[Allygator]

I've been an absolute emotional wreck since the other day when I went digging around on my husband's PC and found something that made my stomach crawl.

So, I'm one of those housewives that don't mind if their husband's look at porn. I'm pretty open minded about it; sometimes I look at hentai anime. He's generally very private about his porn habbits and I respect him. But I figured for the heck of it, I'd go through his collection and see what sort of kinky stuff I'd find. Maybe there was a position one of the ladies were in that we could try out? The main image folder had the usual stuff I figured he'd have, nothing out of the ordinary. I did find a few images of women that had the whole "teen look" going on. Raised a few brows but nothing that would send me running in a panic. I dug around in some of his other folders to see if he had a hidden stash of porn and sure enough he did. First glance, more stuff I figured he'd have, no red flags.

Halfway through the folder I start coming across a lot more of the teen-looking girl stuff and needless to say, some of this had me slightly concerned. I looked at a few of them and it was really hard to tell if they were actually adults that had the teen look going on or god forbid, actual photos young girls took of themselves and they found their way onto the internet. This was enough for me to want to talk to him when he got home from work.

Looking through the folder further I came across one that really stood out. It was of a young girl with her mother and father. They were all naked in it. Now. Nothing sexual was going on. There was no sexual touching or anything like that. It looked like a photo you might see snapped at a family at home. The thing that really scared me was the fact the girl in the photo looked really young. Maybe 10? In a panic I called him up at work and told him to come home right away. When he got home I was in absolute tears, balling my eyes out. I looked up at him and asked him if there was something I needed to know. Confused about what was going on, I told him I found the photos on his PC.

When I was able to stop myself from crying to actually talk to him, I asked him in great detail about why he had teen-themed porn on his HD. His answer was he liked variety. This wouldn't be such an issue if, say, it was women in bondage gear or brunettes, but this particular type of porn always raises red flags because you don't know if those are photos of actual adult females or under aged ones. Moving from that I grilled him intensely about the photo of the naked parents with their naked kid. I asked him why it was there, had he used it for arousal purposes, etc etc. He said he found the photo uploaded onto a nudist colony blog and he had no "acceptable" answer for having it there; it was a dumb mistake he should have never done and he crossed the line.

I asked him several times if there was something he was hiding from me and he had to be honest with me. I honestly DON'T know if he was, but he swears that he has absolutely zero interest in wanting to harm small children or teens. I honestly don't know if he has fantasies about young teens (or adults that have the younger teen-looking body), but I'm guessing most of them were downloaded with the intentions of arousal/masturbation. I've asked him so many times about if he's had any sorts of perverse thoughts about the young girl with her parents and he swears to me he has not.

Believe me when I say this, but I want to believe him when he says this, and that it all was a stupid, stupid mistake. But right now, I don't know what to do. In the past I've wanted him to go to therapy as it's done absolute wonders for me, my depression. For him, considering his own past filled with really unpleasant things, it would do him a world of wonder if he saw his own therapist. He's always turned it down not wanting to open up and talk about painful things from his past. I told him firmly that this time because of all I found, he has to go. The thing is, what does he go in for? What does he talk about? And for how long? During therapy, does he ever bring up the topic of the questionable photo to the therapist and if he did, would that mean he would be arrested on the spot?

Aside for having him go to therapy, I DON'T know what else to do. I can't talk to any family about this as I already know what would be said. I've been with this man for almost 10 years now. Our first year of marriage was pretty rocky, but since then we've grown together as a couple and our relationship is always a work in progress. Some days are good, some days aren't. This is the first time anything has ever happened like this.

Again, I don't know what to do.

[Trisha23]

Your husband surely needs a therapy. It is okay for men to have porn collection but I guess he is way over the line already.

[rcoreyus]

There are some people who are true pedophiles, who are sexually attracted to children. A small percentage of them represent a real risk, most are relatively harmless. Pictures of underage children at very illegal in this county and this makes it difficult / dangerous for these men to seek any sort of help for fear of a life-long loss of rights.

Some men are attracted to the forbidden. They may not be attracted to children as such, but it is the fact that child porn is forbidden that is attractive to them, not the content.

Being attracted to adult teenagers is very common - I don't think that is abnormal but it is up to you whether it is OK for him to have that sort of material in his porn collection. Were there just one or two pictures of actual children, or did he have a lot of them?

See you you can have a calm rational discussion with him about his (I know its difficult). Try to understand why he had this picture - is it pedophilia, or just a desire for the forbidden. Then think about the right thing to do.

[DreamP346]

Based on the what you have presented, this is my personal thoughts. Since it was just one picture with the child and it was not sexual, could be just curiosity. Not sexual curiosity, but just plain curiosity. Family of nudists, hmm, that even peaks my interest. If you take the sex part out of it (which for nudists is the case), its quite interesting that these people walk around naked, even in front of their kids. Just because its was in his secret collection, doesn't mean it has to be for sexual purposes. It was just something that was out of curiosity.

The teen pictures I guess is very common. Think about it, Britney Spears was going around dressed in very sexualized outfits when she was 16 and that was perfectly acceptable. There are plenty of other teen celebrities that were wholesome figures one day and the next day they were suddenly sex figures because they were 18.

The issue is what this has done to your marriage. I would recommend couples counselling. Do some reason, but somebody else here mentioned that having naked pictures of kids was not considered illegal if it was not sexualized. If that is the case, then definitely mention it to the therapist. You need to deal with what this has done to your relationship and your husband has to deal with why he may have done this.