From the live online chat on “Porn in Relationships” on June 26, 2013:

Porn’s affecting our marriage because it’s being done in deceit. I told my husband I don’t like it, don’t want, or need it.

He said that’s fine, then I find the porn sites on his computer, and I find old magazines he’s kept and hidden in the attic.

I even discovered emails he’s sent to his buddies about what to download that’s “hot, wild, tasty”! I feel like I’m living with a teenager who’s out of control.

Grown Up Wife

You ARE dealing with someone sneaking around rather than being open about a matter that’s come between you two. You don’t like porn, he does, and that’s where discussing the issue should start, in a mature relationship. Say so.

But, be willing to give him some leeway on this, with both of you agreeing to some (not total) limits, or you’ll widen the gap, and he’ll go right back to hiding, possibly increasing his habit.

However, if porn and/or continued deceits are, for you, an actual deal-breaker, say that too.

Usually there are other reasons for one issue to bring a marriage that close to the line. If so, those other problems underlying this one need to be addressed. Get to counselling together, or go on your own if he won’t attend.

My wife and I had no interest in porn in our younger years when both of us were working and raising kids.

When we could fit in sex, which was about once in two weeks, we did, and it was fine.

But after the kids went to college and she hit menopause, there was less sex. So a guy friend I confided in for solutions suggested I try some gentle porn to stir things up. It worked!

We now have a giggle together at some of the “enhanced” bodies. We sometimes get aroused right away, and sometimes share a fantasy from the sexy “story” line, and that fantasy lasts us for weeks. No problem with porn for us.

Fantasy Land

That attitude works wonderfully when shared by a couple, and when the porn use is kept as an entertainment or for mild stimulation – and you two have made it fun along with enhancing the actual sex.

However, it’s worth my repeating that, like other potentially harmful but common elements in society, from alcohol to drugs, porn-watching is a problem when addictive, or it’s a divisive issue on which a couple cannot and will not agree.

My girlfriend keeps in touch with one ex more than others. She confides stuff in him about us and about just me, though she denies this, but I know it from going through her phone.

They’re now sexting and it reads like porn. She’s still having sex with me, and saying she loves me, so I don’t know how to handle this. Maybe this is like porn for turning her on?

Confused Lover

If sexting him is used as a turn-on towards you, and you don’t mind, that would be fine.

BUT you do mind, and you suspect there’s more here. In fact, her talking about stuff - especially anything intimate that’s between you two - is what many relationship experts consider a step towards getting closer to this guy, and eventually cheating with him or another.

Tell her it’s not acceptable. It isn’t, not in a committed relationship where you’re starting to have doubts about her loyalty.

I watched a lot of porn while in university, all the guys I knew did.

But then I started working and dating and realized part of entering the real world as a man meant leaving porn as a regular habit behind.

I’ve read studies that say if you watch in excess you need more and more to get aroused.

Real women like romance, and being wooed, they’re not sex slaves. The payback from loving a real woman is being loved back for you, not for your body parts.

Learned Better

You’ve got it all in balance, with a good understanding of porn’s place in your younger years, and a positive attitude toward true partnership in a couple relationship.

Studies have shown that when young men watch excess porn, they get a skewed vision of what normal sexual give-and-take is like, what women want, and what non-enhanced natural women look like.