My Boyfriend Was Addicted To Porn And It Ruined Our Relationship

My ex was addicted to porn... and the worst part was he didn't realize it.

Firstly, I'm not against porn; it can be a great way to spice up a relationship and try new things together. However, there's nothing more painful than feeling alone in your relationship when porn takes over your sex life.

Feeling alone, whether it's lack of intimacy, sex, respect or communication, has a detrimental effect on the relationship and you as a person.

In the beginning, when we were learning about each other, he discovered I enjoyed watching sometimes and it became a common interest.

It was kind of sexy to watch it together, use what we learned and get down and dirty with something new all the time without feeling weird or holding back. Our libidos matched and so did our open minds. I even bragged about my exciting sex life to my friends and talked about how wild we were in bed together. It was a fun period for both of us.

Now, fast forward to the moment when things took a downward turn.

I didn't want to have something else be a part of our sex life anymore.

I had realized for a while that he was still as into porn when it started getting old to me. I didn't want to have something else be a part of our sex life anymore. I wanted to be more intimate with the person I was dating, but suddenly that concept became problematic.

Needless to say, intimacy in a relationship should never be a problem. I started seeing signs of things I didn't notice before. Our sex slowed down significantly, and when we were actually in bed, it felt like I was with a stranger.

Actually, the more time that went on, the more I felt like he was hiding something. He used to stay up late because of his work schedule and the fact that he did some of his best writing late at night when the rest of the world was sleeping.

I never thought much of it since it was normal for as long as I had known him. When we got into a sexual slump, I also wasn't too worried since I had a lot on my plate at the time and he was changing jobs.

It was normal and I think lots of couples feel the ebb and flow of their sex lives in the bedroom. But every so often, when I came home early from work, I would catch him masturbating on the couch with his laptop.

Now, I'm not the type of girlfriend to get upset when my man gets some private time with Palmela Handerson every once in a while, but what was alarming was how he reacted when I walked through the door. He immediately got angry and acted as if I did something wrong.

What? There's something wrong here.

The worst part is that I would have been down to help him get to the finish line -- and even turn it into a fun segue to some fun for both of us, but he wasn't interested in letting me participate and made it seem like I scolded him.

It crossed my mind many times that I had caught him off guard and maybe embarrassed him since I would come home on a different mental level (read: stressed and not turned on in that moment), but then it began to bother me that he would behave that way.

I started researching porn addiction when I began catching him more often. One night, I woke up late because I couldn't sleep and found him yet again watching porn on his laptop when he told me he was going to do some late-night writing.

It began to feel like he was withdrawing and hiding something. I was less and less interested in joining him and it started to affect my self-esteem that he didn't want me to be a part of his pleasure.

I am a very sexually-open person and not a self-conscious woman at all, which is why this was such an odd situation.

I really felt as if I were not good enough. He had me in his bed every night, ready and willing, yet he chose porn, staying up until ungodly hours in the night.

He was distant, and if we did actually have sex, it was like I didn't know him.

I didn't understand; our relationship deteriorated. He was distant, and if we did actually have sex, it was like I didn't know him. He treated me like an object, he didn't care about my pleasure and if I asked him to slow down or not to be so rough, he would make me feel bad or get irritated.

He had started getting rougher with me and I didn't like it. I really felt like sex with me was a chore for him because he actually had to think about someone else's feelings and pleasure.

It was easier to open his laptop when he was alone and spend hours on his favorite site, without worrying about a real person involved. Somewhere along the line, I casually asked him if he thought he might be a little too into porn and, as per usual, he immediately got defensive and turned it around on me.

When I finally got through to him with some facts online about the effects of watching too much porn, he did seem concerned and told me he would cut down. He seemed like he really wanted to better our relationship and really did view porn as a problem.

I checked in with him regularly, with the intention of being supportive and open, and he started out proud and happy that he was watching less. He even started making moves on me more often.

But then he fell off the wagon.

I don't know exactly when or after how long, but he repeated the same old cycle of defensiveness, changing the subject and deflecting the blame to me whenever I asked.

I was never critical of him; I always made a point of being supportive and understanding because I knew it was a touchy subject. It got so bad that one night, when I desperately asked him to stop for the sake of our relationship and my personal feelings, he made a comment that was the breaking point for me.

I've always been on the small side when it comes to breast size. I even considered breast augmentation at one point in my early 20s (living in LA, it's hard not to feel that way), but I had accepted and loved my body.

I even got to the point of embracing my small breasts and going braless in tops that most girls can't wear without having a Janet Jackson moment. But one night, he finally let it out. After asking him about his fantasies to see if we could try something new together, he seemed a little distant.

I asked and told him to be honest, yet he deflected the question. Then it finally came out: He told me he sometimes fantasized about my breasts being bigger when I was on top and he had to visualize something different (i.e. not me) to reach climax.

It completely shattered me and I was never the same.

After I expressed how hurt I was, he had the balls to turn it around on me, blaming me for pressing him to answer my question honestly. It became a whirlwind of a toxic, passionless relationship with a lack of intimacy. It was cold. It was void. No matter how much we tried to turn us around, porn was more important to him at the end of the day.

I never thought I could feel so badly about myself, being such a confident and outgoing woman all my life, or how something so seemingly harmless could ruin our entire relationship.

It cut me like a knife. To this day, over two years later, I am still sensitive to new boyfriends' porn use and immediately question my worth or attractiveness.

This should not be the case for any woman -- especially because of some guy's inability to have a healthy sex life and intimate relationship with another human being.

If you would like more information, or to see if your significant other might have a problem, check out these porn addiction resources.