It is not unusual for a woman to take her partner’s sexual interest in porn as a personal criticism of her own looks and sexual attributes. After seeing what types of women her boyfriend, Tony, had been looking at and lusting over on his computer, Lucy started doubting her ability to be found sexually desirable. […]

Loss of trust can quickly turn into loss of respect. It’s difficult to con­tinue to respect someone you now know to be a liar and a deceiver, or someone you discover has a problem with impulse control, aberrant sexual interests, and emotional intimacy. In an instant a woman’s view of her partner can shift from […]

When Debbie finally learned that her husband, Roger, had been secretly masturbating to porn for the twenty years of their troubled relationship, she completely lost her trust in him and in their relationship. “All those years I doubted my own sanity, because at times when I questioned him, Roger told me nothing was going on,” […]

Feelings of betrayal, disappointment, sexual inadequacy, and rejection can last for many months, even years, well past when the angry outbursts and crying spells have ended. Women often suffer in internal psychologi­cal ways that can be difficult for the porn user to see or understand. A woman’s self-esteem, sense of security, and ability to feel […]

Women who are survivors of sexual abuse and trauma may be especially upset when they discover their partner’s involvement with porn. The ex­perience can re-traumatize them because the way people are treated and the way sex is approached in porn can look similar to the dynamics of sexual exploitation and abuse. Fran, a thirty-seven-year-old survivor […]

For Karen, discovering her husband Johnny’s secret involvement with porn was especially upsetting because of the ramifications of what he had been looking at. They had been thinking about starting a family. “I opened a file of his on our computer,” Karen said, “and it was filled with sexy pictures of young girls. I was […]

Although not all intimate partners react exactly like Debbie, Lucy, and Paula, feelings of shock, anger, betrayal, and sexual inadequacy are very common responses when a partner’s porn use is confirmed. The experi­ence can feel overwhelming. It can be similar to finding out that a part­ner has been having an affair or has a major […]

Even a woman who already has some knowledge of her partner’s use of porn can suddenly be shocked to discover the nature of what he is watching and masturbating to and the extent of his porn use. Paula ex­perienced a major shock when she accidentally saw for herself the actual images Brad had been watching […]

Lucy, a graduate student in women’s studies, found it unbelievable when she discovered that her live-in boyfriend, Tony, would even be attracted to looking at porn. For the three years of their relationship she had been under the impression that like her, Tony found porn exploitive of women and didn’t want anything to do with […]

Debbie was shocked to discover that Roger was still using porn when he had told her he had quit ten years earlier. One morning when she was packing up their camper to go on a vacation, she found a receipt for a porn video rental dated the night before. “I confronted him about it. After […]