By milana1979 (Her boyfriend's porn use destroyed their trust & relationship)
(female, 33, Utah, Graphic Designer)

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OK, so I have found this to be a very controversial issue these days, but I am going to share my story with the hope that it might help someone out there to better understand and cope with the situation of men, pornography and relationships. In my opinion the combination of these three is a tonic for disaster. Here is my story...

I first met ’James' -- as we will call him -- in the summer of 2011. A friend had set us up. At first I resisted his advances, and I blew him off for several months before I actually went out with him. At the time I had been dating a lot of emotionally unavailable men, and I really wanted to break that cycle. So I decided that he wasn't really my type, but I was trying something different, so I gave him a chance.

Our first date was amazing. The chemistry was electric and I knew I was in trouble with this one!  So we continued to see each other every weekend and I fell deeply in love with him very fast. We dated for about a month and moved in together. It was magical. I was so in love and so happy. There were plenty of red flags, but I of course ignored them in my state of lovers' bliss, which I deeply regret now.

The first red flag was on our second or third date. James and I were with a girlfriend of mine, and we were drinking and joking around about a threesome. James mentioned that he had never had a threesome before, and I had no idea at the time that he was obsessed with the thought of having one. 

So we drank some more and played around a little, but while we were at the bar my friend was all over him! He was also checking out every single girl in the place and not even looking my way. I felt like the third wheel and it angered me so much that I stormed out of the bar and walked home. 

I expressed to James and my friend that night that I was angry at the way they both were acting, and they apologized. While James and I were lying in bed that night talking, he told me he was sorry, and that he just thought he would ask me if I thought the girls were cute because I had mentioned to him that I was bi-sexual. 

James was always saying that he wanted to be in a serious relationship and get married, which is what turned me on to him in the first place. I remember the things he said about the other girls, and how 'hot' they were. I was so upset about it that I slept on the couch that night. I told him that a man who wants a serious relationship with me would not check out other women in front of me, and would not want to engage in threesomes. I told him that that sort of thing is something to be done in your wild and single days, and that I didn't feel like he was really all that ready for commitment. But I let it go and continued to see him anyway. 

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A few other of these instances happened and I remember a conversation we had in which I told James that I could see trust being an issue in this relationship. But even still, I continued to see him, and trust continued to be an issue. I had never really had a reason not to trust him, but I just didn't. Never. From day one. My gut always told me I couldn't trust this guy, but I kept ignoring it and rationalizing that he hadn't done anything to make me not trust him.

A few months in and our relationship got a lot more intense and so did the trust issues. I had a sneaking suspicion that James was up to no good on Facebook, and one night I made him show me his Facebook. Much to my dismay I saw message after message after message to girls, girls, girls. These were from the time while we were dating, and a lot of them were after we had decided to move in together and get serious. Needless to say I was PISSED, and that was our first big fight.

After that I really didn't trust James, and Facebook became a huge problem. He said that messaging these girls was just him being friendly, but I knew better. I checked his browser history a few times and saw that he was stalking girls' profiles and pictures. I mean, a LOT of girls. We fought so much over Facebook that we broke up over it about six months into our relationship. It was Christmas time, which made it even more devastating. 

I had never been so hurt, and I hadn't loved someone as much as I loved James in a very, very long time, so it was very difficult for me to end it. There were other things I found out, such as texts to girls, lots and lots of porn (which at the time I didn't mind), and some other little things that just weren't right.

We ended up getting back together and breaking up a few more times. On the final breakup, I found a flash drive with probably 200 pictures of girls from Facebook that James had downloaded, without the knowledge or consent of these girls. That was it for me. I was done fighting over Facebook. I told him that it was me or Facebook, and if he wanted me, he needed to delete his Facebook, because it was causing way too many problems with us. 

James said he wouldn't delete his Facebook unless I deleted mine, but I wouldn't do it because I did not use Facebook to hook up. I used it for its intended purpose, as I lived far from my family and that's how we kept up with each other's lives. So it wasn't going to happen. He wouldn't delete his Facebook, so I ended our relationship.

Less then two weeks later James changed his relationship status to "in a relationship." He was with a new girl already and I was so devastated. I became obsessed with their relationship and followed it closely on Facebook, pining for him and waiting for my chance to get him back. Well, six months later I got my wish. This new girl had been cheating on James the whole time with her ex-husband and finally got caught. And of course he ran to me. I tried to play hard to get, but honestly I just wanted to be with him again more than anything in the world, so I took him back and he moved home the next day.

Everything was perfect again -- we were so happy and in love. Then James' ex called and told us that she was pregnant with his baby and that she was keeping it. This woman constantly harassed us and caused problems and drama for us, but we stuck by each other and made it through. 

About two months into the second go-around, that icky feeling came back in the pit of my stomach. It was the all too familiar feeling of mistrust. This time I blamed myself. I reasoned that I must just be insecure. So I cried to James about my feelings and about how badly I didn't want to feel this way, and I told him that I would get help. In the meantime, though, I tapped his phone. I wanted to be sure if my trust issues were unfounded, or if there was really something going on that I didn't know about.

I had always known that James watched a lot of porn, and it never really bothered me. But when we got back together we were spending every second together, and I was curious as to how he was getting his porn fix. Soon after that I tapped the phone and I discovered that he was watching porn every single day. He was hiding in the bathroom and watching it, and he was watching it all the way to work and home every day. It was a 45 minute commute to work for him, and he got home around 2 a.m. every night. Then he would watch porn all night until about five, six or seven in the morning. I wasn't happy about this but I was relieved that he wasn't cheating.

One night while I was at work James was at home watching my six year old daughter. During this time I was keeping tabs on his phone activity from work. I was in the middle of my shift when I saw that he was watching porn again. This time he was on webcam chat sites. James had a sick fascination with the Suicide Girls (half-naked tattooed and pierced girls), but on this particular evening he had googled "pre-teen panty models," and ended up on a child pornography site! While he was with my daughter! 

I was livid, and I got out of work as fast as I could. I was in total shock that James would even go there, because he knows my daughter had been molested for three years by her dad, and that I have no tolerance for pedophiles. James had never, ever exhibited any behavior that would lead me to ever think that he would be the type of guy to search for child porn or anything like that! 

Well, I couldn't hide my anger, and I needed to "find out," so as soon as I got home, I snatched the phone out of James' hand and found what he had been up to. Of course he lied and lied and said that he didn't type in "pre-teen panty models." I happen to do web design for a living, and I'm not an idiot, so we got into a huge fight about it, and that's when porn really started to become an issue for me.

When I began to really watch James' porn activity it really started to upset me, I noticed every single time he was away from me he was watching it, viewing hundreds of pics and videos of naked women and porn. He would go hide in the bathroom to watch it, whenever and wherever he got the chance. 

I became very confused, and I couldn't understand why I was not enough for James. We had great sex, a good relationship most the time, and a wonderful family. Yet he was never ever satisfied with just me. I began to wonder if he was fantasizing about these women when we had sex, and there were even times when he couldn't even get off during sex with me because he had already "taken care of it" the night before. 

This made me feel like crap, and more than anything it hurt. It hurt me to think that I wasn't enough for James. It hurt me to think that he would be constantly fantasizing about other women and then crawl in bed with me, cuddle up, and tell me that he loved me. What a bunch of crap! I had never felt this or experienced this before so I honestly just did not know what to do. I made sexy pics and videos for him, with the hope that he would not want to watch porn as much if I did, but he never paid much attention to what I did in that regard. I tried everything I could think of to get him to focus on me instead of these other women all the time.

In the midst of my confusion I did some reading online about porn addiction and James fit the description to a tee. I also posted my problem anonymously on Facebook to get some feedback and I was astonished by the things people said about it, especially the women! I was told 'men will be men,' I'm just 'insecure,' I'm a 'prude,' and worst of all... 'he's not cheating on you so its ok.' Basically I should just ignore this as 'man behavior,' just deal with it, and be happy he isn't cheating on me!!! WTF? Are you kidding me? This confused me even more. 

So finally I had a talk with James, and told him that it really hurt me when he constantly looked at other women and viewed porn. It got so bad we that couldn't even watch Netflix without him picking something that was sure to show some boobies or whatever flesh he could sneak a glimpse of. There were two times when we were getting ready to have sex and he put a movie on with sexy naked girls right before! Why? So he could imagine it was them, I presume. 

I got so angry at him! I finally said, "hey, this hurts and it is hurting our relationship and it needs to stop right now!" He said OK, he would stop, but asked me if the Playboys were OK. I said fine to the Playboys, (that I really didn't like it either), but I would make a compromise. So the porn stopped and the Playboys started. Same thing, just as bad.

I began to get more and more frustrated by this. The more that I asked James to stop, the more he had to do it. I freaked out about the Playboys, and said it's all going in the garbage or we are done! It came down to the ultimatum... me or porn. He cried and cried, said he wasn't addicted and that he could stop, and he promised he would never watch it again because he didn't want to lose me. I mean this guy was really upset about it, so of course, I loved him so much that we agreed it would go in the garbage and we would just get on with our lives. We got engaged that same night.

Funny thing though, the porn never seemed to make its way out of our house to the garbage. James just couldn't let it go. He put it in the car. I didn't say anything because I was tired of fighting about it and I just wanted it to be over. We fought so much about it.

Three weeks later... my daughter and I went to the store to get something. I could James was more edgy and irritable without his fix, and I just knew what he was going to do as soon as I walked out that door. I just KNEW IT! In fact I almost turned right back around to catch him in the act, but I had put a keylogger on his computer so I knew I would catch him either way if he tried it. 

James had been really distant, playing a lot of games on his computer, and hadn't really said a lot to me. When I got back from the store, though, he was all lovey dovey, kissy and huggie, and I knew he was guilty. And what do you know? I checked the keylogger the next morning and he had snuck out to the car as soon as I walked out the door, grabbed a video, and popped it in. Three weeks he made it! That's it!

I walked straight into the bedroom where he was asleep and asked James if he watched porn while I was gone, and he said 'no.' He lied and lied and lied about it until I got so pissed off that I told him I had a keylogger on the damn computer! He knew he was busted, and I told him to pack his things and get out. We were done.

When I was thinking back through our relationship after I realized James was actually addicted to porn, I saw that the reason I never trusted him was because of the porn. What he was doing was emotionally and mentally cheating on me. Always had been. From day one. His body was with me but his mind and his penis were with a million other naked women, even if they were on a TV screen or computer. 

This was excruciatingly painful to me. I had never felt so much pain in my life. I started doing research online and found that this is a very common thing these days. A lot of women felt the exact same way I did. They felt hurt and betrayed, cheated and lied to. It has the same devastating emotional effects as it would have had if James had gone out and slept with someone else. And if you have ever experienced infidelity it's not something that you just bounce back from.

While we were broken up James begged me to take him back and told me yet again that he would never do it again. I was so angry at him, and I was so hurt that I didn't feel like I could forgive him this time. It was all just too much.

I read that porn addiction and sex addiction go hand in hand and that they weren't things that James could just quit. Porn was like a drug to him, and he would not admit that this was an addiction. He would not admit that he could not control the urges no matter what was at stake. He kept saying he could control it and he could stop. I knew better. If that was the case we wouldn't have still been fighting about it three months after I first asked him to stop. James' porn would have gone in the garbage and that would have been the end of that. 

I told James that the only way I would even consider taking him back was if he got help. I sent him videos about it, and articles explaining the effect his porn use had on me -- anything I could find to help him understand how serious this was to me and our relationship. James promised that he would get help, and after about a week I let him come home.

I went through James' phone the next morning. I found nothing on the phone, but I did look in the cache on the phone that has his download history in it, and guess what I found? Porn pics, porn puzzles, porn wallpapers, and porn apps! He had been watching porn the whole damn time!! He deleted all the evidence, or so he thought. 

I was LIVID! I woke James up and asked him if he had been watching porn while we were broken up. More lies, more lies, more lies! By this time I was just done. There was no trust, and I was hurt beyond belief that he would do this to me -- someone he said he loved and wanted to marry!! And he would throw it all away for porn! James packed his bags again and out the door he went. That was that and we were done. I had never experienced anything so painful in my entire life, and I will never look at porn in the same way again!

What people do not understand is that porn addiction is very real, and very painful for the significant other to deal with. Sadly most couples do not survive porn addiction. It is playing a part in more divorces and breakups than ever before -- tearing apart families and destroying lives. I am absolutely repulsed by porn now.

Now, before you start picking apart all of the mistakes that I made, don't waste your time -- I have already done this. Some might say that I was in the wrong for tapping James' phone and putting the keylogger on the computer, but I needed to do that for my own peace of mind and I am glad that I did. If I had gone on and blindly trusted him we would have got married and then gotten divorced after I found out about his dirty little secrets.

James and I have been apart for five months now, and I am still not over it. It took a long time for me to just to get over the anger! And now porn is a very sensitive issue for me, and every time that I even hear the word it brings up a lot of buried emotions. 

I decided to share my story in hopes that maybe I can help someone else who may be going through this same thing, and to let you know that you are not alone. But unfortunately it's not going to be an easy road if you and your partner decide to stay together and work it out. 

I was willing to try to work with James because I loved him. But there just was never any trust, and after all of the endless lies I just couldn't believe anything that came out of his mouth anymore. It was quite a painful thought to think that he would rather view porn than make love to his beautiful fiancé, and this story had a very sad ending for us and our family. It tore through our lives like a tornado and left much heartache and devastation in its path. I wish our story had a happy ending, but if my story even helps one person to understand and deal with pornography addiction then I will consider that my happy ending.

I haven't dated anyone since James and I broke up. I just don't want to deal with this issue ever again, and finding a guy who doesn't frequently watch porn will be very difficult. I know a lot of men could give up porn easily, especially if their relationship was at stake, but right now I am just trying to heal.

And that's how I became anti-pornography.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story. :)

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