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I’m new here but not new to this hell. I suffered a full blown breakdown after the first time I discovered my husband’s search history back in 2015 (just a year after we were married) I know what he was watching the night before our wedding. I know what he was looking at multiple times a day for years. I made him leave. We were separated for a number of months. He swore it’d never happen again & I went to counselling but he never properly engaged with 12 step or therapy of his own. I found he’d been at it again in 2016 to a lesser degree but it was clearly another addiction cycle & there was probably things I didn’t find (seems many of them the only admit to what you find, at least that’s how it seems to me). I stared getting awful full body panic attacks. Stopped eating. Awful anxiety & depression as well as our little boy to look after. He moved back in with his parents again. Our son was only 3 & was devastated. My counsellor told me I was suffering complex ptsd. I couldn’t watch tv or films without being triggered. Songs & music videos. Just the sight of the computer or any technology was too much. I couldn’t answer the telephone & ended up unplugging it (I only re-plugged it in a few months ago 5 yes later). I stopped seeing my friends & totally isolated myself. He swore all the promises etc again, restated therapy & 12 step & I took him back ‘one last time’ on the understanding he got rid of his smart phone & only had an old Nokia but once we were back on track he stopped 12 step & therapy again saying he didn’t need it anymore. Still, I felt somewhat ok as he only had the Nokia. Well I’ve been having that uneasy feeling again despite everything seeming ok. I got our now 8yr old a tablet for Xmas. My husband uses it a lot buying tools for work or new clothes etc. He didn’t realise that the google account linked to it is mine. He’s deleted certain searches off the tablet history but those searches still show up when I search Google history on my phone. I’ve not found any graphic sites but he could of used the incognito tab for that. What I’ve found is obsessive searches for various actresses, models in scant clothing etc. It’s a pattern I recognise. Jumping from image to image. So I printed it all out & left it for him to find after his shift. I put our son in bed with me & left a note telling him to get in little ones bed. I can’t go through this again. He’s broken all his promises. He’s broken all my boundaries which included me telling him back in 2016 that he did not have my consent to be intimate with me if he’s engaging in his addiction. He knew how much that boundary meant to me. These searches go back a month & he’s ignored my boundaries that were there to help me feel safe. Ive not said anything to our 8yr old. I don’t want to see him heartbroken he’s on the sensitive side. Husband is begging me to let him stay in the box room & that he’ll show me how sorry he is & it won’t happen again but I can’t believe anything when he’s lied repeatedly through our marriage. He’s chosen other women over me & our son again. My ptsd is running amok I feel sick, I’m shaking, it’s like that first discovery all over again. How can I ever sleep with I’m again? I don’t want another child to look after where I’m having to use parental locks on all technology again. I can’t eat. The thought of doing the school run in a couple of hours is filling me with dread because I’m a mess. I don’t know what to do.

Online images run into billions and you may be someone that is using them to self soothe. Afterwards you might feel ashamed, maybe even deleting image files, web history and the like. Then you promise yourself not to use images again. The next time the images you do find just don’t have the same effect. You start searching for the perfect image. The websites tempt you with thumbnails. History repeats itself 😐 If it does you may find it is impacting on other areas of your life and you are becoming addicted to online pornography. This online test will help you identify the impact:- https://thelaurelcentre.co.uk/am-i-a-sex-addict Our brains have a great capacity to minimise events. We can convince ourselves that the acting out behaviour is not that bad! The images are ok. It’s an agency for over 18’s, but are the models? Sexting is prevalent with an estimated 15% of teenagers doing it. Yet an estimated 60% of teens don't realize that sexting is a criminal offence, and the images are considered indecent. Unfortunately many of these images get into general circulation and are freely available. The Police estimates there are 150k + people in the UK viewing illegal images online on a regular basis. Some people (and that may or may not be you) slip into offending behaviour gradually over a period of time, and what starts as over 18 models, drops in age over time. You end up justifying it; “it must be ok otherwise the image would not be there!” If you have slipped or maybe think you have slipped into offending, there is anonymous help available at:- https://www.stopitnow.org.uk/concerned-about-your-own-thoughts-or-behaviour/concerned-about-use-of-the-internet/