My partner watches porn when i go to bed

my partner of 15 years i have recently discovered he watches porn and goes into sex chatrooms when i go to bed at night.We have been having problems but had in the past month been repairing our relationship and have been having a lot of sex 2-3 times a day.This is not the first time he has done this sort of thing he used to run up huge bills to sex lines about 10yrs ago and 6yrs ago i found dirty text messages on his mobile phone,he had exchanged his mobile number in a chatroom. I love him and he loves but feel there is more going on under the surface. its eating away at me i dont like him watching it but is it normal for him to want to watch porn when he could be with me?

No, it's not normal or healthy, albeit it is common. He probably thinks he's avoiding the label Cheater by doing it at-a-distance. "Fail!" Cheating is a wedge with a thin end that leads, if unchecked, via desensitization and repetition, to the thick end of actual adultery, whether or not the transgressor sees it as at-root adultery or whether or not it's more a case of one distinct thing becoming another distinct thing. Cheating is a SYMPTOM which has more than one disease underpinning it, in other words. Let's put this into perspective from your point of view: 1. Whatever remedial measures you've been employing regarding your marriage are not and were never going to work because this issue isn't anything to DO with your marriage. It's his problem, pure and simple. He's obviously an addict but whereby the substance as triggers the pleasure principle happens not to be in pill or liquid form. 2. He needs help. 3. If he won't see this and won't seek it, even despite it so obviously puts the very bedrock of his life in jeopardy, then he's too far gone for self-help anyway, meaning he needs professional intervention (therapy). 4. You've been married for 15 years but for most of that time has been blighted by this problem of his. You need to issue a deadly serious ultimatum for him to fix his addiction (as well as to reach a mental place where he can afford to show his wife better respect, consideration and empathy) on pain of your ending the marriage. Berbom. The alternative is you put up with the fact you're married to a man with a meaningfully chronic itch that he can't resist meaningfully scratching. If we leave aside the issue of whether or not it's 'normal', the fact remains that YOU find it unacceptable by your standards, preferences and expectations. And what you feel counts. He's married to you so he has to accommodate those things that mean most to you in terms of the kind of life and marriage you want to lead, those things that feel like your dealbreakers...that simple. If he doesn't want and refuses to do that, he can damn well BE SINGLE, THEN! Marriage and having one's cake & eating it are mutually exclusive. There you go, hopefully that's moreover articulated your feelings on the matter?

Ok my husband likes porn and watches it when I go to sleep. He likes tickling, violence and feet and I hate these things. But you are having sex 3 times a day? Don't worry about it. I tell my husband I don't care what you think about when we have sex. He said he started watching more normal porn for me. Make your husband feel at home in his own skin. He will love you for it. Why make it an issue?

Yes very different views my problem is that he views Porn daily and it times while our children are around to walk in on him. I did not realise the full extent of the problem since last week. I do care about what or who is thinking about when we have sex so yes him watching porn while i am in bed is very much an issue for me and the fact he has contacted other people in the past is something i cant quite get away from the feeling he will do it again. Also recently during sex i askex for him to talk dirty to me which he wouldnt do then stopped altogether ansd was angry i even suggested it when i know he talks dirty online in texts and on the phone,how i am meant to feel about that?

Going in to sex chat rooms just means he wants to feel other folks share his fetishes. But he married you so he knows how you feel about sex. Some really clear communication on this from both sides, not blaming just talking realistically would help. You can't ask him to give everything up and he can't ask you to change your feelings, so their has to be an honest compromising discussion. You can send him to a therapist but it is unlikely that he can become completely porn free.

Thank you for your response you have made some very valid points but as usual i feel i am the one who puts up and shuts up.This is nOt really helping me posting in the forum it only leaves me feeling more helpless and alone. There are deeper seated problems in our Relationship i am a talker and talk things through, my partner isnt and retreats like a wounded animal when we try to talk all i want is to have an honest conversation but he always holds back. we are both under alot of stress at the moment jobs and money issues and our relationship has suffered. I feel like i am going round in circles and getting nowhere with anything. I am going take some of your advice and try to forget about what he does when i am not around as it seems i am the one that must have a problem, my problem is i care too much about being happy or more to the point making him happy because at the end of the day why does what i feel matter as long as he gets to do what he wants unchallenged. SOULMATE is the only one that truly made me feel like i mattered for once with their reply, !!! You seem like a nice enough person but no one should have to Be walked all over because its easier than facing up to facts.

I get the feeling that the problem is not the porn. That is symbolic of the struggle between you where you feel that you have aid it all at his feet and he does not reciprocate and even makes it worse since he wants it all his own way. I am so sorry. If you can get in therapy do it because as you said no one should be walked all over. Then you will be able to make up you own mind on a course of action. The problem is not all yours but a solution has to be. But I am not close enough to see what is really going on.

Given this new data - damn right he needs therapy! "he views porn daily and it times while our children are around to walk in on him. " JG, do you not realise (I expect you do) that if either of your kids acts out or even makes whatever reference to anything of this nature that they've walked in on and clocked, WHICH KIDS DO BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE THEY'RE PROVING THEY'RE ALREADY GROWN-UPS, and does so at school or in front of or even in earshot of any other adults (like their friends' parents when at their house for tea), your family is going to be considered a target for intervention by Social Services? Madam, your husband is a right royal pervert who knows it and always did, yet despite his 'disease' believed he could still have his cake and eat it - i.e. marriage and 2.4 kids kept in one compartment and his perversions in another (a nighttime compartment), side by side. Yet he obviously feels so safe and comfortable and ACCEPTED by now that he thinks he can let it loose into the actual family and still, as ever, get away with it. Do you WANT to lose your kids? Get thy digit out of thy back passage URGENTLY! Tell him it has GOT to stop, he HAS to get himself sorted, starting with making an appointment to see his GP with a view to a referral to a specialist counsellor. And if he refuses, go and have a free consultation with a solicitor to find out where you'd stand if you started the divorce process. I imagine if you DID start the divorce process, he'd get the message loud and clear that this is NOT acceptable in a marriage and CERTAINLY not around little kids!!!

Soulmate thank you for your honest reply it is refreshing that someone else believes there is a problem here that cannnot just be pushed to one side. When i found out he had been viewing things while my children were around i felt sick. He is already keeping appointments with a therapist (in fact he was there today) but he organised the referal himself back in late december 2014. I made my feelings very clear about how i feel about all this and i think finally it is hitting home. Just to clear things up we are not married but we have been together for 15 years and shared a home for 14 of those years, we were both young when we had our first child i was 19 and my partner 23 we have never got round to getting married as it never seemed important. I have been suprised at how accepting people are of my partners behavior as if i am the one to be ashamed for even suggesting that what he is doing is unacceptable who me and my family dont seem to figure in any of this. I had an amazing childhood and always felt amazingly secure and would call myself a strong kind hearted and caring person, that is why all this behavior seems like a complete betrayal of trust and extremly disrespectful to treat me like this as i have given nothing but love and support all the way through the hard times when i hurt so much i felt i would never come through it. Trust me my children are extremely well looked after and i would not and will not let either of my children be exposed to that kind of behavior.thank you again for your help in the forum it has really been appreciated.

No thank-yous are necessary, JG. If it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it's probably a duck. If you then add FEATHERS - which you didn't even consciously realise you were (hence, not a contrivance on your part) - then it *is* a damn duck. "I have been suprised at how accepting people are of my partners behavior as if i am the one to be ashamed for even suggesting that what he is doing is unacceptable who me and my family dont seem to figure in any of this." You and me bloody BOTH! It's called desensitisation and cultural pressure. Unfortunately. Oh, and apathy. Porn makes HUGE sums of money as an industry. You have no idea! What comparative cost propaganda for the benefit of all the little sheepies out there ("baaaa")? Not much, not compared to the annual bottom line. Case closed with a ruddy great KER-CHING! Here's the deal: WHEN you felt you had enough compensatory elements active, like financial stability and marriage preservation counting as *kid-welfare protection*, you could just about tolerate his perverted little habit. (And remember, we're not just talking 'normal' porn habit here, are we. We're talking beyond porn and so heavily addicted he can't even respond appropriately when his own kids walk in on it/him.) But now/lately, you *don't* have these compensations....indeed, that original kid-welfare protection has now developed into kid THREAT...ergo, 'why the hell am I still putting up with this so-called marriage to an issue-ridden?'. Yes, why indeed. I don't doubt your kids are well looked after. That's not the issue. The issue is, atop of that good care is exposure to a disease, called addiction. He may not be jacking up or sniffing glue in front of them, but, really, what is the difference? These are still things that occupy the little mind that optimally should experience worries no greater than what flavour ice-cream to have or whether they've got homework tonight, if said minds are to be allowed to develop properly on ALL AVAILABLE CYLINDERS. Those cylinders are NOT going to be fully available for their normal, bog-standard kiddie-to-adult workload if there's 'something really strange and intriguing' that daddy's doing as upsets mummy. So, in essence, that foundational good care is liable to be bit-by-bit UNDONE/CANCELLED OUT. But here's the current rub: he IS pursuing therapy, which HE HIMSELF organised. So he DOES know he has a problem, he DOES sense you're at the end of your tether (finally), and he IS seriously and concertedly trying to do something about it, all of which you know....meaning, you didn't come here to gain the confidence with which to divorce him (or not yet). You came here to gain the confidence to protect your birthright to certain marital expectations - healthy ones - and to better stand up for yours and your kids' welfare,.. basically to sound authoritative and convincing come the next argument (if/when). Correct? So do I take it he has the gift of the gab as well, to know how to twist things? A few tweaks... You have brought kids into the world. Even *without* the added 15 long years under your belt, that means you are married, for-life committed in terms of free will intention and, now, existential duty. Certainly in the eyes of Nature (what other eyes ARE there?). So question: how is instigating 'mere' legally-enforceable financial safeguards (called Marriage) for your kids 'not important'? To *whom* isn't it important..who was the first one to say so? Was it you? Was that because you kept getting an elusive and as-yet undefinable whiff, as time went on, of his underlying, just-gagging-to-emerge 'not right-ness'?

Like i have said before we were very young when we started our family, we bought a house and began our journey as parents to our daughter who is now 13.We talked about marriage in the future we both had different ideas of the big day (mine being quite low key, he has always joked i would get married in a shed) but as time went on bringing up our family the idea of getting married got further and further behind us. In 2007 after a 3 year battle with cancer my dad passed away 5 weeks after having our 2nd child a boy now 7. I cannot express the pain loosing my father caused me, my whole life was on the back burner for many years after. It is difficult for me to explain but i feel married already so have never had to seek the official documents to prove my devotion, me and my partner have just naturally come to this agreement together never ruling it out but neither one pushing for it. i have 4 siblings and 2 are now married with children and one is engaged not once have i thought i was desperate to follow in their footsteps. We have made our commitment to each other by sharing our lives (good and bad) but i can see what you are saying

Good, you like to talk! So do I. Buckle up... Listen, there are two concurrent issues afoot here: One is protecting that girl whose on the threshold of sexual awakening, plus that boy whose lifelong psychological blueprint has only just or might still be in the process of receiving its final 'penstrokes', and the other is you coming to terms with the fact you entered a 'deal' to merge lives with another individual and sealed it by making the biggest financial commitment known to ordinary man (house) and then producing a new human, when, it later transpired, said individual wasn't fit - and KNEW he wasn't - for a marriage and family life. So let's keep them separated from here on in. Kid Protection: Sh*t - thirteen. And female. SH*T! So already she has a fairly good grasp of what it is she walked in on? Questions: 1. Has the porn-watching whilst she's in the house since stopped, thanks to his counselling having commenced? 2. As her no. 1 hawk - what ages would you put your daughter at, [i] mentally, [ii] emotionally, [iii] physically? 3a. Also, has she approached you about what she saw/overheard? Have you, her? How MUCH did she catch? If you don't know (yet), then have you noticed any changes in her behaviour or modus operandi? E.g. has she started to wear tights or longer skirts and button up her shirts higher, wanting a short haircut...anything geared towards hiding or disguising/minimising her budding or approaching sexuality signs? 3b. If she did see or hear enough, she's going to need help making healthy sense of it all - in the most kid-friendly way possible. If she's already been spying that kind of filth courtesy of her male peer group and social media, etc., then this requirement becomes even greater because..."If dad's doing it then it MUST be real and it MUST be something I'm going to have to actually do the minute I start dating boys, but I don't WANNA do any of that horrible stuff!". Her body might be changing but the physical is always miles ahead of the psychological, never more so than these days (thanks to PC parenting pressures). 4. How advanced is your son? And ditto the above questions (roughly)? Self Protection: I see, so back when you unofficially married you were understandably ignorant about things like porn and their effects or what made a man fit as a partner or decidedly unfit. You live and learn, and unfortunately living includes bringing others and semi-permanent legalities like finance into the equation. It also brings serious distractions, like your dad dying and you having whole reams of emotional sheets to deal with in your emotional in-tray. Questions: 1. Do you realise that not wanting to make a fuss over your wedding day, particularly when you're a woman, is a giant symptom of a deeper-down foreboding that the woman is trying to repress? 2. When did you first cotton on that he was into porn? 3. When did you first realise that 'porn' was a gross and laughable understatement? 4a. Do you realise that if you put up and shut up for longer than is tenable, your mind switches to survival mode, meaning, you have to start to minimise the problem to yourself in order not to crumple into a heap of despair? And do you realise that the minute you feel freed up (e.g. your kid reaches the age either where she could cope with not living daily with two parents and/or the age where sensitivity to this 'disease' suddenly heightens) you're not HITTING the end of your tether, including a huge sense of betrayal and having been conned into marrying, but finally REGISTERING it? Do you then realise that counselling or not, it could be a case of far too little too late? So my question here is a simple, black & white, Yes, No, Don't Know one: Do you want to remain married and living under the same roof, still, or are you secretly viewing his commencement on the road to cure or management as something that will benefit your *children's* future relationship with him? 4b. Or, indeed, did losing your dad finally make you take a longer, harder look at your 'dad replacement' and find him seriously under-par? Did you start to fall out of love with him as early as 2007, I mean? I'm asking this because you said, prove your devotion, instead of, prove your love, or, prove your love and devotion. Again, another leading symptom. 5. Due to the coinciding - did you experience post-natal depression, diagnosed and treated or not? 6. Be brutally honest. By having constant sex, are you trying to [a] draw him mentally and emotionally back to you or [b] 'spend' him (or 'foie gras' him) so that he has no appetite left for 'porn', meaning, this isn't sexual love but a form of daughter and son protection yet again? Or [c] some degree of both? "It is difficult for me to explain but i feel married already so have never had to seek the official documents to prove my devotion" 7. Do you realise this is utter bullsh*t, an excuse you sell yourself (again, sensibly, for mental survival purposes), as is saying you love him long after having typed 'devotion' (where the word 'love' was omitted)? 8. I don't doubt he loves you. Why wouldn't he? You're not the one 'eating away at it'. But it's this: "So he loves me. But WHAT loves me?". Those two criteria are 'marriage partners'. If you can't experience a warm and proud glow over BOTH answers, you ain't got a 'marriage' that makes a human marriage possible. Tell me in roughly no more than 10 words what loves you, JG. 9. Why do you call yourself Jimmy's "GIRL" and then yourself posit how ridiculous that label is by contrasting it with your fairly mature age of 32? 10. Why "Jimmy"? Does he stalk you electronically? Is this you hopefully telling him your truest feelings? 11. If God or Jesus or some other irrefutably real and clear-cut deity appeared before you RIGHT NOW and said if you left your husband now or within the next year, that would be okay by it/them, you had their full blessing and nothing bad would happen to you or your kids - WOULD YOU?

Good god wow! i dont know where you get half of this tripe from its exhausting just reading it.What kind of stuff are you dreaming up in your tiny mind. In your last post you make problems where there is none. my children have not heard one crossed word have have no clue there is an issue between her father and i yes i know he viewed a page while my children were upstairs in their rooms and could!!!!! have walked in but didnt, i did not catch him he told me. What do you really think is going on hear at times i feel quite insulted by your comments. jimmy is my cat who happens to be a girl (stray who was mistaken for a boy when he turned up and we took her in) my son named her jimmy didnt want to change the name as it is an inhouse joke and i live at house no.32 on my road oooh mystery solved. I only posted in here because i personally felt wounded by it and want to talk to someone other than my partner. as much as some of your comments have helped i feel at times you have got the wrong end of the stick. I love my partner whos name is Peter, yes love and yes i am devoted to him and no i dont want a get out of jail free card neither do i follow peticular faith. I dont need to read your stupid comments anymore i have got it from here. goodbye and thank to everyone x

This is the second time you have been rude Jimmysgirl. No one has to write you back and you do not need to respond especially to be rude.

Yes, it is, I agree. Listen, JG, stop being so quick to jump to negative conclusions and overreact. Just because you don't know what I'm up to, under the seeming surface, doesn't mean it's not useful and productive. If, inclusive in my methodology was a need to sidestep the constraints of mere text rather than to sit there for 6 weeks to gain information that in-person would take 6 minutes, I wanted faster than normal clarity over whether you, say, were White or Affro-Caribbean but felt you might be wanting - like people do (hence choosing signals-safer forums) - to keep that hidden or minimise it, I would address you as if the latter and wait to see what your response was, all layers of it. But by 'response', I DON'T mean, you having kittens! You could have JUST SAID 'No, that's wrong, actually', and explained, instead of all that unnecessary hostility and climbing the walls. I GET that you're stressed and upset, but if you want free-of-charge advice from a top-notch forum, surprisingly many of whom members are ex- or retired counsellors or analyists that you likely could ill afford in 'real life', then a bit of adult self-control and decorum wouldn't go amiss. If normally you're a decent person rather than just someone who puts on a nice face whenever they want something, I anticipate an apology for that little outburst.

(Thanks, Suze, thanks "!!!" - site loyalty noted and very much appreciated. ;-))