Porn/masturbation addiction

Emotional Support
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I recently discovered that my boyfriend of three years, whom I live with, has been looking at his exes’ Instagram profiles (dating back to 2017) while masturbating. This came to light when I was curious about his friend’s new girlfriend (he’d mentioned we shared similarities) and noticed he had manually searched for a girl he used to be close with on Instagram. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen him search for her, and when confronted, he initially denied any wrongdoing, claiming it was harmless curiosity. However, after pressing him, he eventually confessed that he was sexualizing her and her best friend (who is also his best friends ex), both of whom are Asian and said that was part of what intrigued him, and admitted to masturbating to their photos. He later revealed he had also been doing the same with a girl from 2017, whom he had slept with when they were seniors (minors) in high school, he is 24 now. He admitted to having only been briefly intimate with the 2 Asian women (no intercourse), which somehow is worse to me that they’re still at his forefront.

This situation has left me feeling deeply uncomfortable and hurt, especially because these women look nothing like me (I’m white with red hair, while they are very thin with dark brown hair). I feel disturbed by his objectifying behavior, which feels like a violation of their privacy and a breach of my trust. I’m also struggling with self-esteem issues, as it seems these women were more compelling to him than I am. Most of all though, I’m troubled by the emotional element of his actions, feeling that he was trying to get as close to cheating as possible by revisiting past intimate experiences and viewing them still as they are currently.

While my boyfriend appears to feel guilty and ashamed, he deleted his instagram & apologized, I can’t help but wonder if his remorse is solely because he was caught, because this has been something he has been doing since the start of us being together. This situation has left me questioning our relationship and my self-worth, and I’m unsure how to move forward.

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Welcome to the forum :people_hugging:

Im so sorry you’re going through this I can only imagine how distressing it is.

Hes responsible for his actions and choices, he has an addiction it’s not a reflection of you, how you look/don’t look, its not about you.
Whether he will really stop doing this and get some therapy/counselling is upto him.
You need to look after you, when my ex was looking at porn it went on for so long it eroded all trust, I couldn’t get past him objectifying another human as a sexual object, it disgusted me.

Your mental health, emotional needs are really going to need caring for, if you choose to stay in the relationship put some firm boundaries down, but please don’t go through this alone :people_hugging:

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Hi there, my name is Matt and I am a (male) person in recovery from an addiction to lust (which for me showed up in porn and masturbation, but I realized as I worked my recovery program that it is much deeper than that; the porn and the masturbation are only surface symptoms of a deeper problem I had to solve).

I am sorry for what you are going through. It is wrong and it isn’t fair to you.

The poster above :arrow_up: is right that you need to focus on you and making decisions to care for your well being. There are a wide range of ways to do that; you will find the one that helps you if you keep searching. Seek input from a range of helpful sources, and take time to reflect on it, and if you have some trusted friends you can speak to, that is helpful. Talking Sober is helpful too.

In my case I have been working on my sobriety from this addiction consciously, and actively seeking qualified external help (some in sex addiction recovery clinics, some in Sexaholics Anonymous recovery groups) for 6 years. In that time I have learned more than I learned in the last 20 years of my life.

It was not easy for my wife. We are still married. It is a long story of how we got to where we are now but the end of it is that our marriage is stronger than it was before I started my recovery. Both of us have grown through the process. I can go into some of that in more detail if you are interested but for now I wanted to share that.

However, I have other friends in recovery from this whose marriages did not survive. Of the ones I know that are seriously working their recovery from this, the majority of them have kept their marriages, but some do not survive.

What he is doing is wrong, and it is a system of behaviour that has roots in deeper problems. It will take time for him to untie this knot (I hope he does); but that does not have to be time you share with him. You are at a stage of your life where you probably have a lot of choices. (I am twice your age. I have choices too, but I’m not at a point where I want to change relationships, even if I could!)

It would also be legitimate for you to stay with him if you so choose, but if he doesn’t make a change (which will be apparent from his participation in a sustained, accountable recovery program), then it is likely the cycle of “acting out” by him will continue.

I am sorry this happened. It is hurtful and wholly inappropriate (and creepy). It is part of an addiction, and like all addictions, the person with the addiction gives up everything in their life (including their relationships) for their addiction. It is sad to see.

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Thank you for your kind words, it pains me to know others have experienced something similar, but it is comforting to know I’m not alone. If you don’t mind me asking, how did you move past? Were you able to regain the trust?

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Thank you. I have been trying my hardest to view this as an addiction like any other, and I really want to help him because I do love him. But it does pain me, and I’m curious how your wife was able to overcome and how she acted throughout if you’re willing to share. I apologize if you mentioned, but how long had you guys been together when she found out? And how long after did it take to rebuild that trust? I’m sorry for all the questions, I really appreciate you being willing to be vulnerable I know this is not easy.

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I opened up to her about it in 2019. By that point we had been married for 11 years. She had some idea of it already - she wasn’t shocked when I told her - but we had never had a conversation about it.

I opened up in 2019 because that was the year I realized I couldn’t fix this on my own, and I reached out to a sex addiction recovery clinic in my city. The clinic was run by psychotherapists specializing in sex addiction recovery. (I found it by searching “sex addiction help in [city name]”). My wife needed to know what I was doing (obviously I couldn’t be leaving for group recovery meetings and keeping it secret from her), so I explained what I was doing and why. (At the time my mission was to stop masturbating to porn. I later learned it went deeper than that, but that was my mission at the time.)

She was understanding and supportive. Part of the background to this is we are part of a faith tradition and for us marriage has a depth and purpose that really calls on us to dig deep and face challenges. That doesn’t excuse my porn use or masturbation but it does give some sense of how my wife sees this. (She has opened up to me in the years since in more detail, and explained there was never a time she didn’t want to be married to me. That is partly emotional and partly spiritual.)

I asked her to join a group run by the clinic for spouses of people in recovery. I had to explain the logic of it - the idea that she could learn something by joining a support group herself - but she was open to it, especially when I explained that it was run by people with experience and knowledge of the recovery process.

The group lasted three months and she kept in touch with some of the members. It helped her to understand the pain and betrayal experienced by spouses; by the women married to these men who had betrayed them. For my wife that experience of sharing that pain was cathartic. (There are groups like this worldwide run by S-Anon. S-Anon is an organizing dedicated specifically to the spouses and families of sex addicts. Their meetings are free - there’s a site for more info here: Find a Meeting - S-Anon)

There is more I can share later but for now I need to talk with my wife before we go out for the evening. I want to come back and share more about this the next time I am here :+1: