If you are reading this, there’s a good chance you already know what it’s like to live with a porn-addict. Before going ahead, I also want to say that I realize the term “porn addict” or “sex addict” is problematic. There’s debate about whether or not this is really an addiction. If someone else prefers to use a different term, please let me know what that is and I may try and vary or adopt your term.
This is not likely to be adopted in the DSM, but this is how I define this issue. At the end of the day, it is this, excessive use of pornography and perhaps escalating behaviour that is disruptive to the life of the person using it and their families. A user who is obsessed and protective of their fix to the point that they will do almost anything (or maybe anything) to protect it and keep using. If you don’t want to call that addiction, up to you, but to me, that sounds like something very like what an alcoholic or drug addict does as well and I am (unless something better is offered) willing to use the term “addict”.
Another important point that I think needs to be made is that this is a chicken and egg issue. I am not the addict, I am just someone who lived beside one, observed it and was deeply affected by the behaviour, so what I know about the mind of the addict is often more intellectual rather than first hand experience. It does seem to me that this addiction is not the primary problem in relationships where it exists, but rather a side effect of other larger issues. In my own experience, I would say that the other issues at play were narcissism and the accompanying fear, or rather dread, of intimacy that my former spouse has. The porn/sex addiction is the tip of the iceberg. The part of the problem we can more easily see and point to, but far from the biggest issue that is likely plaguing your partner. So, if you are considering staying, I would argue that dealing with that aspect of your marriage and even “solving” it may well be akin to having pneumonia and treating only the cough.
The pornography or sex addiction is merely a concrete manifestation of this fear of intimacy. That may sound odd to someone who hasn’t experienced that kind of relationship. How can someone really loving sex mean they are afraid of intimacy? Well, in order to understand, one needs to accept that there is a difference between the connection of lovemaking and the anonymous and objectifying sex found in pornography. I will talk more in a later post about the difference between cerebral and somatic narcissists and how this behaviour may vary with those types.
For now, if you are with a porn addict, you are probably either having next to no sex with them (their choice is to use porn instead) or have a partner who is increasingly demanding more and more (possibly demeaning, violent and/or depersonalized) acts in your sex life. I was in the former scenario and I welcome comments from those in the latter as I don’t have firsthand knowledge of how that manifests.
Those of us who have lived it know that we might talk about the porn or sex addiction, but the bigger problem may well be the utter lack of intimacy in our relationship. They are hollow forms, perhaps looking normal from the outside, but lacking substance on the inside. For that reason, these marriages are as fragile and useless as an empty eggshell. That is a big part of why I chose to leave when I discovered my spouse’s addiction. There was really no “marriage” to “save”. There was nothing to be rebuilt or regained, it had never been anything but an illusion.
Personally, I was unwilling to put any more time into a person who had shown that I meant nothing more to him than my value as a “beard” so he could look like a regular guy to the outside world. My ex “looks good on paper”. He has a good job, appears to be a devoted husband and father and in many ways, played the part so well to the outside world that I had tried to convince myself that I was just being silly to be upset over my detached partner. In hindsight, I did myself a great disservice. I (and you) deserve a partner who wants to be with us and not to rattle around in the paper mache version of a marriage.
When my ex poured out his heart to me, there was no foundation to build on and there had been nothing but deception. He had a few lucid days after that time when I think he truly tried to be honest. That is the best gift he ever gave me as he confessed the hundreds of little lies and petty things he had done and denied while we were together. I was being gaslighted the whole time.
Had I stayed I might well have given him more years from my precious life and I might well have spent those years wondering if I was being hoodwinked again, babysitting him, and all of that with a very likely outcome being that I would find out I indeed was being lied to again. No, my time on this planet is too short to spend with someone like that. I don’t need to know you to know that yours is too.
There is some measure of guarded sympathy that I feel for my ex. In as much as he was awful to me during our marriage and has continued to be difficult after, I know he got the short end of the stick. If you are married to an addict, and are not a co-dependent, then in many respects you can walk away from that addiction. If you have children or financial entanglements, of course you still have to deal with your ex, but in one moment you can throw off that weight and that is something your ex cannot do. They will be burdened with that albatross for the rest of their life. Please remember that and know the relief of that.
divorcingyourpornaddict 