These Journals Break My Heart

Wow. It is quite an experience reading through some of these SO journals here. I can't do it without tears streaming down my face. How heartbreaking. So much brokenness and human misery and wasted love and deep wounds.

And I've contributed to it. I've done my own bit to cause that very same pain and feelings of helplessness and inadequacy in my wife. I hope this rotten realization can fuel my own effort to change, and care more about the harm I've done.

I will say one thing to all of you. I know all the men in your lives are different. Some are more callous and indifferent than others. But I do remember speaking to a counselor one day about wanting to quit porn. And he asked me why I wanted to. And I told him that it was a violation of my values and principles, that it wasn't consistent with my faith, that it holds me back from being the man I want to be, etc. And then he said "you didn't mention anything about not wanting to hurt your wife." And he was right. I hadn't. For some reason, in my head, this is just such a totally different category of a thing, that it didn't occur to me. I love my wife. I'd do just about anything for her. And yet, not even a blip on the radar. Do you see the level of blindness here? How horrible this addiction is, that we don't even see the obvious?

It's crazy to say "don't take it personally". What could be more personal? But some of us at least, truly are that messed up in the head. We truly, honestly, in the moment of compromise, don't feel like it has anything to do with love, or our relationships. We're hungry, so we grab something to eat. Or we're stressed, and grab a relief. Doesn't even enter our minds that we're taking a dagger into the heart of all we hold dear.

Not sure if this makes it better or worse. But maybe it explains something. I don't know.

I'm so sorry, ladies. I was blind. What, in God's name, have I done? You all deserve so much better.

 

It’s certainly hard for me to speak to your situation - where the effects are so blindingly obvious. It’s been the other way in our marriage- me having far more appetite than her, and often feeling rejected and neglected. Some of that is just sex differences, some of that is people differences, and some is wrapped up in her own fears and wounds from my own addiction, and some (I’m growing to accept) may be an intemperate desire on my part fueled by my experience with porn.

Anyway, as to how does the denial work? I suppose I’d say that it doesn’t start that way. It starts just being a kid and being curious. And it associates the really good feeling of seeing nude images with the really good feeling of orgasm, without any of the work. Then it becomes a way to relax or unwind. You simply get a craving, and you can satisfy it simple as can be. And so by the time you get in a serious relationship, you’ve done this a gazillion times already. And when you experience real sex, it’s really something entirely different. It’s with another person, it takes work, it can be less intense and stimulating because there’s more going on than just your own gratification. There’s good things too - it’s real, and personal, and emotional, and makes you feel close to the one you love, and accepted and loved yourself. But it just feels like an entirely different category of thing. Super personal as opposed to super detached.

I guess when you say “ignore their wives just to pretend they are having sex with someone else”, I’m thinking that “pretend” is the key here. It’s an addiction to “make believe” and “fantasy” itself, fueled by a crazy biological reinforcement loop. If we actually had to interact with these people as people, we’d most likely stay far away, or perhaps be moved to pity at what working in the porn industry is really like. But they’d be nothing like anyone we’d want to live with, or start a family with.

It’s a delusion, and no mistake. And maybe not really possible to understand from the outside. But that’s how it feels on the inside. It’s a “thing I do to relax and release” rather than “a person I prefer to you” in our minds. At least for some of us - God knows we’re all different.

But this isn’t to excuse. The reason I made my post was because I’m really really uncomfortable and sad seeing so eloquently shared what it feels like from the other side.

 

Thank you for your compassion and also for articulating perspective so beautifully. I agree and can relate with much of this from both a SO hurt by the addiction as well as someone who struggles myself.

The whole thing sucks and can be quite distructive. There are varying levels of course but it takes away so much of what we’re intended to be as a couple.