True Love vs. Exploitation

The right side of the graphic above was the story of my marriage. It's for this reason, I'm not sure I could date someone, or have an intimate relationship with a new spouse. I am a damaged partner; one who was called "not enough" of whatever it was he wanted or needed. 

I know now he wanted and needed pornography.

Months turned into years when there was no sex in our marriage. Earlier on, he had told me all I had to do was touch him and he'd be ready. After his porn addiction escalated, he would actually push me away if I tried to initiate "love making." I wasn't aware that "love" was removed from the equation of our marriage. 

Silly me.

The last time we had sex, he couldn't do it. I didn't know what DE (Delayed Ejactulation) was, but when I found out, my married life made sense. (But to think he couldn't really have sex with me unless he thought about those smutty porn scenes, really disgusts and humiliates me.)

Before that last time, more than a year had gone by since we were intimate. I remember confiding in my best friend. She just said to keep trying, that maybe it was because of his age (50s?). I wondered if he had a prostate problem or something he wouldn't talk to me about. And he wouldn't talk to me about it. Whenever I asked, he just gave me a look (like it was my fault because I wasn't good enough) and said, "You don't really want to know, do you?"  Since he made me feel so small as it was, no, I didn't really want to know, because it was probably my fault.

Such is the mindset of a victim and co-dependent of a partner's pornography addiction. Taking on the fault.

When I found his porn, I was totally shocked. I thought--what? We had previously discussed this sorry behavior and agreed it was egregious. Yet, the addiction was there for him, unbeknownst to me. I was being played.

The time from our last sexual tryst to our divorce was four years. Four years without married sexual encounter or intimacy. Why did I think that could be normal? I wasn't in denial, because I clearly was concerned, but he didn't want to talk about it, and I didn't want to be blamed for it.

When I told him I found his porn, at first he blamed me  for snooping around in his personal things. (??!!) Then he quickly blamed me for being boring. 

Ha! I thought, "I am not boring." But, now that I know of his addiction, I realize anything less than those young girls jiggling around nude in the DVD would have been seen as boring. I wasn't aware at the time that he had escalated to real world experiences. I couldn't have competed with that. I wouldn't have wanted to.  And the fact that I found money taken out of our accounts on a regular basis, led me to believe he was seeing prostitutes. "That's the going rate for prostitutes," was what one of my friends who had found her own husband's porn told me. That shocked me too! I thought, "He would never!" But there were a lot of things I thought he would never do. 

But I guess being celibate saved me from STDs. Some of my friends weren't so lucky with their porn-addicted husbands.

I only hope that when other victims of their spouse's pornography addiction read these things, they realize they're not alone. Or they are awakened to this information and finally realize it's not their fault.

I thought I was alone. 

I felt very alone.

I hope, if you feel alone and don't know what's happening to you because of porn, you will take time to read through some of my posts on pornography. Just search at the top right of the sidebar of this blog. As I was going through the experience, I had no idea. Now that I'm out of that relationship and have had time to research the nuances of a porn addiction, I look back and realize I was along for the ride in his full-blown addiction. Wondering. Confused. Self-worth splattered. Betrayed. Shattered. 

As I read the left side of the graphic above, about true love, I am reminded of what I had hoped to have in my marriage, but didn't. This is why I wonder if I could ever trust another man. If I ever felt that closeness, would I back away wondering if it was real? This topic is not often covered because it's what the victim of porn feels. You can't trust again because you've been betrayed. To forgive is equated with co-dependence. "I will not go there again" is the defiance to a much-desired lifestyle of being loved and cherished.

I do long to be loved and cherished. I just pity the poor man who might try.

Oh, Forgiveness, Where Art Thou?

By Susan Knight

Just when I thought I was getting ready to climb the Forgiveness Step, I find myself still sitting, dawdling, even teetering on the edge of the Courage Step.

I look down and see my old friend, the Anger Step, looming up at me, beckoning.

It's a quick hop down to Anger and I've jumped to it many times in the last four years or so. I can't help myself.

Sometimes, when things go wrong, or when news of my unrepentant ex comes up, I easily seek out my old friend, Anger.

Anger is part of the terrible-awful flashbacks I get from time to time. Anger triggers them in its own resourceful way.

It could be worry about my finances. Will I have enough to pay off my growing credit card bill that I've been using to buy a few extra things this summer? And I worry because my ex doesn't do what he says he will in that regard.

Now I'm asking for help here--opinions. If I was supposed to get a sum from him, say, like, half of a yearly bonus, would I get half of the bonus, or have to wait until he pays the federal, state, local governments, social security and other sundrie taxes, then I get half of what is left?

And if you were to pay your wife alimony, say half of your bonus, would you pay half of the bonus, or half of the net of the bonus? Keep in mind I have yet to pay taxes on this alimony and he gets a tax break for alimony on his income taxes.

I end up paying taxes twice. I'm paying taxes for where he lives and works. I don't live there or work there. Should I have to pay?

I'm just asking.

There might be someone who reads here that will know the answer to this.
Keep in mind, my only alimony is half of his bonus. He was getting quarterly bonuses and now seems to only get one bonus a year. At least that's what he sends me the remains of.

I'd like to know.

I'm perched, ready to jump to Anger soon. I've become adept at jumping around Anger and Resentment and back to Abuse, because I feel like I'm being taken advantage of again.

Do I jump back to the Courage Step and see if I should get the lawyer again and open up another can of worms? Or do I just let him get away with this and let him think he can take advantage of me, as always?

Getting ready to hop. Someone please stop me.

Excerpt From My Memoir--Finding the Porn

Spoiler alert--adult content

March 4, 2010

I can’t believe this is happening to me! As if my life couldn’t get any worse . . .

 

With Jerry* out of town on his "mini-vacation," I couldn’t sleep. Thinking he may have taken the money out of our checking account, I got up and searched around in his desk for the check book and couldn’t find it. He moves things around all the time and doesn’t tell me, like it’s none of my business. I was afraid maybe he took it with him. I already felt abandoned.

I looked in all his drawers and couldn’t find it anywhere, so I started looking in the same places all over again. My head was reeling. My thoughts traveled a mile a minute through the past and into the future and back to the present.

His top desk drawer is deep, so I pulled it all the way out and saw some CDs, which distracted me. I wondered if one was the CD I gave him of his family history. I thought I should make copies for the kids.

A DVD in the pile jumped out at me like a poisonous snake. I recoiled as I saw the cover. Pornography.

I let out a short, startled scream, then remembered Leah down the hall in bed. I started breathing so fast I thought I was going to pass out. My heartbeat was deafening.

I looked at the cover for a second and had to look away. It was disgusting. Lewd. I didn’t want to touch it. I can barely write about it.

I took it downstairs to my computer and put it in the DVD drive. The images that popped out at me on the screen made me want to throw-up right there on the spot. I mean, projectile vomit! I couldn’t watch more than two seconds of each segment. I kept hitting the forward button.

Ew. Forward. Ew. Forward. Ew. Forward. There must have been at least a dozen segments. I have no idea how long they are. I kept hitting “forward.” How does one wash out one’s mind with soap?

I am officially humiliated, disgraced,  mortified. Those young women on that DVD didn’t even look as old as his daughters. My lip went up in a snarl and I really hated that man at that minute. If Leah wasn’t asleep in her room, directly above my computer, I would have screamed at the top of my lungs!

And to think I’ve been blaming myself all these years for him not wanting to have sex with me. He would rather sit and watch those girls while – . I mean, I was there, every night, lying next to him in bed, but he would rather – Ew!

* Names are changed

Some Financial Advice For While You’re Still Married

I am the last person to give financial advice. This is only what I wish I had done before it came to divorce.

I was a stay-at-home mom, working only part-time jobs. I had no college education to be able to gain a better salary. When I graduated high school, women didn’t need college educations unless they were going to be nurses or teachers. Times have changed.

I realize now I should have taken more interest in our financial affairs during my marriage. Money talk went right over my head. My eyes glazed over. If I saw a dollar sign, my brain shut off.
Denial!

And besides, he didn't want me to know how much money he really made . . . *face palm*

Funny, now that I’m divorced, this is what I have to conquer on a monthly basis when bills are due. It's not so scary now. I learned how to budget. See what money is coming in and plan for bill payment. Write a check or go online and pay the bill.

What’s not easy is worrying about having the money to do it. So far so good for me. I don't know what the future may hold.

But I digress.

Protect yourself now. If you’re thinking divorce is in your future, take control. Work with your spouse on your financial profile. I had never helped my husband prepare our taxes. Never. Ever. And he liked it that way. It was another way of keeping control.

Imagine my surprise when I helped him prepare our taxes for the last time—so I could see how it’s done. It was then I learned how much money my husband really made. He made it seem we were always in a financial crisis. He led me to believe we were living just above poverty level. He demanded I work—full-time—not part-time as I had been doing so I could be home with our kids. I found out he made six figures--without my puny part-time wage.

My part-time job finally went full-time the year before our divorce process started. But my ex was never satisfied. We never had enough money because of his indiscriminate and secretive spending.
By not knowing our financial position, I didn’t spot his skimming of our accounts. I didn’t realize what he was spending on himself—all the while telling me not to buy groceries, sometimes for three weeks in a row. I would question his purchases, but he always told me, “Don’t worry about it.” So I didn’t. I was in total denial. I, erroneously, trusted him.

Words of advice:

·       Women, check your bank accounts on a weekly basis. You can do this online now. Your husband most likely already set up a password. Get it from him.

·       Know where all the documents are for your finances. Mine were in a desk in his “man cave.” He resented me going through “his” files. I had to remind him they were “our” files. Once the divorce was on, I found out later he hid some money in a secret savings account. I couldn’t prove it. Well, I could have, if I wasn’t emotionally drained during the divorce process. If I would have found out about it sooner, I wouldn’t have been hoodwinked.

·       Work together on paying your bills every month. If he doesn’t like it, compromise and each pay half of the bills with joint money. Tell him it will give you experience in case something happens to him.

·       Get a credit card in your own name while you’re still married—if you have good credit. If your spouse pays the bills in a timely manner, you probably have a good credit score. Once you get your own credit card, pay the whole amount off every month. Don’t spend what you don’t have and this will be easy.

·       Work together on preparing your taxes.

·       Know about his 401K and your IRA, if you have one.

I know this might sound scary to some of you, but it’s essential in protecting yourself from a calamity that will affect your whole life after your divorce, if you get one.

Does anybody have any other advice?