Many people contact Fight the New Drug to share their personal stories about how porn has affected their life or the life of a loved one. We consider these personal accounts very valuable because, while the science and research is powerful within its own right, personal accounts from real people seem to really hit home about the damage that pornography does to real lives.

Dear FTND,

I’ve been following you guys on Facebook for a while now and I feel the need to share my story.

My husband and I have been together since we were 19 years old. I was still a virgin when I met him. He was always very sexual, and I’m much more conservative. He looked at pornographic magazines and I’m sure he watched porn videos as well. As our relationship grew, he would kind of push me a little, saying that sex equaled love. I believed that love was supposed to one day lead to sex.

Eventually, we became sexually active and I ended up getting pregnant at just 19.

After we continued to date for a while, I found out he was still looking at porn. He had kept it hidden but when I found out I told him how uncomfortable I was with it. From then on, I would catch him looking at porn off and on and then would explain to him my feelings about how it made me feel. His porn habit made me feel ugly, inadequate and just bad in general.

Related: It’s Okay To Not Be Okay: What Partners Of Porn Viewers Wish You Knew

When the internet became popular, it worsened exponentially. I threatened not to marry him and that I would leave if he didn’t stop. But I became complacent. We ended up getting married and had another child.

Not long ago, everything came to a head. I went to sleep and he stayed downstairs to watch TV. I came downstairs a little later and caught him watching amateur porn.

After that, all hell broke loose. I had been in a very intense graduate program and didn’t have time to be checking his computer to see if he was still watching porn. When I did check, I didn’t find anything in the history. I realized that he was using private browsing so it didn’t track the sites he was visiting. So in my effort to hold him accountable, I found a computer program that would give me the history of the computer even with the private browsing. Eventually, he knew he was caught and gave me his username and password.

Related: 6 Ways To Tell If Your Partner Might Be Struggling With Porn

What I found was so much more than him watching; he was chatting with these women, saying things that should have been just for me and him. He was pursuing these women—flirting, chatting, and interacting. This made it even worse for me because I felt like I had truly been cheated on. I found out that he would even take off his wedding ring during these online interactions.

When the dust settled, he got in touch with a therapist after I told him it was the only way I would stay. Through therapy, he realized that he felt bad about himself and other things in his life and so he chose porn to escape it all. His drug of choice, porn, escalated from watching to interacting. Who knows how far it would have gone if I wouldn’t have found out.

Related: You Found Out Your Friend Has A Porn Problem—Now What Do You Do?

What’s sad is that we actually had a great sex life before all this. But ever since porn became the third party in our relationship, it has been terrible. We don’t have sex anymore and we’re just not close at all, emotionally or physically. I always feel like I can’t compare to what he was watching in porn or pursuing with these other women online. Seeing those instant messages triggered in me something that feels like post-traumatic stress disorder. He will say something that I read in those messages and I will automatically shut down.

I’m afraid that I was just a vehicle in his addiction, just a real-life object to feed his obsession. It’s awful. Porn has ruined my family. It’s hard to deal with because talking about porn is not as widely accepted as talking about other addictions.

– L.

Why This Matters

Unfortunately, this woman’s story is as common as it is heartbreaking. We get thousands of messages from partners all across the world who describe their similar experiences. Sometimes, partners can be mutually interested in healing the relationship and working through issues—other times, partners decide to part ways, and that’s the healthier choice.

The truth is, we don’t encourage people to consider the facts before consuming porn because we’re fun killers, we say it because research and peer-reviewed studies are showing that one of the biggest harms of pornography is how it affects relationships and intimacy.

Research shows that those who view pornography have a much higher tendency to objectify those around them and to be more critical of their partner’s body, looks, and sexual performance. Porn is at best heartbreaking and at worst downright destructive to relationships.

Related: The Science Behind The Slogan: How Exactly Does Porn Kill Love?

Our aim is to raise as much awareness as possible that porn definitely isn’t a healthy part of any meaningful, committed relationship. So many people in society, especially in our tech-obsessed generation, believe that porn really is just harmless and pleasurable entertainment, and that it can even be a satisfying substitute for love. In reality, we are learning that it is just the opposite. It is harmful to the consumer, and it makes single people feel even lonelier, and cause relationships to be even more difficult.

We’re here to tell you that love in real life is so much better and healthier than what porn has to offer, and we’re taking a stand to not settle for anything less than real.