A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:Background:I have 2 children from a previous relationship. I have been with my fiance for 2 years and we have just had a baby together 2 and a half weeks ago. We had planned to get married, but put it on hold when we got pregnant and now are planning a 2010 wedding. Outwardly, everything is fine.However, there is an issue. A year and a half ago, I was working on a project on the computer as a Valentine's gift for my fiance. I hadn't finished it, and it wasn't time to give it to him yet, so I went to delete my project from the computer history so that he wouldn't accidently find it early. When I opened the history, it was full of links to a site called adultfriendfinder. I didn't know what it was, but there were probably over 20 links to it, otherwise I wouldn't have even noticed it.The next day, it was still bugging me, so I went to the website. I was stunned to discover that it was a site dedicated to finding "hook ups" with strangers. I typed his email address into the members sign in and hit "forgot password" and a box popped up saying that the forgotten password had been emailed to the email account. Which meant that he had a profile on the site.I thought about confronting him, but without seeing his profile (I didn't know the password), I wasn't sure what I was dealing with. So, I installed a keystroke recording program on my computer and captured his email address password. Once I had that, I was able to get his password to the friendfinder account.His profile listed him as a 23 year old straight man with an undisclosed marital status in our home town looking for Women for 1-on-1 sex, Discreet Relationship or Other "Alternative" Activities. He had paid $165 for a gold membership to this site, and created this account after we had moved in together.I asked him about the site a few nights later. He told me that he had made it ages ago and forgotten about it. I knew that was a lie, since I had seen the profile and the creation date. He told me that he had only made the profile so that he could look at the photos of women, not to talk to them. It was true that I didn't find any correspondence, so I tried to let it go, since I didn't specifically have issues with porn or him looking at pornographic material. I told him that I didn't want him making profiles on dating sites, and he agreed to that.However, after that, I couldn't shake the feeling of betrayal. I had been so clueless about that, and he hadn't been totally upfront about it when I confronted him. So I began searching the computer - I googled dating sites and adult sites and entered his email address into every one that came up to see if he had accounts set up. I found a couple of dozen ... because I had his email password, I was able to access all the accounts through the forgotten password feature. Most of the accounts were old and had been created well before we had even met. But a handful were recent, having been created after we had started living together.I considered the possibility that he created the accounts just to access photos of women, but it bothered me how much effort he put into the profiles and what they said. They were not nonsense profiles - they outlined his features and always had some line to the effect of: I am a younger male looking for fun with no strings attached.We had another confrontation about it. It seemed to go nowhere again. I felt frustrated, but I wasn't prepared to leave him at that point. To my knowledge, nothing inappropriate had actually occurred with any woman.A few months later, the issue had been mostly forgotten. I was going on a week long trip to visit my sisters, and I did mention it before I left. He promised me that I had nothing to worry about. I believed him. A male friend of mine lived in the area that I was going to visit and I hadn't seen him in several years. I wanted to visit him (we had been very close friends for many years), but my fiance wasn't comfortable with that - so I opted out of the visit completely. I was a little sad about it, but thought that next time my friend visited my town that we could all have a visit together and my fiance could meet him and that might be more comfortable for him.A few days after I got home, I was typing an address into the address bar on the computer and the computer prompted me with a list of websites as it always does while I was typing. One that popped up was plentyoffish.com. I guess my fiance was pretty good at remembering to clear the cache, as this had never happened to me before. He must have forgotten this time.He was at work when this happened. I logged on to POF and entered his email address. It confirmed that he had an account. I remember just feeling tired and disappointed, not even surprised or angry this time. I checked the creation date for the profile - he had created it while I was away on my visit. His profile said "I am a younger male looking for you, and I hope that you find me, I can't write much, it just has to be a secret!! I am young, fit and good looking, trust me, you won't be disappointed."If these profiles were really just to look at photos, why create an account prompting women to contact you and keep it a secret? Why write that you are looking for someone and hope that they find you? Why create an account on POF at all, as you can browse the photos without an account? Why POF - it's not even pornographic?I thought about packing his things up while he was at work. But instead, I chose to wait until he came home and give him a chance to explain himself. He broke down crying, saying that he didn't want to lose me and that he didn't know why he did it. He swore up and down that he had not had contact with anyone. I tohught perhaps it was a combination of attention-seeking and addiction to pornography. I thought we could work it out.A lot of time passed ... I no longer felt the urge to check up on him, and we were doing well. He proposed several months later and I accepted. We got pregnant shortly afterwards, and recently had our baby. During my pregnancy, I did notice that he was on some porn sites occasionally - but nothing that seemed really inappropriate. I found a note that had a bunch of girls names listed on it in his pants pocket when doing laundry one day - he said they were girls from facebook that he was looking at photos of. It annoyed me, but I let it go.Finally, the other day - two weeks after giving birth to our son - I found another slip of paper. This one listed the website addresses of local escort services and also a few girls names. These websites do not have pornographic images on them, or profiles that you can look at. Just the information on services provided and how to book them. I confronted him again - he said that he wrote the addresses down from the local newspaper at work to give to a friend and that he had forgotten about the piece of paper completely.Despite everything, I don't think that he has ever been unfaithful. I half believe most of what he says. But I feel like it is all adding up to too much for me. Each time I start to get over an issue, it comes up again and I am furious all over again - I have to start from scratch putting away that anger and resentment. Each time it happens, I can feel myself pulling away from him a little, and I can't repair that damage in the time in between confrontations.The problem is compounded by the fact that we have not been intimate in some time. Perhaps 3-4 times in the last year (his choice - not mine - as he had a hard time being intimate with me while I was pregnant). I had a difficult time with this, as I had a difficult pregnancy as it was and I craved some physical attention. But I got through the whole pregnancy without it. Despite that, I do feel sad that I was set aside for so long.Now I don't know where we are at. I am angry at him for putting our relationship in jeapordy for something so stupid. I have a hard time understanding this issue of his at all. I am afraid that this will fester and sour our relationship beyond repair, and I am afraid that this obsession with seeking out women will never go away. I am angry that he proposed and then wanted a baby - that I went through so much physical and emotional struggle to have this baby with him ... I am angry that I let my other children get attached to him and he has allowed this problem to enter our little family and threaten it.I don't want to leave him. I don't want to resent him or pull away from him. I'm just not sure how to NOT do these things, especially if he cannot stop what he is doing. Please - give me some direction.
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, Lola1 +, writes (10 September 2009):
 Breaking up families (especially where children are involved) should never be a first resort, so I respect that you wish to work at this before you consider that as an option.
Your feelings (and I don’t get the impression you are asking anyone to say this, but sometimes it’s nice to hear) are appropriate. You are right to feel the way that you do.
While he may not have been physically adulterous, he has been emotionally unfaithful. It is unreasonable to expect you to keep checking up on him in order to know he is being true to the commitments he has asked you to make; in parenting and in marriage.
When do you draw the line? That is entirely up to you based on your threshold for tolerance. You just draw the line when you refuse to put up with it anymore. Now is as good a time as any.
I recommend speaking to him using even tones and saying pretty much everything you said in your last few paragraphs. You can not be expected to wonder at his intentions with you and with other women.
If he has fantasies, he should be able to share them with you and you have a right to want to feel included.
Outline how you feel (anger, resentment, distant, neglected) as facts. Tell him you considered leaving, but don’t want to. You feel yourself growing distant, but do not want to. Tell him what you DO want (to be happy and to trust him – to feel beautiful and appreciated, etc.). Don’t allow it to become an argument. Tell him you need to know before you get married if this can be worked through or if it can’t and you’d like his input.
If you like and feel like you can live up to it, you can tell him this will be the last time you deal with this. Next time you will be leaving, so it is time for him to do some real thinking.
Good luck! I hope it all works out for you.
A
male
reader, LazyGuy  +, writes (10 September 2009):
 We got pregnant? You might want to talk to nature magazine. It would be world first.
Oh well, good to see a woman with a clue about computers for once.
Adultfriendfinder is NOT a dating site. It is a sex site, aimed at finding sexual partners with a sideline of exhobitionists and those who like to watch them.
However, paying for membership to look at pictures of women... come on, you know a bit about computers and presumably have visited the internet. You can find as many women as you want, for free.
So it is NOT porn. You don't have a problem with porn, so if he just rented a few porn movies, bought some magazines or subscribed to a porn site, that wouldn't be an issue.
So what is it then about?
"5. You've got nothing to lose!" that was at the bottom of the POF site you mentioned. And I think that is it.
The grass is always greener. There is an episode in Becker (american comedy) in which a guy proposes to one of the lead characters, it is very quick and he seems to be in a hurry. Turns out he wants her to say yes, before he is going to marry someone else on saturday. And no way is he going to ask another girl later, after all what are the changes someone even better will come along.
He doesn't visit these sites for just naked women, he visits them for the fantasy of having sex (and maybe a relationship) with someone else.
Consider a cat who sits in front of a window looking at birds with a tensed body. Is the cat hungry? No. Is it pretending to hunt? Not really, it knows there is glass in between. But the thrill is probably fun to the cat.
This guy is not a cat, I can't say wether he is just visiting these sites for the fantasy or wether he has tried/will try to make this fantasy happen.
Lets not forget that dating sites are overrun by horny men looking for sex. If nothing has happened it might just be because no woman wanted him. That is NOT exactly the same as him not wanting it is it?
You got a choice to make, it seems clear that he is not the one who is going to chance. The crying is just proof of that. Men don't cry. When they do, they do it because they know women fall for it and forgive them instantly. Which is what you did.
If he didn't want to risk loosing you, he wouldn't even be attempting to chase other women and frankly, there would be more sex.
I think you got a guy who on the one hand wonders what else is out there but is to chickenshit to break it off with you.
Your choice is wether you choose to believe that nothing happened and nothing will happen AND that you will put up with him continueing this behavior.
Basically, do you want a man who is constantly looking what else might be available? And that is, if you believe it will stay/has stayed at looking.
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