Originally Posted by
ShootingStar1 
My experience with my alcoholic, porn addicted husband ended very badly. My experience is different than yours because I am 62 and my STBXAH is 69 and we were married almost 20 years. However, I have learned some lessons about porn and respect and rage against women that may be worth telling. My husband was an abusive controlling alcoholic who added porn to his mix of addictions.
It escalated rapidly and badly. He went from looking at internet porn to porn chat rooms to ongoing "relationships" with porn women, to texting them, to web-cams. He became obsessed with this.
Nothing I said made any difference. I told him I would only be in a marriage where I was the only woman; marriage was not, for me, a relationship between one woman, one man, and any number of porn stars. He didn't want to hear it and said it was my fault.
His disrespect for me was profound and immoveable. His rage against me was huge. I told him I would not stay if this continued. I was quietly gathering the papers and things I would need if I left, still hoping that he loved me enough to change but doubting that I could stay.
On July 4th, my credit card company called to have me authorize some transactions they considered suspicious. He had charged $525 to MY credit card to wire transfer money to a porn woman. My credit card company said there were over $1700 of these charges on my card.
I packed what I needed, took my dog, and left within a couple of hours and filed for divorce within the week.
He later said he went crazy for a while, and I think he did. But when I had time on my own, and with the help of this forum, I began to understand that his porn use was directed against me and was another form of abuse and rage against women that went along with many other abusive things he was doing. I looked back at his relationships with other women - his mother, sister, prior wife, and they were fraught with anger and disrespect.
Bigsombrero said the problem starts with your significant other's attitude towards you. You told him you didn't like the porn, and then the next day you woke up to him jerking off right next to you as you slept? That's like pretending you aren't even there. That's a pretty blatant disregard for your boundaries.
Your situation has many differences from mine. You are both much much younger, your partner is a recovering alcoholic, and you haven't been together that long yet.
People can exchange addictions - - give up alcohol and take up porn or gambling or even non-stop video games instead.
I'd suggest doing as much reading and research about alcoholism and porn addictions as you can. Learn about what the "red flags" are early in a relationship that trouble is ahead. It is so easy in the early stages of love to put aside your intuition and give someone the benefit of a doubt on behaviors that may be harbingers of trouble.
I'd try to see if I could understand more about how your partner feels about the earlier/other women in his life. In my situation, I realized that using porn was a way of depersonalizing sex, removing the depth of love and expression of connection with another that can come with real emotional and physical intimacy. My husband went on to use porn as a weapon against me, saying I should watch videos so that I could learn how to be a real woman. I don't know if this connection of rage and porn is common to men who use porn, or more exacerbated in my husband's instance.
And, I'd go back and really look at what you guys are fighting about and see what the real dynamics are. As you describe his porn use, he is pretty blatantly and defensively doing what he wants despite your telling him that it hurts you. If the other fights have similarities - where you are protesting over his behavior and he is defending his right to do whatever he wants, then there is a pattern.
What we learn here on the Sober Recovery forum, and through Alanon, is the 3 "c's": you didn't cause the addiction, you can't control it, and you can't cure it.
All you can do is think through what YOU will live with and what you won't live with and be clear about that, set boundaries, and take the action you said you'd take if your partner breaches them.
You're young, with your whole life ahead of you. If you were my daughter, I'd say think long and hard about what you really want and deserve from a life partner. I wish you all the best in the world, and hope that you'll come back and post as much as you want.
ShootingStar1
we broke up for good now. i told him that if he could just refrain from jerking off to porn next to me in bed, and do it in private, id be ok with that. that every relatiionship needs to have certain boundaries. he told me no, and that he cannot be with me because i have very rigid expectations (bc i ask him not to jerk off right next to me), and he doesnt want a relationship like that. i told him that i have felt unsatisfied by lack of intimacy during sex, because he just wants it rough. he told me its my fault for not asking him to slow down during the act, but i have told him before numerous times that i would like to make love for long periods of time, in new ways, not just hard and rough. he responded that i am not assertive enough with him in bed, and he is unsatisfied. that if we lived together, he would still want to jerk off to porn a lot instead of having sex before bed, because sex takes longer and he is too tired and just needs the release before he sleeps. he also told me that i am not satisfied in bed with him, because i do not orgasm. and that it is my responsiblity to figure out how to orgasm with him, so that i feel satisfied afterward. i told him that my satisfaction is derived by touch and not just by finishing. when i told him that sometimes women have troubling climaxing, and its sometimes something that partners need to take time to work on together, he told me he just did not want to spend the time doing that, and i should know how to satisfy myself. he then shared that with other partners, when they couldn't finish, they would both touch themselves together until they came.
i would really like another person or man's perspective on this. is this all accurate, and true, and okay? i feel worthless. i do not know how this man who has told me we would spend our lives together, have children, etc., has now told me he just does not love me enough to make this work. i feel sick, distraught, and just completely insane.