BBJ, what you did in the privacy of your own bedroom is really nobody's business. Why you think that my opinion (or anyone else's) of you would change is beyond me. If someone's opinion of you changes because of what you said above, you really do not want to continue your relationship with them. i really sense alot of guilt within you and honestly that is what i dislike about religious upbringings in general!
And now I probably scared away everyone who thought I was such a caring, compassionate, good-hearted person.
No, you didnt't!
You did what you thought was right, in the context of the marriage. Dan chose to take it outside the M, and things went downhill from there. Don't beat yourself up, you were not the one at fault. You had two strikes against you, from the start, I think. First, your Mom's attitude set you up, and then your age when you started dating Dan. You didn't have anywhere to go for guidance, so you followed your heart.
I don't think you laid the foundations for his problems, it sounds like they were laid before you got there. You got caught in it, with no way to really know what had happened.
John, I am ok. Really, I am. I guess it is just embarrassing for me to acknowledge some of this stuff to everybody. I have not shared any of that in the almost-18 months I have been here. Mainly because in the beginning I was a participant/contributor to the situation. But after the stripper I drew the line because I realized what was harmless fun to me was becoming a whole lot more to Dan.
And I guess because I knew I could handle it, I thought he could too. We lived in St. Louis at the time I found out about the $1500-$2000 on credit cards for sex hotlines. A lot of it had been during his college years but there were still calls almost every month since we had gotten married. When I confronted him about it (we had gotten a filing cabinet and I was filing all of his bills that were in a box), he seemed devastated and at the time threatened to kill himself because he was so sorry and didn't now how else to stop hurting me...
I let it go like an idiot b/c 4 months later we found out I was pregnant with our first child. And I thought that would change things, it did for me. But then the A when our little guy was only 5 weeks old...
So I guess for me the guilt is not that what I did was wrong, specifically. It is that what i did enabled him and allowed him to keep doing things the way he did. I did not force things into the light so they continued to grow in the dark. He chose to do the things he did but I chose to let him stay in my life. Hope you know what I am trying to say...
Sorry for getting a little melodramatic there before. Just thinking about all this stuff brings me down. I do know for a fact that even if my approach wasn't right my intentions were. I loved my husband the entire time and tried to support him in the way I thought was right. And I never walked away from him and our marriage, he is the one who did that.
Here is what I wrote down to share. If it is 'shaming', then it is. I think holding a mirror in front of someone is sometimes necessary...If he is ashamed of what he sees then that is on him,not on me. This is not my attempt to win him back this is my attempt to show him that I know how lost he is even if he thinks I don't, and to offer up a helping hand before I walk away.
Wow Bobbi, I actually feel a bit tearful reading your post and I urge you NOT to say all this to him at dinner. I really thikn you are going about this all the wrong way.
There is an issue in my R that I havent spoken about, one between my parents and one in my sisters M (which ended it, she had to walk away).. all related to sex and I'll say no more on details.
BUT.. as a psychotherapist said to me about my ex.. he hates and loathes himself. HE is not acceptable to HIMSELF.. and when I showed him my initial dissaproval, I was then showing MY dissaproval of him also. I was shaming him. A man who is already shamed so much, he has thoughts of suicide (as I am sure Dan has). I, the woman he loved, the one woman who loved him, apart from his mother (who is the cause of these predilictions, as it is for Dan no doubt).. was showing him that he is a shameful being. Loathsome. Wrong. Messed up. What did he do? Ran the other way. Men cannot handle feeling shamed and as the shame is the root of his problem, you are dousing a fire with petrol here.
BUT Bobbi.. its not about woman luring and manipulating him, or Jesus, or Satan, whatever. This is about deeply rooted pyschological issues that Dan has. Our sexual orientation and gratification are "hard wired".. especially if it shows signs in teens. The clue here is you said he was looking at this stuff from 16...
and the thing about the closet.. seriously, that is an indicator that Dan has an issue with power and dominance and objectification of woman. I dont doubt he loves you very much and this is NOTHING to do with you. Its not surprising he cant sleep with you. You are his w and mother of his children and right now, he hates himself.
What you need to do is work with him, not against him. Ackowledge his shame, let him feel you are NOT disaproving and disgusted by him. You should have compassion for him. Something has clearly happened to him (could be innocuous) in his youth which has left him with a 'twisted' sense of woman.. I feel for you, I really do, but shaming is is the WORST thing you could do and would drive his feelings deeper.
You say its for you, well, you vented here. Its not going to help him, IMHO and might make matters between you much worse? The best thing you can do for Dan (as clearly you do love him, even if you are now heading for D)..is to acknoweldge that his predilictions cause him guilt and shame and that you support him in exploring that through some serious, professional psycho-sexual counselling. If having done that, he feels he wants to continue to pursue these habits, fine, but you cant stay M to him.. but.. maybe it will help him to unravel what the root cause is of his feelings of self loathing and objectification of woman.
I also agree with John, sexual prediliction is NOT the same as drug/alchohol addiction.
Men are visual and sure, some look at porn and its titilating..(and no, I dont like it/approve of it either)..but what you are describing here is something way more serious, more psychological and deep rooted than just looking at a bit of porn. And I guess you know that hey and its taken you years to face up to it.
Seriously, this is hard to deal with and I really do feel for you. Its almost, accept him for who he is and what floats his boat, or let him go lovingly. Because from what I understand of these issues, if he was very young when this got "hard wired" into him, its unlikely that he can be "cured" of it.
OOOOOOOkay, Bbj, you know I care about you and want you to have what you want but some things sound very weird to me.
As a person I am very shy in regards to sex. Actually my H held it against me towards the end and he told me I made him feel ashamed also, while he was more adventurous, not concious about his body etc etc. Anyway, he was right. No doubt. And in my mind I believe that between 2 people that love each other and even more so, when married to each other, sex, making love, should have no restrictions and everything is allowed UNLESS one of them feels humiliated or put down. It's putting that in practice that I am having difficulties with :(I cant imagine Christians are any different than anybody else or that religion dictates that. And I am not an atheist or agnostic or a sex maniac (well maybe I am now).
BUT what you describe has a lot more to do with sex/pleasure in general than with just porn.And of course that explains part of cheating and the choices he made (meaning the women he chose). I am not a councelor or far from being an expert but if he felt dirty expressing his wishes with you, to you, if he felt he was not "following the path of God", Christ or religion, could it be possible that he tried to live a double life, satisfying himself outside your home, while being with you as a partner because he loves you?
I repeat, I dont know nothing about these things but honestly I saw a bulb lighting in my head when I read your last post. I actually saw it the other way around :Dan didnt stay with you all thru these years because of sex, Dan stayed with you because he loved you but strayed because of sex. People carry heavy baggage regarding sex, just like your mom, my mom was telling me the same. Dan probably does too. And that can be very confusing.
You think what our mom's told was healthy? I plan to tell my D and S to have as much sex as they can with their loved ones and that SEX/ML is a great joy. Not a slutty thing to do. My only extra advice will be to respect themselevs, their bodies and their partners.
Maybe Dan carried the same beliefs but when his desires went a little crazy (or maybe a lot, I cant judge that, really) his guilty towards you and himself became too much to handle. You are the mother of his kids afterall. I wouldn't be surprised if the Madonna syndrome (I think) had something to do with his reactions (cheating on you when you had the baby?)He found an alternative. He looked for it outside the marriage. And then... it was already too late.
YOU KNOW, I am not a supporter of Dan, I just think that some issues are really serious and shame makes us ignore them because we feel uncomfortable while that's where we should first look. I would suspect he has an issue with sex in general, not just porn and with a far deeper effect than we can all see.
Maybe all you needed all along was a good sex therapist... K
One last thing before letting other folks comment....I think I have already said enough.
When Woog used to say your husband was broken, I had no clue how right he was. Do not feel any guilt about what you did. If you were my sister, I would strongly urge you to put an end to this marriage tommorow....walk and don't look back. After all he has put you through BBJ, i hope you know that you deserve MUCH MUCH better!
I almost said the same thing John, Woog had no idea about how broken Dan is when he said that. But sadly, with "broken" now, I get sad about him, not mad as I used to...
Me too.. I feel huge compassion for him. As my sister did for her H.. she struggled on for 5 years... but she had to walk away in the end, but wished him well. He was a cross dresser (she had no clue.. found a bag of outsized clothes and shoes after she had been M 10 years, but she said too, the clues had been there all along looking back, but she chose to ignore them..)
And I feel for you too. Everyone is right, this is NOT about you, or what you did/didnt do in the M. You cant fight stuff like this, its in him and down to him.
