I’m sitting here watching you pack, too numb to cry, too sad to feel. How did we come to this? Why does it have to end this way?

I saw it coming, I guess, but thought if I pretended like it wasn’t true, then it wouldn’t really be. I don’t even remember what was the first thing that began this rollercoaster of a marriage because I was trying so hard to play the ostrich, hoping the problem would go away.

I remember when I opened up our phone bill that once and saw $1000 staring at me, all made to 900 numbers. I confronted you with this and you repented, asking me to put a 900 block on the phone to help you with your self-control. I did, feeling as if I had locked away the alcohol from an alcoholic -- until the next phone bill was $600, filled with calls to international numbers still for the purpose of phone sex, but that by-passed the 900 block. I felt like such a failure. Obviously I was not enough of a woman to keep you from wanting these other women...or so I thought. I didn’t know that this addiction had control of you, that it was the ruler of your behavior. All I could wonder was how far would your addiction drive you? And what would be left of us when it was through with you?

So, to counter the newest phone problem, I had the phone company do an international block on our phone. Finally, the problem seemed solved for a long time. I thought.

I was dusting the bookcases by the television one day and I found your stock of porn movies, all with obviously sexual titles. Again, when I confronted you with them, you told me you were merely intrigued and you were taking them back that day. I wanted to believe you, hoping that this was an isolated case. How gullible I was!

The next time I found them, I thought, maybe the reason he is so into these is because I’m not doing something right in bed. Maybe if I watch them, I could find out what I needed to change, how I needed to improve, how I could be so enticing to my husband that he had no need for outside stimulation. With a trembling hand, I put the first one in the VCR. I remember very clearly when you came home and found me trying to figure out what you saw in this poorly acted and loveless video. You scolded me profusely and told me that you were shocked that I would do something like that. I could never understand why it was okay for you to watch but not something you thought I should be watching.

Later that week, as we were making love, you put the video in the VCR in the bedroom and told me to watch it with you. That began the routine that would tear us apart. From then on, my body was never enough to excite you. You rarely touched me, caressed me, kissed me. Sex became centered around you and your pleasure. I did all I could to make it enjoyable for you, but you still couldn’t be aroused without first watching unrealistic bodies performing unrealistic acts, totally devoid of love and commitment.

Our lovemaking sessions became fewer and your time alone watching the movies became your obsession. Instead of enjoying my body anymore, you wanted to just watch me pleasure myself, or to just listen from another room instead of participate in loving your wife, playing the role of voyeur and reducing me to the same kind of whore you watched on your daily videos. Soon, even that wasn’t enough so you added adult toys and then the fantasizing started.

I’m sure you had been fantasizing in your mind for a long time, but now it was becoming verbal and you concocted stories, fantasy stories, where you watched another man having sex with me. Now, in our marriage bed, there were three people, only in fantasy, yes, but as for me, it might as well have been as real. I felt as if you were wanting another man to come in and rape your wife in front of you in order to arouse you. I started getting scared that you would bring someone home to make that happen.

I remember the night that friend of yours came home with you and you let him stay upstairs in the spare bedroom. All night long I laid awake, afraid if I slept, I’d wake up to an unwanted threesome. You swore up and down that you would never ask me to do such a thing, but our love making was increasingly bathed in fantasies of other men in bed with us and I felt like you’d rather make love to anyone other than me.

You asked me what I fantasized about and seemed disappointed when I said that you were the only man I had ever been with and ever wanted to be with. I wanted you more than anything. Finally, in order to please you, my husband, I would lie about my fantasies, tell you that there were other men I had thought about, dreamed about. I hated every minute of it!

Your addiction was now beginning to effect our times outside of the bedroom. We would argue more and more and you would call me bitch and slut and call me ugly and fat. You even pushed me a few times. You threw things at me. I could never do anything right. And you didn’t want to kiss me because I repulsed you. I just wanted to love you!

And then IT happened. You brought home an Internet account, under the guise of a present for me, and the end began. It wasn’t long before I discovered your real purpose for getting the Internet in our home. I found 7 responses to personal ads in our e-mail sent mail box. You told these women that you thought they were beautiful, sexy, luscious. All the words you used to use for me when we first married. You told them you were single. You even told them that you were bi-sexual. My heart shattered to pieces!

The websites you were visiting were becoming more and more degenerate until you confessed to me about finding a snuff site, where you could see pictures of someone killing someone while having sex with them. How utterly awful!!

I was terrified by this time! I was scared to sleep, this time not afraid of being raped, but afraid that I might never wake up again. I’d wait until you were asleep and then I’d sneak out to the couch and sleep a couple of hours before I had to get up and go to work.

Meanwhile, you were so engrossed in adult chat rooms and porn sites, that you wouldn’t get a job and every day I saw us go further and further in debt. I would go to work in the morning and you would sit at home amidst dirty dishes, messy rooms, dirty clothes and when I came home at night, you would greet me with, “What’s for supper?”, still sitting in the middle of a dirty house, untouched in anyway. I quickly fixed the supper and then I left for my second job, always asking you if you would like to come and help me clean the offices. The response was always the same. No.

I would come home late and crawl into bed, so tired I could barely walk...and then early the next morning the same hell on earth would start again, over and over, until my body gave out on me and I had to quit my second job. You got mad at me, telling me that I was always sick.

Then one night I came home from work and found that our telephone had been cut off. I was livid. I had no idea how far behind we were in our payments because it dawned on me that I hadn’t seen a bill for a couple of months. The day after work I stopped at the telephone office to find out how much we owed and how we could get it turned back on. Since we only have local service on our phone (you remember, I took all long distance off because you were calling your “family” and talking for hours and we couldn’t afford the bills) so I didn’t think it would be for more than $150.

Imagine my surprise when I found out we owed over $600!! When I asked for a print out of the bill, I hesitated to look at it. I knew what the calls were but I couldn’t figure out how you had them charged to our phone! And then I saw it. Collect calls from all over the United States. It was easy to put together what had happened. You had talked to women in the adult chat rooms and you had them calling you collect!!

I asked you to leave. We said we needed to separate so you sold our tools, our couch and our tv set to get enough money for the train and an apartment. I loved you so much, but I knew we couldn’t be together. We both cried on the way to the train station, but how could we continue the way they were? Two nights later, on our second anniversary, you called our neighbor collect and asked him to get me on the phone. You begged to come back, saying you had all your money stolen and you loved me so much that you couldn’t stand to live without me. I let you come back.

That was 7 months ago but things haven’t changed at all...at least, not for the better. You came home, determined to beat your addiction, but it was not to be beaten down. You asked me to change the password to the Internet so you couldn’t be online when I wasn’t here and I agreed. It worked for a month or so, but then one morning at 6 you woke me up, ordering me to let you online. I refused since I didn’t have to be up for another hour and I knew what you would be doing while I lay there sleeping. You first began by threatening to erase the hard drive of the computer if I didn’t let you on right then and then you turned to threatening me. You told me that if I didn’t let you on, you could “take care” of me and no one would ever find me because you’d use boric acid to dissolve all the evidence away. Terrified, I typed in the password, twice, because the first time I typed it wrong, my fingers were so shaky.

I went to work that day, feeling so very hollow inside, wondering if I wouldn’t be better off dead than to go home again. You pleaded and begged for me to come home and to forgive you. And again, I did. I loved you so!

Soon after, you went to visit your dad and came back telling me that you had a job offer there, far away from here. You then continued on to tell me that you couldn’t live like I wanted you to live and how mismatched we were. I was stunned. When it sunk in what you were telling me, I became bitter and angry. I couldn’t help but wonder if a woman from the Internet was tempting you away from me, although you always said no. I lashed back at you the only way I could, verbally. You came at me and hit me for the first -- and last -- time.

And here I sit, watching you pack, too numb to cry, too sad to feel. I have always loved you. I will always love you. You were my forever love. But your addiction is too much for me to live with. Good-bye, my husband, the man I vowed to keep myself for, to honor, to cherish and love forever. May God some day set you free.

your wife

For more information on the devastating effects of porn, click here.