Then I came to this forum once he decided to stay, and we began the piecing process.
The past couple of years has had it's ups and downs, and we've had some pretty good times together again, however, there has been a constant lingering problem that I couldn't put my finger on until the other day.
I kept feeling like he was hiding something. I'm very intuitive. He kept telling me that he was not hiding anything, and that he was being honest with me. He has spent the last two years convincing me that he wants this marriage and wants us to grow old together, but as each month passes he didn't want to be intimate with me. We are close in many other ways and love one another, but when it comes to being intimate he always has an excuse. I started to think he was cheating on me again.
I suggested we go to counseling together to flesh out these issues, so we went back to our church and talked to our priest. We went to retrovaille and really had a GOOD time with one another and our romance soared, but still, no intimacy.
I start pressing for some truth. He promised me that he was not hiding anything or lying to me again. Afterall, we have spent two years trying to rebuild our marriage and he swore that he would not hurt me again.
I kept asking, why are we not ML? He would say the following every time the issue came up
"I want you, and I want to be with you" "I'm very attracted to you and I want you all of the time" "I'm not lying, I want you very much"
But the uncomfortable odd feeling continued. We could out dancing, have dinner, see movies, go out of town together, and enjoy each other thoroughly. He could hold my hand, hug me, kiss me, but that is as far as it went. He never wanted to go further.
Then, the truth emerged.
I woke up after an afternoon nap the other day and walked into the living room and there it was. He was watching pornography on our tv. Yes, our daughter was not in the house. She was gone to spend time at a friends.
He knows how I feel about porn. I don't like it, and I had previous relationship with an abuser that involved porn. he promised that he would never look at porn again, but here he was, doing it all over again.
I walked right up to him and he quickly shut off the tv. I asked him what he was looking at and he quickly denied it. I grab the remote and turned it on and said "THAT is what you are looking at". I threw it down and took off out of out the house crying. He tried to apologize and follow me, but I told him to stay away from me.
After a couple of hours I came back home and he was sitting in the dark crying. He said he needed to tell me something. My heart dropped and I felt like I was literally going to have a heart failure. I told him, if he was cheating, just get up and leave because I spent two years of my life rebuilding this marriage and I was not going to take another step if he was lying again.
He's not cheating, but he's been looking at porn again for the past two years behind my back, and then he finally confesses to me that he has an addiction. He told me that he is so ashamed of it he didn't want me to know. That he loves me, and wants me but feels that the porn is twisting him and his feelings of intimacy with me. He cried a good long time, and told me he was deeply ashamed and tried to stop many times.
He also told me some things about how he found his dad's pornography at age 11 and that he feels that he has been fighting porn addiction since age 12.
I'm so sorry for him. I'm sorry that he's facing this and feels this way, but I just don't know if I can continue in this marriage.
I've been through so much with him over the years. I've taken his mother's abuses on me. I've put up with his constant lying, and his emotional affair in 2011 and his emotional abuse on me. I spent these past two years thinking we were rebuilding our marriage... only to find that he's lying about the porn now, when he PROMISED.... no more lies. No more hiding things.
For two days I cried and was furious with him. I told him I didn't know if we could continue with one another.... because he is destroying the trust.
He is definitely not cheating, this I do know for certain this time. But his porn feels like cheating. He will not be completely intimate with me.
I'm so fed up. So tired of these problems. Tired of my trust being destroyed. I'm starting to entertain the idea of walking away. I'm 46 years old and I want the rest of my life to be better than this. I'm sick of living in agony with him, and tired of getting up each day wondering if he's hiding something else.
I don't see how our relationship can keep taking these hits. When I found out he was lying again, I felt some of my love for him just fly right out the window. We will be married 12 years next month. Our daughter is very close to him and a divorce with devastate her.
I just don't know what to do. I want to be happy. I want peace in my life for once.
