Partner Addicted to Hentai - Please Help me Deal with my Denial.

Please, don't beat yourself up over it. Getting it out there helps. You may find other people who are in the same situation and your experience can help them feel that they aren't not alone.

I apologize... I normally stay out of the Partner Support forum, but something drew me here and I saw your post.

Being a PA myself, all I can say is that you can only do so much for him; he has to own his recovery. At the end of the day, he has to change himself.

If you want, I can discuss this with my wife and see if she can provide her perspective. Personally, I would prefer her joining here and visit this topic often.

 

I love Dr. John Delony, and I listen to him daily. Thought I'd share some recent ones I was listening to that I saved for myself. Reading what you wrote made me think of these.

Not every specific part of these am I suggesting everything will fit how you feel exactly. But I thought they are worth sharing.

The first one I remember her taking about 3 mindsets she ping pong between. Which reminded me of things you said here.

 

I would suggest to you that putting your relationship on the line won't work. He may want to change but if he's genuinely addicted, that will just make him more likely to hide his failures. After a 15-year daily habit, the odds of him waking up one morning and going totally clean are fairly slim.

I would focus on discussing reasonable boundaries that will help with his addiction. Before even getting to masturbation, I would suggest he cut out all triggers - i.e., Japanese-style cartoons and comics. Remove the temptation and emotional trigger and then he can deal with the physical habit of jerking it every day. Others may advise differently, I just think that after 15 years, you need to focus on one thing at a time to make progress. Not baby steps, big steps, but steps nonetheless.

Another question I'd ask is whether this impetus to change is coming from him or you. If it is coming from him or it's bothered him for a long time, you may have success. If it's largely your issue rather than his, you may be in for a rough ride.

 

Sure! I'll pass that along to my wife and maybe work out some sort of way for you two to contact each other! I'll bring it up tonight when I spend some alone time with her (after the kids are off to bed).

While I don't have a partner with PA, as PA myself, I felt the same way about this site: so nice to find other PA who are on a similar journey, and I can open up about my addiction.

All the best to you and your partner! I hope things work out for both of you!

 

From my perspective, I saw a few posts like that and it leaves me wondering why my wife is still with me. It's, kind of, becoming a contentious point with us.

 

It's definitely not all negativity. I've been doing NoFap for 10+ years and have had multiple streaks lasting over a year. I basically never binge porn like I used to and things that used to trigger me don't anymore. My relationship's really good and sex life is healthy. Recovery is 100% possible.

If I had to give one piece of advice, it would be to both try your hardest but don't let slip-ups get you down. Just focus on progress and the positives. If he goes one week longer than last time but slips up, that's still movement in the right direction. As long as he's genuinely trying and you're still in it, there's always hope.

 

Yes, long term recovery is very low with this addiction. You have an advantage of understanding addiction and him disclosing early on. I would have never even dated my husband had I known he was an addict. I didn’t ever want a relationship where addiction or alcoholism was a factor, so I didn’t date anyone who drank, smoked, or did drugs. We all have flaws, but addiction is a different beast and add to that the infidelity and objectification that goes hand in hand with this addiction makes it very hard and painful to fight. At least you won’t be battling betrayal trauma! That just compounds the problem. Treating pornography addiction by Dr.Kevin Skinner is a great book for both of you!!! One of the best.

 

Highly encourage you to talk with him about this in an open discussion if you guys can. He needs the same thing, both within the relationship and with other friends as well. When I feel connection with my wife my desire for P is so so much less than when we aren't connected.

Shame of the addiction causes the person to try and hide it. It seems he knows the issue, and his ability to be open with you a long time ago probably means he doesn't struggle with shame as much as others do. But I bet there's still some shame there he deals with. Which results in lies, deceit, covering things up etc. It also comes in the form of disconnection in relationships. If someone who struggles with shame is burned emotionally, they cover it up and are going to be less willing to open up the next time. It's not easy of course, but the better you and him are able to keep those open lines of communication and connection the better.

You can't fix shame/addiction for him, he'll have to work on that on his own if it's an issue. But you're experience with addiction and understanding of it will really help him. Wish you the best in this, and I'm sorry for the hurt it is causing you.

 

I'm a SO and the fact that they are cartoons he's getting off to is just as painful as if it were a physical affair and everywhere in between. Your feelings are real, don't discount them. It's good that you are getting some of the feedback you need here. For me, I feel it's lacking. I'm not sure if this is allowed here, mods, please forgive and delete this post if it's not, but I have been considering opening a chat room for SO discussions. Would anyone be interested? Maybe I should have started my own post, but here it is. I wish you luck and love.

 

Hi, I'm the wife of @Cyan Flame that he has mentioned a few times. Honestly I can talk to you for support but at the end of the day, what's working for us, is actually communication. Like we now go through our ritual of when I wake up and he is awake, usually working, I'll ask him how he's doing today, and if he's okay, what kind of day does he feel it's going to be, and his feelings. Then when we get the kids off to sleep, we basically sit down and do a full recap of the days events, he asks me how I am holding up, and I usually talk to him about my day, and sometimes vent and complain. He will also complain or vent his feelings or frustrations out to me and we just are getting back to what we used to be when we first met. I am uncertain of our future, there are days that me and him talk about what if he doesn't get over this addiction and we wind up divorcing, and what that would look like. We talk about everything and we listen to each other. Its a day at a time thing but we're making it work in the right now and I mean, I at first thought lowly of myself, but I realized that anything that he has done or seen is on him, nd anything I have ever done wrong is my fault. Sometimes shit happens, and at the end of the day, you just have to sit back and think I love this man and I'm ready to cut someone over him, and I would frankly be a chicken poop if I didn't fight for him or be with him in this journey to better himself.

 

I was addicted to hentai for many years (basically since I was 12 until maybe 2 years ago) and in my opinion it's worse than regular porn. Not only the scenario in those can be really... really extreme (

Spoiler: type of porn

stuff involving children/loli, gore, murder, like 90% of hentai has rape in it

), but also it totally disconnect the sexuality from reality. I literally couldn't desire the women I saw, it was not related to sex for me. Regular porn never interested me, I always thought it was gross and actually felt sad for the actress.
Hentai is a fantasy word and an escape. The further from the reality, the most damaging I think.

 

Back in 2019 @Hopefulgirl had a resources thread, @Vizsla Dad added the same book in this post.

Narrated by the author, I'll check that out too.

 

my partner is addicted to hot wife porn /communicites and sexting with random girls online