Are You Losing Your Man to the Internet?
Internet porn is a very serious relationship destroyer. On the surface, many men and boys seem addicted to it. And while there are some women and girls who are addicted, women and girls find themselves badly affected by what is happening to the males in their lives. Let’s look at some suggestions for handling this.
Looking at porn online is a different experience from having an affair. At least, with the latter, there’s a real person involved. Online porn means that there’s no one there except what’s in your mind. (One digression here: This will get worse as we get more authentic virtual reality.) Online porn means that you’re creating an image of the perfect sexual other—in terms of looks and performance. Your present partner will never be equivalent. Neither will you. Moreover, in real life, both she and you will get older. So the “person online” will be chasing ghosts.
Meanwhile, what happens to the present relationship? Aside from costs and time spent away, the person online will find himself (most of you are men) more satisfied with the online sex rather than the real sex. A recent set of articles in New York Magazine noted that many men were having to fake orgasms with their live partner for many reasons. They find the porn “better,” and they may have spent hours masturbating to a screen image. They may also find themselves personally “engaged” with their online mistress.
The live partner may find herself ignored, distanced, and unfulfilled. She may want to compete with her fantasy of his fantasy. While there’s nothing wrong with trying to spice up one’s sex life, no one can win at this competition game. The New York Magazine articles said that teenage boys were learning about sex online, and so teenage girls were being forced to attempt to become teenage boys’ adult fantasies at ages when they shouldn’t and couldn’t try to compete. Also, they can’t win.
Can anything be done? An adult couple can go to a therapist to find out non-porn ways of satisfying each other and deal with other relationship issues. One man in the above articles went “cold turkey” and was able to find real sex satisfying again.
What to do? A likely failure is to try to restrict teenage boy’s computer use, or more usefully, provide real life ways to teach boys about healthy sex.
I understand about the internet porn. But what do you do when your fiancé would rather go masturbate in the other than to have sex with you?
I found this entry helpful in my situation I’m going through in my marriage. However the problem I’m having.g is not porn it looking to have an outside relationship with someone and that’s my addiction. I only look send a few replies but I never follow thru with one fro I love my wife to much and don’t want to lose her. But I’m losing her anyways just doing this. And now I look for help and guidance from both god and man from any who can help . Plz I don’t wish to lose my family for something so pitiful as this.
Dear Kaydie: You should make sure you and he go to a therapist. I am being very serious about this and what I’m saying next. It would be very generous of you to go to the therapist, since he is avoiding dealing with you. Hopefully, this therapist will encourage him to go to his own therapist as well. You can give yourself a time limit on this, but because he is not relating to you in this most important way is destructive to you and to him. Pls let me know how it went.
Dear Brandon: I am glad you’re honest about this. You sound in a great deal of pain. I would recommend that you and she go to therapy together and that you also see a therapist by yourself. There’s something going on from your past you’re not dealing with. Keep me informed!
My common law and I have had bedroom issues for a while now. He suffers (so he says) from ED and needs to take medication to get him going if we are planning on having sex. I am a healthy woman and enjoy sex with him very much, but our sex life has dwindled to once a month if I’m lucky. Yesterday I found porn images on his computer and this is not the first time. The first time I talked to him about it and told him how hurtful this was – that he seems to be able to function by looking at porn but not by being with me. It makes me feel completely inadequate and unattractive to him, even though he tells me how beautiful he thinks I am. I don’t understand: he needs a pill to be with me but not when it’s pornographic material he’s looking at.