agonyaunt | Husband Betrays Wife's Trust By Posting Nude Photos Of Her

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Husband Betrays Wife's Trust By Posting Nude Photos Of Her

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I have been married 30 years. He is my high school sweetheart and my best friend. We enjoy each other, and I thought we had a great relationship. Occasionally, we spice up our sex life to keep things interesting. At his request, I have sexted him a few times with the understanding that he delete the photos once he has viewed them.

Well, the other night around 3 a.m., I heard his phone dinging over and over again. He was asleep so, thinking it was our daughter trying to reach us, I looked at it. To my horror, he had put pictures of me on a porn site through an app. There were pictures of me in various, unaware stages of nudity -- like in the shower or sleeping in bed -- and people were commenting lewd and disgusting things.

Needless to say, I feel beyond betrayed. My trust in him is broken, and I'm devastated at his behavior. His response is he is sorry and made a mistake. I don't know what to do. I'm considering leaving him. He's remorseful, but I don't understand why he would do this. Help, please. -- PHOTO FINISH IN OHIO

DEAR PHOTO FINISH: You have my sympathy. A good husband would never do what yours did. It was not only a gross invasion of your privacy and an act of deception, but embarrassing and potentially dangerous if someone views the images and recognizes you. What his motives were, I can't guess.

Everything you're feeling is valid. If your marriage is to survive, the trust must somehow be restored. If you plan to stay married to him, a marriage and family therapist may be able to give you more insight. It would be worth your while for the two of you to talk to someone who is licensed, and soon.

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How about this: Your best friend of 30+ years would never treat you like that, because friends don't do this. This wasn't a mistake, and the only remorse was that he got caught. Dump his loser ass, and take him for all he's worth in court. (And yes, get therapy.)

This marriage is over. The trust cannot be restored.

Not only can you never trust this person, you SHOULD never trust this person, because there's no possible explanation for his behavior that is consistent with him having full respect for you as a human being and him having a normal working conscience and sense of morality. Either on some level he doesn't respect you and your consent specifically for some reason, or he doesn't ultimately respect the personhood and consent of anyone. There's no good or reliable fix for any of that, and if it's the latter, therapy will probably just teach him to fake it.

That's not a mistake. It's not even close to a mistake. He knew she wouldn't like it: a person who had (hypothetically) thought his partner would like the idea of naked photos of herself on a porn site would have asked her.

Dingdingding.

Divorce!!

You know, sometimes I find that the best way to get a woman to put this in perspective is to ask this question: how would you react to an in-law doing this to your daughter? Because this is one of the few things I would legit do jail time over, except that I would never get the chance before her father, uncles, honorary uncles, and so many other men would step in. And they know how to make legal cases disappear.

Sad as it sounds, women will gut-instinct go after someone for hurting another woman in a way they won't for someone hurting themselves. We even encourage that by calling it motherly.

I'd say: talk to a lawyer or an advocate right now, because this relationship is broken but you need to find out what the laws are in your location around the things you need to worry about: revenge porn most of all, but also anything else related to privacy invasion. Put good passwords on all your devices, add 2fa to all your accounts, and if you have any smart home devices, turn them off. Look into quietly separating any bank accounts.

Abby's not treating this as dangerous abuse, and it might not be, but it also could be. This is online privacy invasion and it's dangerous.

What he did is a crime! Call the cops, throw his ass out and hire a divorce lawyer.

Why doesn't Abby tell her that this is a crime!

This isn't just broken trust. This isn't like he had an affair. It's abuse and a crime! She needs to tell this woman that it is okay to leave him over this!

(I mean it's probably a crime, depends on where she lives)

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