a safe place where any partner of a porn addict can freely express themselves and find a sympathetic ear. Why some kid who still lives with his parents, has never had a sexual relationship and can't quit porn for more than 48 hours actually believes they can advise someone who owns a house, is raising/has raised kids, who had a university degree, or teaching or nursing qualification, who has a responsible job and puts food on the table, or whatever... come on, that's just ridiculous. Do they give their parents careers advice or financial advice? I doubt it. So why do these guys believe they can give us relationship advice??

As for the "why don't you just leave?" kind of "advice"from porn addicts, do these guys actually think we've never thought of that one??!! Of course we have. Many many times. I've said it here myself, being the partner of a porn addict is a choice and the most sure fire way of resolving this is to end the relationship. We're no longer the partner of a porn addict. Take responsibility? Hmm. Like we don't already? Just look at the posts and you'll find it's the partners that take decisive action to address the relationship issues.

Sorry you had to endure this, Maria.