You’ve got problems, I’ve got advice. This advice isn’t sugar-coated — in fact, it’s sugar-free, and may even be a little bitter. Welcome to Tough Love.
This week we have a man who’s unhappy with his wife’s career in the adult entertainment industry.
Keep in mind, I’m not a therapist or any other kind of health professional — just a guy who’s willing to tell it like it is. I simply want to give you the tools you need to enrich your damn lives.
Now then, let’s get on with it.
Hello Patrick,
After 20 years and two children my beloved wife entered the adult entertainment industry against my wishes two years ago. We do not have money issues. Great sex every other day. She has a learning disorder and never could excel in the professional world. Looks and a hefty dose of narcissism is all there is.
My wife is an outstanding mother to our children. It is killing me that she is willing to ruin our life together… Don’t know what to do next.
Lost in South Florida
Hey Lost in South Florida:
On one hand, if you’re not ok with what she’s doing, then you’re not ok with it. That’s all there is to it. There are a lot of risks involved in sex work, so it’s understandable to be concerned. And if she’s having sex with other people things can get real complicated (is she cheating on you or working?).
Also, this is going to be hard to explain to your kids, if they found out. If you haven’t already, you need to tell her that you think it’s going to ruin your life together. If she knows you just can’t take it, and that you’d be willing it end it all over her career choice, maybe she’ll give it up. Maybe.
But I’m guessing you’ve already tried that, LiSF, and it didn’t work (it has been two years, after all). So you need a different way to approach this. First, you need to stop treating this situation like a relationship nuclear bomb.
Outside of this problem — however horrible it may seem to you — your life sounds great. You’re in love, you have a decent marriage (with a woman who is a great mother), you have sex regularly, you have no money problems, and two children. I mean, if this porn thing was that big of a deal, you wouldn’t have plopped around whimpering “please don’t” for two years while it happened.
Second, you need to look at this situation from her perspective. Why do you think she’s doing this in the first place? You say it’s narcissism that led her to this, but that’s not really fair, Mister “I don’t want anybody looking at my wife, even if she wants you to.” It could be that she wants some attention that you haven’t been giving her. Or perhaps it’s because she’s a little bored with your “perfect” life and wants something more.
She’s a great mother, awesome, but maybe she wants to be more than that. Her learning disorder kept her from excelling in the professional world and now she’s found something she can (presumably) excel at — something that makes her feel fulfilled and good about herself. Dang, LiSF, she wants to be good at something besides just being your wife. And that’s ok!
So, instead of asking her to change for you, see if there’s a way to compromise with her here. Maybe you can overcome your prejudice against sex work and at least try to be supportive. In return, maybe she’d let you set forth some ground rules that would make you feel more comfortable about it all. For example, you could ask her to stick to camming, ask her to avoid contact with other entertainers, ask her not to show her face in her videos, etc.
It’s possible she just likes being watched, so maybe there’s a way you can address that desire another way (like sex clubs or voyeur shows) so she doesn’t feel the need to display herself online. Expand your boundaries here and find out what your real limits are, LiSF, then talk to her about it. I doubt her intention is to make you miserable. When it’s all said and done, if you honestly can’t muster a way to be supportive in some capacity, you should at least try to help her find similar fulfilment elsewhere. It’s obvious she wants something more.
Help her find it, or accept her for who she is now.
Comments
5 responses to “Help! My Wife Is A Porn Star”
Pat is exactly right! Your wife has found her calling in life: screwing other guys and getting paid to do it! And it can’t be cheating if she is empowered by it!
Of course you must support her! It’s not like you two made any vows to each other, right? Put rings on each other, said I do to each other and had kids too?
If you haven’t got any respect for yourself or your emotional and mental wellbeing, you’re children won’t either.
Here is what you know but need some else to confirm (it’s okay you’re human). Your wife doesn’t love you. She is cheating on you. She is still having sex with you because of the kids and the house.
It is going to be hard for a while but it will pass.
You will be angry and hurt for some time but it will pass. It will be hard to trust others but it will pass. Everything will get better. Take all the time you need, let your best friends and close family know and get a divorce. If you are struggling seek the help of a professional. You’re not alone in this.
You’ll get through this! Your children will still love you.
And Patrick, you’re a douche bag of a person for spinning the blame around on him.
I’m a self proclaimed SJW and I wouldn’t have that… Your calling no worries, but you’re on your own with that.
Simple question: where is the article stating that the woman is having sex with other people?
Hmm, I was going to say that the author was just an arsehole SJW, but lets put it to the ‘reverse’ test, and see how it pans out.
“Dear LH,
After 20 years, my husband has recently decided to start sleeping with many other women, often several a day, openly and with no apologies for it.
Further adding to the humiliation, these acts are recorded and sold online, as part of a pornography publication.
He has been a great father and husband, but this act has seriously undermined the trust in our relationship, and although I begged him not to, he continues to disregard my pleas and feelings.
Unsurprisingly I do not feel comfortable having sex with him anymore, and this further erodes our relationship and intimacy, and I see no way of rebuilding that whilst he continues to act in this way..
Right now, I have no idea what the children will think when they find out, or the social repercussions for them, and I dread hearing from someone that they’ve seen my husband in a video.
Help”
So, are you going to tell her to suck it up and support her husband in his philandering ? That she needs to be more supportive and understanding of his needs ? Maybe he should just limit it to the babysitter and her mother ?
You certainly wouldn’t be victim shaming her for tolerating it for two years, or suggest she hasn’t been giving him enough attention, thus being a cause for this.
Regardless of how the OP’s wife feels or justifies her mid life crisis, her actions have significant social impact on the family, especially if this was not agreed between both adults.
It’s not even as if she is being discreet, and doing clients at hotels, which for some husbands is a acceptable compromise; it’s a publication for world wide distribution.
(Personally, I find it hard to believe that someone would turn to LH with this sort of question, as it doesn’t lend itself as an Agony Aunt forum, and certainly not as an IT centric website.)
Yeah, I think my initial judgement was sound.
You’re both a hypocrite and a cockhead, and please stop burbling this useless SJW crap.
LH AU – do we really have to endure this crap writing from the US syndicate ? Really does pull down the intelligent tone of the AU site
This comment makes several assumptions. The first and greater is that the woman in question is going to become a sexual worker, but I’m pretty sure that if that were the case, the husband wouldn’t be writing for advice after 2 years (as you mention), or at least, he’d very specifically say so. But he says ‘sex entertainment’ which very likely means a camgirl or a stripper. The term ‘porn star’, which may have made you think about having sex with other people and selling the recordings for profit is an “embellishment” of the article for clickbaiting.
So let’s make that assumption, shall we, for your reversal exercise? A man getting naked or masturbating for others in camera… don’t you think that the hypothetical wife would receive a similar advice?
The picture I am getting is that of a prudish, boring husband who probably thinks that the most vanilla of sex is “great” because he enjoys it so much and a kinky woman who has been sexually frustrated for 20 years (in addition to being professionally frustrated, too). A woman who married young and has never in her life been anything else than a good wife and mother, always putting the needs and desires of others ahead of hers.
I’m actually not going to takes sides here. It is not wrong to be a domestic, vanilla guy and neither is it to be a kinky woman trying to for once take the reins of her life and do what she wants. The problem is that 20 years ago, society kind of believed that that the latter was wrong (and in fact, that the “ideal” or “norm” was the opposite–an adventurous, worldly husband and a domestic wife) and the woman felt the need to comply to those societal standards. Maybe, if they had met now, the woman would have already arrived to the realisation that being the way she is /is alright/ and so, understanding that the huge contrast of outlooks with her potential husband would cause a rift in the future, and call things off early.
I’m pretty sure that the woman has already paid her dues of tolerance and sacrifice through all these years so now it comes the time for the husband to make a choice: is he capable too, of offering those years of putting his desires and prejudices down for his wife, or not? Hell, I couldn’t blame him if he chose not to. As I said, it is not wrong to be the way he is either and if that involves an incapability to cope with the fact that his wife is an exhibitionist, then sadly that relationship has to end and there’s nobody to blame for it.
TLDR: “You are bad for making assumptions and basing judgements off those assumptions. Now let me make many more, way more spurious, dubious and downright ridiculous assumptions to base my way harsher judgements off”
For sure, I make assumptions as well. Which goes to show that passing judgment on the little information available is impossible.
Now, please show me how my assumptions are “way more spurious, dubious and downright ridiculous” and how my “judgments” any harsher. Seriously, what judgments? I constantly said that I blame nobody and that neither of the people in this scenario is wrong.
Oh, that’s right, you yourself admit that it was too long and you didn’t read. Yet you harshly judge me after making assumptions about me that… should we say, are a bit spurious?