Maybe now you will listen to him?

November 10, 2009

D,
It’s unfortunate that you have pushed my son on this issue. He and I both have asked you several times to not contact him, but you refuse to respect his wishes. Now, that he sent you a certified letter (November 4, 2009) telling you one last time to leave him alone or he will call the police, we expect you to adhere to that warning.

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Pornography’s Impact on the family

My husband has many personal issues. Pornography addiction is only one of them. His addiction not only affected him physically and mentally, but it also impaired his work abilities, his normal life activities, and his relationship with our children and myself along with other family members.

I found that we, as his family suffered from significant effects along with him. We suffered from financial instability, health problems due to stress, interruption from our day to day activities, irritability, and the constant feeling of being overwhelmed. I felt it was literally eating away at all of us.

I believe my husband had this addiction before we met and it has continued to get worse through the years. Just like an alcoholic or a drug addict, his tolerance began to build up. He began viewing more extreme, unusual and deviant forms of pornography. I tried very hard to seek help for him, but I finally realized that no matter how much I wanted him to get help, he would have to be the one to find it. You can’t force someone to get help unless they are willing to accept it. So along with his addiction and other personal issues, I realized that it was making the entire family sick and someone needed to make the first step. So I moved out in late April of this year, knowing I would never return. I will admit, it was very hard for me to leave him like this. Every time I made plans to leave in the past, I would feel an enormous amount of guilt. I just could not walk out that door! You would think with the verbal and mental abuse I experienced almost daily, that it would push me to make the right decision, but…….still I stayed. I realized that I needed to get our son and I out of this situation, and find the help that we needed. This has been a very difficult time in all of our lives as you can imagine and I wish I could say everything will be ok from here on out. I think we will find peace and happiness, I just don’t know when?

Some signs of porn addiction can include:

• An inability to stop the behavior (s) and porn use despite previous attempts to do so
• Anger or irritablity if asked to stop
• Hiding or attempting to keep secret all or a part of the porn use
• Continuing the behavior despite obvious consequences – like a relationship or job loss
• Getting lost in the problem porn use – i.e. Spending more time than intended, losing time

Pornography Hurts Your Marriage:

Sexual intimacy is one of the factors that distinguish a committed relationship from, say, an affair. Though, pornography initially triggers an increase in sexual activity, it is anything but intimate. It wasn’t attraction to our partner that generated the contact, but a need to gratify the desires built up by viewing others. Forgive me for being blunt, but this turns our mate into little more than a tool for masturbation. Even more sad is the fact that, over time, our mate becomes the least favorite tool, since the other options place fewer expectations or demands on us. This is more than a weakened relationship, it is infidelity as severe as adultery, the affair being, in this case, with yourself. But, pornography addiction hurts more than our marriage, it hurts our children, too.

Porn Hurts Your Children:

It amazes me how many adults are in denial about this one. First of all, if things aren’t right in your marriage, I think you’d agree that affects your children. If we’re addicted to porn, no matter how carefully we hide it, the marriage relationship problems will spill over to our children. Not only that, if we’re sharing computers with the kids, they can pull up the cache and see what we saw. If we’re sharing an internet connection, we have the same address, so they receive spam based on our internet habits. If you’re using pornography magazines, they have seen them…you think they’re not in your secret places when you’re not around? Because pornography changes how we see people, we can’t hide our thoughts from the kids. What you do speaks so loudly, they can’t hear what you say. They see how much attention we pay to underwear commercials on TV. They see where we’re looking at people’s bodies. They begin to form their values from ours. While we’re on the subject of children, pornography is a reliable indicator of pedophilia. Why do you think it’s one of the first things police look for in a suspect’s home? These ideas may be terrible thoughts, but, if you’re addicted to porn, chances are you’ll get to the point where the thought isn’t so terrible. Have you had these thoughts, already? Pay attention to where your mind goes when you’re looking at porn…or people.

Pornography Addiction Hurts You:

As harmful as it is to spouse, children, friends and co-workers, pornography addiction hurts you the most. Let’s start with the productive, positive, creative things we could be doing with our time, money and energy. Instead, we waste it on overuse of a bodily function. When pornography becomes the focus of our mental energies, we propel ourselves toward ever more destructive behavior to fulfill our cravings. First, pictures, then movies, then violent movies or kiddy movies, then peep shows and computer sex. Every step we take lowers our self-esteem and makes sexual gratification more difficult to achieve…forcing us to desire more exotic and deviant behavior in the hopes of satisfying our ever-deepening cravings.

As addiction progresses, most move on to one or more of these behaviors: peeping, prostitutes, adultery, mate-swapping, orgies, sadomasochism, flashing, bestiality, pedophilia, rape and even murder. Of course, progression to these extremes is accelerated if porn addiction is combined with drugs or alcohol. If you’ve been aroused or worse, climaxed, to pictures or imagination of any of these extreme behaviors, it’s very likely your addiction will compel you to carry them out in real life.

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Internet Pornography Statistics

This addiction became apart of our family unit, and while trying to educate myself, I came across these statistics. I found them to be quite shocking.

Pornography Industry Statistics

Size of the Industry $57.0 billion world-wide – $12.0 billion US
Adult Videos $20.0 billion
Escort Services $11.0 billion
Magazines $ 7.5 billion
Sex Clubs $ 5.0 billion
Phone Sex $ 4.5 billion
Cable & Pay Per View $ 2.5 billion
Internet $ 2.5 billion
CD-Rom $ 1.5 billion
Novelties $ 1.0 billion
Other $ 1.5 billion

Children’s Exposure to Pornography

Average age of first Internet exposure to pornography 11 years old
Largest consumer of Internet pornography 12-17 age group
15-17 year olds having multiple hard-core exposures 80%
8-16 year olds having viewed porn online 90% (most while doing homework)
7-17 year olds who would freely give out home address 29%
7-17 year olds who would freely give out email address 14%
Children’s characters linked to thousands of porn links 26 (including Pokeman and Action Man)

Adult Internet Porn Statistics

Men admitting to accessing pornography at work 20%
US adults who regularly visit Internet pornography websites 40 million
Promise Keeper men who viewed pornography in last week 53%
Christians who said pornography is a major problem in the home 47%
Adults admitting to Internet sexual addiction 10%
Breakdown of male/female visitors to pornography sites 72% male – 28% female

Women and Pornography

13% of Women admit to accessing pornography at work.
70% of women keep their cyber activities secret.
17% of all women struggle with pornography addiction.
Women, far more than men, are likely to act out their behaviors in real life, such as having multiple partners, casual sex, or affairs.
Women favor chat rooms 2X more than men.
1 of 3 visitors to all adult web sites are women.
9.4 million women access adult web sites each month.

Internet Porn Statistics

Pornographic websites 4.2 million (12% of total websites)
Pornographic pages 372 million
Daily pornographic search engine requests 68 million (25% of total search engine requests)
Daily pornographic emails 2.5 billion (8% of total emails)
Average daily pornographic emails/user 4.5 per Internet user
Monthly Pornographic downloads (Peer-to-peer) 1.5 billion (35% of all downloads)
Daily Gnutella “child pornography” requests 116 thousand
Websites offering illegal child pornography 100 thousand
Sexual solicitations of youth made in chat rooms 89%
Youths who received sexual solicitation 20%
Worldwide visitors to pornographic web sites 72 million annually

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The truth about pornography

A. Pornography has significant negative impact:

1. Pornography facilitates child molestation.

* It is used to instruct the child victims, reduce their natural inhibitions, and it is used to prepare and arouse the perpetrator.

* 87% of convicted molesters of girls, and 77% of convicted molesters of boys, admit to the use of pornography, most often in the commission of their crimes.

* One in three American girls and 1 in 5-7 American boys will be sexually molested by the age of 18.

* An average serial child molester has between 360-380 victims in his lifetime.

* One of the most popular pornographic video series in America, entitled “Taboo,” is based upon incest.

* More and more media reports tell of the tragic exploitation of innocent children. Even more tragic is the rise of not only child victims, but of child perpetrators. Pornography is their instruction manual.

2. Pornography shapes attitudes, behaviors and values.

* Individuals who view pornography are more likely to think of women in stereotype, as socially non-discriminating and eager to accommodate any and every sexual request.

* Individuals who view pornography are more likely to have sexually callous attitudes and accept rape myths (that when a woman says “no,” she means “yes.”)

* Individuals who use pornography have increasingly hostile and aggressive sexual fantasies.

* Individuals who use pornography are less likely to convict for a rape, and less likely to give a harsh sentence to a rapist if in fact convicted. Conversely, individuals who do not use pornography are more likely to convict an accused rapist.

* Areas with pornography outlets and sexually oriented businesses experience significantly higher sexual offenses and property crimes than areas without such businesses.

* Pornography has a direct role in the transmission and encouragement of sexually transmitted diseases. Many “adult” bookstores derive 75% of their income from peep show booths, with “glory holes” to provide anonymous sexual encounters.

* Clinical research shows that pornographic images create chemically encoded messages on the brain that can remain through adulthood. Human memory is formed in part by the release of the chemical epinephrine which, upon emotional arousal, leaves behind an imprint on the brain.**

* Advertisers know how compelling images are, especially to children, and pornographers do, too. Advertisers don’t spend billions of dollars each year for nothing. In Superbowls 29 and 30, companies paid 1.3 million dollars for a 30-second shot at your attention on the way to the kitchen or bathroom.**

* Images affect attitudes and thinking, and images affect behavior and choices.

3. Pornography has a compulsive or addictive nature. Four stages of viewing pornography following initial exposure are:

* Addiction – The desire and need to keep coming back for pornographic images.

* Escalation – The need for more explicit, rougher, and more deviant images for the same sexual effect.

* Desensitization – Materiel once viewed as shocking or taboo is seen as acceptable or commonplace.

* Acting out – The tendency to perform the behaviors viewed, including exhibitionism, sadistic/masochistic sex, group sex, rape, or sex with minor children.

* Dr. Victor Cline, clinical psychologist at the University of Utah, said that pornography is the gateway drug to sexual addiction.”

* In a study of 932 sex addicts, 90% of the men and 77% of the women indicated that pornography played a significant role in their addiction.

B. Internet pornography is both prevalent and easily accessible by children.

* Teens use the Internet an average of 8.5 hours per week for chatting and e-mailing, compared to 1.8 hours spent using it for school work.

* An estimated 18.8 million kids under 18-years-old have access to home computers.

* “Adult” entertainment on the Internet is the third largest sector of sales, surpassed only by computer products and travel.

* Playboy’s web site, which offers free teaser shots of its Playmates, averages 5 million hits per day.

* After the Supreme Court overturned the indecency provisions of the Communications Decency Act, Penthouse posted the following statement on its web site: “With these words, the Supreme Court struck a blow for Liberty, and cleared the way for Penthouse to build the Ultimate Empire of Sex on the Internet…The Supreme Court has defended your right to Freedom of Sexual Expression on the Internet…Now we at Penthouse will do our part to deliver it!”

* In August, 1997, there were 72,000 sexually explicit sites on the Internet, and an estimated 266 new porn sites every day.

* The vast majority of Americans (94%) believe a ban on Internet pornography should be legal.

* UNICEF estimates that one million children are forced into prostitution or used to produce pornography each year. Many are handed over (or sold) by their families driven by the extremes of poverty….The Internet also has given dealers in child pornography a far bigger audience–and anonymity.

* We now have no legal means to protect children from sexually explicit material on the Internet. The door has been flung open wide for pornographers and sexual predators.

This article is credited to http://www.enough.org.

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Search Engine Submission – AddMe

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Open Letter To My Husband

To my Husband DT,

When you asked me “Why can’t I f*#@ing break you?” I never thought in my wildest dreams you would say something like that to me. What kind of husband says that to his wife? All because I wouldn’t stay with you and play your games? I know you didn’t want me to leave, but you are not a healthy man, which in turn made our family unit unhealthy for too many years. I have been trying to leave you for a long time and I finally took my chance. Now, because I stood up to you and your rediculous demands, and said no for the final time, you are doing everything you can to hurt me. By doing this, you are hurting the family. You told me in the beginning, that what you do to me, has nothing to do with the kids. Well, that is wrong, it has everything to do with the kids, you can’t hurt me without hurting our family unit. You have so much hurt, pain and hate in your heart that you don’t see that. When one of us is hurt, we all hurt.

So I realize now just how bad you want to break me by taking away my access to our money, my strength, my friends, my happiness, my reputation, my loved ones, my credibility, my drive to succeed and my spirit, but you will NEVER succeed in accomplishing any of these things D.

While taking away my portion of our earnings might make life difficult for awhile, I will far exceed any dreams or expectations you ever had for yourself.

Trying to take away my reputation will only make you look like less of a man; because those you call your “friends” (Patients and Employee’s) will one day see or experience the true D. They see the D you want them to see. Just like the D you wanted me to see 17 years ago. For those that do know me and truly care about me see a “Real” person, not a lying, cheating manipulator like yourself. Haven’t you ever heard people say, never make friends with your employees and patients! What’s wrong D, afraid to step outside your boundaries, or is it easier to manipulate them? I think it’s the latter.

Credibility…..well this one is actually interesting, because I believe, your credibility is the one that is in question D, not mine. There are a lot of “Real” not fabricated documents that will prove that you lack any credibility at all. A Master Fabricator is what you are. What I have discovered during this divorce process is shocking! From the beginning you set out to destroy me. For what reason I’m not sure yet. I do have some ideas, but I will keep those to myself. You see D, letting your secrets out was not my intention. Those where between two adults, not the world. I was embarrassed, scared and most of all ashamed to let anyone know your secrets. I realize now, that I lived in a fog most of our marriage, not realizing what you have done to me personally, what you have taken from me, and what you have destroyed in me. I defended you to the very end; I too like yourself made excuses for you, which got us nowhere. I was so sure you could be a productive member in society with the right help, the very help you fought. I thought you could have been “Great”. I was wrong!

Attempting to take away the love and support from not only my friends, but my family has only backfired on you. These people see a very sick, cruel individual who lacks the qualities of a “Real Family Man.”

My “Strength” and “Spirit” well, let’s just say those two qualities are what you admired most about me, right? Isn’t that what you have told me for 17 years now? I can’t count how many times I have heard you say, how much you admired me for my strength. It’s what makes me unique, and is just part of what makes me the BEST mother you ever knew, right?

Through the years I have heard you say how great I am and how lucky you felt to have me in your life; how I taught you what real love is and how I opened up opportunities you never thought you would have, by just loving you and showing you how wonderful a families love can be, right? It’s everything you never experienced from your own family, is what you always told me.

At the same time I have heard you say that my “strength” and “spirit” is intimidating to you, because you lack those same qualities. Or how guilty you felt every time you saw me working my ass off for OUR business, because you knew you could never be the diligent worker that I was right? Or how hard I worked to support not only you, but our family while you were in Chiropractic College right?

Suddenly, I’m the one that lied, cheated, stole, and is the one responsible for the destruction of our marriage and our business right? Well, we know better don’t we D. “Ruin and break Carrie before anyone realizes who I am and what I’ve done to my wife and kids throughout our marriage.”

Let me tell you something, my “strength” and “spirit” is and will always be UNBREAKABLE. I will not let anyone take that from me. Not even someone like you.

You have lied, cheated, verbally, mentally and physically abused me, and the boys throughout our 17 years. Abusing us made you feel strong, powerful, and controlling. You were trying to bring us down to your level so we would be in the same miserable dark hole you called life. You tried to take away our happiness by inflicting pain upon us, but I think you have caused yourself the most damage D.

I realize now, what you have done all of these years. You saw the boys had the very same strength I had, and you were threatened by that. That is where the manipulation, the control and the abuse came in.

You are weak D. You have lied to yourself about what and who you are; you have cheated yourself of a happy life and career. You have abused your role and status of being a Chiropractor by cheating to create a feeling of success. You were always too lazy to do it the honorable way. You are not only cheating the profession, and some of your patients, but most of all, you are cheating yourself.

Last but not least, Happiness…..Day by day the three of us are finding the happiness that you tried to take. We know that it will be a long time to rebuild that happiness and we will stumble along the way, but we know we will be ok in the end.

I will admit you have made this journey so far, a very difficult and challenging one for us. We have cried until our eyes were so swollen we couldn’t open them. We have felt such sadness that we felt our hearts were literally breaking in two. We have experienced anger we never thought possible. We have been so shocked by what you have done and said that we couldn’t even find the words to speak. We felt betrayal from you as a father, a husband and as my dear friend. There are days we feel disconnected from the world; so overwhelmed we can’t think clearly. There are days we feel exhaustion from lack of sleep. Then comes the days of depression, and loneliness; the feeling of being ignored from you, the feeling of rejection from you, and even blame from you. We have resented you for the pain you have caused, the betrayal, the manipulation and most of all, the vicious lies. Then sadly there are the days we feel trapped by you, controlled by you and worst yet, the days that we fear you.

Then we have the days when the three of us experience the joy of just spending quality time together. We realize just how much we appreciate each other and the people in our lives; we began to feel there is Hope for our future. We began to feel calmness, patience and confidence in finding happiness again.

I am proud to say through the good days and the bad, we feel a tremendous amount of love for each other and we know we will always be there to protect one another in whatever life brings us.

You may find it shocking to hear about the days we feel the loss of having you in our lives and the love we felt for you. The good memories we had, and the wish that there were more. For me it was a mixture of good memories and painful ones. I loved you from the beginning. I saw something special about you. I saw a man that had the ability to become someone exceptional.

I miss you, I miss your love, I miss your compliments, I miss your songs to me, I miss “you can’t hide beautiful” by Aaron Lines, I even miss “Some” of your humor and cockiness, and I miss the dozens upon dozens of post it’s stuck everywhere throughout the house with words describing all my qualities that made you love me so much. I miss the gentleman you were, I miss you opening my door, I miss you pointing out the pot holes in the parking lot so I wouldn’t fall from my HIGH heels, I miss your thoughtfulness, I miss our card games, I miss you reading to me in bed, The things I miss the most. . . . . . The touch of your hand on mine, or when you would take me in your arms and hug me. When you did this I felt protected from the world, I felt safe, I felt warm, I felt loved, I felt beautiful, and I felt important. I felt all of these things up to the very last moment. It was a big part of why I stayed for so long. There have been countless days and nights I have asked myself, why Carrie? After everything he has done to you and the boys? Why? I LOVED YOU SO MUCH, and because of the cheating and the lie’s I was terrified to be with you at times. It made me sick to think of, what if? I missed being with you!

I wanted to support you in everything you did; I wanted to be by your side to support you with your problems as you seek the help that you needed, so we could possibly repair our marriage and the people it made us. I miss the thought of growing old with you. And lastly, I miss my friend deeply!

During this time apart, I have discovered horrific things you have done, during our marriage, and things you have done during this divorce along with the lie’s you have said about me. Even though I know why you are doing these cruel things towards me and the boys, it still shocks me to my core.

With guidance I have discovered that sadly you were never the man I thought you were, and that you are not capable of becoming the man I need or wanted you to be. I have realized just how unhealthy you made me and our child, even yourself. How your presence in our lives is unhealthy. I don’t miss the abusiveness, the terrible names you called me, or how you succeeded in causing me to question who I was. I don’t miss you belittling me in the office or behind closed doors, and then praising me publicly. I don’t miss the manipulation towards me or the boys. I don’t miss trying to get you to finish your paperwork at the office so we can get money in, I don’t miss the deals you cut, I don’t miss your computer or the countless hours you spent on it. I don’t miss the lies or the games you played with our emotions. I don’t miss our son’s tears, his questions, his frustration, his hurt, his fears, his anger or disappointment from his Dad just not being the healthy father he needed and deserved. WE don’t miss your broken promises. WE don’t miss your excuses and WE don’t miss your spontaneous anger.

I miss the man I thought was my husband, I miss what I thought was my best friend. I MISS MY D. There will always be questions, many, many questions. There will always be laughs and there will always be tears. But I have to say goodbye to the man that I love. And deal with the stranger you have become and the hurt you have caused this family.

The boys and I will pull through this D, because of the love and strength we have for each other. Will you?

Your Wife,
Carrie

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