I thought I had a good marriage. My husband Lee* was a great guy, loved by me, loved by our daughters and all of his friends and family.
He was always the life of the party, such a funny man and also very kind and loving.
We had a good sex life and loved each other's company, but he was seriously addicted to porn and I couldn't deal with it any longer. It started with him watching porn on his phone — I caught him many times and he'd just shrug it off, telling me "it's nothing" or "all guys look at porn."
That might be true, but Lee looked at porn constantly. We'd be playing in our swimming pool with our little girls and he'd excuse himself to go to the bathroom. If he wasn't back 20 minutes later, I'd check on him and he'd be staring at porn on his phone in the bedroom.
That's when I got really angry. "You can't even have an enjoyable afternoon in the pool with our girls without having to satisfy yourself with that disgusting porn you're addicted to," I told him.
He said he was ashamed of himself and he promised to get help. But weeks went by and nothing happened; it was the same old pattern, he'd come up with some vague excuse, disappear and then be found by me. It must have been humiliating. I felt sorry for him, but I felt sorry for me and the girls too.
It became his life in many ways. He was always on his phone and I knew he wasn't reading news, or writing on WhatsApp. It felt like he was having an affair but I don't think he was, I think it was all about porn addiction. I told him I would leave him unless he got some help. I took his phone away for a while but that didn't achieve anything — he'd just get his laptop. I threatened to take that away too, but he'd still find a way.
"It fills me with such sadness to know our marriage didn't work." It was like dealing with an obstinate child. I even called Lifeline at one point because I didn't know where else to turn. I couldn't talk to friends and family about it because it was just too embarrassing.
I felt like people would judge me; that I was obviously so bad in bed, or wasn't given him all the sex that he clearly needed, that he would resort to porn for hours every day. That's what I thought people would think. It fills me with such sadness to know our marriage didn't work. We're doing okay co-parenting our kids, but now I have absolutely no power over him – there is nobody to police his porn habit now.
I hope he meets a new woman soon and hopefully she can do something about it, because I absolutely failed.
Yorumlar