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After two days of basically avoiding me since Thanksgiving at his parents I copied the email alert I got from his iPhone app where he googled “tits” on Nov 14th at 10:45 pm. I handed it to him after the kids went to bed telling him this is what I’m upset about. Man, did we talk and somewhat yell at times ( the quiet yell I mean that we do to not let the kids hear us who were upstairs in bed). He swore he didn’t google that and knows I get the alerts so why would he do that he said. Who had your phone? Who did it then???? Someone googled tits!!!!! It wasn’t me I told him!!! I then said I joined this site and I’ve read about how some husbands confess their slips to their wives and he has never done that. He got a bit adamant that he had been feeling proud at how he felt like he had a handle on all of this and had temptations to look at things but had fought it. He said he was upset about Thnxgvng because I kept a guarded distance from his parents and family. I told him that since he greenlighted his family’s request to invite his ex to a family celebration last year while I was out of town on business I learned my place in that family even tho my h was more to blame for agreeing to the invite in hopes I wouldn’t find out. If they valued me as the in law I believe that wouldn’t have happened. At that time he had boundary issues with his ex who was nothing but a bitch since we met. He said he and his family have since come to understand how that should’ve never happened. They didn’t realize how betrayed I’d feel and humiliating it was for me for my h to put us in a position of gossip amongst his family with talk later of “oohh what if she finds out the ex was here” not to mention the message he sent his entire family which was “hey everybody, look at what I’ll do behind my wife’s back!”. So no, I’m not feeling the love since last summer. He then tells me that he hasn’t brought up any porn issue talks with me bc he thought it would upset me. Really? I’ve said since Jan I will support him and help him as he gets help. I smell Cop out!! I just cried and cried and told him I can’t do it anymore. I want a divorce and I’m too young to go without sex in a marriage and once a month getting thrown a bone is bullshit!!! I kept telling him I can’t do it anymore. I feel like we live this big fake marriage and I’m the only loyal one in it. He swore he hasn’t viewed porn since Jan when I kicked him out and when I told him why didnt he get rid of his iPhone to show me he didn’t want Internet temptation he had the fall to say he only got it bc it was my idea when his flip phone broke. BULLSHIT I reminded him. I KNEW it was a porn outlet so why would I support that????? He said he feels that he doesn’t need the sa group as he feels he is dealing with this pretty good. I told him he was not able to free himself from years of this w/o a dr’s help and that statement has me VERY WORRIED. I reminded him I haven’t thrown anything up to him in a fight which he agreed but I went on that he’s taking advantage of my silence and support by not talking about this with me and “checking in” so to speak to reassure me. He agreed that needed to be done. He betrayed me and our vows by NOT forsaking all others by using porn as I reminded him and he acknowledged that. It’s a bitter pill to swallow. He hasn’t done much to rebuild my trust and I made it clear that him NOT TALKING to me about it just makes all of this worse for me. The silence on this subject is HORRIBLE!!! I didn’t reveal nor will I that I’m tracking his car via gps. Tonight we talk more and I’m going to ask more questions.
for-now,
this guy and his family sound like bad news. Do you want to spend more energy oh him and them? Why don’t you do the simple “pro” and “con” list and see what you discover.
I forget whether you can support yourself. If so, I’d be on my way, if I were you. This guy isn’t in recovery and he’s mired in the denial and diminishing of he problem. You deserve something better. And he’s family sounds horrid.
D.I’m so, so sorry about all of this FN. My situation is so different, because I truly came into all of this from the back door. (no pun intended- lol). But, I know that its a rather steep learning curve.
As for your husband…
yawn…
Can’t he even show a modicum of originality? His typical response IS enraging. However, its not an uncommon thing for “nice” people to be “nice” by keeping secrets, and lying and doing whatever they can not to make waves.
After all, we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. 🙁
losers.
hugs and love,
L
It does sound like he’s still in denial. I think a phone without web access is in order.
I’d be upset about the ex thing, too. My H’s ex will be in town next week for their daughter’s graduation. They get to go, but I don’t because the graduates were limited to 6 tickets and that’s their family, basically. It does make you feel like the outsider, no matter what anyone says.
{{{{{hugs}}}}}}
Yes I can support myself. I was divorced 5 yrs b 4 we met. I reminded him AGAIN that I don’t need a man to help raise my kids and I’m not one to stay til they are grown especially one who is involved in porn. There’s too many good ones out there that aren’t and I can’t be in a position to meet one if I’m married to him! He said he came to see since Jan that God has brought me to him as a gift and he lost sight of that until I kicked him out. I told him to start acting like it. What’s weird about his family is that they truly are nice people and what they did last summer REALLY cut to the quick and I grieved over the relationship I “thought” I had with them. It was devastating when I found out. I knew he is the ne’er ending good guy who avoids conflict at all cost even at my expense so him green lighting it was as much of a shock as them wanting her there ONLY bc they knew I would be gone. I told him that other than hi hello and meaningless conversation with them I will let former dil (ex) fill their dil needs bc she does it better than I have or so is the impression I got from previous stories about her. That just killed h when I said that. He acknowledged that he hasn’t defended me as a h should and it won’t happen again. Last Xmas his sil (who is buds again with ex wife) ignored me entire day bc she thought I said I wouldn’t go anywhere the ex was at. H stood right there as I tried to say hello and she ignored me. It was Feb til he got the story and told them I didn’t say that. I didn’t nor would I as I have been around her b4 and played nice. Her grown son overheard a conversation I had with the h about going to an event she would be at. All I said was “as long as we are clear on boundaries (meaning hubs) then I have no problem going.” Somehow, sil’s son got out of that I refuse to go if ex is there. She apologized to hubs but not me so I keep my distance. It was such bs how all that got turned around and took h that long to straighten it out!!
One comment really struck a nerve with me:
He acknowledged that he hasn’t defended me as a h should and it won’t happen again.
That has been spoken between H and I twice, then I stopped mentioning it. NOW I know the root of that, the SA, he has not held me in the position of cherished wife, EVER. I just didn’t know it and expected that he would act as if he did. He said he did. It was a lie, and he forgot to put the pearly white perfect husband paint over that part of his black heart.
I hope you have better luck with this. But don’t let it diminish you in your own eyes. You are worthy of championing.
It’s ALL their problem, their twisted expectations. It sounds like no matter what you do, they have a stereotype for you and you’d DAMNED WELL BETTER WEAR IT!
Sorry, I’m a little anxious and angry today.
Sorry, but i don’t see this family as “truly nice people”. What they did was dreadful. How the SIL treats you is dreadful. And how your husband lets them is dreadful.
And the reason I’m being tough on this is because my SA’s mother treated me dreadfully and I excused it again and again, and he never laid down the law for his mother, so she kept doing it. When people show you who they are, we ought to believe them.Blessings on your precious head,
D.That’s what’s weird to me. Until the ex slowly started creeping back into their lives after disappearing socially for 4 yrs they talked not so great about her. She did apologize to my h after a mutual friends funeral they knew. He said she told him she was sorry for all the grief he caused HIM. That upset me that he didn’t add “you know, you hurt my wife too as well by your petty attitude and snippy comments about me and she and I that were said to our grown kids since I met and married her.” but nooooo it was all about him at that point. I reminded him that the next time your mom says “I don’t know why she’s so threatened by your ex.” FREAKING DEFEND me by saying that while your family is all cozy with her again she has only shown me crazy and petty so SHE caused me to have that impression of her, not me! After she apologized to him she started texting him here and there today’s sons bday, anniv, daughters bday, wanna go in on a gift together for grandchild. 9 mos of this went on with him ignoring these til I said handle it or I will. He said he thought if he ignored them she would get the hint. She kept on. He finally called her and said enough, stop. They are not welcome nor were they ever wanted. She got pissy and hung up which was a yr ago. Haven’t heard from her YAY!!!! He said he sees now she took his silence as agreement and that she probably did not have innocent intentions when texting. YA THINK!!! Shocked me he told her to stop but I was glad he did. As far as his family, I truly enjoyed being around them when I thought they were loyal. The ex being back in the fold and invited behind my back last yr showed me they were not loyal and fair weather at best! Now they say to h “we just don’t know what we’ve done to your wife for her to hold us at arms length.” That spoke volumes to me that they didn’t “hear” my upset. “Oh well” is all I tell h when he brings it up.
Lynng, don’t apologize. I understand. We all have those moments and that’s why we are here…to share, to listen and to learn. Thank you ladies for your input!!! It’s nice to be truly heard.
I lost another post – gosh how do I do that?
for-now good grief tits on the phone and rude in laws for Thanksgiving! Yikes! Happy turkey day – so much fun to get together! I cannot believe they invited his ex last year when you were out of town and did not tell you. Ouch. They are rude and sneaky and at least you now know where you h gets it from. Just in case they are trying to desensitize you to that violation — I want to say to you that little trick was completely underhanded and unforgivable. They should be begging forgiveness from you.
scheesh who needs enemies when you have a family like that.I say you take his iphone and dribble the smallest amount of water in every orifice. (silvers trick) and when his phone does not work anymore, offer to get him a new basic phone. Of course…he will want the new iphone. Tell him it may be in his stocking…….and give him coal. He will up grade by new years, but you wont have to worry about his phone for the month of Dec! oooh I may try this myself!
Hugs
Heidimy post almost sounded like the “if you give a mouse a cookie book!”
hmmm if you give an sex addict an iphone…..he’s going to want a_____
Yikes! I better get some work done!
Heidi
my post almost sounded like the “if you give a mouse a cookie book!”
hmmm if you give an sex addict an iphone…..he’s going to want a_____
Yikes! I better get some work done!
Heidi
Heidi, (a little off topic) I lost a post once and it was because after I hit the post button I hit the browser’s back arrow. Don’t do that. To go back to the Forums after you post, arrow up or down and click on Forums again. That’s what I figured out, not sure if that’s what you were doing, but figured I’d throw that out there. Claire
Dysfunctional families and People put everyone on a totem pole. A SA will always have us on the bottom. If they have triangulated the kids or a kid they favor, they are ahead of us on the totem pole. Of course, the SA puts himself on top of the totem pole. It’s our job to keep ourselves on top and not let these sicko people push us down. I don’t take shit from anybody anymore. They can take their totem poles and shove them up there asses sideways for all I care. Now there’s a good trick. :0
Love, NapDear For Now,
Your husband is not in recovery as previously stated. When we look back at our relationships with wide open eyes we see that our husbands let us down in other areas besides fidelity? I often felt mine NEVER stood in my corner because he didn’t….not with his family, not with his job, not with anyone. My husband is the quintessential “nice Guy” so he is killed trying to please everyone and avoids conflict like the plague. At times…in order to support me, he would have had to confront someone else and he did not have the strenght of character to do so. In addition, they are so busy blaming us for everything (even if they keep those thoughts in their heads) that they have little sympathy for us. We are there simply to meet their needs and fill up their lives. There are 2 things I believe in relation to your husband’s explantions. 1) You are wasting your time talking to him and 2) He will only respond to actions not words. Save your energy for your actions, Dear Girl. These circular discussions go nowhere. Sorry for your pain. Karen xx
I’ve got too much to say about all that but here are the high points:
1. Pick your battles wisely. I wouldn’t even argue about whether or not the iPhone was your “suggestion.” You are not suggesting it, your DEMANDING that he ditches it now. He USED to look at porn, right? Now he doesnt. Well you USED to think an iPhone was OK, now you don’t.
2. The software didn’t lie and just make it up. He searched “tits”. Period. Tell him it’s non negotiable. That’s what happened, now shut up.
3. He can’t “handle” this alone. Period. Non negotiable. And that’s a cold hard fact that not just he, but also you, need to accept. If he isnt getting help, he isnt getting better or changing. If he is abstaining from acting out, it’s temporary. Just a pause button on the problem. Eventually it will be I paused, You need to set boundaries about this. He gets help or the marriage is over is a pretty good one!
4. If you don’t want to waste money on a new phone, please don’t rely on that software. There is way too much crap on youtube to look at. I had a friends husband who jacked off to aerobics videos. Do you know how many barely dressed, lingerie, bikini videos, etc are on YouTube? Young girls barely dressed provocatively dancing? Hell… Search “breast exam.” If it’s for medical purposes even nudity is allowed on YouTube.
5. Apps. Go start searching apps. There are a TON of adult apps. For viewing or chatting. Get a chatting one, make an account, and see how many photos men send you of their dick in a short period of time. An app is easy to pay for then download. View it, then delete. Your wife looks at your phone and there was no sign it was ever there. The next time you want to view it again you just download it again and now it’s free because you’ve already paid for it once.
Go to Sertings – general – restrictions – click “enable restrictions”. It will prompt you for a passcode. Enter something he won’t guess. You see a list of iPhone functions. Turn off safari and YouTube. Either turn off apps completely or at the bottom of that screen you can choose a rating for content for music, podcasts, movies, tv shows and apps. Turn OFF “explicit” under music and podcasts. (because if you can’t SEE it, there is some really raunchy stuff you can listen to. Set movies and music to PG and set apps to 12+. His phone will be on total lockdown.
🙂 Agree on all points Kim and very impressed with your technical ability. 🙂 I guess for me I think that all this monitoring and attempting to control electronic devices is exhausting at best and futile at worst. I think that our lovely husbands (with their assorted “issues”) are usually control freaks, manipulators and drama queens. All this focus on what they use their i phone for or what the meaning was behind some circular, go nowhere discussion we had with them really just distracts from the real question that is so important for all of us to answer. WHAT ARE WE DOING WITH THESE MEN if they are so sick and WE have it so together?? More and more I believe that should be our main focus. If the answer is security, education, an escort, a snow shoveller, a paycheck ….then great- that is the answer? Accept what you can realistically expect from them and STOP trying to force them to give what they will not or cannot give. If you cannot accept what you need from them and what they are capable of giving then there is NO CHOICE but to leave. If that is the choice all energy should go into acheiving that goal NOT wasting time listening to yet another BS rendition of what they meant by saying blah,blah, blah and doing blah, blah, blah.Many of us are considering leaving already but then why drive ourselves insane by interacting with them about all this other stuff? It is so emotionally draining, time consuming and for the most part futile. I trully believe they LOVE the attention, responses and reactions we give them in our efforts to try to get them to act like reasonable, sane, trustworthy people. I say “fuck em”…why exert the effort because it is clear THEY certainly are not exerting much. 🙁 Just saying….I’m getting too damn old for all this crap. Karen xx
Well Karen and Kim, there is, shall we say, a certain clarity to your posts.
Kim, I just love your lists. It’s just such a great way to cut through all the marmalade talking. And Karen, I actually think I wrote that post at some point. I recognize the “blah, blah, blah” part.
lots of love,
D.Well Karen and Kim, there is, shall we say, a certain clarity to your posts.
Kim, I just love your lists. It’s just such a great way to cut through all the marmalade talking. And Karen, I actually think I wrote that post at some point. I recognize the “blah, blah, blah” part.
lots of love,
D.I couldn’t agree more with Karen’s point about figuring out what you get from the marriage.
I also want to comment on what she said about control. The idea is not to control the behavior. I know in the beginning I definitely strongly wanted to make it stop. Do everything I could to KNOW what he was doing. And the eblaster seems awesome for monitoring. Same with keystroke software.
Problem #1: Apple doesn’t allow these things.
Problem #2: You can’t do this for the rest of your life. Karen’s comment about it being exhausting is an understatement.
Sort of like trying to decide why you are continuing in the marriage, I think you should give some serious thought as to the goal of moniterig.
For different people the reason is different. For example: For some it’s initial piece of mind. For some it’s a reflex reaction. For some it’s to gather evidence for court. Etc.
It being protection against him acting out is a way of feeling that this is not totally out of your control. However, his actions are totally out of your control.
I know your H just looks at porn to your knowledge. Which gives him a great rationalization in his own mind because he THINKS it is so minor. All guys do it. Blah blah. But “just porn” escalates to more. Not to mention the word “just” doesn’t proceed the word “porn” when we feel the hurt in our hearts.
I’m totally rambling away from my point. lol Which is: Your H needs to show you that he wants to change no matter what it takes. No sacrafice is too much. (including getting rid of the phone if need be) I also think he not only should be willing to do whatever it takes to get sober but also he should do whatever it takes to ease your mind. A new concept for a SA indeed. Selflessness. When he was going to SA meetings he probably quit when he found out that step 9 and found out he had to make amends to those he had harmed and bolted!
I have all those restrictions done to my H’s phone because he asked me to do them. The reason he gave me was that it was because he didn’t want the temptation and he wanted to do what he could to soothe my anxiety. It could be all a great front for all know. He could own a second iPhone.
And that brings me to my point. He COULD get a second phone. He COULD just go get some DVDs or magazines and hide them. He could use a friends computer and burn CDs full of porn to watch at home. He could go to a strip club when he claims to be at a meeting. Or getting a massage when he says he is meeting with his sponsor. And what about on his lunch hour from work? Hell… He could own an entire second laptop that I don’t know about! MonItering software is false security.
Or he could get help. Be sincere. Honest. Put you first. CARE!!!
If he isn’t doing the latter, then assume he is doing the former. For instance, googling “tits.”
Gawd…no wonder I’m up all night reading these juicy posts!! All of you, great post and follow up comments! I’m telling you, we need to collectively write a book. I will do it on my own, but I won’t stop harping until ya’all get on board! OMG! I sound like I have already MOVED to Tennessee and I’m only in the considering stages!!
Ok ladies, I haven’t forgotten you! I have received your public and private messages about wanting a list of potential ways to fuck with your SA’s. Not all sisters will agree, because our energy should be focused on ourselves and only positive things, which is true. Still, when I write it up, I will post it as a forum so that we can get input and other ideas from anyone who cares to participate. If I am clever enough, maybe even NAP will loosen up and sneak in a little something she did when her jerk off EX SAH wasn’t looking! 🙂
Here’s the thing. I have a deadline of this Sunday, Dec 4th, to move myself and 85% of our belongings out of this lovely hell hole we had built 17 years ago and the place I call “home”. (for (4) more days!). I am up to my ass in boxes, packing paper, and labels! Sigh… And, it’s bittersweet to boot. Good riddance EX SAH, but dang it, I don’t want to say goodbye to my HOME. 🙁 And taking things off walls and shelves and curio cabinets is about to kill me. Every item has a story. A memory. A piece of my heart. Yes, it’s coming with me, but to see my house so bare and cold looking is nerve wracking to say the least. Tears come easy and anger is bubbling to the surface. Memories are lurking and lies and betrayals are lingering in the air…. Sigh…. SA is tip toeing around the few minutes I actually see him each day and barely making eye contact. My heart is on my sleeve and all I can chant is “Come on Sunday”. My knight in shining armor is coming up from Tennessee with a big truck, moving quilts, bungee cords, 2 and 4 wheel Dolly’s, and his awesome self to help me move out of here. My brothers (3) will be here too. I am blessed and I am grateful, but nothing and no one, (well, maybe Zumba girl) can make this any less painful or do it for me or take my broken heart away. I must do that myself, with a little help from my awesome therapist, Fam, friends, and especially my sisters! How did I get on THIS kick??
Point being, as soon as I get moved and settled, I will be happy to share my antics with you and even create some new ones! Thanks for listening! I am busy but trying to follow each of your journeys because I support and care about all of you! Some of you are really in the middle of a shit storm right now and I’m trying to keep track and hopefully help, if I can. Peace, happiness, self love and self respect are the goals here, ladies. Work towards that light!
All my best,SL
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