Cover photo by Bimo Mentara. 6 minute read.
Many people contact Fight the New Drug to share their personal stories about how porn has affected their life or the life of a loved one. We consider these personal accounts very valuable because, while the science and research is powerful within its own right, personal accounts from real people seem to really hit home about the damage that pornography does to real lives.
We recently received a real personal experience from a male Fighter whose story shows how much porn can hijack a relationship. In a world where porn is seen as normal and acceptable, these heartbreaking stories are all too common.
Dear FTND,
I would like to share my story with you all, but I would like to remain anonymous.
I first ran into porn when I was 8 when friends at the elementary school told me to look it up. I watched porn that same day and instantly was a loyal consumer. Fast forward 12 years and too many sex-fueled relationships later. I was going to college, and I still was watching porn, I just had no real incentive to quit. I held the behavior as not being right but that didn’t seem to stop me. I didn’t understand the addictive nature of it, nor did I even begin to comprehend that there could be negative consequences outside the realms of my personal spirituality. I was a fool.
When We First Met And Fell In Love
I met my future wife while at that college, and after the first day, we became sexually active. She was inexperienced and I was well-versed in bedroom “tactics.” All of which, keep in mind, I learned from porn. We dated for 3 years until we got married at the beginning of 2016.
Not that long ago, she was a troubled individual who had multiple mood disorders. Couple that with absolutely no self-esteem and not even the slightest hint of self-worth. I can remember when we were dating and even into the marriage, she said that she felt like the only thing she had going for her was her good looks. Well, she knew I looked at porn and she told me it didn’t bother her because she knew I was crazy for her. It didn’t threaten her. Or at least that’s how it was at first.
Related: How Porn Damages Consumers’ Sex Lives
When we got married, she even bought us some sex toys, for herself and for me. She bought them for when we were together and when I was home alone and needing some “relief” with the visual stimulation of porn. Then about a month into the marriage, I asked her if I could share “my most intimate and secret moments” with her. She was more than eager. She, after all, knows the videos I watched and what was contained therein. I didn’t keep anything secret from her.
When We Started Watching Porn Together
We watched porn together. At first, she did it just to please me. She was initially disgusted with certain acts that I found myself attracted to. But then she started to like it and she ran with it. It became a daily thing we did together at her command as well as by ourselves. We would walk in on each other watching porn and it didn’t phase or hurt either one of us…consciously.
She asked me which of the porn performers I liked the most and why I preferred her. Then I noticed a few weeks later, she started to imitate the porn performers in her behavior in bed. She even went so far as to cut her hair a certain way and dyed it so that she would have the same hairstyle as the porn performer. I was flattered by her desire to please me. At the time, I didn’t interpret it as her treating herself as if she was not good enough the way she was.
Related: True Story: I Became His Porn Performer To Try And Save Our Relationship
Then she started talking about threesomes, what woman I would like to have in bed. She even offered me a threesome with one of her female friends who was more than willing. This took me by surprise. Not that she wanted to be with another woman, she preferred lesbian porn. It was that she wanted to take what was purely fantasy and turn it into reality. I told her no, I explained that this was a step too far. I explained that it wasn’t that I didn’t want to, it was because I believed that would destroy us.
A few months later, she asked if I would be ok with another guy. She got the same answer.
When We Started Drifting Further Apart
Things started to take a turn for the worse when we were getting in fights constantly. I lost my job because of a disability and had to be on medication. Money was drying up. That was a huge source of conflict. She viewed me less than a man because I couldn’t provide, and started to become physically and verbally abusive.
Related: It’s Okay To Not Be Okay: What Partners Of Porn Consumers Wish You Knew
I was already facing life-altering surgery and her constant belittling and beatings broke me. We stopped having sex. She kept trying to have sex with me, and I kept denying her. It wasn’t because I was trying to punish her, I just couldn’t because of the pain the movement caused and I never was in the mood anymore. All I did was watch porn. She went to even greater and greater heights to try and seduce me, but it availed her nothing but frustration.
She suddenly wouldn’t get home from work until 5 or 6 hours after her shift would end. I didn’t think anything of it, I trusted her. She was a lot of things, but disloyal wasn’t among them.
She started talking and texting one of my guy friends a lot. She said she found him attractive. Didn’t bother me at all, she loved getting attention from other guys, flirting gave her a thrill of excitement and validation. (Hindsight, I guess the natural thought I should have had was, “Is my validation not enough?” but it wasn’t.)
Related: Even After My Divorce, I Don’t Believe Porn Is A Dating Deal-Breaker
When she started to bring up that she wanted to have a threesome with him “just like in the videos,” I tried to push him out of our lives. Then one day, she got all her things and moved in with him. Out of the blue. I begged her for her to come back, I told her that I was sorry for anything I might have done to make her angry. Turns out, she was sleeping with him after work for months and then would come home and try to sleep with me. Every time I reached out to her to try and “fix things” and win her back, she would just keep telling me that I didn’t want her anymore, that we didn’t have sex anymore. She actually thought I didn’t want her…
Despite my attempts at reconciliation, it ended in divorce.
When I Realized What Went Wrong
Months after the divorce, I analyzed what went so horribly wrong. That is when I ran into FTND. It made all the dots connect. The porn I introduced to her changed her. It changed her in such a profound, yet subtle, way. Subtle at least to me. She wasn’t abusive like she became, she wasn’t sexually extreme nor ever considered threesomes till I introduced that horrible thing.
Related: 15 Scientifically Explained Reasons Why Porn Isn’t Healthy For Consumers Or Society
I realized then, that the whole time I thought, that we thought, it didn’t bother her, it did. She has never connected the dots. She thought I didn’t want her simply because I denied her. I was physically unable to have sex because of my disability! Yet she burned with a shallow passion that was only stoked by porn.
I would have never in a million years guessed she would have cheated on me. I would have never in a million years guessed that porn could possibly promote infidelity, yet it seems like it did. I wouldn’t have ever guessed that it could have promoted violence on the woman’s end in the household, but her fists I endured regardless. She felt alone because of the effects of porn. We both felt alone—a loneliness we suffered because porn stripped away the intimacy of having sex. Sex turned into, for both of us, simple self-gratification, when sex should actually be serving your spouse in love and honor.
Related: The Science Behind The Slogan: How Exactly Does Porn Kill Love?
With my two hands, I unwittingly sowed the seeds of our destruction. Now for my ignorance, I get to pay the ultimate price: with tears, a broken heart, and several suicide attempts. I now see porn for what it truly is: a deadly drug that kills everything human and everything intimate in a relationship.
People need to know about its consequences. If I did, I would have never brought it into the marriage bed.
So I thank you FTND, for trying to fight against a culture that glorifies it. I bought into its lies, but not everyone has to. You truly fight the good fight.
– A brokenhearted man
Why This Matters
No one ever woke up and said, “Today, I want to get out there and hurt my current and future relationships. I’m going to cut myself off emotionally, undermine trust, and leave my partner feeling confused, rejected, angry, and betrayed.”
No one says that, but a pile of research and solid studies show that’s exactly what can happen because of porn’s presence in a relationship. As you can see in this story, porn has the potential to hijack a relationship and undermine partners’ trust, attraction, and intimacy with each other. It can drive a wedge between partners, slowly turning their desires away from loving reality and to unrealistic fantasy. And in the end, it can completely drive partners apart. This is why we educate on the real, proven harmful effects of porn and fight for healthy relationships.
Porn creates the illusion that there is always someone sexier out there, or that you should be the porn performer of your own relationship. It sells the idea that sex is the most important part of a relationship and getting it wherever you can is the game to play.
In the end, watching isn’t worth it—disconnect from fantasy, and connect to reality.
