Why Does My Husband Watch Porn
When you discover that your husband watches porn, it can feel really bad, disrespectful even. Here you’re his only partner in the bedroom, but he’s watching other women do nasty things on his phone. It’s so disappointing, and so revolting.
It can also make you feel pretty unspecial knowing that your husband watches an endless parade of strange women on the Internet. You wonder if he’s even a decent, moral person. Maybe he’s addicted to porn. And if he’s watching porn but not having physical intimacy with you, then it can feel like porn is stealing something precious from you.
Maybe you’ve told him to stop, only to find he does it in secret. That might strike terror into your heart. Maybe you wish you could just make him stop once and for all.
If he does watch, then why?
Why does he insist on doing something so trashy when he knows that it hurts his wife? Especially if he said he’d stop, or it’s against his religion or his morals.
Contents
1. How Can You Get Him to Stop?
I know for me, whenever I find myself trying to control something my husband does, it’s because I’m telling myself that, if only he would stop doing that thing, I could feel safe or happy or have peace of mind.
But what really wreaks havoc on my peace of mind?
Trying to control something I have no control over. Like whether my husband watches porn.
Nor would I want to. Well, okay, sometimes I want to control what he does, but not when I’m at my best. I’d rather he could hear his own conscience, which tends to get drowned out by my shrill demands.
I’m not saying porn is right or that it’s okay. But I am saying I know I can’t control it, and that trying to control him seems to make things worse, not better.
I feel more empowered and have a much better experience when I show him that I trust that he’s a good man who makes good decisions.
2. How Can He Possibly Enjoy It?
One of the best explanations I’ve heard about the male compulsion toward porn was a very light-hearted but profound one from a comedy called Coupling, written by Steve Moffat. At a dinner party in this episode, there is evidence that the British host, also named Steve, was watching a porn film called Lesbian Spank Inferno. And this has come out in the dinner party conversation.
One of the female dinner guests asks, “How could you possibly enjoy a film like that?”
And Steve launches into this explanation:
Oh, because it’s got naked women in it! Look, I like naked women! I’m a bloke. We’re supposed to like naked women—we’re born like that! We like naked women as soon as we’re pulled out of one; halfway down the birth canal we’re already enjoying the view!
Look, it is the four pillars of the male heterosexual psyche: We like naked women, stockings, lesbians, and Sean Connery best as James Bond, because that’s what being a boy is.
Look, I want to spend the rest of my life with the woman at the end of that table there, but that does not stop me wanting to see several thousand more naked bottoms before I die because that’s what being a bloke is.
When man invented fire, he didn’t say, “Hey, let’s cook!” He said “Great! Now we can see naked bottoms in the dark!” As soon as Caxton had invented the printing press, we were using it to make pictures of—hey!—naked bottoms! We have turned the internet into an enormous international database of naked bottoms.
So you see, the story of male achievement through the ages, feeble though it may have been, has been a story of our struggle to get a better look at your bottoms.
Thank you, girls. I’m not sure how insulted you really ought to be.
3. This is Proof that You’re Special
That explanation may be small comfort when you’re feeling scared or jealous that women on your husband’s phone are turning his head.
But it may give you some comfort to remember that while you can’t control what he watches, you can celebrate that, over all the other women in the world, he chose you. He chose you to be his partner, his wife, maybe the mother of his children, the one he wanted to build a life with.
You’re there in his world in three dimensions, and no fleeting, two-dimensional woman can compete with that.
And while you might still wish he wouldn’t go looking for other naked bottoms, it’s nice to remember that your husband is made to be attracted to your naked bottom. It’s part of the crazy, complex, wonderful system that brings couples together.
If you can’t control what your man watches either, what evidence do you have that you’re the most special woman in the world to him?
4 replies on “Why Does My Husband Watch Porn”
So what if your husband is watching porn of brunettes, I’m blond, and he’s rarely touching you or seems interested and when he does, he can’t finish? His OW was brunette and it makes me feel worthless and undesirable. He doesn’t know I know.
Adrian, that is so heartbreaking. You shouldn’t have to feel worthless or undesirable. I can imagine how painful all this must be. Sounds like he used to be interested in and attracted to you, and something has gone missing. We can help you, just as we have thousands of other women, even when there was another woman. I would love to get you some coaching to uncover what’s getting in the way of restoring your connection so you can feel desired, cherished and adored!
How terrible to make such a mockery of someone’s very real pain! Porn in a marriage is betrayal. Having been married to a porn addict for 24 years the problem is they are so used to getting their sexual needs met through a image they don’t actually want a real woman because a real relationship is hard work and pleasuring yourself to a image is so easy so eventually they don’t even want a real woman! And in case you are tempted to say I should make my husband want a real woman he was addicted for 22 years before I met him with one failed marriage already.
Please educate yourself on betrayal trauma and how a porn addicts brain works and what damage it does to their brain.
Mary, I’m so sad to hear you’ve been suffering from this and get why you’ve been feeling betrayed all these years. You sound like a very real woman to me, and him not even wanting that sounds so lonely. I’m standing for you and your marriage.