My husband became addicted to porn while I was pregnant; now we barely have sex

Is a lack of sex driving your marriage apart? Photo / Getty Images

Rachel Johnson, a journalist, author of eight books, broadcaster and host of the Difficult Women podcast, answers sex and relationship questions.

WARNING: This article deals with sexual content.

Q: Dear Rachel,

I’m turning 30 soon and I love my husband to bits. However, we barely have target="_blank">sex: it can be once in several months to once a year. We’ve been married for more than four years and have two babies. Things have been dull from the beginning. It got worse when I first got pregnant. I still fancy him and he says he loves me, but he is not excited about having sex with me and doesn’t find me interesting that way. However, he is not ready to let me go either. The problem is, he had been addicted to porn and sexting, which came to an end after I found out about it during my first pregnancy. Thereafter, it had always been me who usually made the first move when it came to initiating sex.

- Miranda

A: Dear Miranda,

In your longer letter, you reveal you come from a “conservative culture” and that sexual problems and divorce are both taboo subjects in your community, which makes it all the harder - so well done reaching out to me. This is an important first step. There’s a lot going on and wrong here.

First, porn and sexting. So he still has desire, but he’s directing it elsewhere. The overuse of porn can have negative consequences for “normal” sex as it habituates the gaze and conditions one’s response.

You’re very young. You have so much ahead of you, and 30 is far too young to give up on sex or have it once a year with the man you say you love to bits. As he doesn’t want to discuss this, and you don’t want a divorce, your options are limited. It seems to me that you have to be discreet. If you can’t get help or see a couples’ counsellor with him, you will have to find satisfaction and intimacy outside the marriage or leave him.

You don’t say whether you had sex before the marriage but reveal it has been “dull” from the off, which could explain why he has turned elsewhere and you are climbing the walls.

“Can they, together, change the script so that sex becomes more satisfying for both? Can they share their fantasies?”asked therapist Sophie Haggard after I showed her your letter. “Show each other what they like? Watch porn together?” She says you are choosing to be with someone who rejects you, which is repetition compulsion. “Can she see how her choice may have links to her past? Insight can sometimes be liberating. If divorce is possible in her culture she might, with increased awareness - i.e. through individual therapy - find herself able to choose someone who doesn’t reject her.”

Good luck, young woman. Remember what my father always says when you think about your marriage and the future = you are a long time dead.