The Journey of a Porn Addict's Wife

June 25, 2010

Today marks the beginning of week two of this palpable strain between me and David.  I've tried to open up communication but have failed miserably with each attempt to carry on a conversation with him.  It's as if there is an invisible wall standing between us too thick to break through with just mere words.  I can see him but cannot touch him, and he cannot hear me speak.

In his silence, I wonder what is weighing so heavily on his mind and self doubt floods my thoughts.  First I question has he grown tired of me, but that is just the beginning of my quest trying once again to find my self worth.  Each question leads to another and each internal response breeds more negative self images.  Every time I wake to find him sitting at the computer staring at pornography while masturbating I feel like less of a woman, unable to satisfy his physical needs and very unattractive.  If this were another woman, I could at least compete with her.  She would age, her body would change, and the excitement of her being new would wear off just as it has with me. 

But this is not another woman and my 40 year old body simply cannot compete with the vibrant youthful body of a porn star especially one that's been surgically enhanced.  She will never age because there is always someone new to take her place, and she has not given birth to and breast fed five healthy children.  He'll never see her rise from bed in the morning with her hair all over the place and no makeup or standing at the stove in her bathrobe and slippers as she prepares his breakfast.  She will never love him.

I vacillate between viewing this as a problem about pornography addiction and seeing it more as an issue on how I view myself, after all he should not be the well from which I draw my own self worth.  Knowing this does not make it hurt any less when I only see desire for me in his eyes after he's viewed videos of other people having sex, but I still try to rationalize it by reminding myself that porn and masturbation were outlets for him when in the Navy which his body simply became accustomed to having.  At times I feel as though I'm judging him which makes me loathe myself even more, and I know he feels that judgment at times which is where the emotional disconnection comes from. 

In truth the whole matter of contention really centers around the feelings I have when he uses porn not the fact that he uses it, because they are two separate issues only one of which I can affect change.