I find myself in a slightly better place today than I was this time last week. I no longer feel alone, wow, I no longer feel completely isolated in this horror that I find myself. Thank you everyone, your advice, experience and stories have been extremely welcome.

I truly know you are all amazing women, you have all walked / are walking a similar journey to that which I find myself on now. And from where I stand today only an incredible woman of great strength could endure this journey.

Learningskills

Thank you for your post, what a very positive way of look at finding ones self at 'rock bottom'. You are right, what a great analogy, I understand that rock bottom is literally the bottom 'a solid structure to build on'. I pray I have the strength to grow.

Onedaytothenext

Thank you for your time and telling your story, I am incredibly grateful.

You are correct, I am not your wife! But isn't it interesting that our marriages have suffered similar dysfunctional traits. I am learning all our stories, of course, despite having individual nuances, seem to suffer somewhat similar mental and physical hardships. It is no wonder it took you three times to be certain I wasn't your wife.

Upon reading your story I am filled with thoughts and questions, so thank you for inviting me to ask more. As you know, I am at the beginning of my journey and I am struggling rather at the moment and so my thoughts are a big jumble. I intend to reread your story and then possibly reach out.

Hi INTFF

I hope some of what I write is of help to you, obviously I don't know you or your situation so apologies if any of what I share is wildly off beam. Just select what may be helpful to you and trash the rest.

Firstly, you have had some very good advice here and you have made a good start with your therapist and I sense you getting stronger but this is not a quick fix but it certainly will make you a stronger person. I've learned to embrace being out of my comfort zone - it is ultimately energising and I have grown beyond recognition when I look back on it all so keep the faith!

I have only contributed to one other post on here and all my opinions on this topic are there. In a nutshell, I believe that the genre of porn viewed holds the key to recovery. Contributor OneDay has confirmed this for me in this post when he recalls as a young person standing guard while watching another kid abuse a girl and his genre is teens. I rest my case. This has helped me be more understanding and less offended.

I was nowhere near as invested in my relationship with a compulsive as you are but here is how I got and am getting through it.

I felt very let down, disappointed, overlooked, so right from the start I set boundaries. I have stated to my significant other (SO) that I watch actions, I'm less interested in words. Don't talk, walk. There is nothing that I wouldn't discuss with him. I'm not passive aggressive, I'm straight up about how I feel. I don't blame him personally, I merely state how the behaviour makes me feel.

He has a history of being surrounded by cold women and has cheated on his exes. I believe that viewing porn is an expression of his desire to cheat and to re-run the scenario of women humiliating HIM and have stated this to him, calmly and neutrally. He says that cheating could not be further from his mind as he is viewing because he loves me so much. So I just say 'why else would you enjoy watching women naked if you don't want to cheat with them? Why else would you want to see them being humiliated if not for revenge for what several women have done to you?' I stand firm about this and he has no better explanation. I call him on it. I demand answers, gently of course, but I won't let him off the hook when I find he's been viewing.

He is horrified by the suggestion that the genre of porn he enjoys equates to him enjoying seeing (often vulnerable) women humiliated and abused and I'm not talking S&M but very ordinary women, who could just as easily be me, in various groups, with men just using them for their enjoyment. My SO just does not agree with that one at all - but no better explanation is forthcoming so my hypothesis stays until he gets one. Would he enjoy seeing men enjoy seeing his daughters engage in this activity? Nooooooooooo!

In a nutshell - the movie clips he enjoys are not of loving men being kind and generous to women they have newly met, taking the best care of them, calling them after date nights, sending them flowers etc. Noooooooooo! And people are believing that porn is normal?

I will not accept that porn is normal and that all men should enjoy viewing it. It is a circus, every bit as degrading as viewing animals dressed in tutus and performing tricks. I love animals, can I watch them performing for my pleasure and put back in their cages when done with them, heck nooooooooooo! It is painful to watch. So I've focused on why my SO enjoys seeing women treated in this way when he simply does not do that in real life.

Let's get real here about what is actually going on!

So with me he gets to take a good long look in the mirror - I simply will not let him off lightly and I demand that he face his apparently harmless activity which he now associates with harming me and our relationship and rightly so. Fantasy cheating does harm me.

So much of this is subconscious and his primitive brain is hard wired to seek multiple opportunities. I tell him, that's fine but unfortunately you don't get to be married to me and seek opportunities. What I'm saying is that I have a definite picture of what marriage means to me and I fight for it. He can't have both. If he wants to behave like a single guy, off you go buddy.

I do not want to share my life with a woman hater even if on the surface he is the most adoring, caring and loving man I've ever met. My experience with men is that they will keep behaving badly to the point of getting away with it, until told otherwise. Of course they want the best of both worlds but my SO simply can't. Go find a lady with low standards and live happily ever after.

There are triggers of course and I know those triggers so can help him to avoid them. He needs to fill his time with healthier activities.

I get from your post that you are perhaps a little too kind, loving, (passive?). I have found that men like a challenging woman, they like to work for her, to please her. They like to know exactly what she wants because that takes the guess work out of figuring us out. They want a direct-speaking woman who knows what she wants and doesn't make men guess. Doormats are a turn-off. My SO is competitive so I'm not afraid to trigger that in him. I'm no victim, although I've had meltdowns where I've felt genuinely hurt by this and he's had to help me process the fall-out. I let it all out and it can take a whole day and he's right by my side to witness my ugly pain and hurt. That which he has contributed to, when he relapses.

It's at those times where he says that he can't bear to hurt me or see me hurt. I've had to be very careful at these times to remain consistent - I don't allow the goal posts to be moved, I don't allow myself to become normalised to his activity and thus losing my power gradually.

I'm not the one who is in rehab here.

I might sound hard but if there is no attraction then there can't be a relationship, I can't live under the same roof as him. I've done that before and it simply doesn't work for me.

I've taken myself so far out of my comfort zone and taken huge emotional risks in stating my needs and how this relationship has to be. I am as understanding as I can be but I won't compromise on my STANDARDS. As a result he's really stepped up and is very worried about losing me - but hey, so he should be. I know that any problems in place now will just show up larger than life in the future so I need to deal with them now. He wants to please me so he can start by taking responsibility for his damaging viewing habits.

My best coping mechanism is that I've taken the focus off him and his habit, worked out how it has to be for ME, stated my boundaries and needs to him, held a mirror up to his face, called him on and let him own his s--t and asked him to decide whether he's in or out. I am not his ever-forgiving partner. He is in absolutely no doubt as to how his behaviour affects me.

I'm comfortable in my skin with the fact that if I had to leave him, like zillions of others have had to do under worse circumstances, I can make it on my own and he's convinced of that too. He either changes or we split.

I haven't mothered him - that is a big attraction killer. I've learned how to build attraction again (Mars Venus on a Date is a must read). I've worked on my attraction behaviour so that he can focus on me as much as he focuses on his PC. I've let him chase me - psychologically as well as physically. I'm his new addiction and he can't bear to be away from me. His viewing has all but diminished, from daily to fortnightly and only when certain triggers are in place.

Most of all, it's a heck of a risk but I've found it in myself to be true to ME and as a result he's sat up and taken a lot more notice of me as a result. We are both incredibly happy with this new arrangement.

Sorry to say this gentlemen and I say this lightheartedly but I've found that it's a lot like training dogs!