So much going on here

[conuly]

DEAR ABBY: My husband looks at pornography. I find it disgusting and it turns me off. I feel that if he has to look at it, it means I'm not good enough or sexy enough for him. I don't believe his excuse of "It has nothing to do with you." When I try to tell him how it makes me feel, he becomes indignant and turns the conversation around to something he doesn't like about me to take the focus off himself.

He doesn't watch porn around me, but he gets pop-up ads on his phone all the time, so I assume he looks at it frequently. I have even seen notifications suggesting he belongs to a website where he can chat with women, although he says he has no idea why he gets them. I'm not stupid. I don't know anyone else with this kind of issue. I haven't been able to have sex with him lately knowing this is going on. I don't have plans to leave him over this, but what can I do? -- TURNED OFF IN WASHINGTON

DEAR TURNED OFF: Realize that your husband's appetite for porn really has nothing to do with your level of attractiveness, and EVERYthing to do with his own appetites. Next, and this is equally important, please seek a referral to a licensed psychotherapist who can help you to rebuild your damaged self-esteem. Your husband is far from the only man who enjoys X-rated entertainment. (So do some women.) And many couples view it together as a form of erotica.

The chat rooms, however, are another matter. Perhaps your husband can explain that to you during some of the sessions with your therapist. It might be more effective than him becoming critical and accusatory when you attempt to try to explain how his behavior affects you. Of this I am sure: Denying sex to your husband not only won't improve your relationship, but it will erode it further, and I don't recommend it.

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Comments

[conuly]

I don't disagree, but I also feel that if your partner really hates something you do then you need to engage with that in some way rather than go "but no you" all day long.

[minoanmiss]

you need to engage with that in some way rather than go "but no you" all day long.

The "but no you" is absolutely unacceptable, and something I see in many of these letters: LW reporting that when they[often she] try to discuss X thing that Partner [often he] does that bothers them, Partner responds with "well this is what YOU do wrong so THERE". Unhelpful and unkind.

That said...

It may be because I don't find porn inherently disgusting, nor do I think " if he has to look at it, it means I'm not good enough or sexy enough for him." so I am bothered by demands from one partner for another one to give up a pleasant hobby. I had a friend (she died-- I do miss her) who asked me to move in with her, and my real reasons for not doing so were 1) she and I were both financially unstable 2) she deeply disapproved of two of my major hobbies (fanfic and fan music aka filk) and I didn't feel comfortable living with someone who disapproved of things I did for fun and considered relatively harmless.

Now a marriage is not (just) housemates, and so on, but still. I have had SOs who had hobbies that buggged me and in most cases on looking at the hobbies through their eyes I made peace with those hobbies.

[conuly]

I do think that LW would be well-served by just getting the heck over it, but I also think that porn is a slightly different beast than filk. If she really doesn't want to get over it then I absolutely support the alternative of "get a divorce". (I guess I'd support that alternative if it was his fanfic hobby that was her dealbreaker, but I'd absolutely think that was more strange than this one!)

[minoanmiss]

Hahah yeah, "and so on" was meant to encopmass "porn is not filking," although when it comes to fanworks...

... which reminds me of a Thing that Happened in Supernatural fandom when a woman's husband found out about her SPN fanwork hobby and made her quit.