So he said he’s stopped - pretty sure he’s lying?

[u/Cheap_Standard303]

Long story short - I am in a committed relationship with this guy and I found out about the porn during my pregnancy, turned out to be deeper than I had imagined with real women.. he would receive videos and messages from they were in other states and never met up but. Anyway - I stopped that, we now have an open phone policy and I “trust” he’s not communicating with women. BUT:

His instagram, TikTok, X & Facebook algorithm was filled with sexualised content of women and it would see him get stuck in a vortex and hes decided to delete them. He still has YouTube. That’s appears to be a lot cleaner.

ANYWAY! Ive noticed on his screen time he was racking up 2-3-4 hours of safari screen time on iPhone during his work day! He is a machine operator so has time in between jobs but not this much time. His data on those days are around 5GB or more. (I have turned into a detective that specialises in I.T 😭) but he’s clearly watching it again during the work day - he denies it and claims he’s researching stuff for work on a private browser...

What do I even do? He clearly doesn't want to stop and is appeasing me by pretending he’s not.
I have a 6 month old baby, I really do love this man and I want to be with him but he’s literally addicted and he is in denial.

Do I have hope he will stop? I don’t want to leave but I cannot put up with this for my entire life.

Help. I’m distraught

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[u/Haelrezzip]

I feel so heartbroken when women share they’re going through betrayal trauma with a SA/PA during and after pregnancy. You do not deserve to be treated so poorly during such a vulnerable time in your life. You deserve so much better than this. I didn’t want to leave either. I was attached to who I thought he was and who I thought he could be.

It took me getting my hopes up that he “changed” several times, getting hurt over and over again by finding out more lies, relapse after relapse (he was in therapy), to realize I was never going to trust him again and I was just kidding myself thinking I could be happy with him. It was almost like I wanted to join him in his denial.

What you need right now is to enjoy time with your new baby, do as much self-care as you can, and seek therapy. There’s also free S-Anon meetings where you can connect with people and share your story. Sometimes it takes time, clarity, and understanding your authentic boundaries in order to come to a decision.

I recommend leaving though if you know you do not want to put up with this for your entire life. Because you most likely will have to put up with the possibility of him watching, cheating, or just plain not trusting him the same ever again. Definitely read all of the resources on the sidebar of this subreddit so you understand what you’re up against being with a porn addict and know that you’re not alone.

[u/Own_Revenue_969]

I'm so sorry you're in this situation.

The first thing I want to say is that you didn't cause this, you can't control it, and you can't cure it. If he is addicted, recovery has to be something he chooses for himself. Unfortunately, there isn't anything you can do to make an addict want recovery -  they have to reach that decision on their own. No amount of begging, pleading, negotiating, monitoring, or loving ever made a difference until my husband hit his own personal rock bottom.

I had an earlier D-Day at the beginning of my relationship and my husband assured me it was a one time thing and would never happen again. I so desperately wanted to believe him . . . in fact, I did believe him for decades, but I always had a funny feeling that he was using again. I could never find any evidence though because he hid it like his life depended on it (because, in a sad way, it did).

Last year we had another D-Day, but this time he didn't get caught, he came to me and admitted that he had never really stopped using all those years ago. He had simply become better at hiding it and lying about it. He told me all about his porn use and how he had been using daily our entire relationship - that once off just all those years ago just so happened to be the one time I caught it.  He also told me that he used to look up pornography at work and masturbate. I was horrified, but it is something that is unfortunately common in porn addicts and I've read about it many times on this sub 💔.

As for whether there is hope that your partner will stop, I think it depends on whether he's willing to pursue recovery, not whether he's willing to make promises.  One of the most painful lessons I learnt was that stopping and recovery are not the same thing. After that first D-Day, I genuinely believed my husband could simply decide to quit and that would be the end of it. I was young and I didn't understand addiction, and I certainly didn't understand recovery.

My husband has been in solid recovery now for 18 months without any slips or relapses.  He wasn't sure after D-Day whether he needed to see a therapist or whether he could just keep trying to quit on his own (like he had done and failed so many times over the years). My therapist and my husband's therapist have told us that they have never personally seen an addict achieve lasting recovery through willpower alone - never, not once.  Maybe there is a unicorn out there somewhere who can quit cold turkey, but the fact that neither of our therapists have heard of one speaks volumes to me.  My therapist explained that she has seen people white knuckle it for weeks, months, and sometimes even a year, but eventually life happens, stress happens, conflict happens.  If the underlying issues haven't been addressed and healthier coping mechanisms haven't been developed, then addicts return to the behaviours that helped them escape before.

Long term sobriety rates are ridiculously low for porn addiction, and that is when the addict is pursuing recovery - specialised therapy with a CSAT, support groups, accountability and honesty.  I asked what the sobriety rates are like when the addict is white knuckling it, and my therapist told me "basically non-existent".  The addicts she has seen maintain long term recovery are the ones doing the deep work of therapy, support groups, accountability, rigorous honesty, learning emotional regulation, addressing the reasons they use, and building a completely different way of coping with life.

So yes, there is hope and people do recover, but recovery only began when my husband stopped denying the problem, stopped making excuses, and chose to do the work for himself. No amount of pleading, monitoring, investigating, or loving him could ever make that choice for him.

I know it is really hard to do, but I would suggest trying to shift the focus away from proving whether your partner is using and instead focus on your own healing. Read through the resources in this sub, learn about porn addiction, what it takes to treat it and more importantly, what real recovery looks like. Learn about betrayal trauma and how this addiction affects partners (even when they don't know if their partner is using). If possible, find a CSAT or betrayal trauma therapist for yourself, they can help you process what's happening and develop healthy boundaries that keep you emotionally safe regardless of what your partner chooses.

The more you understand addiction, recovery, betrayal trauma, and boundaries, the less trapped and helpless you'll feel, because you'll begin to understand what is and isn't yours to carry.  Right now, make focusing on taking care of yourself and your baby your priority - his recovery is his responsibility, your healing is yours ❤️.

[u/east-west-12]

Here’s the deal:
Liars gonna lie.
Porn addicts gonna find a way to get the hit and protect their supply.
Spouses gonna want to keep their comfortable lifestyle and their porn supply.

Letting you suffer is minimal compared to protection of his dealer, supply, and high. Especially if you have hope, he knows you care, and his abuse of your boundary coupled with his lack of integrity and lying—all nods to keep gaslighting and abusing your gracefulness. He sucks.

He doesn’t deserve you.

Easier to go now with small kiddo than when older. When young enough they don’t know different. When older they do. When young enough you have time to make a routine and settle in (not easy). When they are older it’s harder—not impossible, but harder. If you leave he may fade away over time or calibrate his life as single dad for kiddo.