My wife is so so angry...

Exactly. When a wife cheated on her husband, she should never tell him. That would ruin their relationship.

 

It is too early. It takes a lot of time to heal. Few weeks is too little.
Yes, adding to you fighting with your addiction you have to help her heal. Those are the consequences of this addiction. It cannot be skipped. You have to support her.
But telling her is only way to start building your relationship all over again. It is also the only way that seems to be really working for men in a relationship to stop using porn. It is also very hard to fight addiction without support of your partner.
And about her telling someone else than a therapist....well, it is kind of humiliating...you dont wanna go around telling people you were not good enough for your husband and he watched porn while being with you.

 

I know you’re being sarcastic, but I stand by the advice I and other commenters have given out of experience.

Think of it like this. You’re in a boat with a leak in it (your marriage). You know where the leak is (your addiction). Some water (feelings of betrayal) has already gotten in the boat. You can either spend your time removing the water or fixing the leak. Which is the logical thing to focus on?

Of course you are going to fix the leak first.

I think it’s great you guys are getting counseling. Keep doing that. If you do not address your addiction NOW, you will keep on betraying her and making these problems worse. On this site I believe you can find what you need to handle that IF you’re serious. But she’s right. It will take time. I wish you well!

 

What do you mean by everything? Some people on this site are overly broad with how they define "porn addiction". To me porn means recorded videos and images. Other people seem to conflate "porn" as including happy ending massage parlours, hookup sites, prostitutes, and affairs.... It's crazy. I just read a post from another dude and I assumed he was struggling with porn when it turns out he's married (to a woman) and having anonymous sex with men!

How did that happen? Why didn't you discuss porn use before marriage? If porn use is important to you why did you marry someone who can be traumatized if you watch porn?

How did you determine you are an "addict". Again this term is too broadly used in my opinion.

 

Funny, I use a boat analogy as well. Only it’s you both get married and your boat is the marriage, you both row towards destinations. You see other couples rowing and they are getting to their destinations, but you keep floundering.Water gets in the boat from life’s storms which you both expected but you both bail it out. Except the water keeps filling faster than you can bail and the wife doesn’t know why. Until one day she looks over and sees her husband drilling holes in the bottom of the boat instead of bailing. That’s the betrayal. While she has been trying to keep the boat ( marriage) afloat and moving forward, he has been actively destroying it ( drilling holes).

your analogy makes it sound like the leak is just something that randomly happens and takes any responsibility off of the addict. Then it makes her feelings of betrayal sound like just a normal life hardship( water) you abdicated his responsibility in this and minimized her betrayal. At least that’s how it sounds.

 

@NWRebooter,

@True-Self makes a good point and one I was trying to decide if I should say anything or not. And it's something I think could make this guided disclosure a lot worse off rather than better.

If you have done anything other than watch P videos, I wouldn't wait to tell her. (I'm assuming the p video part is very much in the light by now). Tell her ASAP, I think it just makes things worse if there continues to be more things like that which surface over a drawn out period. Try and get ahead of it and don't wait for it to be brought up in a session.

I think this also applies to things like chatrooms or if you spent money on sites. Spending money, on something like OF adds another layer to the betrayal because it adds a form of financial infidelity which is damaging all on its own. Chatting with a real person I think does too because it's a more connected form of P interacting with a real person.

I also think coming out on things like this outside the session will be good for her if it's something that's needed. Otherwise she'll get to the point (maybe already is) where she thinks what's the next thing I'm going to find out every time you walk into therapy together.

I've been roasted on this site before about suggesting someone wait 90 days before adding in how you feel. Like if you are struggling with attraction towards your wife. But i think it's worth noting when it comes to your feelings, like the reasons why you used P, stress, anxiety whatever it may be. I think you will be able to articulate that much better after 90 days. You will have a better grip on things once you've taken that time. I know this because I experienced it myself. By then you have such a better grasp of your specific addictive patterns and cycles. An example could be... the only reason I use P is because she doesn't want sex enough. It's hard to extrapolate out the real feeling (that you desire more intimacy) with the addiction of compulsively acting out with P. I promise you'll feel much different about it after 90 days than you will today. So in my opinion take time to work through that stuff before bringing it up.

Another aspect of this is that there really is no excuse your wife is going to accept. And often when you try and express a feeling it comes off as an excuse. I've listened a lot recently to a podcast on BTR.org (Betrayal Trauma Recovery) that talks about this period where a betrayed spouse just needs to protect themselves from more emotional damage. I think that is a natural bodily response and a reasonable one. When you bring up your reasons for using, she's not likely going to be in a place where she's able to receive it. And that causes not only damage for her but also for you. These are times where her hurling insults at you can do a lot of damage to the relationship. So my opinion is, do a lot of introspection during this part of your recovery. It's probably the most important thing you can do.

The disclosure to me is more about facts, what you did specifically. The longer and more drawn out that process is I think the worse off things will be.

 

Really great post. Disclosure really should not be trickled out, but also the addict needs some sobriety before he disclosed all as well, but the partner is terrified of what’s happening and needs to know now! It’s all a mess. It’s also why, if the addict can get some sobriety, then disclose or confess rather than be discovered the relationship does better. Rarely happens that way, most get “ caught” repeatedly until the partner is just done. Great point too about the financial infidelity/abuse. I’ve always felt if my husband had spent money on this, I wouldn’t just divorce him, I’d be sure everyone knew why. I worked hard to be financially well off. That would’ve been another knife to my heart.

 

Thank you for stepping in here, I'm afraid what I said may have muddied the waters and I didn't want to make it worse by trying to explain it more. You expressed it perfectly.

 

How can you know that?

 

Yes, it was sarcastic
Discussing if one should tell his wife about his porn use and saying that not the porn use, but telling the wife about it is hurting the relationship made me write the comment. Because it is basically the same as saying that not the cheating is hurting the relationship, but when the partner gets to know about the cheating. It is really telling someone cheating on their partner to never tell about it, because it would hurt their relationship. Well, if you cant help yourself, you can occasionally cheat, just make sure the partner doesnt know about it, so it doesnt hurt. Just doesnt make sense. It is the cheating that is hurting the relationship. It is the partner that is cheating, that is already withdrawing from the relationship.
I know some of you are going to say it is different, porn is not cheating. However, if your wife feels like it is cheating, it is cheating. And if she doesnt like you watching porn, she probably does think porn is cheating.
I understand it is hard to tell your partner the truth. But I think it is the only way forward. It is hard to stop porn in your life without this step. Not impossible, definitely much harder. And the wife surely has the right to know her partner and their relationship, and decide for herself if she wants a relationship with porn involved as well.

 

What does the therapist say about her hitting you?

 

That the trouble with the internet - you can't tell if someone is being serious or not. I actually thought you were being serious and that it was a bit weird you would think that. Then I thought maybe you were trolling.

 

But also I want to point out that most people at least thought Starling was sarcastic. I don't think anyone thought the post she responded to was, even though they both said the cheating spouse should not disclose. The visceral "that's not okay" reaction people had to her should have been equally had to the post she was responding to.

 

I'd like to know the answer to this too, I totally missed this point on the first read

 

Has she ever hit you before? Did she apologize? Betrayal trauma damages the brain and makes it hard to regulate emotions. If this has been something she has done in the past it would probably be better if you both separated until she can work through the trauma and learn to ground herself and regulate

 

So she became violent after discovery/disclosure? You understand why? Betrayal trauma causes brain damage. She needs help to mitigate it in the same way you need help with your addiction. She is basically responding from her amygdala and cannot regulate until she learns how( this is why she won’t just “ get better” with time). It doesn’t make what she did ok, but if you don’t understand she needs help it will continue.
She will never be the same. That’s how traumatic this is for her. She can heal, but she will never be the same person whether she stays with you or not. So she really needs her own therapist.