Living with porn

Does your partner look at porn on the Internet? Does this upset you? Susan Quilliam outlines how to deal with your partner's interest in porn

Porn on the Net. It's there, it's not going away and to some extent, as a woman, you can ignore it.

But you can't ignore it if your man keeps accessing it, if you keep coming home to find him drooling over naked bodies on the screen. As iVillage's Couples' Counsellor, I know that an increasing number of men are using the Net for erotic pleasure and an increasing number of women are having to cope with that fact.

Women tell me they feel rejected by their partner's use of porn - surely if they were sufficiently beautiful or compelling, then he wouldn't need to look at these images? Women often feel betrayed. They consider porn a form of infidelity. If a man knows how his habit upsets his partner and still carries on accessing it, there's the added hurt of unkindness. Worse still, if he promises to stop and then carries on in secret.

So how can you cope? There are only three solutions to this situation.

Change what he does
Your first approach should be to ask your partner to change his habit. Many men don't realise how hurtful it is to their partner that they look at porn. They don't understand why their habit is upsetting.

Young and inexperienced men, in particular, are used to gawping at porn with their mates and view it as just a bit of a laugh. But if you can explain how hurt and insecure it makes you feel, he may stop. Another tactic is to show him how sad and immature you find his porn habit.

That said, don't bother giving your man a hard time if he doesn't see anything wrong with porn and won't give it up. He'll only stop if he's willing. If a man doesn't want to give up, or doesn't see why he should, pressurising him won't make any difference. He will probably carry on - secretly. Like many women when pushed, men use the 'what the eye doesn't see, doesn't hurt' tactic.