Porn addiction, whole marriage a lie

[Anonymous]

Do you guys have plenty of money? Does he bring in a disproportionate share of the income? Sure he shouldn’t be spending all that money and the porn is yucky but if he hasn’t ruined you financially…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you guys have plenty of money? Does he bring in a disproportionate share of the income? Sure he shouldn’t be spending all that money and the porn is yucky but if he hasn’t ruined you financially…

She said they used to fight about how little he was making and how irregular his business income seemed to be, so I doubt it.

[Anonymous]

I will definitely start calling family law attorneys on Monday. Whatever happens with our relationship, I will be protecting my hard earned assets from him for the rest of my life. That is a non negotiable for me.

I have no idea how he spent the porn money. We will be getting all the historical statements (accounts are closed so no access online). I considered asking him but I honestly don't even care. The romantic part of our relationship is obviously over. I don't think he ever met anyone in person since we have both been working from home full time and he never goes anywhere or travels by himself.

It is hard because I go about the day and often forget what happened. Life is just normal and we have a good time as a family, and then it just hits me out of the blue. I feel like I am living parallel realities and my brain is having a hard time reconciling the two. I feel so bad for my kids. As long as I can protect myself financially, I am willing to try to keep the family together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will definitely start calling family law attorneys on Monday. Whatever happens with our relationship, I will be protecting my hard earned assets from him for the rest of my life. That is a non negotiable for me.

I have no idea how he spent the porn money. We will be getting all the historical statements (accounts are closed so no access online). I considered asking him but I honestly don't even care. The romantic part of our relationship is obviously over. I don't think he ever met anyone in person since we have both been working from home full time and he never goes anywhere or travels by himself.

It is hard because I go about the day and often forget what happened. Life is just normal and we have a good time as a family, and then it just hits me out of the blue. I feel like I am living parallel realities and my brain is having a hard time reconciling the two. I feel so bad for my kids. As long as I can protect myself financially, I am willing to try to keep the family together.

Ok, but you really need to consider what financial protection really means. If you have to assume you bring in 100% of the income, are you really willing to pay for this guy’s retirement? Or are you better off handling the expenses of three people versus four. Of course, you may also have to think about child support and alimony so talk to a lawyer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will definitely start calling family law attorneys on Monday. Whatever happens with our relationship, I will be protecting my hard earned assets from him for the rest of my life. That is a non negotiable for me.

I have no idea how he spent the porn money. We will be getting all the historical statements (accounts are closed so no access online). I considered asking him but I honestly don't even care. The romantic part of our relationship is obviously over. I don't think he ever met anyone in person since we have both been working from home full time and he never goes anywhere or travels by himself.

It is hard because I go about the day and often forget what happened. Life is just normal and we have a good time as a family, and then it just hits me out of the blue. I feel like I am living parallel realities and my brain is having a hard time reconciling the two. I feel so bad for my kids. As long as I can protect myself financially, I am willing to try to keep the family together.

Ok, but you really need to consider what financial protection really means. If you have to assume you bring in 100% of the income, are you really willing to pay for this guy’s retirement? Or are you better off handling the expenses of three people versus four. Of course, you may also have to think about child support and alimony so talk to a lawyer.

He has an income and I will be watching all his accounts like a hawk. Of course when there is a will there is a way and he could still manage to do something fishy, but i think it will be harder now that I am on notice. He is really really not financially savvy. I think I just need a legal post nup that if somehow he screws everything up, I can divorce and walk away with my own retirement accounts. Other martial assets can be split based on what each respective party brought in, minus any amount of financial infidelity on his part. This also gives me the option of divorcing the minute the kids reach 18 and living my own life at that point.

[Anonymous]

Of course this is all just me talking out of my head with no knowledge of the law in this area. I will need to talk to a lawyer to see if this is possible. I am willing to divorce to protect assets and then live together if it came to that.

[Anonymous]

One more thing to add to your list is making sure whatever device he is using cannot be accessed by your kids. And chances are good that whatever you do to make sure this doesn’t happen will fail at some point. I don’t know if you have any idea what kind of porn he’s paying for, but know that your kids are at risk of being introduced to that any day.
I’ve seen this happen twice, to two different friends. It was the worst aspect of their experience by far. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think he would sign over custody. He says the hardest part was coming clean to me and I believe him, so he wouldn't care enough about his family knowing that he would give up custody. Aside from me not wanting to miss out on half of my children's childhood, I also don't necessarily want them to miss out on time with the father either. This just all so royally sucks.

My thinking at this point (and this might change by the day) is that I don't mind seeing him and living with him. He is not mean or rude, never raises his voice, and is generally a pretty gentle personality. We did have a lot of tension with division of labor and mental load, and I would have to nag him a lot. But I think if I just give up all hope of him in that aspect, it would actually be easier to live with him.

It is the financial aspect that disgusts me and I absolutely cannot live with. This is why I am thinking along the lines of a complete financial separation. I come from an immigrant family and grew up with financial insecurity and it is a huge trigger for me. I have worked hard all my life to have a great career and I refuse to have my and my children's financial future jeopardized because of his addiction and selfishness. Has anyone had experience with a financial separation but still married? Is this even possible legally?

A divorce is a financial separation. You are one financial unit married. You can live together and be divorced and financially separate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course this is all just me talking out of my head with no knowledge of the law in this area. I will need to talk to a lawyer to see if this is possible. I am willing to divorce to protect assets and then live together if it came to that.

You can be separate in the same house. When I divorced, I stayed in the house for while after due to COVID. Seems like the best course of action is divorce but still live together if you don’t want to do the kid switching thing. You can also bird nest (get an apt and parents rotate instead of kids).

[Anonymous]

Get him to find a cheaper porn outlet.

I mean who spends money on porn these days when it's 99% of the ClearWeb and free?

He shouldn't have any credit cards if he has an addictive personality.

[Anonymous]

You could divorce and still live together.

[Anonymous]

OP he isn't being 100% honest when he's calling it "porn". Subscription porn sites are like $20 a month. The only way it would be possible for him to spend such an astronomical amount of money is if he's doing custom video requests or live video shows from sex workers. Which is engaging in prostitution, not simply porn videos. There's also not a small chance he may be engaging in a "FinDom" fetish, which is where men get off on paying large sums of money to sex workers in exchange for being sent degrading messages. The amount of money spent and the secrecy are major red flags of FinDom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know if I could live with someone like that, or let them unsupervised with the kids. He may use the kids identity to get credit, it’s not uncommon. I know he seems harmless but you must protect your children at all costs. Please consult a good lawyer.

But how would divorce protect against him using their SSNs for credit?

But you are right that I am still in shock that I cannot truly trust him in taking care of our kids. I can check his credit report constantly and he is ok with complete financial transparency, but my worry is if something were to happen to me, how can I trust him to not squander our children's future? It is so heartbreaking that I cannot trust him with something so basic.

Freeze the kids’ credit. I did it for an infant; it’s not hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP he isn't being 100% honest when he's calling it "porn". Subscription porn sites are like $20 a month. The only way it would be possible for him to spend such an astronomical amount of money is if he's doing custom video requests or live video shows from sex workers. Which is engaging in prostitution, not simply porn videos. There's also not a small chance he may be engaging in a "FinDom" fetish, which is where men get off on paying large sums of money to sex workers in exchange for being sent degrading messages. The amount of money spent and the secrecy are major red flags of FinDom.

How would I be able to find out? Would I be able to tell from the credit card statement?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One more thing to add to your list is making sure whatever device he is using cannot be accessed by your kids. And chances are good that whatever you do to make sure this doesn’t happen will fail at some point. I don’t know if you have any idea what kind of porn he’s paying for, but know that your kids are at risk of being introduced to that any day.
I’ve seen this happen twice, to two different friends. It was the worst aspect of their experience by far. Good luck.

Thank you for the reminder. I am confident we are on the same page about protecting the kids from porn. He said he was exposed to porn starting at age 10 and was addicted since then, so I think he is aware of the seriousness. But yes we will need to have a very serious conversation about this. This also seems to be one of those issues that would be worse with shared custody with two households.