Trying to save my Marriage

[anatess2]

37 minutes ago, omegaseamaster75 said:

@Eowyn, it's normal. That does not make it right, and is something that we need to work on to put aside that natural man but it is normal.  I don't advocate it and if you are doing it you need to stop.

Our problem is we take a behavior and God has said that we shouldn't do it. So ok we promise to not do it, but as men (and women are not immune to this) we fail. I think that in the church we lay the "guilt's" on so thick that most boys or men think that there is something wrong with them.  When in reality there is not.  Frank conversations need to be had about the function of the human body and specifically the male reproductive system with our youth, and how we should put aside the natural man not lay the guilt's on them hoping that will fix the issue. It only makes it worse. 

 

In my household of 2 teen-aged boys, a common refrain is... "Yep, normal.  So?  You still have to do something about it."  This can range from hair growing out of their faces to more private things.

[unixknight]

 

On 9/4/2016 at 10:08 PM, Mcmkk said:

My wife says she can never look at me the same and doesn't want to be with me anymore. She says she still loves me but just can't be with me. She still says she'll try and that she is trying but it isn't changing her feelings about leaving me.

This kind of thing infuriates me.  A reaction like this is understandable if she'd been ACTUALLY cheated on or discovered that her husband was secretly a drag queen who hung out at gay bars. 

He looked at porn for a couple of months.  I mean, I could understand a reaction like that if it was kiddie porn or snuff or something similarly awful.  But come on...

Look folks, before the lectures start:  I'm not condoning, promoting or justifying the consumption of porn.  It's an evil thing and all that and yes, can cause an immense amount of spiritual damage and relationship harm, but let's keep some perspective here.  Half the crap on TV is borderline porn already and I don't hear anybody being threatened with divorce over Game of Thrones.  Porn just isn't that big a deal.

No, it isn't.

No, I don't condone it, but that doesn't mean I have to equate it to visiting a brothel or selling cocaine. 

@NeedleinA is absolutely 100% right and I can't say it any better than he did, but I couldn't keep from commenting here because I just feel so strongly about it.  Yep, just about every person we know has seen it at one time or another and more people than we may care to admit probably struggle with addiction.  It's just way too easy to obtain.  If ending a marriage were the appropriate reaction to finding out your spouse was viewing it then most of us would be single with a string of failed marriages dragging behind us.

@Mcmkk, your wife is overreacting, plain and simple.  Maybe it's because she's really emotionally sensitive being a new mom.  Maybe self consciousness about her body during and after pregnancy contributed to it.  All understandable, but if she's ready to divorce you over it then yeah, as was said earlier she needs to see the Bishop and get some perspective because she won't hear it from you at the moment.
 

On 9/4/2016 at 10:08 PM, Mcmkk said:

Is divorce something reasonable for the things I have done?

Absolutely not. 

I gotta tell ya, man.  Your life and marriage are gonna suffer far greater and more stressful challenges than this.  I'd be more worried about how the marriage will weather the next crisis.  Whatever you need to do to get spiritually fixed up is between you and your Bishop and all that but while you're in there talking to him I'd suggest asking for advice on how to gently but firmly tell your wife to chill out.

 

 

 

 

[Guest MormonGator]

14 minutes ago, unixknight said:

I gotta tell ya, man.  Your life and marriage are gonna suffer far greater and more stressful challenges than this.  I'd be more worried about how the marriage will weather the next crisis.  Whatever you need to do to get spiritually fixed up is between you and your Bishop and all that but while you're in there talking to him I'd suggest asking for advice on how to gently but firmly tell your wife to chill out.

:: starts a slow clap :: 

AMEN. 

And again, no one is saying porn is a good thing, no one is saying porn is acceptable. 

Edited September 9, 2016 by MormonGator

[yjacket]

43 minutes ago, unixknight said:

Your life and marriage are gonna suffer far greater and more stressful challenges than this.  I'd be more worried about how the marriage will weather the next crisis.  

Can I get an AMEN brother!!

What happens when the husband finds himself out of work for 6+ months . . maybe a year? What happens when he's working 10+ hours a day with a 1 hour commute each way? What happens when you find one of your kids being a constant rebel in school and in need of good discipline? What happens when the mom can't get a handle on the kids but her husband can't be there b/c he's busy providing? What happens when a major health crisis happens?

Part of what make a marriage strong is the trials that you face and overcoming them . . . together. Over time that can form a strong bond as "hey we survived this, together, it wasn't easy-but we are still here". And the major way that couples overcome trials together is through forgiveness. It really sucks when your spouse isn't where they need to be or doing what they need to . . .but then again there is something in the scriptures about a mote and a beam so while it can be frustrating at times-forgiving your spouse really is the key to overcoming them together.

I chalk it up to just plain youth and inexperience . . .if the wife thinks this is hard-she has absolutely no clue what hard is.

[Dollfacekilla]

This whole thing saddens me greatly.  Viewing porn is not infidelity and is definitely not grounds for divorce.  Viewing porn can be addicting, and can cause greater trouble within a marriage.  I also do no think watching pornography is a good thing to turn to, whether or not masturbation is involved.  Can it cause confusion and hurt feelings to the spouse not viewing?  Yes,  it absolutely can.  I am sure that your wife feels inadequate in her new post baby body and feels self conscience about the way you feel about her body now.  I don't know her side of the story, but I do know what it is like to be a new mom.  I know that if I felt good ole' Unixknight was preferring pornography to me, especially shortly after having a baby, I would feel extremely upset as well.  I don't think I would have jumped to "I don't want to be with you anymore" but being hurt and worried about how he felt about me is completely understandable.

 

Uprooting your entire family, taking your daughter away and going against your vows to love and support each other even when it is hard that you made before Heavenly Father is just not reasonable.  Asking for marriage counseling or talking to the Bishop, is.

 

[unixknight]

5 minutes ago, Dollfacekilla said:

I know that if I felt good ole' Unixknight was preferring pornography to me, especially shortly after having a baby, I would feel extremely upset as well.  I don't think I would have jumped to "I don't want to be with you anymore" but being hurt and worried about how he felt about me is completely understandable.

Baby, no porn ever made is more hawt than you are. 

[pam]

5 minutes ago, unixknight said:

Baby, no porn ever made is more hawt than you are. 

I sure hope you two know each other.

[unixknight]

4 minutes ago, pam said:

I sure hope you two know each other.

After 10 years of marriage, so do I...

[zil]

51 minutes ago, unixknight said:

This kind of thing infuriates me.  A reaction like this is understandable if she'd been ACTUALLY cheated on or discovered that her husband was secretly a drag queen who hung out at gay bars. 

He looked at porn for a couple of months.  I mean, I could understand a reaction like that if it was kiddie porn or snuff or something similarly awful.  But come on...

Caveat 1: I agree his wife is overreacting, and I think if she had been trying all along to come to terms and forgive (as opposed to feeding her own negative feelings) she could be moving on, or well along the way to moving on.

Caveat 2: Every woman is different, so what I'm about to say may or may not apply to this woman, your wife, some other woman you know, etc.

Among the women I know who will mention this kind of thing, attraction (or the desire to have sex and enjoying it) requires emotion.  It requires a happy story in which the romance fits.  It requires romance.  Without all that, sex as no appeal whatsoever (or very little).  So, whether she was actually cheated on, or what variety of porn was involved are really irrelevant if every time she looks at him she wonders whether she's the one in his head, or some porn star is the one in his head; or if every time she looks at him, the picture in her head is of him viewing porn and masturbating.  She's got to figure out how to get that out of her head, and get the image of a man who loves her and only her back, and restore her own feelings of love for him.  Depending on the woman, not an easy thing to do.

And from here, I return to Caveat 1: "...if she had been trying all along..."  It doesn't sound like she has.  On the other hand, she's not here to give her side, so what do we know?  The best we can do is encourage the husband OP to do his best.

[pam]

3 minutes ago, unixknight said:

After 10 years of marriage, so do I...

Whewwwwwww

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, yjacket said:

Can I get an AMEN brother!!

What happens when the husband finds himself out of work for 6+ months . . maybe a year? What happens when he's working 10+ hours a day with a 1 hour commute each way? What happens when you find one of your kids being a constant rebel in school and in need of good discipline? What happens when the mom can't get a handle on the kids but her husband can't be there b/c he's busy providing? What happens when a major health crisis happens?

Part of what make a marriage strong is the trials that you face and overcoming them . . . together. Over time that can form a strong bond as "hey we survived this, together, it wasn't easy-but we are still here". And the major way that couples overcome trials together is through forgiveness. It really sucks when your spouse isn't where they need to be or doing what they need to . . .but then again there is something in the scriptures about a mote and a beam so while it can be frustrating at times-forgiving your spouse really is the key to overcoming them together.

I chalk it up to just plain youth and inexperience . . .if the wife thinks this is hard-she has absolutely no clue what hard is.

Well said, Unix, MormonGator and Yjacket!  Welcome, Dollface!

 

[Guest]

I admit the guy messed up by indulging in porn, but the guy is penitent and well on his way to completing the repentance process.  I think the wife telling the guy every single day for weeks on end that she cannot stand the sight of him, when he is trying to repent and make things right, is emotionally abusive, no matter how upset she is.  

 

Edited September 9, 2016 by DoctorLemon

[Guest MormonGator]

If she chooses to end the marriage I get the feeling she's going to regret it very quickly afterward 

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

If she chooses to end the marriage I get the feeling she's going to regret it very quickly afterward 

Would you be interested in someone who divorced their husband over 2 months of porn when he was penitent?  

Me neither.

(And that is not just because i am already married)

[Guest MormonGator]

9 minutes ago, DoctorLemon said:

Would you be interested in someone who divorced their husband over 2 months of porn when he was penitent?  

Me neither.

(And that is not just because i am already married)

Exactly.  

[SilentOne]

I'm posted sort of in the heat of the moment and am not sure I properly understood what I was replying to, so I'm just deleting that for now.

Edited September 9, 2016 by SilentOne

[Latter-Day Marriage]

11 hours ago, zil said:

On the other hand, she's not here to give her side, so what do we know?  The best we can do is encourage the husband OP to do his best.

Perhaps the OP should invite his wife to come read the thread, or read a printout of it, then they can talk about it.

Edited September 9, 2016 by Latter-Day Marriage

[zil]

3 minutes ago, Latter-Day Marriage said:

Perhaps the OP should invite his wife to come here, read the thread, give her side.

I don't know, we've been pretty hard on her.  It might just get her back up...

[Latter-Day Marriage]

4 minutes ago, zil said:

I don't know, we've been pretty hard on her.  It might just get her back up...

We haven't condoned his actions any either, but on second thought if she does read the thread they should probably talk about it privately rather than she post here.

[zil]

10 minutes ago, Latter-Day Marriage said:

We haven't condoned his actions any either, but on second thought if she does read the thread they should probably talk about it privately rather than she post here.

Indeed, we have not condoned either side, but we've taken his story as the true interpretation of the situation.  However, the older I get, the more I recognize that there are multiple "true interpretations" of what happened between multiple people, and had she been the one to post here, we might have heard very different things and supported sympathized with her frustration with a [lots of negative traits and behaviors here] husband...

This is partly why getting counseling from someone who knows what they're doing is probably the best advice.  Each side needs to listen and come to understand the truth about the other, only then can they start to reconcile their differing perspectives on the matter.

Edited September 9, 2016 by zil

[anatess2]

On 9/4/2016 at 10:08 PM, Mcmkk said:

She says she still loves me but ....

I wonder what both of you define Love as... what does she mean when she says "I still love you...".  I mean, is that just some romance-novel melting-bones, jelly-knees thing?  It really bugs me to no end when people say this word and not know what the heck it means!

If you love the guy, you'd help him fix his mistakes!  For example - I love my husband so much that if I wake up tomorrow to find out he's been a porn addict for the past 18 years my first thought wouldn't be - he hurt me, he's a loser moron idiot that I can never look at ever again!  No... my first thought would be - oh no, my husband is in trouble, I gotta figure out a way to get him to overcome this weakness!

That's what love is - that desire to bring someone closer to his maximum spiritual and temporal potential!  It's not all about what he makes me feel!

[NeedleinA]

25 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

That's what love is - that desire to bring someone closer to his maximum spiritual and temporal potential! 

Well said.

[Guest]

28 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

I wonder what both of you define Love as... what does she mean when she says "I still love you...".  I mean, is that just some romance-novel melting-bones, jelly-knees thing?  It really bugs me to no end when people say this word and not know what the heck it means!

If you love the guy, you'd help him fix his mistakes!  For example - I love my husband so much that if I wake up tomorrow to find out he's been a porn addict for the past 18 years my first thought wouldn't be - he hurt me, he's a loser moron idiot that I can never look at ever again!  No... my first thought would be - oh no, my husband is in trouble, I gotta figure out a way to get him to overcome this weakness!

That's what love is - that desire to bring someone closer to his maximum spiritual and temporal potential!  It's not all about what he makes me feel!

To be fair, it is OK if your initial thought, upon finding out about a porn addiction, is that the guy is a loser moron who you can never look at again.  Porn addiction is extremely painful for the spouse, and there is bound to be a lot of emotion initially.  I get that. 

What isn't OK is then, while the guy is making great strides towards repentance, reminding him that you think he is a loser moron every day for six weeks and counting.  That's just abusive.

I would have a very different opinion if the guy was not trying to repent, but from what we have heard, he has been trying very hard to set things straight.  You just don't kick people when they are down.

Edited September 9, 2016 by DoctorLemon

[estradling75]

Both sides can screw up and need to repent and forgive...

On can sin by engaging in porn the other by actions and words that are harmful..

But neither can remain there and be following the council of the Lord and the church on the subject

[NeedleinA]

13 hours ago, zil said:

Among the women I know who will mention this kind of thing, attraction (or the desire to have sex and enjoying it) requires emotion.  It requires a happy story in which the romance fits.  It requires romance.  Without all that, sex as no appeal whatsoever (or very little). 

I read a book on this subject, a book that I think every LDS person should read, I honestly do. What I thought I knew/understood on this subject was quickly put into a different perspective. After reading it I was able to see myself and my wife in a new light. Blips and pieces of a puzzle throughout our marriage started to come together and form a recognizable image. What an eye opener to read on a subject that most LDS are hush hush about, BUT that we all better learn or figure out. Some couples crack the code over time with trial and error, but some never do and remain in a state of sexual frustration, confusion and disappointment. Staying in the state of sexual frustration long enough can unfortunately make pornography an appealing outlet for some.

Anyways, great book for both sexes. It is designed to be read together and has you ask questions of your spouse that you are not necessarily going to ask over dinner or at random. Couple bucks and 5-6 hours to change your mind on this life long essential subject.

And They Were Not Ashamed: Strengthening Marriage through Sexual Fulfillment - LDS Author Laura M. Brotherson