He Loved Porn More Than He Loved Me

The discovery

In the darkness of dawn, groggy, I prized myself up out of my cocoon-shaped duvet. I knew he'd already gotten up as I’d felt his warmth leave my side; he needed to get ready for his early morning shift. Eyes fighting to open, I leaned onto the door frame of the front room, and as my focus adjusted, I saw him kneeling in front of the armchair, slowly pleasuring himself.

Stunned, I traced his gaze to what had enticed him: a naked brunette on all fours, splayed out over two glossy pages of a magazine; her smile encapsulating seductive powers, knowing she’ll give pleasure to the magazine's owner—drawn in by her nakedness.

An invisible punch winded me, almost knocking me to the floor. This was just the icing on the cake.

The boyfriend

He wasn’t handsome, and to be honest, a strange nut to crack. Throughout our very first date, as we sat in the park café garden, I chatted with him as if everything were okay, but I picked up on the fact he didn’t look at me once, only at the people buzzing around us. I knew his shyness was probably a lack of intimacy and a red flag, yet I had no idea where my boundaries ended, and where others began. I chose to ignore his odd behaviour.

I was twenty-six, emotionally damaged, and later I was to discover he was a misogynist and sexually objectified women. He had been my friendly neighbour—the only single guy in my block, with something unloving, hiding behind his sweet smile and I was doing absolutely nothing with my life.

Still, I had been happy in my own way; I had some temp work, I was reading new innovative self-help books, visiting friends, getting stoned, and had even been accepted onto an English higher education course to enable me to be a freelance writer. Most of these pastimes stopped when I blended my life into his.

Porn boy was strange. He ogled every pretty girl, but hated seeing me wear makeup. His personality would switch as soon as I said the wrong thing or wrong word, and even one time, when writing out a note dictated by him, as I wrote a capital 'A' as a large ‘a’ — his demeanor instantly changed, and he reprimanded me like so many other times. He was a clone of Dr Jekyll and Dr Hyde. His unpredictable moods and rages made no sense.

When I met his mother, I had an inkling why his personality was so flawed. She was peculiar and as hard as nails. Her wiry hair was a burnished mop of copper, which framed cold blue, cruel eyes. Her nose was pudgy, and she wore large gold sovereign rings on each of her fingers. When she spoke, her rough accent was littered with gross vulgarity.

Taken aback, I watched how she'd refuse to talk directly to me; instead, she'd talk about me to him with a she, or her, nodding in my direction, as if I weren’t even there. I never knew whether it was hate, plain rudeness or she just didn't possess any people skills.

The Jealousy

Earlier on in the relationship, we were invited by his best friend for dinner. She was tall, blonde, striking — a beautiful strong woman. I felt her power. Looking back, I now understand she was emanating self-belief and self-confidence.

As we sat eating and chatting, we all drank far too much wine. Inside I was seething with jealousy and looking for every sign possible to see that he fancied her, wanted her, and preferred her to me. I understand now, three decades later, that if I had been secure with him, I would have never felt like that, because those had been completely new emotions for me. His addiction to pornography, and the hiding of it, had made me feel I'd never be good enough.

On the walk home, my wine fuelled bravado ignited me to share my fears and he reacted badly. We physically fought too. When we arrived home, somehow, we settled, but when I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror the following morning, I gasped as I witnessed two unsightly black eyes staring back at me. I fabricated a story for work because there was no way I could let anyone see what I had allowed myself to live with.

The girls at work suspected what had happened when I finally returned after a three-day absence; the bruises had taken too long to dissipate. In other altercations, not only did I lose parts of my teeth, but mostly—my dignity. And even though I never failed to defend myself, I was thoroughly abused on every level.

***

And so that morning when I discovered him engrossed over the magazine, I was numb, too shocked to generate any words, to share how disturbed I felt. As a young teenager, I'd already had to deal with sexual abuse and the wide use of pornography by the adults around me; his secret need for porn triggered me. It was a war between my self-loathing and the model's beautiful entirety.

We pushed it down, yet it was there, tangible, and never went away. He would forever deny it going forward, still, when he went out to work or the gym, I would search desperately for possible places he'd stash his enormous collection, intuitively knowing it was there and that he was lying. My trust plummeted, and my obsessive need to know escalated.

One evening, I went out to work and, forgetting to grab some important documents, I turned the car around. I spotted him in the distance running into the newsagents to buy his fix. I parked my car away from our usual parking spot, and when I got to the flat, I hid quietly; I just needed him to admit it — it was so ridiculous. He came in, and I pounced on him, confronting his secret. As we fought, the magazine was torn into shreds. Underneath all of this was me looking for confirmation that he wasn’t the right person for me, and yet all the answers had been smacking me, quite literally, in the face, for all of the relationship.

****

I was fourteen when I was first (uninvitingly) shown graphic and degrading pornography, and from then, a very young, immature teenager, I was sexually assaulted, used, and shamed. I was taught it was how to be noticed and loved. I didn’t mentally know my way out of that chaos, and ten or so years later, I was still unable to see my worth, in allowing myself to get caught up in objectification once again.

Looking a million dollars

As time moved on, I worked harder, trained harder at the gym, and ran faster and more often around the park. I also took up driving lessons that I had ditched at seventeen and passed my test the first time. I stayed with him for three years, but that last year of growth was my year of my escape. I began to feel strong and good about myself. I was looking and feeling like a million dollars.

And I left him.

I look back now and there are many jigsaw pieces to the puzzle that I still am. I want to hold that young woman and tell her she should never choose to stay somewhere rotten, just because she has nowhere else to go to; there is always an option, albeit an uncomfortable transition. If she had me now, she would have never had to go through so much unworthy treatment.

Out of curiosity I contacted him twelve years after I left him, to tell him our beautiful grey and white tabby had been killed. By then, I had the courage to ask him outright why he had treated me so badly. He didn’t deny it, but he replied that he was unable to explain why, but he did offer an apology for the mistreatment. At least I finally had the truth I had been looking for way back then.

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