# I have no idea what to think, kinda long, sorry



## hiswife628 (May 29, 2012)

I'm new here but I've read alot of past posts over the years but always resisted the urge to actually "join" a forum to whine about my marriage problems. My husband of 9 years doesn't communicate with me. He never has been one to talk about things or man up and confess without me digging up evidence and shoving it in his face, even with the most trivial things. I hate living like that, but I love him. I know I do, I have to love him to put up with feeling complete obseleteness. I occasionally see the man I fell in love with and married, I know he's in there and I guess those few days or weeks of being "us" again. I'm not sure this even goes in this section of the forum but I wasnt sure where else to post it so here goes:

I am one of those difficult wives that has the thought process that if a man has a wife that loves him and is available to him he shouldn't need to resort to 'self' pleasure and for me porn is not ok, its just not. I am a jealous kinda gal (but in my defense so is he, he's actually so bad that he wouldnt let me wear a dress that I bought just because I wanted to feel pretty and I never wear stuff like that because I know it makes him jealous) so for me the idea of my husband having to look at other women to feel stimulated when I'm right here, though I know I'm not perfect, but I'm not fat I'm 5' 7 and wear a sz 8, I have 38D's but I also have stretch marks that make me uneasy with my body from having 5 10lb babies. I had to have a hysterectomy 2 years ago because of cancer and I had just turned 30. I was not in a good place mentally especially after a year of surgery after surgery to fix what they messed up, I know my vagina and sex will never be the same and that knocks my self confidence down even more. 

My husband has always been kinda monotone in his personality, I always said I was the guy in the relationship because I was the one that had to beg for sex then get upset if he said no. Rarely did he ever approach me for it. He never tells me I'm pretty, hot, sexy etc. Its been over a year since my last surgery and my doctor told me that having sex is critical to my remaining "normal" there so to speak and to keep me from having intense pain from the muscles going into lockdown mode from the damage, kinda like exercising I guess. 

Last summer I just felt like I lost him completely, he was bitter and irritable all the time. He used to call me on his way home from work, every single day, it was the only real us time we had because we have kids and life can be pretty demanding. Talking on his hour drive home gave us a chance to clear the frustrations of the day to one another and just talk. But he stopped calling. He stopped texting me everyday with the little heart and kissy icon that he had done daily for a few years. I know those things were just routine and repetitive but they were all I had from him that at least gave me comfort that he thought about me. I confronted him about his shift in behavior and he blamed me, I ignored him, hated him, talked to other people too much (which is not true, I hardly talk or talked to anyone else with the exception of my grandmother that lives 1000 miles away) I asked him why he wouldnt have sex with me, he kinda used the he didnt want to hurt me excuse, then when I kinda put him in the position that he had no choice but to try I had to use lubrication (I have no cervix, uterus, ovaries etc... so I just cant make my own lube anymore) I tried to get a glob on my hard really fast and rub in on the proper places and as I tried to stick him in me he just died. I did not ridicule him, I just said what happened and he got angry and said he hated lube it was gooey and sticky and it was an instant mood killer. I was pretty devestated because that was further proof that I was broken. I didn't really try to initiate anything for a few months, but I did try to be as close to him as I could hoping he would try something on his own. Maybe once or twice he tried to touch me and when he saw I wasn't getting wet he stopped and assumed I wasnt in the mood. 

I got him an ipad for Valentines day in 2011. That was the biggest mistake of my life I think, but then again maybe not I don't know. He already had an iphone and I actually always trusted him so I never ever thought anything except that he was playing those stupid games I always say him playing on there. He would go to the bathroom and always had his phone in his pocket and took his ipad and would be gone for an hour usually coming after freshly showered. I would say "you didn't tell me you were taking a shower" And he would say something along the lines of he wanted to get it out of the way or didnt think he needed to report to me blah blah. This problem just got worse so the more he was playing with his new girlfriend (what I secretly named his ipad) the more I just sat and played farmville or something to entertain and distract myself. His distance got more and more extreme, to the point on weekends he was sending me on all kinds of errands then saying he'd stay home with the kids to give me a break, when he used to always insist he go with me and if I went alone he was texting me to see where I was constantly. And when I got home I was carrying in groceries alone because he was usually in the bathroom and didnt realize I was home, and alot of times he'd say his stomach was bothering him and he had diarrhea and was running and spending an hour in the bathroom several times a day/night. I did not think anything more than this was just him being distant and withdrawn. 

The house we were in was going into foreclosure (it was a rental) and we had to move pretty quick so we found an apartment and while packing and stuff in late Oct early Nov (we moved just before Thanksgiving) I came across my lingere, I decided to give it a shot. I put something simple on, put on some matching heels, a little makeup, did something random with my hair and went downstairs where he was all moped up on the couch with his ipad. He looked up at me for a second and laughed. I asked what was so funny he said he and your high heels, you look like a goober because your so clumsy in them why do you even try to wear them. I told him that I was trying to get his attention and he told me that he hated high heels and that was a total outfit killer, the rest of the display was nothing once the heels were put on. I said that makes no sense, so do you want me to go put on my flip flops? he said no then I was pretty hurt and it just killed the whole idea I had so I went upstairs to change into normal pjs and threw the heels in the closet and the lingere across the bathroom, I scrubbed my face to try to wash away the need to cry kinda hoping and waiting he'd come up but he never did. I laid down to go to sleep and about 1am he comes up there and says I could have told him i was going to bed, he had been waiting on me to come down stairs. I told him I was just tired and decided that I would let him do whatever it was he was so involved in that he didnt even take a minute to do anything but ridicule me. He got all huffy and said he was getting in the shower and shut the door to the bathroom. I laid there and cried. My gut instincts started to kick in somewhere around there that something wasnt right. 

A few days later I decided that I wouldnt let me stubbornness kill the marriage and locked the door and physically pushed him on the bed. I had put the lube on before hand so he never saw it to know and while I had a hard time getting him "ready" when I finally did he was making these gut wrenching faces at me and I asked what was wrong and he said his back hurt so I stopped and when I pulled it out it was dead. I got a little angry at that point and said asked him why I did nothing for him which just left him angry with no explanations except that because I mentioned it he was no self concious of it but it happened before I mentioned it so that made no sense. 

FFWD to moving into the apartment, I decided I was going to fix this relationship and I was going to use the fresh start at a new place as my groundwork to do so. I tried to be everything he ever told me I wasnt or didnt do that made him so distant, I tried to cuddle up to him when watching tv, I tried to sleep closer to him, I tried to get in the shower with him, usually randomly and uninvited but I felt that would be a nice surprise. I did everything I could. But he didn't change. I tried subtly to initiate sex with him and always got pushed away and told I waited til midnight and he was too tired and had to work etc, if I did during the day then the kids were in the other room was his excuse and he always looked at me like I was such a pain in the ____ for doing it. If I touched his butt, or tried to slip my hand up his shorts the smacked me and pulled away. So I said I got to figure this out.

In Jan we went to get dinner and I dropped him and the kids at home so they could get to bed for school and ran to CVS less than a mile away to get milk, I was gone maybe 20-30 min and when I got home my daughter was in the living room saying she needed something signed for school, I asked her why dad didnt sign it and she get in bed and she said he had been in the bathroom. I said well who put the boys (my 5 year old autistic son and 3 year old son) in bed and she said she did because he told her to. I signed her thing and quietly went into the bedroom and got on the floor to peek under the door. I saw him sitting in the floor in front of the toilet watching his ipad with no clothes on. I went to find a door key (I am not very good with opening the doors quick with those) and tried to get it in as quietly and quickly as possible. After I got it opened he kinda looked like he jumped to the toilet and he was frantically closing apps on his ipad and gave me this mean look like why did I just bust in on him. I asked him what he was doing and he told me wiping his ____. I said why were you sitting on the floor, he denied it and I told him I saw him and i wanted an explanation. He then said he was watching Futurama on the Adult Swim app. I didn't believe him. I took his ipad and started looking through it and saw that he had safari set to private browsing so I really couldnt find much. I persisted and suggested that he was watching porn and the only response I got was "you know what your assuming so why do what I say matter, you know what you think and thats what you're going to believe" So that was what I was forced to believe. I was pretty angry for a while but I didn't take it out on him I just didnt talk much or interact with him. After a few weeks I said ok I have to not assume the worst and I have to win my man over. My birthday in early feb was on a friday, I begged him to put in for the day off. He refused, Valentines Day was coming up as well so I went to the mall, first to VS, got something that I thought would be sexy enought but give me some coverage so I was still comfortable in it. It was my actual cup size so you'd think it'd fit... ha! It was the apron style thing and I could barely get it tied around my butt. They must make the bigger cup size ones with the idea that its implants on a scrawny girl in mind. So I took that back and went to Fredricks, I was there a while. I got a lacy thing that I wasnt totally comfy in but also got a robe that I could use as a cover and I got some body shimmery stuff and some flavored lubes and such. That was his valentines day present. But I had a 104 fever on V-day so my plans were delayed. A few days after he was asleep on the couch (he was ALWAYS falling asleep if I tried to talk to him, watch tv with him etc) So I went in the room to pee and saw his ipad peeking out of the corner of under his pillow. I picked it up and when I opened it it opened to a private browser that he installed a few days after the confrontation a few weeks back. I was so angry!! Did he honestly NOT care at all about ME???? I paced the floors in my bedroom, I went to the app store and every single review on that browsers was "Yay I can finally watch porn and not get caught" kinda stuff. I wanted to punch him in the nose I really did. But when I finally walked out there and saw him sleeping I had all this how do I wake him up to blast him on this go through my mind. I had a cup of juice on the counter I picked up to take a drink of. It had ice in it and all that so I said why not.. and I dumped it on him. (I know that was childish of me) He woke up and was pretty alert (no fear he'd doze back off while I was saying my piece like he usually did) and he offered no explanation, nothing. The only thing he said was he downloaded that a very long time ago because he hated the safari interface (same freaking concept... I looked at it, looked just like safari) and it must have ended up on there when he had to do a restore or something. I called bs on that one, and knowing I was too angry to do that with him at that point I went in my bedroom, got the bag from Fredricks and dumped it on his lap and said happy effin valentines day and walked away. He picked the stuff up, wiped up the juice and did the smart thing and didn't try to approach me. He quickly deleted that browser from his phone and ipad though I saw that much, and I put hardcore restrictions on both devices and told him it was the only way I could not sit and wonder what the ___ he was doing. He was ok with it at first, but after a week started yelling at me because I changed the itunes password and his apps needed updated and he was tired of having to beg me to update them so I said fine and told him the p-word and removed the restrictions from his phone. I told him he was a big boy to do what he felt was right. His ipad however I had stashed away since that night so he hadnt touched it. He did a week later start asking for it and was pretty ticked that he couldnt even go to youtube to look up how to do something on the car. 

I waited a week or so to confront him fully and on a friday night, knowing we had the whole weekend I said ok I want answers now. I had to pry them out of him and got no real answers. I ended up trying random searches on my ipad to see what came up and I wasnt getting porn. I told him I wanted to know what terms he used to give me an idea of what was so much better than me. He then showed me that my search was on 'safe' and removed that and said maybe try nude... I knew he was just bsing around and I wasnt going to get a straight answer from him. But I persisted on and on and got some half hearted 2nd degree confessions from him (I asked him specific things and he didnt say yes or no just said I had my opinion and he couldnt change that) This was late Feb. 

I tried to stop monitoring him so much and obsessing so much because it was just making me so self destructive. I had a constant churning in my stomach and I started just timing him when he went to the bathroom and if he was in there an hour or so I asked him why it took him a freakin hour to go potty, most people do their biz and be done with it. he didn't respond. He had started kinda cuddling with me at night because I begged him to. But I thought it was a positive turn around. He asked me if I minded if he cuddled without underwear, I said no, and most of the time he'd get an erection pretty quick. I tried not to be the one to ask him if that was a sign and let him be the one to decide those things and he didnt do much, so a few times I'd reach back and touch him and usually I'd play with him for a good while before I'd finally attempt to put it in and a few times he either came right away, died as soon as he went in and then got erect again when he pulled out, or just couldnt ejaculate at all. so we never really had full intercourse through all that. What I did decide was ok maybe he needs variety. I had done some light oral sex before, never all the way for him it was just not on my list of things I wanted to do (having a load in my throat) but I said ok, here i go and I did it, the entire time I was there he was hard as a rock and had orgasmic responses in his body laungage and reactions that I had never seen before. So thought ok, I need to be more creative. I tried pulling out lingere and he usually would attempt stuff but it was like he was doing it because he knew i'd be upset if he didnt, and most of the time he lost interest so i ended up back down there doing what I could to make my man want me. 

Sorry this is getting so long, I didnt think telling the current events without a little background would get me the best feedback. here we are at the recent events.... I noticed he's getting to work an hour to 45 min early every day. He never leaves on time and he started getting off hours late several times a week, 3 fridays in a row and that was the breaking point for me. I logged into his work portal to check his time card and clock out times. I had bluntly asked him if he was having an affair or what and he laughed and said when did he have time for that. I told him before and after work.... he just laughed off my question so I said ok maybe thats a good thing. But my gut was eating at me like never before! And I knew I needed to know why, I needed the facts of the prior and possibly current events. His laptop LCD was busted before we moved into the apt, our son dropped it but the laptop worked if hooked to a monitor. I pulled it out and found a program that finds old itunes backups and extracts the files. The most current backup he had was from October (he started using the cloud after that) So last thursday I took a deep breathe and opened that floodgate. I know it was all old stuff but what I found just truly disturbed me so much. I found gay porn, tranny porn, black chicks (no disrespect, its just that I'm a white girl), asian chicks (again what I said about the blacks), even a search for "non-nude pre-teens panties" or something like that. No sites for that only the search terms so maybe it was an accident, I saw a site about beastiality, self prostate massage and so much other porn, it was too many files to go through all of it, I could see the websites visited and the search terms but I only looked up the sites that were the most disturbing. I was beyond angry!!! Hurt, devestated, heartbroken, i dunno just every imaginable emotion. he tried to call (because I've been insistent that he call me more) I didnt answer he texted that it was going to voicemail, I said sorry I'm busy, he said " I sense some hostility" I said dont start with me right now, he said he wanted to know what he did etc... and I said you know what you did now leave me alone before I do lose it on you. I told him to pick up pizza, feed the kids and get them in bed and that I was staying in the bedroom because I wasnt letting them see us fight and I knew the min I saw him I'd lose my control. I took a xanax to help me not lose it too bad, but while he was on his way home I ripped up all the cards I got him basically saying I was sorry for not loving him recently, all the ones he got me that he signed even if I dont express it I do love you, I threw our wedding albums across the room, took pictures of us off the walls and threw them on the bed, cut up lingere, cut up pictures of him, took every piece of jewelry i had from him and threw it across the room and when he came home he knew this was bad. 

The first thing he did was ask me what my problem was, I stood up and said how dare you ask me that! He then confessed that he'd been using my 3 year olds ipad to look at porn!! ( I didnt know that but I guess he thought THAT was what I found) he denied all the sites I found until I made him look at them on there and see what I saw. He got angry and told me it was senseless for me to do what I was doing, I didnt think so because it was answers that HE wouldnt give me! He had to call in sick Friday, and I spent the whole long weekend (Mem day yesterday) in a wave of emotions. Saturday we finally talked about it in depth. I told him it was time to make a choice. He either gave me some answers, for not just that but his lack of affection in general or no matter how much I loved him I was walking away. I wanted to know about the gay and pre-teen stuff primarily. At first his only answer was that he felt he couldnt perform so he got stuck in that trap to try to fix it and he just searched everything he could think to see what did it for him because he was confused since he couldnt maintain an erection. (he's 29, we recently finally got a dr to do a Testosterone level on him and he was 181 which they said was low, he scheduled to see an endo in June, but even if that explains the erectile issues, wouldnt it kill his mood in general, because he has become a sex addict in his own world) He told me that he wanted to stop and maybe he needed to see someone that could make him stop, I asked him a few basic questions that any therapist would ask (I have a degree in Psych and was a mental health counselor for several years) and he said he didnt know. I said could you tell a therapist? He said no because he didnt know the answers. I told him no one can make him stop but himself and will power was his biggest force here, and if he didnt give details he'd never get advice to offer suggestions for help, but only he can fix this. He told me that he has always had addiction problems, smoking, drugs as a teen, porn and stuff before and that he has a compulsion to have an addiction of some sort all the time. He quit smoking cold turkey before we got together, and he said I was the only thing that ever made him feel like he didnt need anything else, obviously that was short lived since he began pushing me aside early in our marriage. He also confessed that he is compulsively mastrubating because its a release from all the stress of the day... I said ok but when you push your wife totally aside and thats your sole release its a problem. Then I said But I have a solution and started getting dressed. I went to the mall and came home with 2 things, a ring for him and a vibrator. I looked at him and said, now how would you feel if you had to think that I replaced you with this and this was all I ever wanted? He was not happy and said I was stupid to buy that. I said aww but see... you dont like it do you? I said I was considering taking a pic of my boobs (in a bra) and putting em up on some random site just to see how many dudes go look at em. He didnt like that either. I said that maybe I would just see what the fascination was and while he was at work I'd start seeing if I could find some intriguing online material and learn to use that thing i bought. He didnt like ANY of my suggestions. So I said, so you see how you feel at just the idea? Now imagine how I feel with not just the idea but knowing it happened, happens and dont know if its going to ever stop. I told him I could love him, work with him, help him and I didnt want to leave but I had to think about my heart and sou and my kids and I told him at that point he wasnt giving me much to help sort the pieces and I had to assume things and I honestly was still debating if I should leave for a while so that maybe he could decide if he truly wanted me here. He started balling his eyes out and said please dont leave me, please, i'll do whatever you want, whatever I have to do, but I cant lose you. I hugged him, how could I not. And I somehow set me mind that I'd just force sex upon him daily, I'd wear out the need to think he needs it elsewhere because he'd be too sexually exhausted. Not the best idea? Idk... its prob not wise for my emotions either. But that moment I took myself back to the first time with him, how I felt and how wonderful it was to feel comfortable with someone like I was him and it was one of the best experiences we've had. But after I was in tears again. I fought them off by getting online and looking for ways to help him. I started reading him stories from guys that said how it ruined their marriages and lives, stories from broken wives that its like reading my words from someone else. And then it was time to go to sleep. He asked me if he could cuddle and if the underwear needed to be on. I told him to do what he felt was right so he cuddled me and kissed me like he hadnt in a long time, so that ended in me sexually attacking him again... but since it had only been a few hours he was having issues with staying erect so I just did oral, hands whatever until he was close enough and hard enough to get it in there and didnt move enough to let it slip out. The next day it was back to going through the emotional circles of me saying the same thing again and him finally telling me over and over that he was a moron and he never wanted to lose me. 

The stuff I read says before a guy can get over this kinda thing they have to hit rock bottom. Is this rock bottom for him? How do I trust him again? How do I deal with this hesitancy that I know its all temporary and he'll be back to the jerk he had been and doing whatever and leaving me in the dust again? I had some sense of ok this can be fixed, but last night he told me that he had no choice but to stop because I said i'd leave, so if he ever walks up to me and hands me his ring and says nothing I know why. He had tears when he said this. Part of me says ok he's pouring his heart out, but the guarded part of me says he's just afraid of being alone and he has mastered the art of manipulation with me so maybe thats what he's doing. I just want to know how to overcome this.. how to rebuild trust and how to know and keep him from a relapse, how to make him want ME not some cheap bimbo online, how to know its not all a fake front, because I need it to be real, and am I being irrational for expecting him to not look at porn and prefer self pleasure? Also all the random stuff he was looking up.. gay etc, is that normal for a straight guy to do? Should I be worried that he really is questioning himself? can it all have really started because of his erectile issues and escalated to an addiction like he says? Is testosterone replacement the answer or will that make it worse? I have read that guys who have high T levels are usually the ones with the worst problems here. 

If nothing else, if you read ALL of this then freakin KUDOS to you!!! I know its a mouthful, but I have no one to talk to


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## firebelly (May 24, 2012)

I"m in the middle of divorcing a pot-addicted man who masturbated to porn more than he wanted to have sex with me, so I may not be the BEST person to give you advice, but I honestly think there is room in a healthy relationship for porn. Men like looking at other women. It's biological, not personal. (And if we're honest, we like looking at other men.) I think the reason I know this is that I look at porn on occasion as well. My experience is that I feel nothing for the people in the film. It's just something visual that gets me hot. I don't want to leave my partner and go have a relationship, physical or otherwise, with the people on the screen. It's just a fantasy. And I think most men are like that too. But, as you and I have both experienced, it's not porn per se that is the problem, it's when the sexual relationship that your husband should be having with you is REPLACED with porn, you've got a serious problem. That's what happened for me too. No matter how I tried to seduce him, nothing worked. He isn't self-aware or maybe trusting of me enough to articulate what is really bothering him, but after a lot of hand-wringing, I know it doesn't have anything to do with how I look. It has to do with the resentments that have built up for him in our relationship and him not knowing how to resolve them. He uses pot and porn to soothe himself. And...we're done.


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