Family and Friends Forum

Rainbow when was your knock ? I am 7 months in. I still have mixed feelings about my husband but know deep down we can’t be in a relationship. He sees my daughter twice a week once at my house and once and my mums. This is what I can emotionally cope with.



if social services closed your case they know you can safeguard your children so it’s up to you.



each situation is different. My husband does actually acknowledge the pain he caused us but he has a long way to go with therapy.



my response is there is no right or wrong answer. Take your time it may become clearer. And yes those mixed feelings are completely normal! X

Our life is almost normal, I guess its a new normal. We live together as a family and have adjusted to the new way of life (he cannot look after the kids alone, do any personal care etc). We still do most of the things we used to, things we took for granted like holidays etc are more tricky but not impossible (I hope). I feel as a couple we are stronger and we can still have fun together and as a family. Social services have closed our case, he's still going to therapy and probation etc which is all going well. We have days where im angry or we both cry but not often now. I feel like life is getting back on tract, there's hope for the future. I dont feel any conflict in supporting my partner now i know all the facts, I sometimes feel pressure to justify it to others but we have the support of friends and family so that is whats important. In time you will work out whats right for your family and hopefully whatever you decide life will return to a new normal. It's ok to be mad and angry some days how could we not be, but its also ok to enjoy those normal family moments.

I agree with Maria, there can be a new normal. My husband was convicted of going to meet a minor after chatting online - the minor was actually a police officer. Though (unknown to me) he had had an addiction to online chat for years, he had never crossed that line before. After much thought, research, and attending the LF course, I felt I could stay with him as he was completely repentant and committed to repairing himself and turning his life around. And I do love him.

A year or so on, we are rebuilding our lives, finding good things to do, taking care of house and garden. Most of my family have been wonderful. Most of our friends have been wonderful. We are lucky.

I still get highly anxious times when I think 'how would I know' if he started again, and 'how can I be certain?' that he hasn't. But, I monitor his computer, and so do the police, and he regularly attends therapy, and we talk in ways we never ever used to. The reserve and separation that were there are gone, he's the lovely man I met nearly 30 years ago.

It's completely your choice. Don't let anyone tell you that you are wrong to stay or to go. Good luck and all our hearts are with you ;-)

I really hope so. A hope of us being a happy family again keeps me ( and my husband) going through this terrible time. The knock came at the beginning of April and turned out lives upside down. I had found out I was pregnant with our second baby only 3 days before the knock. ... After he came back from the police station, my husband told me the whole truth about his addiction to pornography that he has battled for over 20 years. We have been together for over 13 years and have been very happy. Yet, I had no idea about his addiction. As many porn addicts do, he completely compartmentalized it from his normal conscious life. The knock and everything that followed made him come out of his delusion and realise that he was severely addicted to pornography. This came as a shock to him and he is doing everything he can to overcome this mental health cancer as he calls it. Through his reflection and therapy he has learn that pornography was his coping mechanism to deal with anxiety and stress of everyday life. It actually b starred when he was 10 to help him cope with post traumatic experience that he went through at that age. One thing is clear to me, his therapist and my husband- he is not a peadophile as he has never felt sexual attraction to under 18s and definitely not to children. Like with every addiction, he was getting desensitised to mainstream pornography as his tolerance level was going up and up. Heviewed indecent images because he was looking for something different. The key thing is that he ddid not do it consciously. I know it is difficult to understand, but as with every addiction, people lose common sense and cannot see things for what they are. His judgment was completely impaired as his addiction drew him to a risky behaviour ( which he did not see at that). When on his fantasy world, he only saw ' body parts' not a real person when he was looking at porn. This is very common symptom bid someone who has a severe porn addiction. The most unbelievable aspect of all this is that my husband, as the man that I have known for all these years, has been a man of great integrity and high principles, honest, caring, hardworking, loving. He has always been very sensitive to cruelty, including child cruelty, especially after our daughter was born 15 months ago. Yet, in his secret life he lost all his common sense. I know this was his addiction taking control of him. It's not possible that he would have done this if we knew. And know, after he has become disillusioned, he has lost all his self esteem, all self confidence, he hates himself for what he has done, because now he thinks about the victims.

The reason I didn't think twice about leaving my husband was his complete honesty from day one. I think that we are actually growing stronger as we have beve been so honest with each other. I cannot cross over these 13 happy years and forget what a good man he was in his 'normal life'. I just cannot. I know that whatey he did,the did unconsciously. Both of my parents are heavy smokers and I know how addiction works . People live in denial even of they are told that they are destroying their lives. Because my husband completely compartmentalized his addiction , noone could ever discover bit and tell him that he has a problem. Knowing my husband, he would have woken up straightaway and would have sought help. Unfortunately, porn addiction is not recognised and is a tabu at the moment. His therapist says that porn addiction is as a pandemic which will grow bigger bubtil the problem is recognised and prevention put in place.

In a meantime, our lives have been shuttered. He has had to resign from work and his profession, was today diagnosed with severe depression and severe anxiety and I don't even know of he will be able to be with me during labour.

Yet, what keeps me going through all this is my hope that we will be a happy family again when this is all over.

All the best to you all. Xxx

Please forgive my spelling mistakes, I was typionf my previous posts on my phone whilst putting my daughter to bed. For some reason, I cannot correct or edit my posts whilst typing, this must be something to do with my phone.

Also , when I said : ' I didn't need to think twice about leaving my husband' this should say the opposite, i.e. 'I didn't need to think twice about staying by my husband'.

Keep strong!

Hi Monika

can i ask how/where did your husband get a therapist? His story is very similar to my husbands, porn addiction leading to illegal stuff. He'd never hurt anyone and has no interest in children in that way - but try explaining that to anyone else!!

The knock was at the beginning of march, and other than one visit from a mental health team after his two suicide attempts, nothing was done, and no advice or help given. (they said that in his position, suicide attempts were 'normal')

We're trying to live a normal life while waiting for the return knock, and he's done a lot of thinking and trying to understand himself and how he got here.

A part of his problem was that he had taken to uploading the (legal, at first) porn images back to the 'net, we're looking at a custiodial sentence for 'sharing' of images, when he slipped into illegal territory. He did the same with the legal stuff and illegal stuff but i don't imagine for a second that will be enough to stop at least a short sentence being passed, becuase it's so hard to explain why. What I DO hope will help is if he gets help, and can show that he doesn't have a sexual interest but was suffering an addiction/mental health condition. It's broken him that it's come to such a head and his fears for himself ("i don't know how i'll survive in there") and for me have left him so depressed he barely leaves the house, feels sick every morning, and breaks down in tears every few days.

We're staying together - only a handful of people know, which helps maintain normality for the time being - but outside help for him i think would really be good thing.

Hi kls,

I am so relieved that I am not the only one whose loved one fell into a trap of pornography addiction. You are so right that it is difficult to explain and not everyone will understand, especially if they never had to deal with or support someone with an addition. My husband found his therapist through a charity called StopSo. The leaflet with the details was given to him by the police.

I am so sorry to hear that your husband is struggling so much mentally. My husband has just been diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety which came as a shock to both of us. We thought that because he didn't have suicidal thoughts, he was fine. But he wasn't. I am so glad he was diagnosed as we now know what we are dealing with.

I genuinely hope that vyoi find the support he needs and I strongly recommend you contact StopSo for help in finding the therapist.

All the best to you both.

Monika.