Am I Overreacting??

[jordanianprincess 0]

Is there anyone here that would want to constantly check up on their S/O all the time? You can't be happy that way, you might as well put a leash on them and cut their steak at the dinner table. Will someone stop smoking if they dont' want to?

Well, there are certain habits/behaviours that both Jerry and I are working on to change and/or eliminate, and as a result, we are keeping each other accountable. There are times that I get frustrated when I REALLY want to fall back on those behaviours and Jerry lovingly kicks my butt, and vice versa. But I would be more frustrated if he didn't help me out in this area. (And before someone comments, these habits/behaviours are major deals, not something like chewing on my fingernails). but that's just us.

Being held accountable and going through files on a PC, someone's car, their purse, their wallet is completely different.

Not really, when we have given each other permission to do so as part of the accountability process.

Someone that is looking at something in private or behind your back most likely did not give you permission to check thier things.

I like you, don't mind if my fiance goes through my things, he has the password to my e-mail account too. But like you said we have given permission.

[Melo 1]

I don't hide anything from Paul but I would take serious umbrage if he went through my things behind my back. He knows my passwords and I know his but would not dream of using them without his permission.

[PrettyGirls 1]

I can't believe how many people who have responded to this post have belittled/ridiculed the OP's concerns and her beliefs about such issues, as well as the astounding number of those who approached this issue with an apathetic "suck it up" attitude, or, even worse, blaming HER for her signifcant other's dishonesty by claiming that she :

a.) Is somehow assuming some unreasonable position of totalitarian control by trying to "control" his behaviour.

b.) Not respecting his privacy or his right to do whatever he wants.

c.) Has utterly unrealistic expectations and is therefore setting herself up for failure and disillusionment by wishing that her significant other discontinue the behaviour that bothers her, claiming that behaviour of this sort is an inherent characteristic of all men. (I'm seeing way too much of this one)

By telling the OP that she should be grateful that her significant other is only looking at pictures of women, etc. instead of actually committing acts of infidelity, how could that possibily help her?! Do you really think she could fail to consider such a possibility when she's so acutely hurt by the behaviour that so many of you dismiss as trivial? - Especially when she's said that the situation was worse at a previous point in her relationship? How does affirming these fears help her?

And to assume that ALL men are "wired" or "programmed" to love porn and perceive women in the manner so many of you have described as "natural" is ridiculous! Why is it so hard to believe that there ARE men in existence who genuinely do not care for porn or conjure up such images when they chance upon an attractive woman? - I know several men (my fiance included) who certainly do not conform to such behaviours characteristic of the male stereotype that has been perpetuated by such commonly held notions (or, should I say, misconceptions) about men and their behaviours. To claim that ALL men are inherently programmed to engage in these behaviours and think a certain way is a vast and sweeping generalisation, an unfair (and false) claim to make. My fiance wholeheartedly agrees that if a man loves his significant other (or at least considers her feelings important) he would discontinue the behaviour that bothers her. And by the way, he always tells me that he finds it admirable that I feel so strongly about such issues and stand by my convictions.

Also: An opposition to pornography has little to do with being brainwashed by religious dogma. I'm a humanist and do not espouse any religious beliefs of any sort, and I'm the strongest opposition to porn you'll ever come across. I simply cannot be involved with someone who advocates it or expresses apathy about the issue, and for those of you who maintain that any woman who expects to find a man who deviates from this norm is setting herself up for inevitable disappointment and heartbreak: I'm proud to say that I've genuinely proved you wrong, and I know at least a few others reading this have as well.

Cangal - you're NOT overreacting. You have a right to feel as strongly as you do about this issue, and your concerns are valid. You do NOT need to apologise for feeling the way you do. I agree with the advice that you need to discuss this with your significant other. If you ever need to talk, just let me know.

[jordanianprincess 0]

By telling the OP that she should be grateful that her significant other is only looking at pictures of women, etc. instead of actually committing acts of infidelity, how could that possibily help her?! Do you really think she could fail to consider such a possibility when she's so acutely hurt by the behaviour that so many of you dismiss as trivial? - Especially when she's said that the situation was worse at a previous point in her relationship? How does affirming these fears help her?

And does letting her go through the vicious cycle again help her? She asked for different points of view, and that is precisley what she got. Furthermore, this has been a fairly friendly debate and most would agree. Cangal started this topic and it has evolved into something else completely that is not focused on her.

I'm proud to say that I've genuinely proved you wrong, and I know at least a few others reading this have as well.

Noone is here to prove anyone wrong, we are all entitled to our opinions.

[Fuzzness 2]

Also: An opposition to pornography has little to do with being brainwashed by religious dogma. I'm a humanist and do not espouse any religious beliefs of any sort, and I'm the strongest opposition to porn you'll ever come across. I simply cannot be involved with someone who advocates it or expresses apathy about the issue, and for those of you who maintain that any woman who expects to find a man who deviates from this norm is setting herself up for inevitable disappointment and heartbreak: I'm proud to say that I've genuinely proved you wrong, and I know at least a few others reading this have as well.

I happen to believe in freedom of choice. Those involved in the porn industry chose to do so. Nobody is putting a gun to their heads and saying take your clothes off.

[PrettyGirls 1]

By telling the OP that she should be grateful that her significant other is only looking at pictures of women, etc. instead of actually committing acts of infidelity, how could that possibily help her?! Do you really think she could fail to consider such a possibility when she's so acutely hurt by the behaviour that so many of you dismiss as trivial? - Especially when she's said that the situation was worse at a previous point in her relationship? How does affirming these fears help her?

And does letting her go through the vicious cycle again help her? She asked for different points of view, and that is precisley what she got. Furthermore, this has been a fairly friendly debate and most would agree. Cangal started this topic and it has evolved into something else completely that is not focused on her.

I'm proud to say that I've genuinely proved you wrong, and I know at least a few others reading this have as well.

Noone is here to prove anyone wrong, we are all entitled to our opinions.

I wasn't saying that you're not entitled to your opinions. I'm just saying that's it's incorrect to make sweeping generalisations, and I made that statement just to support my point.

Also: An opposition to pornography has little to do with being brainwashed by religious dogma. I'm a humanist and do not espouse any religious beliefs of any sort, and I'm the strongest opposition to porn you'll ever come across. I simply cannot be involved with someone who advocates it or expresses apathy about the issue, and for those of you who maintain that any woman who expects to find a man who deviates from this norm is setting herself up for inevitable disappointment and heartbreak: I'm proud to say that I've genuinely proved you wrong, and I know at least a few others reading this have as well.

I happen to believe in freedom of choice. Those involved in the porn industry chose to do so. Nobody is putting a gun to their heads and saying take your clothes off.

I believe in freedom of choice as well. Just because someone chooses to be involved in the porn industry doesn't make it right, and it doesn't make it any less degrading.

[gimygirl 0]

you're going off topic people .... start your own thread about porn and if it is degrading to women!!

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

I think actually you are the first person to suggest the OP is brainwashed by religious dogma, I think most people have been respectful that this is the reason she feels as she does.

[jordanianprincess 0]

I think actually you are the first person to suggest the OP is brainwashed by religious dogma, I think most people have been respectful that this is the reason she feels as she does.

Agreed and well said.

[MrMrsKnight 0]

So if looking at women in bikini's is wrong, should we all cancel our Victoria's Secret catalogs? I don't see how you can classify women in bikini's and porn in the same category.

I think there are many people overreacting here. I mean we have only heard one side of the story. Secondly, we have convicted this guy of being a porn addict without even knowing him. This is a power struggle in all its glory. She has every right to be upset and he has every right not to stop. We are all individuals.

I mean how many of you actually think he is gonna stop if she asks him to? It's highly doubtful. There are lots of things that are important in marriage and yes compromise is one of them, but that does not mean your S/O can dictate what they want to you.

She asked him to stop, he agreed, and he lied. This goes way deeper than asking him to stop and if there are people here who can't see that, then maybe it is because you have not been down this road before. There are many of us here who speak from experiance and yes I am one of them. Regardless of whether I think this is wrong or not, that should not matter to Cangal.

Her post was about how to approach this matter with him. Well again I say, from expercience, it's a sensitive subject. Alot of females here have gotten upset about some of the responses the males have posted on this subject. Do you really think that Cangals man is any different from the guys in this forum? If her ultimate goal is to save her relationship, which for her means, he needs to stop. Then she needs a way to approach him and ultimatims are not the way to go. Rch has posted so many times that she was snooping, and the fact of the matter is she was! No matter how you slice it, this will back fire on her and nothing will get accomplished. Did she have the right to snoop, thats not my business and to be honest I don't really care if she was. My ex looked at porn all the time, and I never got any pop-ups. I just happened to be looking for a file that i lost in um the temp files and um bammmmmm! there it is porn! I found it because I was looking for it!!!

Cangal, if you want to approach your man about this subject you need to wait until the right moment. First of all you need to be honest about how you found the pics, so that does not become the issue. No one is saying you don't have a right to look in your own PC, but if you suspected it, and you were looking for it, then say just that. When you talk to him, turn all the I's into We's. I guarantee you will have a much better conversation that way, and timing is everything!!!

I don't see how one can equate what has happened here with disrespect... I honestly am baffled... I think that if Paul expected me to give up something I enjoy for no good reason other than it upset him... and were this to continue I would probably walk out of the relationship. A relationship is fraught with its own tensions - adjusting to one another is hard enough... now to make demands that he/she give up something that is harmless (none of you know that he is an addict... you are just presuming he is... also you have not heard what he has to say).

By demanding he give up looking at porn magazines/porn websites for no other reason than it upsets her is just not right the way I look at it. To me it seems like there are both control issues and trust issues at play here.

Wow. Reading this one thread has taken up a good portion of my work day (between calls of course). Now I will add my .02 and maybe be done with it .. though probably not. I have a VJ addiction that can compete with just about any other internet type of addiction! There I said it .. that is step 1 right?

Anyways, I understand that a good portion of CanGal's distress is over the fact that he said he wouldn't do it but still did. Now, I believe he said that because it was what she wanted to hear and he wanted the conversation to end when he said it. What if he had said "I enjoy this and I do not want to stop." Would CanGal have accepted this? I know a lot of women who read romance novels and from those they get to vicariously be the heroine in the book and YES women can feel physically what they read about because women are word oriented. Men however are visually oriented and they get the equal feeling from pictures. The difference is about how things are perceived.

Along with my VJ addiction I have this addiction to books .. mostly books involving crimes to be solved, but I havent found one yet that didnt have a relationship in it and some sort of sexual scene and yes I am capable of letting my imagination go and feeling the things I am reading about.

I myself do not like the idea of my husband looking at other women. However, I read my books, I watch movies with very hot men in them, and I do notice good looking guys in places I go. It is a 2 way street. I can accept what he does as he accepts what I do.

All these posts describe exactly how I feel about this issue! I'm actually happy to see I'm not the only one that feels this way..... you took all these words out of my mouth!!

In all fairness to CanGal, her objection isn't quite that trivial. Her objection stems from religious beliefs she (apparently) holds quite deeply.

If that's true and they don't share those beliefs and are not compatible..... then there's one more issue to work on!

[chri'stina 190]

I think actually you are the first person to suggest the OP is brainwashed by religious dogma, I think most people have been respectful that this is the reason she feels as she does.

I think she(Prettygirls) was referring to if anyone else thought it was a brainwashing of religious dogma that cangal cannot accept it, not that she herself called cangal brainwashed. She was mentioning how she also feels strongly on it while not being religious at all, meanig it could have nothing to do with religion with some people. I could be wrong but that's how I read it. She was obvisouly being supportive to cangal through out her post.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

I realize that, but I don't think anyone so far has criticized her religious beliefs for feeling the way she does, which this poster seems to suggest.

[jordanianprincess 0]

Why does religion have to be dragged into everything............geeeeeeeeeeeeeeez!

[Fuzzness 2]

Why does religion have to be dragged into everything............geeeeeeeeeeeeeeez!

because some people have nothing better to do than fling poo

[CanGal 1]

Hey Everyone, wow, I never thought that this thread would get this much of a response. It's kind of crazy. I just want to clear some things up that I think people kind of started going along with that I never stated before. People just need to read a little more clearly.

A) I never mentioned masturbation whatsoever or my views of if I thought it was wrong or not and that I was asking my Hubby to give it up, wasn't even brought up on here.

B) I wasn't snooping. I really don't have to explain myself, thats not the issue. When you have highspeed internet and you both use the same computer daily and leave it on daily and he hops off to work and you get on, if he was searching how couldn't I get pop ups? *Shrug* I had no reason to snoop whatsoever.

C) The bikini models were not your everyday "Victoria Secret" model who are essentially modeling off the bathing suite. This was porn, they were 98% naked thats the thing. Also the issue wasn't really the bikini models in itself, it was the fact that he was "looking" to "look". Big difference if you happen to be in a real life circumstance like a beach setting and its there.

D) I have never ever demanded that he listen to my way of thinking and rules and beliefs and that he should give it up entirely. I have never come across that way and he admits that. He isn't good about talking in general about alot of things. He's quite, i guess he chooses his words carefully.

E) When we met we talked about these things and he is the one that would address them and he was the one that first told me that he believed in the particular things that I stood for which is one thing that attracted me to him.

F) He's not a bad guy. He's never been a bad guy. I have given him a big break. I am actually pretty care free on a lot of things.

G) I'm not religously brainwashed. I can't change your oppions and your all entitled to your oppinions. I'm glad you shared them with me. But I believe and have faith that my relationship with the Lord and what he commands of me and requires of me is not to "Limit" me from fun and to strap me down but to set me free. Only truth can set you free and I believe those boundaries are there so that I can live freely. Thats the very essence of God. He loves me, he loves us all, he only wants the best for me.

H) I love my husband very much, and yes this is an issue that bothers me on a higher level. Nothing has ever happened to me in the past to warp my view on this thats just how I feel about the issue. I can't essentially in essence control everything he does but I can hopefully influence him and just stand up for what I believe is right and stand true to that. I have the right to make the decision in allowing it into my marriage or not. I choose not too

And I dont believe sex is wrong, its a GREAT thing really. Its a wonderful thing, i just believe it should be kept within the privacy of two people in marriage. I took a vow in forsaking in all others not just physically but on all levels. Nothing wrong with fantasizing when it's your other your fantasizing about. Why would I want to fantasize about being with anyone else but him, I married him so I could be with him and freely live in that.