# Online affairs - dangers of unfinished business



## daggeredheart (Feb 21, 2012)

I'll try to be brief. Married 12 years, two small children. Husband is a loaner, antisocial, computer programer, gamer, porn addict with no family or friends. Sounds like a great catch eh? However, I love him dearly and up until recently thought we were on the same page in our marriage. I'm a social butterfly and our counselor calls me "dynamic"....spouse is content to stay at home and live on his computer with not enough interaction with me or the kids. I am the activities director and all around do it all woman. 

Our sex life has been vanilla with me having the much higher sex drive and I was always bothered that he would masturbate to porn instead of having sex with me. I did put on weight after the kids but I've since lost over 40 pound and still going strong. Husband has never complained but I know he appreciates me losing weight. Needless to say, I lowered my sex drive to match his and after the kids we would have sex once a week but some months we went longer due to his sexual needs being met by porn and I just went without. 

Five years ago I caught him with profiles on adult friend finder type sites. Confronted and asked him about hit, he confessed to it all, we went to counseling but never really got it solved. 

Three months ago, he started a EA affair via a iPad game. The girl was a young college student from Iran. We are in the US so the odds of them transitioning to a real life affair were slim but possible. I confronted my spouse. He was in love with her, confused about us and was leaning more towards chucking the marriage and kids for her. I asked him to leave, which he did for a few days. 

A few days later our oldest was hospitalized and we ware thrown together in a confined space and rekindled our relationship. Did a lot of secret revealing and sex and the typical hysterical bonding stage. We are in counseling and go once a week. 

He wrote a no contact letter, ending it with her ( his choice and sent me copies of it. It took another month for him to end his addiction to the iPad game ( trickle ending??) and all those avenues closing sent him into depression. It was rocky. 

Some days I wanted to walk away and still do when I get upset. There is nothing like the pain of watching your spouse openly mourn the loss of his online love, send out rescue parties to sooth her wounds while you dangle on the vine. I don't know how I got through that and those memories will haunt me. I feel like sec on choice. 

There are several healing things that he has yet to do and doesn't seem interested, like a sincere apology from the heart which our counselor suggested. We've had a few steps forward and few steps back. Have gone on a few romantic weekends, spiced up the sex life etc. 

One of the biggest improvements was his revealing his sexual desires. He has wanted to try butt plugs, dildos, MMF and more. I'm comfortable with the sex toys but the MMF seems like the nail in the coffin for me. He has revealed his inner secrets about penis attraction and participation in receiving and giving bj or anal. All that was not too shocking considering the porn history he views ( she male stuff) 

I'm troubled by his recent history where he google searched her Facebook profile, google plus profile and a generic google search. 

It seems like to me that he is still curious, and I don't feel safe. I don't know why he can't talk to me about it and I'm a very open person to all of this because I hate secrets. 

When I first discovered it, he wanted to leave so I accepted he had made up his mind and told him I loved him and wanted to work on the marriage but if he wanted out then I would respect that. The whole scene was heart wrenching. 

I knew that his affair would have a "never ending" feeling because it didn't run it's course.....a forever "what if".... 

what now? should I be forever haunted by his perpetual affection and interest in her or save my sanity and end this relationship? 

Can anyone help me here.


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## 2nd_t!me iz_best (Feb 28, 2011)

dont know what you WANT to hear but i would be gone and no looking back.

ANY type of affair is enough for me to call it quits.


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

With regard to the EA, get the book Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass, it goes into great detail with EAs and can help you understand what was / is going on with him. If you can get him to read the book too, or excerpts at least, that would also help.

You are extremely right to be concerned that he is still obsessing about her. If you read the book, you will see that this behavior is an escapist fantasy (no surprise to you there, I'm sure) but that it also has many addictive traits that make it a habit that's extremely hard to break. Very similar to other addictions, he has to reach some type of 'rock bottom' before he will let that fantasy go.

You may need to return to counseling if you aren't still in it.

I am not even slightly surprised that this porn addict was hardly having sex with you. It wasn't about the weight, it was about the frequent masturbation. All men masturbate and all men are interested in porn, but the two together for hours every day can really kill a man's sex life. Ironic, I know!

I found this video very informative, it's a rather famous TED lecture that explains what happens to a man sexually when they masturbate and enjoy porn to great excess.
TEDxGlasgow - Gary Wilson - The Great Porn Experiment - YouTube

(As an aside, this turned out not to be my husband's problem. His viewing of mild porn every few months or so was not the cause of our sex life tanking, it was his long-term emotional affair.  But on the brighter side, we are fully reconciling so this is thankfully not an issue any more.)


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## daggeredheart (Feb 21, 2012)

Yes, I do have that book and I have re-read it several times. He has read excerpts in regards to his dwelling on it. 

He says he mostly thinks of her in the car. Too much alone time or when he hears sappy music. 

Also his online affair was a month long-- with two weeks of it being the "i love you, no I love you more state" 

I don't know if length impacts intensity of the emotions.


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

daggeredheart said:


> Yes, I do have that book and I have re-read it several times. He has read excerpts in regards to his dwelling on it.
> 
> He says he mostly thinks of her in the car. Too much alone time or when he hears sappy music.
> 
> ...


That probably helps, that it was only a month long, but the fact that he is still checking on her means he hasn't been out of contact long enough. They say about 6 weeks for the effects of the fantasy to start to wear off. Start. And I would probably start that 6 week clock from the point that he stops checking on her via facebook etc. (You do know how to download a facebook account and check for chats between them there, right?)

Let me know what you think of the video vis-a-vis your own situation. You can PM me if you'd rather not post it here.


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## daggeredheart (Feb 21, 2012)

no, how do you do the Facebook thing. I've logged into his, he's not a friend on hers. etc. When he ended the fling, she booted him off....he says there has been no contact other than the original goodbye email to which she responded almost two months later... 

D day was Feb 18th 2012. So we have been in counseling and repair work ever since. I own almost every affair book there is and I've been through most sites. 

I'll watch the Ted talk tomorrow when I have privacy to listen fully.


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## daggeredheart (Feb 21, 2012)

OH and I talked to him tonight without admitting that i snooped and he said that he googled her because he wanted to see if that was anything new... she is a student in a field where they make public space discoveries.. which is a huge draw for him, anything scientifically related. 

*sigh* he says he thinks he will always be curious about how her life turns out but that he can "control" it because he wants to be here,that he appreciates and loves the life he has here, that it's nice to come home to a house and he "hopes" his emotional attachment to her faces in time. 

which all makes me feel like chopped liver. eh?


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

Okay, so log in as him.
On the very first page, in the upper right-hand corner, there's a little triangle-shaped arrow that points down. Click that. In the drop-down menu, choose Account Settings.

At the bottom of the Account Settings page that pops up, you will see, Download a copy of your facebook data.

Facebook *will then send an email to the email account for his page telling him that he's requested a download and they will advise when it's ready*. You will then some time later get an email saying it's ready and you'll go back to this page, click download again, and up will pop a page that gives you a button to download the data.

My husband hardly used facebook, so his download could be read on one computer screen. But a heavy user's download would likely go on for many pages, esp if they used messaging a lot.

Please note the bold above--in case you don't want him to know you're getting the download, or he tries to intercept it, or changes his password on facebook, etc.


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

daggeredheart said:


> D day was Feb 18th 2012. So we have been in counseling and repair work ever since. I own almost every affair book there is and I've been through most sites.


My D-Day was Feb 17 2012. DD#2, that is...I also own about 15 affair-related books and have checked another bunch out of the library. My new hobby 

We just had our first counseling session this past Saturday. It went very well, I was extremely careful to do the research to find someone trained on infidelity issues in particular. BTW, I found them via porn / sex addiction therapists--because the two are so related. My husband does not have porn or sex addiction issues, but affairs are escapist behaviors with addictive qualities so there's a lot of overlap there.


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## daggeredheart (Feb 21, 2012)

Oh my goodness we are both walking in a similar journey. My counselor told me to quit over thinking the affair and get out of the self help books and just "feel" the emotions. To let them run over me and out the other side. Easier said then done when you are a virgo. 


Thank you for the Facebook tip, I'll practice on my own account first.


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## daggeredheart (Feb 21, 2012)

That ted talk was mind blowing. It describes my spouse to a T. *sigh* 

Where do I go from here? Makes it sound like I'll never have a complete husband because he knows the how's and why's behind addictions but doesn't want to stop because he enjoys that hobby it's his entire life unfortunately. So perhaps the bigger question is what am I willing to live with in a marriage? 

That is what scares me.


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

I'm glad you had a chance to watch the video.

I think the part I found most astonshing was hearing how men in their 20's are resorting to viagra over this issue, but it isn't working because it's not physiological, it's all in their head.

Sorry if I missed this--is his counselor specifically trained in porn addiction? Just a run-of-the-mill counselor isn't going to be equipped to handle a cancer like this.


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## daggeredheart (Feb 21, 2012)

Just run of the mill relationship family -- in fact she could be addicted, she keeps her phone an iPad by her constantly and actually started to excitedly engage him in the latest iPad discussions during one of our session....even though she knows that his affair started via a iPad game. 

Do you have suggestion for finding a local internet addiction specialist via website?

The most shocking part of the video was the erectile dysfunction because he has started to experience that in the last month ( he's almost 37)

He's used online porn since his teens and can't masturbate without viewing it. 

He actually "knows" all about why it rewires the brain but doesn't desire to stop it, sounds hopeless.


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

I wish I did have suggestions for finding porn addiction counselors; the only way I know how to find them is to google it and your local area and hope something pops up. Even if it's a distance away, call them and see if they can recommend someone closer.

I'm disturbed to hear how your counselor is handling this. It's obvious she has no idea about infidelity, or she'd be the first to understand what a HUGE trigger that would be for you. I can't even imagine. Blech.

But the path to recovering from any addiction--or horribly bad habit that injures your spouse--is to WANT recovery. So getting him into counseling, when he doesn't believe he has a problem, is the issue.

I wonder if ED will eventually wake him up to the sucky life he is leading. But probably not.


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## daggeredheart (Feb 21, 2012)

I thought that too.... that she didn't realize the trigger but partly that's due to spouse's reluctance to share in counseling how deep the online affair was to him emotionally. 

He still pines over how exciting it was. Guess the dopamine was such a rush. 

I am hoping his ED will trigger something in him. I sent him the video, but he hasn't watched it yet, which is pretty typical, he avoids anything that makes him "face" himself. 

I'm tired of worrying about his problems and feel defeated but I know that's not the right attitude to have. 

HOw are you coping with healing, I would love to hear your story since we are in similar timelines.


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

daggeredheart said:


> HOw are you coping with healing, I would love to hear your story since we are in similar timelines.


I had two DD's, three years apart. So a huge amount of the pain and shock was processed long ago. I went to IC then (I didn't know my husband had resumed his EA). I also spent the last 3 years wisely--improving myself from inside out. I'm obviously a work in progress, but I was in a strong position when I discovered the EA had not ended.

I have found posting on this forum strangely cathartic. It's a way to process the betrayal, to understand how what my husband did isn't particularly unique. So I'm not alone on some island with my pain.

But we do not have an ongoing unresolved issue looming over us. My husband walked away from the OW and it's clear to me in every way that he acts that this chapter of his life is closed. (He is starting IC just as soon as we can get a good referral; we are in MC.)

I feel for you, there is much more work ahead.

I think this is the most dangerous thing about porn addiction; that men are visual sexual creatures, they enjoy photos and videos and so on. They enjoy masturbation and it's something most have engaged in from a young age. But this is NOT what is going on with your husband; he has taken something normal and turned it into a full-time job. But there is still a part of your husband that wants to believe that what he's doing isn't so different from other men.


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## daggeredheart (Feb 21, 2012)

Every time you post you leave me a gem to think on.... "taken something normal and turned it into a full time job"..... yes, he has rationalized it and thinks it's "typical male behavior" and yet can't put the puzzle pieces together. 

HIs lack of motivation to finish any projects, computer related and house hold....his general malaise in life. 

What sort of withdrawal symptoms did you witness in your husband that made you feel safe the the attachment to the OW was dissolving? 

Spouse and I talked more about his "fishing" her info and he said it's not a threat to our marriage...that there is a temptation to see what she is up to but I think he's fooling himself. 

I really don't know how EA unwind in the head or the heart.... I only know that feeling like I can't measure up to the romanticized idolization he's created of her. 

Because he only knew her via online, one voice chat (cb style) that he's filled in the missing parts of her with wonderful traits that I can never possess nor should I have to.... i'm really here, flesh blood and flaws.


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

Well, after DD#1, he bawled like a baby about losing contact with her. It was terrifying. But I had read the emails he'd written to her about how she was his soulmate, and so I understood that he felt (at the time) like he was cutting off his right arm. I had compassion for him, believe it or not. But our marriage had been in a bad place when he'd started the EA 1.5 years before, and I was mostly to blame. But I was also cold about no contact, I mean, obviously he had to choose me and the marriage, there was no room for her in that picture.

All I can say is, that it's clear he's moved on. I think it helps that they were pulling away from each other with their own busy lives. The EA served a purpose and then it was on the decline. Not enough to end it--I think they would have stayed in touch for years more if I had not found out.

You have to return to the idea of an EA being an escape. Your husband sounds like he's simply miserable. He's depressed. He has nothing, in his mind, to live for. The EA took him out of that for a little bit. 

His self-esteem sounds very low. He probably despises himself on some level. His porn addiction and the EA allow him to forget that too.

But I'm not a counselor, and I don't know everything that factors in.

I still don't like the sound of your MC. It isn't surprising, most MCs aren't trained in the serious issue of porn addiction such as your husband's. She's probably acting like you are just the average couple walking in with issues to resolve. You really need to find someone more expert. Preferably a man, who can tell him what's normal and healthy, and what is most definitely not. I wouldn't choose someone who was religious. You can't give him any wiggle room to deny his serious problem.


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## daggeredheart (Feb 21, 2012)

Agree with the counseling, which we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of his net addictions via counseling....if anyone could see how he surrounds his life via the computer they would be shocked at it....he spends between 9-14 hours a day on computers and he plugs into it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. 

He does have low self esteem- and I'm working hard on not being his rescuer since I tend to do that. I'm also the social butterfly and get my emotional needs met by my social clubs and interactions. 


Do you think EA need to go through their shelf life? Start- middle- decline to be truly a done deal? In my spouses case, its as basically just getting hot n heavy, two weeks of saying I love you, describing how they would hold hands, cuddle, watch movies, travel the world and sit and wax poetically about stars and space....and then boom** I busted him and we split up for a few days.....then he decided on his own to end the EA. 

I always felt like it should have run it course.....is that wrong of me?


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

daggeredheart said:


> Do you think EA need to go through their shelf life? Start- middle- decline to be truly a done deal? In my spouses case, its as basically just getting hot n heavy, two weeks of saying I love you, describing how they would hold hands, cuddle, watch movies, travel the world and sit and wax poetically about stars and space....and then boom** I busted him and we split up for a few days.....then he decided on his own to end the EA.
> 
> I always felt like it should have run it course.....is that wrong of me?


No, I don't think running its course is the answer. It is an answer, just not "the" one.

I sincerely hope no one reading what I've written thinks that I'm a model to copy. The EA running its course was dumb luck for me. 

What you really mean by running its course, what anyone should mean, is that the fantasy bubble is popped.

I keep returning to the fact that he has larger issues than the EA. The bubble popped for my husband because he's an optimist who loves life, loves his extended family (apart from me), loves his career, loves where he lives, adores his kids, etc. He has a lot to live for. Walking away from a woman who was never going to leave her husband for him and who frankly wasn't so compatible with him, etc. etc., wasn't so hard to do, once he could see this.

As far as your husband goes, I think if he could get out from under the baggage that is his miserable life, he could be a very different person. But he can't do it without counseling. There's just no way, his problems are entrenched.

In your case, the EA could be a red herring. Where for most people, it's a symptom of a vulnerable marriage (still a choice by the cheater, but a symptom)--in his case it's a symptom of his general serious issues. So they say EAs aren't about you--well that likely goes for you in spades.

You are enabling him, I imagine. But I'm not in any way suited to advise you. If I were you I'd be mortgaging the house to find the best porn addiction specialist (again, someone who is not religious, someone who is licensed, someone who is excellent and well-respected) within 100 miles.


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## daggeredheart (Feb 21, 2012)

So how do they see it ( the bubble pop?) Do you know how they begin to recognize the issues that make the affair undesirable after all? 

Do you have any suggestions on how not to be an enabler?

Why don't you just come over for coffee  we are chatting so much on her it seems like you should just drop in!


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

daggeredheart said:


> So how do they see it ( the bubble pop?) Do you know how they begin to recognize the issues that make the affair undesirable after all?
> 
> Do you have any suggestions on how not to be an enabler?
> 
> Why don't you just come over for coffee  we are chatting so much on her it seems like you should just drop in!


I saw your post but needed to take some time to answer.

What I tried to say is that in your specific case, the EA is the least of your problems. I would see the EA as an escalation of his prior activity. Maybe it's symptomatic of the fact that as a long-time prolific user of porn, he is starting to get ED, he is starting to see that it doesn't fill all the holes in his heart and soul. Correct me if I'm wrong, but his EA was the purest of fantasies. EAs that could realistically be consummated, or where there was face-to-face interaction, are different, I would venture. 

But how do you pop a fantasy that is as fluffy as his was? Virtual EAs strike me as so one-dimensional. I am not saying they aren't "real" in the mind of the WS. He was who he wanted to be, not who he actually is. From your description I can't imagine that this young woman would ever into a real-life relationship with him (but maybe I'm wrong). So under your circumstances, he can always pretend to himself that she was the one who got away. There is nothing to pop that bubble--except you refusing to tolerate his awful behavior.

In terms of enabling, this is why I want you to find a porn addiction specialist. Again, so many people hate the word addiction, so let's just say really really bad porn habit that is destroying his life. Addiction therapists have support groups and counselors for you, the spouse, to explain how you enable their behavior. For example--do you contribute income? Do you make him meals or do the laundry? These are the types of things that allow his habit to function. He has extra time in the day because someone else is doing stuff that takes his habit into the realm of an occupation.

You might be interested in a chapter from the book, Why Men Stop Having Sex--the chapter called Caught in the Net. In it the authors say that in at least one survey, 9% of men said they watched online porn 11 hours or more per week. (Of the wives surveyed, 13% said their husbands watched 11 hrs or more a week.) You can see that your husband is probably in a small group--because 11 hours is a lot. I imagine he's in the top 5%, or even the top 1%, of online porn users.

You have to eat. You have to make money to live. Your counselor can show you how you are contributing to this habit. But this type of advice is far beyond what an Internet forum is equipped to handle. I am not licensed in anything except my own non-medical profession. You need the big guns! Please try to find them.

Bottom line: EA is a big deal to you. But it is the tip of the iceberg with your husband's issues. Your current IC is IMO ill-equipped to handle this overwhelming problem and may even take you down the wrong path, wasting $$ and time.


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

More from that chapter in the book I mentioned.



> The late Dr. Al Cooper, a sex therapist in San Jose . . . even assigned a number--watching eleven hours per week or more makes you an addict. Julian Slowinksi believes that the word addcit is overused and often incorrect, but he notes that he has had patients compelled on a daily basis to rush home, watch pornography, and then rus back to the office and work late in order to catch up, addiing: "If a person's compulsive behavior is affecting his life, his job, and his marriage, that fits my definition." (Incidentally, because neither sex addiction nor Internet addiction are considered to be psychiatric diagnoses, "impulse control disorder" is frequently what therapists use when they write the bill....) Ken Search told us that there are two broad categories of addicts: one goes from one partnered encounter to the next without any emotional involvement; the other has solitary almost exclusively, sometimes accompanies by compulsive masturbation.
> 
> Jay Parker is a chemical dependency counselor at the Internect / Computer Addiction Services. He believes that pornography addicts suffer from a combination of emotional immaturity, lack of discipline, and a fear of intimacy. . . .
> 
> A man's penis is often a gauge of his physical and mental health. And if it can only function sexually when he is alone with his computer, it is a sign of something critically wrong.


They go on to talk about performance issues and ED, but of course this is hard to sort through in terms of cause and effect without a counselor. Excessive masturbation can cause performance issues and ED, but performance issues and ED can cause anxiety that cause a man to withdraw into masturbation.

This is just stuff to get you into the office of the best counselor you can find. I am totally unqualified to give you advice on how to stop something like this. It's really in the realm of a serious illness. You wouldn't ask me how to perform surgery so you could do it at home, nor would you expect me to advise you on how to treat cancer. Take this that seriously, it's the only way that I see you getting out of this.


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## daggeredheart (Feb 21, 2012)

I am forever grateful for you kind advice. It's perhaps some of the best I've seen and encountered in 14 plus years on the net. I have a tall mountain to climb no doubt and you have steered me into the right direction. 

Your phrasing of ideas have actually turned me upside down in how I approach these problems and I'm thrilled to feel that I at least have some grasp of how this all fits together. 

I sadly did have that realization that our counselor has no idea of what's below the surface of our this iceberg and is approaching it from a typical marriage rift but now I see it's much more complex that even I imagined. 

One of her biggest mantra's is "don't rescue him"-- but maybe it's really rescuing myself by getting us the help that really addresses his core problems. 

I've seen so many topics on porn, and I have always been open minded and even enjoyed porn together and chalked it up to a "guy thing" and patted myself on the back for being so modern in accepting porn but now i realize that I did him no favors. 

Porn can probably be healthy when it's used by a individual as a supplement and not abused but in my case as you described so well, he turned it into a full time job. It's not just porn either, it's the non stop clicking of all different types of content. Mindless surfing of news, gaming, etc. Generic net addiction with porn on top. 

It's been several months since I've felt a bit of peace, so for that I thank you. Taking the time to write and respond so that I and perhaps others can feel less isolated during emotional crisis is a god-send. 

Merci friend, 

:smthumbup:


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

daggeredheart said:


> Porn can probably be healthy when it's used by a individual as a supplement and not abused but in my case as you described so well, he turned it into a full time job. It's not just porn either, it's the non stop clicking of all different types of content. Mindless surfing of news, gaming, etc. Generic net addiction with porn on top.


It's so ironic that you say that, because I actually chose to delete a sentence that goes into generic Internet addiction right after the quote I posted--where those ....'s are. (Maybe because that hits too close to home :rofl

Good luck with everything, please keep us updated.


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