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This morning I have found a video on WH's phone of him masturbating. It was in his Google photos, but had been deleted from his gallery.

He and AP used to send eachother these sorts of videos. So you can imagine how triggering this is for me 😭

He tried to lie / gaslight about the details initially, but obviously the video is dated.

He says he did it because we aren't having sex anymore and it's a turn on, or "kink" for him, because he no longer watches porn. That could very well be the case - but IF that is the case, he has gone to the effort to do it secretively, and delete the evidence. He knows what it would do to me if I found out!! And surely that it looks extremely suspicious. I really don't mind how he masturbates, it is his business. If videoing himself was his bag, then all it would have taken was a chat about it, and that's fine. Like I say, I really don't mind.

We agreed no more porn since Dday - which now he says he HAS watched since Dday. Yet when I said well clearly you've then gone to the effort to delete it from your history he claims he never did as it must have auto deleted within 3 months, but it was ages ago and he hasn't watched it in absolutely ages. I'm sorry, but I would have seen it from going through his phone!

I don't believe a word he says and whenever he tries to explain, he digs himself holes, changes direction and nothing feels clear.

I am now in a position whereby I really am wondering whether he is still cheating. Or something. I don't know, nothing feels right 😣 There are no other behaviours at all to suggest he is... But even if the video was just for himself, this still feels like another Dday?! Is this an overreaction? If so, why do I feel like this?!

[This message edited by WhiskeyBlues at 2:55 PM, Tuesday, April 22nd]

What stands out to me is that you made an agreement on d-day. He violated the agreement and lied about it.

You say, ' I don't know, nothing feels right 😣.'

It looks like you're ignoring reality, but that could be just the surface. Are you in denial?

Broken agreements and lies kill relationships.

Sadly I think this stuff is going to keep happening and your other post about no change in 3 years just confirms this. My advice is going to be the same as on your other post. You are going to have to detach and not care about this kind of stuff since it is upsetting to you and why wouldn't it be it breaks your boundaries.

He lies, deflects and blames you for your reactions. This is not R or a remorseful spouse.

You are not overreacting and you feel this way because he is not changing, he is still wayward and he's not remorseful. I think this is just another example of why you need to detach.

He claims that he watched porn AFTER we made the agreement.

It's insane making!!!! Since dday, his use of porn has been spoken about, but I can't recall precisely when, but I know it was within the first few months after.

Prior to his affair, I never had an issue with him watching porn, but it was him after dday that owned up to exactly how much he was watching it (I wasn't aware) and that it was an issue for him. He stated that he now finds porn "triggering" to watch and he now see's how disrespectful it is. I agreed that I just don't feel comfortable with him watching it anymore. Since that conversation (a few months at least after dday) , although it has not been the main focus of our discussions, I have reiterated that I would not want him watching it and he agreed he had no interest.

Fast forward to today. He says he has watched it since dday but then has said but not since we agreed for him not to. Well that was around 2.5 years ago now!!! When I ask when he watched it, he says he can't recall, he said "I don't know, maybe the beginning of last year". So dday was June 2022 and he is now saying it may have been as recent as Jan 2024?! He is essentially trying to claim that the agreement we made we only fairly recent. NO IT WASN'T!!! And apparently he never deleted his browsing history or anything, I just happen to not come across any porn websites?! Sure!!!

^^^
It is this behaviour that I am talking. Everything turns into a word salad, and nothing he says adds up or makes sense.

Even if he has not sent that video to anyone - it is the secretive behaviour behind it. It's lies, it's secrecy (of something that naturally I am going to find triggering!), when all it took was a conversation!! Pfft I could have even reminded him to delete it properly so our kids don't stumble across it when they use his phone at times!!!

I want to detach more then anything from this man. It is difficult when I am feeling this sad though - I just don't know where to start 😭

Eventually this is going to wear you down and you will automatically start detaching ask me how I know I stayed far too long in my M. Sometimes it just takes that final straw to break us and we are done. I'm so sorry. The only thing I can suggest is to sit with your emotions and just let them out. Then start an active process to detach. Stop listening to him and start living your life for you. I wouldn't do much for him, let him deal with himself. Don't look at his device, don't ask him any questions, don't expect anything different. Maybe he will notice maybe not, but the more you practice the 180 you will be less inclined to care about anything in regards to him.

He says he made the video for himself?

Seems strange to me.

What does he need a video for when the live action is right in front of him?

Well I am out of straws at this point. Since all the TT "ended" approximately one year ago, he has claimed religiously that he has absolutely given me a full disclosure re the affair and that he would never ever lie to me again, as he doesn't want to hurt the kids. And yet read my last thread a few days ago - lies and now today this.

I have asked him to leave, but he refuses (it's "his house too"). It causes me so much stress him being here and worrying that the girls are going to pick up on something or hear something.

As for why he took the video. He claims he now isn't looking at porn, but has "just realised" videoing his wank sessions is a turn on. But that he "thinks he has only done it two or three times", the previous time was apparently in October / November 2024. It sounded plucked out of thin air to me. And before that he doesn't know if he did or didn't. Oh, and apparently hasn't masturbated before at all without the porn, so that leaves a potential almost a year to two years of never masturbating? With the last year being very sparse (now non existent), in the bedroom. Silly me, I just presumed he was masturbating as normal since the affair. All along he claimed he hadn't even been doing that, and I told him he should, as I worry about his health (said this in a jokey way).

I'm extremely skeptical as to what he has done with that video. What I do know is that I cannot tolerate the secrecy - especially of something like this, that he did with AP.

He lied and told you that the door to his secret sexual basement was sealed, but it's not. He might even have wanted to never look at porn again and believed himself when he said he really meant it, that he was done this time.

IMO, the expanded access to porn that the internet facilitated is one of the worst things that happened to our society in the last thirty years. I believe that most men use it, and most users hide and/or lie about the frequency of their usage. I'm also of the opinion that setting a boundary about a partner's porn usage is almost always going to backfire.

From Psychology Today: "Using a set of metrics that includes indicators of monthly unique visitors as well as monthly pageviews, the authors found that the top three pornography sites are more highly ranked than the most well-known household name sites (Amazon, Netflix, Yahoo) as well as those that are the most up and coming (TikTok, OpenAI/ChatGPT, Zoom).

Exactly how great is this disparity? In a word, huge. Xvideos, the top-ranked pornography site, had 700,000,000 more total visits than Amazon and 900,000,000, 1,100,000,000, 1,300,000,000, 1,500,000,000, and 1,800,000,000 more total visits than TikTok, OpenAI, LinkedIn, Netflix, and The Weather Channel, respectively."

I don't know about you, but I find that stunning. That's what we're up against.

The porn use is the least of your problems.

He appears to have an addiction to both porn and lying.

I’d suggest seeing an attorney to move forward with him leaning the home.

I’d suggest professional counseling for you. It will
Help You process all of the lies and misinformation he has fed you.

And lastly, STOP having conversations about his porn use, Videos, when he made the promise to stop porn and when he actually stopped etc.

You already know everything you need to know. He’s a liar and cannot be trusted.

Make plans for a happier future, whatever that may be.

Agree with 1st wife that it’s an addiction. And with most addictions there is relapse. The problem with a porn addiction is it’s so much harder to detect the relapses. If it were drugs or alcohol there would be more visibility of it.

My husband has refused to stop watching it, point blank, so I know how this feels. I had to make a choice about that, and the compromises we have made has seemed to work okay. Not ideal, but it keeps us open on it. (Not suggesting this for you at all, just relying my own experiences with it to say I understand what some of this is like)

I am not sure I am buying what he is selling here. If you want to watch yourself masturbate, you would think he would do it in the mirror. I can’t imagine he wants to play it back for himself, so why record it? I just wouldn’t buy this at face value.

Eventually this is going to wear you down and you will automatically start detaching ask me how I know

I'm seconding what crazyblindsided wrote above. Eventually, you will be so exhausted from the vigilance and the secrecy that your brain will give up and you will arrive at "I don't care" with a heaping side "Leave me alone."

In the meantime, I will share a lesson I learned along the way: it's not so much the details of what they did, when, how, why, etc. That is detective work that we (the betrayed spouses) do because subconsciously, it's easier than facing the consequences. They kept secrets. They hid things that should not have been hidden between spouses. They broke their word, and they aren't able to simply say, "I'm sorry. I did something wrong, and I shouldn't have." We're looking for them to own up to their mistakes rather than covering up because that would indicate a worthwhile change. When that doesn't happen, we get deeply upset because not only have they done something wrong, but our expectations have been destroyed (again).

This is why I got really confused when our MC said to let go of expectations. There are certain behaviors in a relationship that we naturally expect of our partners/spouses, and some of those - like honesty, transparency, empathy, support - are integral to attachment. When those expectations aren't met, we are not only disappointed, we're hurt. This is why people call betrayal of trust a form of emotional abuse. Because when it happens, it causes pain.

WhiskeyBlues, I would suggest to you that you step back from the details and try to see the big picture here. What really matters here is that he violated your trust again, and now you have to decide what you're going to do.

[This message edited by NoThanksForTheMemories at 9:39 PM, Tuesday, April 22nd]

I think this is where I keep going wrong. I constantly have felt I need to "prove", beyond all reasonable doubt, that he is lying about XYZ.

I have done it our whole marriage, to one degree or another, because he has never just simply been honest with me. I did it during the affair, when it was becoming very clear what he was likely doing. I've done it since dday, regarding all the TT.
I keep playing detective, because he never just owns his actions. The move he tries to deny, the more I try to prove.
It is wasting my life at this point and I have worn myself into the ground.

I don't think he is a porn addict - but I also don't believe he stopped watching it following what he agreed. I do think he is a compulsive liar though. I think he is addicted to trying to squirm his way out of things. I don't think he understands the concept of honesty, and how far we could have come by now, if he had just worked on this aspect of himself. But I just don't think he has it in him 😞

He is essentially trying to claim that for nearly 18 months, he has not watched porn and has only just figured out that can replace porn with videoing himself. He says because he has a "device in his other hand", which is what he was accustomed to with the porn apparently. Why not just hold the phone in your hand? 🤔 And really, he has not had an orgasm all this time? That would be approximately 2 orgasm in 18 months-ish? Is this even healthy or viable for a man?

The ironic thing is, if he wanted to argue the toss (excuse the pun) on the porn, and still watch it, we could have had a discussion about it. It was HIM that sold me the "I find it triggering", "I was watching it too much", "It's disrespectful".

He is absolutely lying about something. He has been very secretive. He has betrayed my trust once again. None of it adds up, or is plausible. Whether it's him sending that video to someone, or it was just a little kink he was trying out - it doesn't matter. Because he is lying somewhere along the line and I agree - it is not my job to try and find out.

NTFTM

"WhiskeyBlues, I would suggest to you that you step back from the details and try to see the big picture here. What really matters here is that he violated your trust again, and now you have to decide what you're going to do."

^^^
Spot on. I'm desperately tired from it all 😞

The thing about porn is that there's a lot of shame surrounding it. I'd say that most of the time you're going to get range of dishonest answers if you ask someone about the details of their porn usage, ranging from minimization to outright lies. And like I said above, trying to set boundaries about porn usage usually leads to trouble.

I don't have any boundaries about porn with my H, mostly because I know it's futile. There have been a couple of times in the past where he said that he had initiated a plan to stop using it, of his own accord, but he either didn't or he went back to it, and there was never a conversation about resuming usage. It's kind of like "it is what it is", and I can either spend a lot of energy being mad about it, or I can just accept that he's going to use it, and that most men do.

I learned my lesson the hard way that if you try to get in between an addict and their "drug of choice" you're going to come out on the losing end. Many people are addicted to porn to one degree or another, ranging from not being able/willing to stop using it to becoming completely obsessive. I can't remember the name of the memoir, but the author's husband died and she found a giant stash of carefully categorized porn files on her H's computer and on several hard drives. She dug a little and found that he had been spending hours every day adding to and organizing his collection. She had no idea. He was also doing all sorts of other secret sexual stuff, like cheating and using escorts.

I'm sick of the whole topic of the secret sexual basement. If something ever happens to my H, I'll likely never marry again. I'd rather not have to deal with someone else's weird, secret SHIT. Like filming oneself masturbating. I find that super sketchy, especially since your gut is pinging and he's been acting weird. It wouldn't be surprising to find out that he's crossed some pretty serious boundaries.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 10:31 PM, Tuesday, April 22nd]

2 orgasms in 18 months... Nope not happening un less there is some underlying medical condition but that obviously isn't the problem here.

Alright I'm gonna throw something out there that might cause some to sharpen their pitch forks...

I have zero desire to look at porn. A decade ago I may have looked at it twice a month but the OTC drug was my wife's vagina. Not only that but we talk a lot about what we want and experiment and it has progressed into leaving me always "filled up". I also have zero desire to look for fulfilment elsewhere. You are deep into this R, what do you have to lose at this point VS what do you have to gain?

What if, you just gave yourself to him. What is worse case scenario here. You tell him tomorrow morning you want him to bend you over tonight so you are on his mind all day. How could this play out?

Mind you I haven't read the full details of your situation I'm on my phone and it's a pain in the butt to navigate around but I mean you chose to stay apparently so why not.. F-it. I know this might be unorthodox but honestly perhaps you have everything to gain and nothing to lose here... I don't know just food for thought I'd really like you to just be happy.

SS33, to be honest, I didn't realise porn was such a massive issue for people - I think clearly I've been rather naive on the topic.

That's the thing, I was not the one to set the boundary. He did himself, saying how it now triggers him etc. I followed suit on his views, because quite frankly the trauma after dday made me not to particularly want him to masturbate over another woman, like he did of videos and pics of AP. So I was glad when he himself came to the conclusion that he didn't want to watch porn.

And then since being on SI, reading others stories and how damaging porn is, I have brought the topic up and I have reaffirmed my feelings / checked with him that he is not watching it. Maybe because I felt it was something tangible that he could do or not do, to rebuild trust.

If I'd have found porn on his phone, I would have been devastated at the broken trust. But this is so much worse. It has left me questioning, more then ever, who he really is and what he has been up to behind my back 😞

[This message edited by WhiskeyBlues at 6:04 AM, Wednesday, April 23rd]