I have been married for 10 years. My wife has been disabled for 9 of those years. There has been no intimacy because of her health for years. She caught me watching porn 'taking matters into my own hands' shall we say. Needless to say she hit the roof. She considers porn as cheating with a real person. I know I was wrong, but i didnt consider this cheating. I just have my needs. She says i have broken her trust, how could she have been so stupid to have trusted me ,im disgusting ...all of it. i confessed, i didnt try to hide it. i apologized.
Hi Kettle, I used to listen to Chuck Swindoll a lot and in one of his sermons he said he was one of the speakers at a convention of young men who were in school to become pastors. Most were married. They gave out an anonymous questionnaire to the attendees towards the end of the week-long convention. One of the questions was whether they had viewed porn while on this religious retreat. I'm sure they all figured "well it's anonymous so no one will know who said yes and who said no so I'll be truthful." So on the last day, Chuck Swindoll announced the poll results and 100%, every single attendee, at a RELIGIOUS convention, watched porn while AT the convention. I'm sure the guilt in the room was palpable when that statistic was revealed, LOL! My point is this- darned near everyone views porn. If you have some religious guilt hangup about it then that's your business, but if you don't then don't let your W or anyone else "shame" you into it. You were watching it guilt-free thinking you were doing your W a favor, right? It was a way for you to find gratification without putting pressure on her to do so given her medical condition. Your W needs to be educated on this subject, if she expects you to live in a sexless marriage and never watch porn and never masturbate, then she has EXTREMELY unrealistic expectations, ones that pretty much no man would meet.
She now tells me to go find a girlfriend. i dont want a girlfriend , i want her. She says i dont want her , i want porn.
Is she in IC? She really should be given that she has cancer. If she is in IC then encourage her to discuss this with her counselor as I suspect her counselor will help set her straight on this subject and what her expectations should be.
She clearly feels hurt and upset and I am by no means saying you should ignore her feelings, but you should listen and validate WITHOUT accepting blame. Listen to her, acknowledge that you hear her feelings and you understand why she feels the way she does. That's it, don't try to justify/ explain/ argue/ reason/ negotiate. Encourage her to discuss it with a counselor.
She asked me why didnt i tell her about the porn 18 years ago when we met. She said If she had know she wouldnt have married me.
Then she would either not be married or would be married to someone else not telling her about it. Again don't try to reason with her. Just say things like "it sounds like you're really upset about this, is that how you feel?" "Yes, I feel like I've been betrayed!" "That sounds very difficult, I am sorry you feel that way." This is putting the focus on her FEELINGS, not on what she perceives as transgressions.
Now she feels stuck with me. I sometimes feel the same way, im stuck with her. Was I just supposed to come out of the blue and discuss porn with her?
Keep in mind that this could be because she is going through stage 4 cancer. Don't discount the possibility that this has nothing to do with you watching porn and everything to do with her facing her own mortality and being scared and worried and extremely angry, and looking for someone/ something to vent her anger on. I am not justifying her actions, but I am saying there may be more to this than meets the eye.