SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This will be a very vulnerable post for me but I have to update because today feels like a very very big but yet, sad breakthrough.
Maybe porn addicts spouses or sex addict spouses will be able to identify with it more than others but here is the cold hard truth of being married to one.

Our oldest daughters bday was Friday, we were supposed to have a pool party yesterday but the weather forecast wasn't great so instead she asked for a mother/daughter day shopping to make over her room and to find new clothes for school (she just turned 11). My heart immediately sank, what me? Taking her shopping, alone? Leaving her dad to look at porn or to possibly do worse? No way, I was in my mind finding ways to get out of it, to put it on her dad and have him take her... I mean he can't look at that stuff or talk to women while with her right? When I used to leave the house and go places and come home I would find signs he would look at porn, he wasnt goood at hiding it , or he didn't care, no matter how much we had sex.
I fought my emotions and decided that she was more important than the shitty things he put me through and even more important than him. We even drove past a hotel he took his old trashy AP to and I didn't even notice until we were way past it. I was so happy for the first time since his A I didn't notice it, usually I feel sick. Our daughter helped me because we were talking and bonding that I didnt even notice.

I owed this to her, how many years I spent not bonding with her for fear of leaving our house, wondering what he was doing or what he was trying to do... our other kids are little so crib time for them, means fun time for him..
I don't think porn is recognized enough as infidelity here and unfortunately that is the start of it, or at least it was in our case.

I looked at my H today before we left and reminded him that I have lost so much time with our children because I have avoided leaving him "alone" due to being afraid of what he would do when I left. I was vulnerable and told him that he was no longer allowed to take from us every again and if he were to, I would be gone.
How freaking unfair this was to our oldest daughter, the guilt I feel will probably not go away for a long time because she should have came first, I should have found a way to shove the fear down.
He hung his head and was very upset and I know he knows how much he has impacted our lives and not for the better, he promised me he would be cleaning the house and loving on our babies while we were gone.
I THOROUGHLY enjoyed those 4 hours with my daughter and I even got myself three pairs of jeans that I feel so pretty in and some Halloween stuff to sooth my soul.
I came home to a clean house, three other happy babies and all of our groceries delivered put away.
My H also agreed every other week him or I will take our oldest to church , it is hard with littles that don't want to wake up.

He had a vasectomy a few years ago and I told him I feel sorry for him, I feel sorry that he hasn't witnessed a birth of one of his children without his addiction, the love, the happiness, the pure bliss has to be different at that point right? Now that he is changing now that he sees what is important? God, some days I wish I wasn't an empathist, it is such a curse.

I guess my point is, in my opinion

Porn can be just as damaging as infidelity and I consider it cheating. It cheated me out of time with my kids, it cheated my H out of a normal reality without fantasy expectations.

It is forbidden in my home and even though I used to watch it with my H (handful of times) I will never again.
We are about to be up to renew his porn blocker in a few months and he actually reminded me of it, it is pricey but it is well worth the cost in my opinion.

Tonight was a hard night for me because when I came home, I realized we have had 4 children together and every one of their births hes been a porn addict and he has had his head in the sand or up some porn stars ass. |
I explained to him that I feel so sorry for him because he never truly enjoyed, appreciated, or felt what I felt delivering our children. I cried and I cried not for myself but for him, he replied that is something he has to live with and change, and he has the upmost regret for. I asked him if he was working on reframing his mindset those days and he said he was and that our kids are still young enough he can make it right, his eyes were so sad, why couldn't he have changed sooner? WHY DID IT TAKE THIS?

I don't mean to ramble or be depressing, I just am just here to say that I felt robbed a lot of this relationship and today I took that back for the sake of my daughter, for THE FIRST TIME , I didn't care what he did and I put her first.. I should have always did that.

(((HUGS)))

Porn played a HUGE part in my H's mindset long before his OA's and PA. I never thought of it as an issue before until I started looking at his computer after Dday. I was SHOCKED at how MUCH porn he was actually looking at !!

I am very HAPPY to see you made this breakthrough and to see how your H handled things while you were gone .

YES...things were stolen...but that was all in the PAST. NONE of us can change the PAST. But we ALL can move forward with our new understanding and make sure we don't make the same bad choices. From what you have written...your FUTURE looks very GOOD !! When you focus on THAT...hopefully it will bring about a smile .

(((Groot1988))) this is a great post! It’s good to see you putting yourself first not letting the BS (not blind spouse) put you down in the muck. So happy you had a great day with your daughter triggers be damned! That’s the way to do it!

And I agree with you on the porn. I think it’s so disgusting and a lot of it disturbing on many levels. My xWS too abused porn and brought that ick into the bedroom. My new partner never watches porn it’s such a breath of fresh air. The intimate times I have with him are so special without that ick.

Glad to see your WS is stepping up, learning and being remorseful and empathetic towards you!

First off, my oldest daughter turned 8 on Saturday! - how uncanny some of our "dates" are to one another. For a short period of time (in relation to after the A), I noticed that I didn’t want to leave my WH alone at home or have him go out anywhere without me or one of our daughters present. I especially didn’t like leaving the house with our oldest or staying home with our oldest because my mind would go to a dark place and it would absolutely "destroy" the time I was spending with her - I knew what it was doing and no matter how hard I would try to just relax and be in the moment, I couldn’t … this made me feel so sad and like a failure. I eventually got to a point (quite early on actually) where I told myself I can’t let HIM and HIS shitty-ness affect MY time with our children - he had taken so much already, I was not going to allow his A to take away from them.

100% about the porn thing. My WH has watched it our entire relationship because apparently 99% of the world watches it (that’s funny because I fall into that 1% category I guess) 🙄 I’ve heard the "it’s normal, all the guys I know watch it" … blah blah bullshit. I didn’t necessarily see it as a form of cheating … but you can bet your ass I do now. It’s actually a dealbreaker for me … he knows that if he ever watches porn "here or there" it will further deteriorate any progress and come with grave consequences AND/OR if it’s ever watches it in excessive amounts again I will D. I’m actually so disappointed that I never stood up for myself sooner and put an end to it early on. However, I know that I can’t choose for him, he has to be the one to make the right choice (I think this is mostly why I just turned a blind eye). Doesn’t make me feel fuzzy knowing that porn was always a "good" choice for him. I literally busted out the "you have 2 daughters of your own now, it’s time to grow the fuck up" card - he cried and said how disgusting his behaviour has been and that he never wants to be like that again (good for you bud 🙄). Looking back over the course of these 10 months, I can’t believe I didn’t connect the dots between poor coping mechanisms, porn and infidelity … like wow … does that ever make sense! Porn destroyed our M long before the A and I didn’t really look at it from that POV … over the course of these months I have done a lot of thinking and this should of been addressed a very very long time ago.

One final note, it makes me happy to hear that you’re taking some of that lost time back and connecting with your daughter. Kids come first, always 💕