Heartbroke–I’m Too Young For This (My Husband’s Sex Addiction)

Here is a story from a reader on the Married site. I thought I would post it here for discussion. If you would like to reply to her, please go to the Married site.

Dear JoAnn,

Shouldn’t I be in my 30’s or 40’s when this happens???

I got married at 19. I’m only 21. I’m young and sexy and EVERY guy looks at me, but he doesn’t even notice because he’s too busy looking at other girls.

I married him because of how good he was. I was the first girl he had ever dated. He was romantic and he always told me he loved me. He wanted to touch me. He was perfect.

I started to randomly have nightmares for about six months now. I would see in my dreams him picking other girls over me. In other dreams someone would come into my house that I knew and loved. I would invite them to chat with me. Once they got close enough, they turned into a stranger and would try to hurt me. I guess my subconscious mind knew.

Three months ago he accidentally left porn up on his computer. This was the FIRST time I knew he even LOOKED at porn. Every time I even joked about guys looking at porn he would get angry and swear not every guy was like that. I cried and he promised it didn’t happen often and he was very sorry. Of course, it was the first time. I’m not going to label every guy who looks at porn a sex addict.

But it got me to look back on his behavior. We used to be intimate every day. But he had started telling me I was sleepy and tucking me in ever so sweetly…earlier and earlier. And he didn’t want to be intimate anymore. The more I thought about it, the more I started to watch him and the more I began to realize I had every guys attention BUT his.

I was working from home, making money for us…my back turned to the television. When I turned towards the TV he was watching something inappropriate. I watched out of the corner of my eye to see if he would change it and he didn’t. I turned towards him and he instantly changed it pretending to be switching channels. My heart sunk. I wrote him a letter telling him how I felt.

That’s when he admitted to me he was addicted to pornography. He was addicted SO much that he would choose it over me. He had been choosing it over me. He had been saying he was “too tired”…he was even too tired for even cuddling! and because HE was too tried I needed to go to sleep. I know some people wonder if porn is really a “sex addiction”, but I know without a doubt it is. I know without a doubt he was unfaithful to me by choosing to spend time with them instead of me. He told me it started in 5th grade and escalated from there. He wrote a list about how far it went. How it took up almost his entire hard drive space. He said he would change.

Of course, I wanted to know where I went wrong. I found out what type he likes to look at. It was me! Girls who look almost exactly like me. I am VERY young looking for my age, which put his viewing habits at illegal. But why NOT me??? I AM legal! It just makes no sense at all! But it forced me to accept it wasn’t me. I HATE accepting that it’s not me because if it was me I feel like I could do something about it, but I can’t.

He was getting help by emailing someone he knew who struggled with the same thing. He also had me put a program on his computer that would block that sort of stuff. He promised that whatever happened, he wouldn’t lie to me. Finally, I told him I wanted him to see a counselor. He set up on appointment. After that appointment, he didn’t set up another one. He thought he was done. A week later (last week), he realized he still had internet without protection on his iPod. I didn’t know this, but my nightmares came back. I’ve learned to trust them, so I thought about it and it hit me: the iPod! I asked him…he said he had NEVER looked at porn on his iPod before. I remember once seeing an application on it that had girls on it. They weren’t nude, but I thought it was weird. I googled the application name, and found out if i had shook the ipod with the application open, it would be porn. He lied. I asked him days later because the nightmares weren’t going away. I asked him three times in a row this time, each time he lied. Finally asked him one more time…thinking I had gone crazy (yeah I knew, but the excuses just come to your head). He told the truth. I asked him why he lied, and after saying he didn’t know a couple of times, he finally told me it was because he was STILL using it and wasn’t ready for me to ‘check’…I’ve never checked his computer EVER or anything of his so I don’t know what he was talking about. He had me put a program to block the internet on that to.

He wants everything to be better. But how can it be when he lied? How do I know he won’t lie again? He finally set up continuous appointments with the counselor. It hasn’t been that much time, so he’s only been to one. But how do I know he won’t just lie to the counselor? I don’t know!

There is no COSA meetings or anything of that sort where I am currently living. I know no one who is going through this. I tried talking to my sister, but she knows what a nice guy my husband can be,so she keeps telling me to give him another chance. How many more chances am I supposed to give him???

Heartbroke,