If what you have believed to be reality within your intimate relationship is crumbling and shattering before your eyes, then with a fair degree of certainty, you are experiencing a trauma, a rupture of your primary relational attachment. Maintaining your sanity and deciding what to do has become your greatest need.
What you can expect to feel initially
You open a file whose title seems a bit out of place at the computer you both share. You stare in disbelief as image after image of pornographic video clips from your partner’s hidden file uploads.
Here is one possible scenario: your jaw drops open, and you experience a deluge of very strong emotions, often simultaneously, or so it feels. Shock is the first one. Next might be: dread, very strong fear, humiliation, disgust, hopelessness, self-devaluation, rejection, disbelief, anger, disassociation, the pain of knowing you have been deceived, rage, despair, depression. You struggle to maintain your equilibrium even as you have to remind yourself to breathe. Your mind fires a barrage of questions at you, as if shot out of a gun: How long has this been going on? What else is stashed here or elsewhere in another computer? Is my partner an addict? These girls (or boys) are so young! Could my partner be on their way to pedophilia? What if it’s not just pornography and this is just the tip of an iceberg? Who is my partner, anyway?
Your mind flings the questions at you faster than you can handle, as you attempt to make sense of the unthinkable: that the person (you thought) you knew well enough to commit yourself to, in body and spirit and mind, is not the person you thought they were, that they have a whole other, secret side which they deliberately chose to exclude you from knowing about. And just as your partner is not the person you thought they were, by extension, neither is your relationship. It is a sham, a farce, a half-truth at best, pockmarked by lies, secrets and withholds. As everything you held onto as “reality” is crumbling before your eyes, and your world is shattering, you hear a key in the front door. Quickly, you shut down the computer. What happens next? What do the next minutes hold, the next hour, the long night ahead of you? You are lying in bed with a veritable stranger, with the life partner who swore to hold your safety and best interests close to his heart, now your betrayer and the cause of your searing pain. What happens tomorrow and the day after?
Respecting trauma’s effects on you
If this scenario describes you and your situation, we can say with a fair degree of certainty that you are likely experiencing a trauma, caused by the rupture of your primary attachment. There is a tremendously helpful book, Your Sexually Addicted Spouse that can help you assess if the trauma model applies to you. Trauma needs to be taken very seriously as its effects significantly imprint themselves on the many levels of one’s being and healing it requires specific approaches. We write more about this in our section on Interpersonal Relational Trauma, but for now, what is important for you to know is you are likely in shock.
Why is this important to know? There are many reasons, but for now, let’s just focus on the one whose effect you’re feeling right now:
In the aftermath of trauma, your brain is not going to work very well now, being numb and dazed! So as a care step you can take now, you need to treat yourself extra gently. This is not the best time to rearrange your life, move out, file for a divorce or call your partner’s family to vent. The key focus here needs to be on the restoration of your own balance first. Once you are somewhat steadied, you will have more clarity and strength to deal with the details of your life. You can go to our section called The Healing Path for PoSAs to learn more about establishing your balance. Some partners feel an immediate need to “unload” and share this burden with a trusted other, while some require more time to process the shock alone first before sharing their story with anyone else. You can read more about this in The Healing Path for PoSAs as well.
Possible difficulty differentiating your response to the discovery of porn usage
Here is another possible scenario: you find out about your partner’s stash of pornography and you are filled with feelings that aren’t clear to you. Let’s call these: undifferentiated feelings, which perhaps you experience as niggling anxiety or as a vague discomfort. Maybe you can’t even identify the feelings. You might already know what his response will be so maybe there is a feeling of resignation, perhaps despair even.
Here is what we most want you to know: whatever your feelings are, you have a RIGHT to them!
This might sound like we’re stating the obvious, but there are a lot of mitigating factors why you might not feel strong in this regard:
Whatever your feelings on pornography are, the facts remain that as the porn industry ensures that their product enters and implants itself into the mainstream more and more, their ‘arguments’ and defense of pornography is gaining acceptance in a society already geared towards instant gratification and the “right” to pursue one’s own happiness at any cost. This leaves anyone who questions it or has a problem with it labeled as prudish, conservative, controlling or uncool. Many porn users will enlist the very loud voice of the porn industry to bolster their “right” to view pornography. As pornography has become more and more prolific, it’s become harder for those who have undifferentiated feelings about finding out their partners are using pornography to even “find” their true feelings. In other words, those feelings are being drowned out or we’re being “shamed” out of having them. But, here’s what we most want to stress:
If it’s a problem for YOU, It’s a problem for your relationship!
And, while we know that often men collude in ensuring no one questions their porn use, this shaming of partners can often surprisingly come from other women. It is important to recognize that it’s human and understandable that none of us want to be seen in a negative light, so often we women will downplay our reactions to our own situation (or that of other women who discover pornography in their relationships), if those reactions are in contrast to the status quo.
Another factor in one’s having undifferentiated feelings might be that in one’s family of origin, perhaps one was raised to be the quiet one, docile, subservient, submissive, or any other position that minimizes our strength, and that lowers the likelihood we can challenge our parents/ authority figures. It follows that someone raised this way will likely be attracted to a partner who is more dominant and therefore, can shut them down when they feel challenged or threatened. Sometimes it takes an argument, sometimes just a dirty look, but the message given by the threatened one is clear: “You are not to comment on this thing that I do!” And yet, as the partner, you cannot just ignore what feels uncomfortable or disturbing to you. You may determine the need has now emerged to differentiate your feelings on your partner’s pornography use. We encourage you onwards and salute your courage to take on a contentious issue for the sake of your own wellbeing, as well as that of your relationship.
Common arguments you might hear from your SAC and others
For a list of common arguments you might hear from your porn-using partner or others, we’re fortunate to be given a great list by oneangrygirl.net called Handy Comebacks. Reading this list may help you in finding which answers resonate as truth for you. And it may provide you with answers for later, when it’s time to have the conversation with the Sex Addict/Compulsive (SAC) about the porn discovery.
There are many other scenarios in which someone discovers a hidden part of their partner’s sexual life but we’ve chosen these two, mainly to highlight two valid stances: knowing how one feels about pornography, and being unsure about how one feels. To help provide language and therefore clarity to your feelings, Karla McLaren has created this wonderful vocabulary of emotions here. Without the ability to differentiate the feelings we have, confusion sets in.
Also please be reminded that we at PoSARC choose not to determine for others whether pornography is right or wrong, nor bad or good. Those questions certainly make for compelling debates, but we are far too busy helping those who have been hurt by pornography to enter into such debates. For us, it is not about right or wrong, bad or good. It is about quality of relationships.
We recommend:
Your Sexually Addicted Spouse by Barbara Steffens, Ph.D., and Marsha Means, M.A.