Porn addiction and relationship – the online counseling

When porn addiction endangers the relationship

Enquiries from women and girls who are virtually in despair about their husband’s or boyfriend’s porn consumption reach me again and again. Admittedly, watching porns does sometimes have such obsessive features, that  one can talk about a porn addiction without exaggerating.

Any addictive behavior should in general be given therapy to – that, of course, includes a porn addiction, too. But the decision to go into therapy against one’s porn addiction has to be made by the person concerned himself. A desperate partner will never succeed in forcing him into therapy, which under those conditions would have very little chance of success anyways.

If a woman now magnifies his porn addiction to a question of either/ or (My way or the highway!), he will stop watching porns externally – possibly, he might actually stop watching porns for a while – but then, secretly, after a certain amount of time, he will resume watching those movies; at least in case he belongs to the harder faction of porn consumers.

She will, suspicious as she is, get wise to him, and the feeling of having been deceived again, will put a heavy strain on the relationship. The fun and joy of having sex will elapse because she thinks that she will not be able to compete with those moaning porn-whores.

Disappointed and hurt, she will shrink into herself more and more – disgusted with the sex scenes which he is so obsessively chasing after. This withdrawal in combination with her outbursts of anger and accusations will only let him drift further into his parallel world of his porn addiction.

To say it just ahead: Of course, my dear readers, I cannot give you any advice that will help you to completely wipe out your partner’s porn addiction. But I am committed to provide you with information that brighten up the backgrounds of porn-looking. I also would like to refer to one or another behavioral strategy where using it might help you to reorient your partners activities a little bit more back into your direction again. But again, I want to emphasize that, if he has been consuming porns for a very long time and if his behavior is characterized by the obsessive character of a porn addiction, you probably won’t succeed in reducing his porn related actions or achieve that he even stops watching porn completely.

„Don-Juan-Gene” cause of porn addiction

The both sides of aman: left: the true hubby, right: the horny adulterer

The both sides of a man
(left: the true hubby, right: the horny adulterer) ©Robert Kneschke & pawelsierakowski / fotolia.com

Since my website and my counseling concepts are based on evolutionary theoretical backgrounds which I always incorporate as information material, I also want to do this for the topic of „porn addiction” of course.

Simply put: Men always carry two souls in their chest or rather in their heart. One – usually the more dominant one – is the predisposition to fall in love with a woman and to remain true to her. The other one – less strongly developed – is the desire for sexual variety with multiple women.

Every single man bears such a fatal „Don-Juan-Gene” inside him. Women, by the way, do so as well. Only in women, infidelity or the tendency towards polygamy is way less developed than in men. Now, if we look at this „Don-Juan-Gene”, it should not be considered to be a simple on/off control, but it can rather be seen as a kind of slide control ranging from „off” to „maximum”. Many different factors like the man’s upbringing for instance, can have an influence on the position of the switch and will then lead to certain observable reactions in his love behavior.

If a man fell in love with all his heart and if he is not 1000 percent sure of his dearest, he will think of her – and only her – night and day. The switch for his „Don-Juan-Gene” is definitely in the „off” position in such a situation.

An opposite example: A world star like the rock icon Mick Jagger from the Stones who enjoys a popularity of enormous magnitude and where masses of women are at his feet, he will have a switch set to maximum for polygamy behavior. The giant self-esteem that such a guy is carrying around is paired with the unshakeable certainty of being able to get into any women’s pants that he wants to.

This abundant certainty avoids that those men every will seriously fall in love or commit to a woman. The evolutionary principle that is pulling the strings in the background aims at reproducing those super guys as often as possible. The love to a single woman only would be very prejudicial to those evolutionary intentions.

Normal men have to take a back seat

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A dreamer… ©closeupimages/ fotolia.com

Normal man can, of course, only dream of those paradisiac circumstances ! Generally, they are really glad, if they find one woman and they are happy, if she matches their imagination more or less. Is the relationship well-balanced regarding the balance of power, the switch of his „Don-Juan-Gene” can completely be set to „off”.

In this case, a porn addiction will barely become manifested in him. This man will rather be apt to watch porn movies with his dearest, in order to heat up the erotic mood. Women are usually fine with watching porn under these circumstances because they are integrated in the whole behavior of porn watching in a way.

   Erosion in relationships and porn addiction

Unfortunately, most relationships – if not all – have the tendency towards degradation or emotional reorganization. Love as we experience it in the initial stage, is not made to last forever. If everything goes well with the couple and if their personalities match well, life will slowly but steadily turn the loving couple into a companionate couple.

If the substance between the two of them is not sufficient enough to carry the change, the continuance of the relationship will be questioned – in most cases more from one of the two partners than from the other. In many cases, those asymmetrical relationship patterns happen to creep in peu à peu after being in this relationship for a couple of years. This process can be understood like erosion in metals. It degrades gradually. Part of this erosion like process in relationships can be a more or less strong waning of sexual interest in her own partner. He, on the other hand, keeps his sexual interest but mutates into a lazy husband (as far as the relationship is concerned) over the years.

Because of this unpleasant development, men often complain about a drearily sexual life – but of course, they are not completely innocent in the matter. Anyway, they feel dissatisfied and this dissatisfaction wakes up their „Don-Juan-Gene” from its deep slumber. The switch moves little by little towards polygamy which means that the man is longing for other women – a desire that is intrinsic in men by nature.

Some of them get engaged in an affair or frequently visit bordellos close by, if they don’t want to or don’t manage to break up with their wives. Some fall in love with a co-worker or with their friend from the tennis club and leave their wife hoping to find new (and fresh) happiness.

And others again, sit in front of the computer and satisfy their desire for „fresh blood” by watching porns because all the options above are too stressful or too effortful for them. Internet users who tend to obsessive behavior can slip into a real porn addiction, which will dominate vast areas of their feelings and cognition in the long run.

Imbalanced relationships and porn addiction

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© Africa Studio / fotolia.com

But what about those guys who have only been in a relationship with their girlfriend for half a year but nevertheless watch porn like crazy? A daily routine should not have taken over yet!

If those men are not innately porn addicted, it is most likely that an unbalanced relationship is responsible for switching on his „Don-Juan-Gene”. If the girl’s love for him is endless because he is her Mr. Right and if he takes her love for granted, she will dramatically pall on him and will make him prone to the allures of other women.

Such men are always in danger of leaving her for another woman or to virtually ‘get involved’ with woman from the internet. The high availability and easy access of those movies with women that satisfy any sexual preference, constitutes an appeal they cannot or don’t want to elude.

Sooner or later, the girlfriends will find hints regarding his porn addiction and will be appalled by this discovery because they see the porn watching and the secrecy it is done with, as an abuse of confidence. As one woman once told me in one of our counseling sessions, they feel „their love has been betrayed by this disgusting smut”.

Since those women are mostly the subdominant one in their relationship, because they usually love more than the man does, their self-esteem suffers from his porn watching behavior particularly strong. They rate their own attractivity towards him as very low because he prefers such „porn whores” over her and they see their love as being dragged through the mire – and partly they are right.

But only partly! What those women fail to see and don’t easily understand is the circumstance that an unfavorable balance of power in their relationship is making a major contribution to this misery and they bear part of the blame. The reason for that is often a low self-esteem from her part and an only moderately developed ego-strength which makes them especially susceptible to this „kind of men”. Unconsciously, they want to participate in his strength and they pay for this with the cost of an imbalanced relationship.

Complaining about porn addiction

Bad feelings...

Bad feelings… © Pavel Losevsky / fotolia.com

If she got on to the track of her boyfriend or husband and now expresses her horror about his porn addiction, she does their love a disservice. Of course, it is human and understandable, if a woman communicates her disgust and horror towards this person who caused all this but at the same time it is fatuous, stupid and contra productive.

With emotional problems, talking does not help at all. On the contrary, it makes everything even worse. If you want to learn more about all this, please continue reading on this site: „Discussions are relationship killers”.

Dear readers, since it is very likely that you are already in the position of being the subdominant partner in your relationship and your relationship has turned into an unbalanced relationship regarding the balance of power, please be aware that you will even increase the unbalance of power, if you complain about his porn addiction. He will perceive you as a weakling who is annoying him with her fuss – even if, he might partly even concede to you.

What does all this mean? If he is too stupid to delete the browser history in his computer and you find masses of porn movies that he watched the evening before, do not confront him with any of this. It does not make a lot of sense because it will only put another strain on your relationship instead of bringing you any further in solving this issue. But probably you have already done so – nasty arguments and disputes were probably the consequence. I assume that your relationship is already quite fractured and you are at a loss and become desperate more and more. Many women feel extremely unhappy and suffer a lot; others even develop a psychosomatic syndrome under all this stress in their relationship.

That despair will warp you into extreme behavior: if the love towards him is in the foreground, you will overly go after him hoping that he is more responsive to you. But if all this disgust about the porn watching is rising in you again, you will freak out and bombard him with accusations against him again. Your submissive behavior on the one hand and you going completely nuts on the other hand, will result in a tremendous drop of his respect for you; your sexual attraction on him will over time tend towards zero and it will increase the probability that he starts looking for and being interested in other women.

Strategies against porn addiction

Creating a strategy...

Creating a strategy… ©Africa Studio/ fotolia.com

Even though, I do of course fully understand you, please do immediately stop with your superabundant behavior! Ignore his porn watching but at the same time also stop bowing and scraping and being nice and sweet – in general.

In this relationship situation you are challenged to discover your own ego-strength in order to become more attractive for him again. You should learn the principles of communication that allow you to react to border violations without dwelling into accusation and criticism. There are plenty of books out there to practice this.

Become more independent of him in your free time activities. Go out with friends more often without letting him know what exactly you are doing with whom. If you start to distance yourself from him, you will give room to his feelings that he surely still has left over for you. If he starts not being so sure of you and your seemingly endless love anymore, you will see that he will start chasing after you again and by doing this those porn-women will become less interesting to him.

The advices that I have for women who want to hot up their relationship again are – slightly modified – also applicable to your porn watcher because they are aiming at bringing unbalanced relationships into balance again. The same is true for the strategies for women who are trapped in the role of being someone’s affair. All those behavior patterns have the same goals and can yield good effects, if they are played out consequently and patiently. However, as I always like to emphasize, this is anything but an easy game 😎 !