My boyfriend continues to save pictures of naked women on his computer after I've asked him to stop! Then masturbates while I am sleeping in the same room!

I can understand why you feel the way you do. The issue though is with him and what he feels are his needs. As hard as it is to understand, it really has nothing to do with you, the frequency that you have sex with him, or your availability for him. It is an additional outlet over and above the frequency of sex. Masturbation has been a pleasurable activity for him ever since he was a young boy. It's not cheating. It's not that he has any preference for any other woman than you. It's just a way to round out his sexual needs without cheating with another woman. Most men don't admit how often they do it due to embarassment. They are embarassed at having pictures of other women around. They may get mad when they get caught masturbating, or reprimanded more out of shame and embarassment than true anger. Inside, they do feel some shame about it. Understand it for what it is and don't ruin an otherwise good relationship because of it.

Maybe you should try spicing things up? Try something new.. I know my boyfriend and I have tried having sex while watching porn.. It give them the best of both worlds in a way haha. I dont mind it kinda gets me in the mood too.

me and my fiance af a year and a half have actually been together for five years. my problem is similiar. i wake up in the middle of the night to catch him jerking off to internet porn. most of the time i tell him i dont like it and he gets angry with me. he says, "well atleast im not cheating." this is true. im glad he ismt cheating. but when he has the sexdrive to jerk off more then once a week and even at work i become frustrated due to the fact that he wont have sex with me for five or six days. i actually cought him last night and he had the nerve to tell me that, "all men like a veriety." how in the world is that supposed to make me feel? disgusted by the answer my future husband of "forever" says to me i cry. alone. no comfort. no apology. the next morning, like everytime, he acts like it didnt happen. i have the feeling i should leave him for this has happened several times. what shoul i do???

Karma, just my opinion as I am going through kind of the same thing except with my husband it is not just pictures of women, it is chatting sites, video cams and in one instance a hookup which he says is completely innocent, but do what your heart tells you to do. Some people can and will change,others will not and trust me, if you decide to stay it will take you a very very long time to trust him again, everytime he is not around you, you will be wondering and worrying about what he is up to. Good luck in whatever you choose and take care

I hope things have improved in these 8 months(since the first time you commented)..take care and God Bless!

Even after all that your still with him? that is a huge red flag hun... I would not wait a second to leave..

My boyfriend has this same issue and yes sometimes it is miserable. He has been addicted to everything you can think of and it has gotten him into some major trouble. He's working on it and i can see a difference in him as well as our relationship. He's getting his priorities straight, but its not an overnight fix. And it never completely goes away.

Each of you need to put in as much as the other in your relationship. You both have to realize that it isnt easy on either one of you. Talk to eachother about how you feel. Dont hold it in because you will find yourself having the same arguments over and over getting worse everytime. Tell him you're still hurting and ask what he plans on doing to make sure this time around it doesnt end the same and hold him accountable to it.

Addictive personalities are inherited. Chances are his dad was addicted to something, whether it be porn, drugs, alcohol, food or whatever. See if you can find out how his dad may have coped from his addiction. Find something positive he can get involved with or addicted to, maybe excersize or church or a hobby of some sort.

Hope this helps! Take care and God bless!

Hi Karma,

As the wife of a recovering Porn/love/sex addict there are a few things I recognised in your experience that mirror my own journey. Let me begin with the important fact that it is a very real addiction and that help IS available both for yourself and (if he chooses help) for him. Most people with this addiction use it in much the same way as alcoholics and drug addicts and gambling and food addicts behave to avoid reality and manage their emotions. He was like this before you ever met him. It is NOTHING to do with you. You cannot CONTROL it. You cannot CHANGE it. You cannot CURE it. It is not yours to do these things with. It is not YOUR problem. Its his problem.

Firstly ask yourself why you are not choosing someone who loves and adores and cherishes you for the wonderful partner that you are. Dont you deserve better? As other posters have said, you are young. You have only invested one year in it and you have no children. I was 17 when I met my husband and 25 before I became aware of this problem, he hid it incredibly well at first until the disease progressed and he started getting sloppy with the evidence and I started getting suspicious and snooping. I suffered hell thinking (as you do) that "he mustn't love me, if he did he wouldn't do this." I put on weight as a defense mechanism to make him less sexually attracted to me because I was disgusted by what I saw as his choice of these porn women over me. He would act out. I would discover evidence. He would be defensive. I would argue him into submission. He would cry and say he couldn't help it. I would feel sorry for him. He would make promises not to do it again. He would break these promises by acting out again. And on and on the cycle went for years. I was miserable.

Eventually I got the message through to him that his behaviour was following the pattern of an addiction and he got help in SLAA. (Google it and you can buy a copy of their book!) He was one of the very few genuine and lucky guys out there. I do disagree though that 99.9% of men are like this. Most guys masturbate as do most women, but not to the extent that it damages their relationships and lives and bodies. That is addiction at work. Any man that tells you that all men do it to that extent is an addict trying to worm his way into a quiet life with you.
Finally I cannot tell you what to do in your own situation. But I can tell you that I am 38 now, we have sexual sobriety in the house with about 6 years. I only married him 4 years ago and we now have 2 gorgeous children whom he adores. I am blissfully happy. Having a daughter has radically changed his views on the supposed "harmlessness" of the choices of women in the porn industry. He would not want his daughter involved in it. and yet for all my happiness, if I were 21 again... and knew then what I know now I would run like hell and find myself a man that would roll in ecstasy at my feet and worship me for the fantastic woman I am. Dont get me wrong.... my husband does worship me now, but the journey to here was hellishly long and difficult and I could not recommend it. I have had recovery friends along the way whose husbands didnt make it. I had one friend who committed suicide over this. It is not something for the faint hearted. The vast majority of people with this addiction either never seek recovery, or pretend to seek recovery, or seek it with only the aim of getting you off of their back and limiting the damage. My husband knows plenty of people who relapse because they are really not ready to let this behaviour go from their lives and learn how to cope like a normal functioning adult.

I will suggest some things. for your safety and that of your emotional wellbeing. 1. Set boundaries and stick to them. If you are uncomfortable with him acting out while you sleep nearby, tell him so. Decide on a consequence and enforce it if he breaches your trust. 2. Both go get tested for STDs. You do not know and cannot trust his word as to the extent of this addiction in him. 3.Tell yourself that this is his stuff, not yours and get on with your life regardless of whether you choose to stay or go.
If you decide to stay be sure to seek help for yourself to cope. We are out there, it's just that we are afraid and ashamed of people not understanding so we do not broadcast our presence. But we are there. Where I live everyone automatically assumes that if your husband is a sex addict that he is a child abuser. (He is not, he is a good man, who formed an association between stress relief and sexual relief to sexual imagery during adolescence which he took to extremes to manage his unmanageble life. Your man is probably a good man too. But he is in the control of an addiction and does not know how to get out.)
I wish you well in your journey whatever you choose. xxx
J.

I feel for all of you in that situation. I've been in that situation to and recently have found my self in it again. I've been with my fiance for 5 years now, and ive always known he liked porn, cause all guys do. But, a year or two ago he started wanting me to do things to him while he watched it, and on a couple occassions wanted to have sex while he watched it, but covered my face. I was not ok with this and made sure he knew about it. For a while he was just like "well i like porn, so deal with it"! I considered ending it, but he apologized for doing all of that stuff, so i didnt. I bought a brand new laptop a few months ago, and told him not to look up anything dirty on my laptop because it was strictly for school, expensive, and i wanted to keep it clean. Well, recently I was searching for something on google, and a girls name popped up in my search history. After checking my "deleted temp file" I found that he has been looking up naked girls, and dirty movies on my laptop. When I confronted him about it, he denied it, and said i was trying to act like his mother. Is it wrong for me to want the people who may use my laptop to respect what i ask them to not do on it?? Especially when I'm the one that paid for it??