I found porn on my husband’s iPad

DEAR BEL,

I’M IN my early 60s and married for the second time last year. My husband is a little older. More than anything, we’re best friends: it’s wonderful to have a companion to travel with and share interests.

My husband gets on well with my family and friends, who all say I look really happy now, as I’ve had a lot of sadness in my life. He’s kind and loving, and adores me, so I feel very lucky.

My difficulty centres on the physical aspect of marriage. I am not a particularly sensual person, although my husband finds me very attractive. We’ve had a good sexual relationship, although I always feel it’s more important to him.

A few weeks ago, I used his iPad and was shocked when I looked something up and the device flashed addresses of pornographic sites that he’d visited. It was so unexpected and shook me to the core. I’m not able to get over it easily.

He and I have talked. He’s ashamed — and horrified by how I found out. First, he said it was before we were married, but later he confessed that he’d been doing it more recently.

I want us to return to our happiness, but find it difficult as I don’t trust him. My first marriage broke up 20 years ago over my ex-husband’s infidelity; perhaps that’s why I’m finding it hard to move on. I just don’t feel the same towards him.

Our sex life is nearly nonexistent now and I’d rather cuddle and be friends, but he wants more and thinks I’ve over-reacted. Have I?

ANN

This isn’t the first time you’ve written to me and have previously shared something of the sadness in your life, but i’ve never printed one of your letters before. Because i feel i know you, i’m especially sorry to read of this (not uncommon) upset.

it has a bearing on recent letters about sex from men — as well as the one from ‘Avril’ (Mail, October 6), who was cheating on her husband with her friend’s husband, all of them in their 60s.

The justification for actual or imaginary (eg, accessing porn) infidelity goes like this: if a person needs sex and the person they’re with isn’t ‘providing’ it, how can they help but look elsewhere?

Of course, philosophically and morally that doesn’t stack up. it would excuse any kind of theft: i haven’t got it, i want it — so i take it, at whatever the cost to myself or to others.

Unless we are all prepared to acknowledge that our selfish wants/needs are

not more important than the greater good, society falls apart.

so what is ‘the greater good’ here? surely the second marriage that has brought you so much happiness? i totally understand your shock at discovering the man you thought you knew well was looking at porn websites. i would feel exactly the same — and my husband would go down in my estimation. For a while.

Then i’d tell myself that men are different, that i didn’t marry a saint, that i might hate that nasty stuff (which i do), but if he gets off on it and it helps his sexual frustration, then so what? Would that stop me hurting? Partly.

i’m afraid we can’t control the imaginations of those we love, which is why they are best closely guarded. What we can do is decide to forgive — for the sake of the greater good.

No, i don’t think you ‘overreacted’, but i do believe you can come to terms with this blip. if your husband loves you and values your shared happiness, he will promise never to visit those sites again — and you will believe him.

But say a day were to come when he has a look (and you don’t know), you should ask yourself seriously if that would damage your life.

in my view it wouldn’t. We are all flawed and have to compromise in order to live together. so value all the wonderful times you share, decide together that your cuddles are as important as his needs — and live with that complexity.