obsessed with adult videos

[agathos]

Hi!

My husband is obsessed with watching adult videos and masturbating. We are married for 1 year and we have a good intimate relationship.
He indulges in this activity whenever he is frustrated (which is for simple challenges of day to day life) or when he is angry with me over an arguement, or simply when he is bored and has nothing else to do. He does it when am not around, sometimes after I leave to office (he leaves later), sometimes he sends me off to sleep soon or most of the times when am busy in kitchen making his "favourite" dinner...infact, even if we make out the previous night he will want to watch them the next morning!!

I have tried all possible ways that I could think of...have even tried talking to him but he is not open and doesnt tell what exactly makes him do that even when he knows that it is affecting our relation a bit too much. I find it very hard to trust him and am frustrated and insecured in this relation.

To add to the woes are my really interfering inlaws. I made the mistake of trying to take their help when it went beyond what I could handle alone and they are now playing the blame game and its increased my mental torture. Now they call us everyday in the name of monitoring us and i am face their sarcasm and opinionated comments everyday!! they have been telling all relatives that they have been cursed with a bad daughter in law like me!!

My husband is loving and understands me somewhat but he is ready to do anything except quitting his habit....and I am ready to do anything to make him quit.....
I find it too taxing to accept it as normal and continue peacefully....
both our healths are getting affected due to stress...
I suggested going to a family counsellor for this but both husband and inlaws are old fashioned and think that only psychologically affected people go there and threatened me to end the marriage if I speak about counselling....
I cannot even go for counselling alone....

I do not want to end the marriage...since i love my husband and also I am an Indian and me and my parents will suffer a lot since the society will abandon us. I have a younger sister who is studying and her future will also get affected in case i decide to leave.

As long as I put up a smiling face, everyone is ok! no one really cares what I undergo....
Is there anyway to handle this if at all????

[Jennifer]

Hello:
sounds like you are unhappy with a couple of different things. as far as the adult videos go, it is a problem for you, not him. the less you mention it, the less of a problem it will be. You also mentioned your family, well his family. Sounds like you need to separate yourself a bit from his family and find out how to please him. Have you ever offered to watch with him or experiment with him? is that too uncomfortable for you?

[agathos]

Thanks Jennifer for responding soon....

yea i have offered to watch with him...
but he is not comfortable for that....
he does it when am not there!
and regarding family, anything that i do is just working against me...nothing seems to satify them...me and my husband had somehow worked out things and were getting onto the healthy relation path...when his family came to visit us for 3 months, every day every moment there was hostility and complaining against me. This stressed both of us beyond words. Even though my husband tried to support me a lot, he could not tolerate the pressure and started the videos part and also casinos part again!! so we are back to square one!! though he agrees that casinos can be addicting and is ready to quit that, he is not ready to quit the other...
and now that his family has gone back, they are "monitoring" us everyday. they come online everyday and speak to us (they are in India and we are in US). They see how i "respond" to them.
I think the problem is in 2 parts:
1 with me and husband
2 with me and inlaws

handling the relation with husband would take the 1st priority ofcouse but the relation with inlaws is affecting the course of my relation with husband!!!

what do i do...

[Jennifer]

sounds like your husband is using the videos and gambling as stress relieve. to make the relationship better with your husband, you have to not seem like part of his stress. Do you have anyone to talk to outside your family? times like this is wen therapy can really help because it sounds like you need a stress relief as well.

I would suggest working on the relationship with your husband first by you finding your own stress relief and letting him has his. Sounds like he feels guilty enough about what he does.

[agathos]

Yea, he has told me he uses that as stress relief. but his stress relief method is causing more problems and stress for me.........................
I do not know if he really feels guilty...or may be sometimes he does....As I said, I tried suggesting that we both go for family therapy and just give that a try we could continue only if we find it useful but he got angry with me and told his parents about it. They threatened me that if I do any such thing then I have to face consequences of being seperated from him. They drilled this idea of seperation so much into his head....But both want to try and work this relation one last time. But therapy for us is kind of ruled out...he doesnt trust that i will be patient and tolerate our struggle through this and i dont trust that his parents will give us a chance to work it out on ourselves....
people even pick up drinking smoking drugs and what not...in the name of stress relief...but I personally think this will affect a healthy relation more than anything else..............

[Jennifer]

You need to find a stress relief for yourself whether it is therapy or not. Therapy can work with just one person and it sounds like no matter what you do, you are in the wrong with his family. What can you do for stress relief.

I think it is important for you to find an outlet to talk or share and can move towards your own sanity instead of dealing with him and his families craziness all the time. Tell me what your options can be to releive stress.

A lot of people feel the same way as your husband/family does about therapy. That is just an insecurity that makes them think there is something wrong with them. Therapy makes you better, not makes you crazy.

[agathos]

hmmm.....
does that mean that i shud completely ignore his activities and try and be normal and if i get stressed at any point cos of his stuff just find a way of unwinding myself?!
i like music, i like sketching....
but i dont find time at all...all my time goes in household activities....
more than that even in office am not able to work properly....
am so scared with the way things are going that this whole thing just keeps replaying 1000times a day in my head...
but infront of husband am not showing any and am trying to make him feel stress free at home after inlaws have left....
so he is better after all the drama....I am the one left feeling bad....taking all the wrath and curses that my inlaws are throwing upon me...and parents feeling helpless for me......

[Jennifer]

Exactly, you need to find an outlet. Your inlaws are not upset with him, they pick on you. That should not be a reason that you are upset with your husband, which has become the case.

Find your own stress relief and let him has his and the more you back off, the more receptive he will be to you

[agathos]

Hmmm
It not just about finding a stress buster for myself.....
Imagine tolerating all the pressure that they imposed on me..For 3 months, I wasnt able to sleep well...there was so much hostility that they never used to speak to me and over and above that complain about me and everything, I burst out one day shout at them and leave the house for the night stay and stay at a cousins place and get back the next morning and they keep harassing me about this incident day in and out....its been more than a month since this happened and i have apologised to them and the said they have forgiven but again!!! the keep reminding me of that and i dont know what else i have to do i have sincerely apologised and have told that i will not repeat...but now the hostility is from both husband and inlaws and i feel so harassed and presurrized....apart from the feeling bad about him watching porn and going to casinos....now i am being treated like a criminal for one mistake where i could not tolerate the pressure put on me............
its one week since my inlaws left and on and off me and my husband were trying to come to terms and becoming normal and close again....we were almost on the normalcy path when again MIL expresses displeasure about what happened and again my husband being emotional troubles me with hostility and hatred....
i am not able to handle any of this.....

[Jennifer]

I am sure that everyone can agree that in-laws can ruin even a stable marriage. It is an impossible situation as you know and you can never win. Your husband has loyalty to them and to you, but he cannot be in the middle. He does not want to have to choose between you and his family and that is why I said that you need some outside stress relief because if you can find an outlet to get it out, then you can move forward and work on reunifying your relationship with your husband.

I am not excusing there behavior, but the facts are, if you want him, then you have to find a way to keep the peace with his family. The first thing you need to do is to find peace within yourself so you can handle his family.