Thread: My husband of 30 years fantasy of teenage girls destroyed our family

In just a few months my husband and I should be celebrating our 30th anniversary. That will not come to pass as I have filed for a divorce from him. I guess I need to start with my history...

I was repeatedly molested during my childhood:
1. Age five years by a 16 year old boy who threatened to find me and finish me off after he was charged with child molestation
2. Age ten by my adult babysitter's husband
3. Age twelve gang raped
4. Age twelve molested by my father because he thought I wanted it because anyone who had that many experiences must have invited it to happen

Because of these experiences and ultimately blamed and punished through molestation by my father I had a low self worth and challenges with trusting men. That was until I met my husband. I fell in love with a man whom I believed to respect and value women.

My first introduction to the true nature of the man I married transpired on our first Christmas together or I should say apart. My family was at my home to celebrate the first Christmas with our first child. He had to work for a few hours that Christmas Eve. I pleaded with him not to drink on this day in response to him coming home so inebriated that he bowled the Christmas turkey through the kitchen just before stumbling off to bed. But he couldn't resist stopping off to get a beer to drink on his way home. Everyone was gathered, our Christmas Eve feast was getting cold after hours of work and the phone rings. It's my husband calling from jail asking me to come bail him out. That was the beginning of countless selfish and hurtful things I endured throughout our marriage.

Two of our three children had a life-threatening illness which ultimately claimed their lives. One of our children died when he was five and our second child died when he was in his early twenties. On many occasions when my children were hospitalized my husband would be out partying with his friends and unwilling to forego his social agenda to be there to help out and sometimes not even available to bring us home from a lengthy stay in the hospital.

I left him with our three young children because he refused to leave the home. It was his home that he paid for and he wasn't going anywhere. It was his bed and he wasn't going to sleep on the sofa. We went to marriage counseling in an attempt to heal our marriage.

Just two weeks after our first child's death my husband told me I needed to get on with living. I was so numb with grief and in shock from losing our child I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I just knew for certain that I wasn't in any frame of mind to chit-chat with people and engage in laughter about anything just two weeks after losing my child. I assure you that grief is still there 21 years later.

Over the years my husband would periodically become disinterested in me sexually and verbally abusive to me in private and in the company of others. Each of these occasions would be coupled with an abandonment of responsibility to his family. And without fail other women were involved. He firmly protested any allegations of infidelity but nevertheless he was unfaithful emotionally.

Six years ago I found a disturbing short cut on the desktop of my work computer. I was mortified to find numerous searches in my history with "petite teens" as the key words keyed in the search engine. I was sick when I pulled up the site. At first I thought the sites were being visited by my 17 year old son. My son denied visiting these sites and went so far as to say even if he did go to those sites he wouldn't be so stupid as to do it on my work computer. It never occurred to me that it wasn't my son but his father who was visiting these sites. However the truth came out when my son away for a few days and there it was again "petite teens", "hot teenage girls", etc. I was sick to learn the man I trusted, the man who knew my childhood history would violate me like this. I pleaded that he not do this again. He asked me to prove it. Stupid me, I basically coached him on how to erase his history as not to get caught again. He couldn't deny it but in the future he would know how to hide it on his own computer that he purchased and password protected just weeks later.

My husband quit his job a two years ago after the death of our second child to be here for us to get through this together. His job required him to be away four days a week and we both agreed that was too much time apart. Since then I have financially supported the family. Over the course of the past two years he has become socially disengaged and consumed with playing online poker hours on end. He hasn't been able to perform sexually for over a year now. He comes to bed late at night and loses his erection when he touches my body. I have been understanding and eventually stopped even expecting to have sex with my husband.

Two months ago our Internet was on the blink and my husband was nearly in a frenzied state as a consequence. He cited the need to have access to the Internet to find a job and furious that I wasn't making it a priority to repair the connection. After repeated verbal abusive encounters I complied to his demands to repair the connection problems. My heart sunk when I saw his history of once again visiting teenage pornography sites. At this point I had been going to counseling to sort through my painful experiences of my childhood, the loss of my children and my self esteem issues stemming from my husband's remote behavior, evident disinterest in me and disrespectful behavior to me over the years.

When I confronted him about this he not only denied the allegations he went so far as to suggest it was my doing not his. I did something to his computer. After a heated argument he finally confessed and went on to say he had known the marriage was over for some time. He even said "How could you blame me look at yourself you're a train wreck." I was in total shock. Once again, I asked him not to visit these sites. I told him how violated I felt from this given my own history. He is a 55 year old man visiting sites of young girls who look younger than 16 years of age.

He justified his behavior by saying all those girls have to be over the age of 18 because they were on legitimate sites otherwise the owner of the sites would be arrested. This was a statement from an educated man. I knew he didn't believe that and I knew I didn't believe that. And even if that were the case the images of the girls he was fantasizing about and pleasuring himself to looked younger than 16. It was revolting. I made him leave our bed because I wasn't going to spend one more night reaching out to him to come to bed knowing what he was doing in the middle of the night. Furthermore, I didn't want to share the bed with a man who found me to be so repulsive. He agreed that he would leave as soon as he found a job and also agreed to honor my wishes by not going to those sites while he was living in our home.

One week later, I walked in on him in the middle of the night and saw him viewing the teenage pornography sites he had just a week prior vowed not to visit. I retreated without confronting him. The next morning I gathered the proof required to confront him. I told him I walked in on him and saw what he was doing. He denied it, he even said he wasn't even up at that hour. He then suggested I needed to be institutionalized because I was having hallucinations. I was a basket case. I was enraged. I stormed off to retrieve the information I had saved in a file on his computer that he couldn't erase in his history. He told me I had no right to touch his computer. He even grabbed my wrist to try to prevent me from getting into the computer but I think he knew I would slam the computer upside his head if he didn't leave me be.

I have been betrayed, lied to, disrespected, dishonored and belittled throughout our marriage. No more! I managed to finally stand up to him, refusing to be afraid or intimidated by him any longer. He is gone and I have filed for a divorce. He says he loves me and wants to go to marriage counseling but contends he has done nothing abnormal or wrong. The only thing he did wrong was hurt me. And, even if we were to reconcile he couldn't promise that he wouldn't fantasize about younger women. I didn't have the body type of the woman he is attracted to. I am 5'7" and wear a size six. In fact people ask to see my ID when I state my age. He is an unemployed balding 55 year old man with man boobs and a gut. He traded his life for lust, made his fantasy a priority over his family and he had the audacity to suggest I lacked compassion by kicking him out of our home and rendering him homeless when he was jobless. I don't care.

I have no interest in becoming involved in another relationship with another man. Any trust issues I had 30 years ago were minor in comparison to those I have now. In addition, I fear my own lack of esteem from years of emotional abuse has caused so much damage that I would be incapable of selecting someone to become involved with. Right now I am thankful to have tranquility for the first time in my life that I have never experienced before. There are no words to express how wonderful it is to have peace after a lifetime of turmoil. I so want to heal and find a sense of self worth. I don't want to be bitter or blame anyone. I want to grow and be better. I have never embraced a victim's mentality and sought to be a victor triumphing over turmoil.

Any input and shared experiences would be much appreciated.

*hugs*

First, welcome. You've come to the right place.

Your story is heartbreaking. You should be applauded for coming out of everything you've been through, strong and wise and level-headed. I could say a million things about your childhood, but I'll leave it at, no child should ever be treated that way. Children all over the world are victimized and carry the secret and shame of it for a lifetime. But you did not let your predators win. You could've stopped at life, you could've given up, taken a path of disaster in life, but you didn't. You won even though I know you must not feel that way sometimes.

And then losing two children. Devastating. But you perservered.

I don't want to say "your husband has a problem", because then it insinuates he has some sort of issue out of his control. Your husband is a creep. Period. And him being a creep is not just about him looking at teenage girls, but his treatment of you, his total lack of respect, his degrading comments, his ABUSE. It's quite likely that you've put up with it this long simply because the "abused you" tells you that you don't deserve any better. But the real YOU, knows better, and that's why you've filed for divorce, and that's why you're here.

Sure he wants counseling. He's slacking it off on the sofa all day looking at naked teens while you're out paying the bills. I'd also venture to guess you do most of the house chores as well. He's got it made in the shade in his eyes. So yeah, he's going to say he loves you, etc etc etc. Your heart knows better. LOVE is not about pain.

You, I can tell, are a beautiful amazing woman. A strong, beautiful, amazing, intelligent woman who is TIRED and needs to find out that life isn't about suffering and pain. Life is beautiful. It's time to get out and find your sunshine. You deserve it.

Right now I am thankful to have tranquility for the first time in my life that I have never experienced before. There are no words to express how wonderful it is to have peace after a lifetime of turmoil

Isn't it nice? Peace...love...living in the moment with yourself to learn, discover, heal, reflect and grow. I'm REALLY glad to hear this, and so very thankful you're finally getting to experience lifes treasures. Your wonderful journey has only barely begun.

You should be proud of yourself for taking a stand like that. You still managed to find the power the take back the reigns of your life. I felt pride for you reading your post. It's amazing to me to hear about people going through horror after horror, and having the strength to not give up. I'm in awe of it. It may sound silly, but it gave me the image of an Amazon Warrior, beautiful and strong, not to be stepped on or disrespected.

I based my decision to post my story on this forum because there were there was such a lack of information about this matter on the Internet other than from this site. There were sites about sex addiction and how it leads to erectile dysfunction. There were sites by religious organizations talking about how wrong it is. I went to the Kinsey Institute and to the Masters Johnson site to see if I could find anything but I found nothing that I could relate to.

I never consented to my husband engaging in pleasuring himself by viewing videos and images of teenage girls. It is repulsive to me. He says he never cheated on me with another woman. In truth, he betrayed me with a cadre of women, perfect strangers. To be more specific he desecrated our marriage by pleasuring himself to the images of teenage girls. This is not about whether pornography is right or wrong it is about one partner engaging in such an act repeatedly knowing how it would affect the other partner in the marriage.

Had my husband had an affair with another woman it would be possible to avoid seeing her. To be honest, I am not convinced he hasn't had an affair. He denies it but there were some instances that took place during our marriage that makes me believe that too is a lie. After thirty years with someone you know how to read them. Every time he looked at a younger woman I wondered if he was fantasizing about her. If the lights were off when we had sex I would wonder if it was she he was imagining rather than me. It was degrading. It dishonored me as mother of his children and disrespected me as the woman who had devoted her life to him.

My husband states he doesn't believe in divorce. He took a vow to be with me for a lifetime. Once again, he missed the point. The lifetime part is a timeframe to keep the vows. The promises we made to one another were to love, trust, honor, respect, protect and forsake all others. He disavowed those promises repeatedly.

It is possible to forgive an act. To be forgiven of a wrong is not something one should take for granted. It requires a repentant heart for the act. You don't get a do over time and time again. It is possible to forgive an act but not a series of acts that is a behavior and that requires tolerance. At some point tolerance ends and forgiveness becomes exhausted.

He is sorry for hurting me but still maintains he has done nothing wrong. Furthermore he refuses to let go of his fantasy of having sex with younger women. I believe his love for me should be of greater importance to him than indulging his selfish desires which ultimately has affected his ability to have a meaningful sexual relationship with his wife.

He has suggested we go to marriage counseling to reconcile our marriage. The basis of his suggestion is to better understand me. I am pretty much an open book. I have explained how I feel in an open, non-hostile and honest discussion. I don't need a translator to make my points clear. I am not a possession or a pet to be owned. I am his wife. Our marriage united us as one family. His actions do have an impact upon our family just as my actions have an impact upon the family. He has an addiction that I simply cannot tolerate. His behavior of selfishness is not okay for a married man.

There is no pleasure in dissolving a family. And while I may have been the one who petitioned to dissolve this marriage it was he who abandoned the family. Perhaps, the polite way of saying it is I have elected to divorce him due to irreconcilable differences. I can't change the man, I can only change myself. I will not waste my time to go through marriage counseling with someone who feels he has done nothing wrong because he did nothing that was of harm to himself. And yes, that is what he said.

On one final note... I was appalled by the lack of appreciation for emotional abuse in our legal system. Had he physically battered me I could have been awarded a restraining order. He didn't break the law by going to those sites. He broke my heart. He was legally permitted to come in our home at will. He would listen to the messages on the answering machine, plunder through my mail and survey everything I was doing. I was at his mercy to allow me to have possession of our home short of my bedroom set and two lawn chairs waiting it out. He was legally allowed to be verbally abusive and emotionally abusive to me and I had no recourse but to take it.

Had he not been so generous as to leave the home I would have been required to co-exist in the home and be at the mercy of the court. Because he is not working he was in a better position to obtain rehabilitative alimony even though his earning potential was three times greater than mine. The impact his behavior had on me due to my personal history of being molested in my childhood was of no consequence to the court. The psychological impact of being ingratiated to my husband for being so kind to leave the home was no less degrading than had I been required to be nice to the predators who molested me during my childhood.

I can't tell you how much admiration I have for you being strong enough to push this man out of your life and say "ENOUGH". After even just 2 or 3 years of marriage, heck 2 or 3 months of dating... some women feel like they have invested too much of themselves into someone that despite how much hurt and degradation they bring - they stay, too afraid to start over, too afraid that man and all of the pain he delivers is the glue that holds them together. You, your words will be an inspiration to women that can read your words and know that they, too, can be as brave and be free of such a toxic individual.

Your life is still there ahead of you, so many decades of happiness you will get to embrace without having that poor excuse for a man getting the priveledge of waking up next to you. He is a fool. He will regret the hurt he's caused, he will look back at the way he treated you with shame and embarassment... but you, you should hold your head up high. You were given a most tragic hand but have overcame adversity that many would have collapsed under.

True to the nature you had that got you through the abuse and the loss of your children, you are a survivor and will heal from all this mess he's been delivering to you. I wish you all the happiness in the world that you most certainly deserve. Thank you for sharing your story.

I love the strength in your written words here. You show great self respect and and I wish everyone could see that in themselves. Nobody should settle in a toxic relationship and let someone take their power away. I admire you greatly for your courage to take back that power from someone foolish enough to think it was theirs to take.

Would the church u were married in have it annulled? Sounds like he doesn't even deserve the respect of having that marriage ever stand as being in existence. The Catholics annul for far less. Good luck for the future xxx

You have great EQ and IQ. Maybe you should write a book sharing your experiences.

It has always been said that emotional abuse leaves scars long after those of physical abuse. Perhaps you can be a light to others going through tough times themselves, and perhaps you can be a leader in advocating for change in laws. It takes someone caring enough to step forward and push for change. You have what it takes and then some.

How are you fairing? I mean, how are your days at this point? Are you feeling stronger and still enjoying the tranquility of peace in your home?

Effective communication is totally dependent upon understanding. One must be able to properly articulate his or her message to others in a way it will be received and understood. Intent and message is understood by the the other party. But the opinion is not necessarily embraced by the other party. Meaningful communication is when that amazing "ah ha" moment transpires. It is when both parties mutually agree upon something or a meeting of the minds come together. It would be futile for me to attempt to describe the color of red to Stevie Wonder. When the events of the past month unfolded I found no meaningful information to assist me.

I felt isolated from a base of knowledge that related to what I was experiencing. I searched to find something, anything that could validate my emotions. I appreciate no one is a clone of one another. Every experience is unique. Similarly, every person's means of processing through issues such as this are unique. I am quite certain I am not the only woman who has felt violated emotionally by her husband. I am equally certain I am not the only woman who has felt betrayed by her husband secretive addiction to viewing pornography of teenage girls online. Thank you for your thoughtful responses to my post. It is nice to know I am not a pariah.

When my daughter was about 10 years of age I made an observation about someone being "weird" to her. She has always been wise beyond her years and her response to me at such a young age clearly resonated her wisdom. I don't recall the situation or why I made that observation but I have never forgotten her response. She said "Mom, everyone is weird. You're weird to someone too. You're normal to someone and your exceptional to someone else. It's all a matter of perception."

I love a line by Alan Alda who portrayed the character of Albert Burnside in the movie Nothing But the Truth. He said "Sometimes a mistake is like wearing white after Labor Day and sometimes a mistake is invading Russia in the winter." Obviously these are two examples of the extremes in mistakes. There are little mistakes and then there a cataclysmic mistakes.

Responses to an act may in retrospect not be reasonable and if given the opportunity to do it all over again you would do things differently. Behavior is something that can also be changed. First we must desire change and be diligent in our efforts to change.

Here's a personal example of a slight mistake resulting in an inappropriate response. Only one letter differentiates the spelling between the words bitter and better. Yet, the meaning of these words differ tremendously. I learned the hard way that spell check is not synonymous with intention check. I once wrote an email to someone stating I was a bitter person for knowing them. They didn't speak to me for months. I had no idea what had happened. They refused to answer my calls or respond to emails. Eventually a mutual friend told me what had happened.

I was horrified by my mistake. This could have been cleared up so easily had the person just been open to speak with me and share how my words had insulted or hurt her but instead she bore a grudge against me without putting her big girl panties on and addressing the situation. Upon hearing the explanation behind this faux pas she called me. I unintentionally hurt someone but she chose not to address it. Which of us was guilty of making greater mistake? Again, it's a matter of perception. What I learned from this situation (beyond re-reading my emails before I press send) was this woman truly was a bitter person at heart. She was a grudge holder. In retrospect I have even considered that particular faux pas to be a Freudian slip. Irregardless, I made a mistake absent of intentional malice. I apologized for making that mistake and that was the right thing to do.

Marriage is dependent upon trust. We share ourselves emotionally, intellectually, spiritually and sexually with our partner. Keeping secrets from our parter is suggestive of guilt or lack of trust in our partner. I first learned about my husband's attraction to pornography in the first year of our marriage. I had done laundry and placed some clothes in his dresser. And there I found several recent editions of Playboy magazines. Initially I was hurt because I assumed he was aware I had a low opinion of my body image but I chose not to assume that and determined the mature thing to do would be to speak with him about it. I even considered hormones of being eight months into my pregnancy could be playing a role in this.

That evening I opened up to speak with him about this and share how this was hurtful to me. His response only served to deepen the hurt. He told me my self image was my own to deal with and if I wasn't satisfied with the way I looked then I should do something about it. He even went so far as to tell me I had a pretty face but I could benefit from working on my body. Once again I shared how deeply I had been affected from being sexually violated in my younger years. He said he knew how I would react if I found the magazines and that is why he hid them at the bottom of his dresser drawer. He opined my plundering about in his dresser drawer was a violation of his privacy. I should have thought more about how I might react if I discovered something before I went rummaging through his belongings. I could feel my face reddening with outrage for this ingrate. There I was eight months pregnant in the dead of summer walking three blocks to do his laundry, keeping the home he lived in spotless, having dinner ready for him when he arrived home each night and he had the audacity to project this onto me. After a momentary lapse of indulging my own fantasy of squishing him like a bug I felt better prepared to restrain my rage.

I truly felt it important for him to understand why I was hurt. Even stressing his responses weren't offering much in terms of reassurance of this being a productive conversation. I asked him to consider how his observations about my body betrayed the confidence I had placed in him to embrace my sexuality in a positive manner. Not until this moment had I ever felt insecure about being nude in his presence which was something I previously never thought possible. I wasn't aware of the fact that I married the official spokesman for the male gender but evidently I did because he said all men particularly married men fantasized about having sex with beautiful women. It wasn't an act of betrayal it was natural and normal. After that he began doing his own laundry which was the only positive result of that conversation.

Since that initial introduction to my husband's affinity to pornography his desires have become increasingly more upsetting to me. His behavior has become increasingly more secretive. His connection towards me has grown increasingly more distant. Intimacy has become essentially non-existant. His demeanor towards me has grown increasingly more hostile. He is aging. Our son's favorite tee shirt with the quote "I'm not dead yet." from the Not Dead Fred character in the play Spamalot. My son valiantly fought to live every day of his life in the fullest. He only lived 23 years but he lived every one of those days courageously. He made no excuses for himself if he was wrong and grew up to be a man of great character. I have learned to embrace that same mantra. I'm not dead yet and as long as there is life there is hope. Every one can change.

It is not up to me to change my husband. That decision is his alone to make. That journey, should he so choose to make it is his alone to take. I simply cannot be blind sided time and time again. I would rather be thankful for being a person who can trust others rather than being suspicious. He has stated he is "trying to stop going to those sites". He didn't say I have stopped. He said he was trying. When I point blank asked him if he had been visiting the teenage porn sites even after all of this he says no. I don't even know why I asked because it doesn't matter and I don't believe him.

I am the collateral victim of his addiction. I have struggled between the notion abandoning hope for him to change in an effort to save our marriage and the hopeless reality that he will never change. The evening after he said he was trying to stop going to those sites he came over to the house. That evening he was the good husband, the one that made it possible to tolerate his abuse. That is classic of a battered wife. In this case he doesn't hit me he emotionally abuses me. There are the crumbs battered women willingly accept, deluded into thinking it's all over, everything is better, it won't happen again. If someone knows the good buttons and bad buttons to push no one is immune from emotional abuse. At least a bruise from physical battery is visible evidence of abuse. Emotional abuse is far more insidious.

Anyhow, on this evening he made sexual advances that I didn't resist. I had yearned for his touch because he is the only man I have ever loved. I wanted to be the woman he desired. That moment of delusion came into thinking he had finally come to his senses came to an abrupt halt. The moment he touched me his erection went flaccid. At that instant I came to terms with the fact that I was perpetuating my decline in self esteem. His flaccid penis upon touching me was sufficient evidence to know his fantasy of teenagers had taken up residence in my bed. I had not consented to someone else sharing my bed even if it was in his mind all those nameless young women were there. I was physically ill.

I told him I thought he really needed counseling. He advised me not to assume the role of a therapist. I wasn't a professional and didn't possess the credentials to make such assertions. That was the day I sold our bedroom set and bought a new one.

He has the legal right to enter my home at will and that happens frequently. Each time he comes over he makes it clear that he wants to reconcile. The truth is that reconciliation won't include him giving up his addiction. I battle on a daily basis between the urge to enter his hotel room just as he enters my home, pull up his Internet history just as he listens to my voice mail and plunders through my mail to confront him with his lies and further validate the very reason why I am divorcing him. Each day I resist that urge and embrace what I already know which is; I am making the right choices and the proof I need is the tranquility I have had since he has been gone. Yes, he has a problem. It is growing worse as he gets older. He needs therapy. But again, he needs to make that decision. I'm not going to be here as his addiction becomes worse. I'm not going to continue to try to be enough for my husband when in truth he is the one who isn't enough for me.