Get help for wife's porn habit before she does

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I just discovered my wife is a porn addict. She had to run out in a hurry to the pharmacy 10 minutes before it closed, so I went into her usually locked den downstairs (I came down to get clothes out of the dryer). The action on that screen made me sick. I had no idea she was into that stuff. I had wondered if she really had that much extra work to do the last six months and it turns out she's watching kinky porn instead. When she got home, we had a fight and she was very upset -- at being caught. She defended her right to watch anything she wanted since married sex was "a bit boring, not your fault, dear" and she said she needed additional stimulation to get her going. Miss L., she has been locked in that office for three to four hours every day for the last half a year -- and ironically, we're having much less sex than we did before. She could be working on something work-related part of the time, but why does the door need to be locked and the TV or computer down so low I can't hear it through the door? Now what? -- Porn Addict's Husband, Winnipeg

Dear Husband: It's a cinch your wife's not going for help just now, so you need to get proactive if you want to save your marriage. Get in touch with a therapist. They often see devastated partners of porn addicts before their mates will agree to go, as well. Since your wife is in denial, a local sex therapist says you need to get educated and strong so you can exert subtle pressures without scaring your wife away. She needs to see her behaviour in a different light and want to do something about it. Three to four hours a day with the door locked sounds like "a full-fledged porn addiction," he says.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I know I'll get killed for saying this, but women in Winnipeg are getting very cheap-looking. Even the nice girls look like a Kardashian. My buddies and I think this, although we don't dare complain about it. I mean, a guy likes to see what he can see, but a night in a bar these days looks like a hooker convention. Regular girls are wearing "ho dresses" so short you can see everything when they bend over. You sure couldn't take them home to your mom and dad if they were dressed up. The girls in the bar wear a lot of makeup including false eyelashes, false hair and weird hair dye, big and small tattoos everywhere, and they are clanking with jewelry. Don't get me wrong. I don't want a prude. I just want a pretty girl who doesn't look like a "working girl" who just got off shift when we're going to my folks for Sunday dinner. I asked my last girlfriend if she wouldn't mind getting changed out of her ho dress to meet the family and she went ballistic on me. -- Too Much To Ask? Winnipeg

Dear Too Much: It's the style right now, not a moral statement, so you're fighting a losing battle unless you get right out of the club scene and spend more time with sporty types, hard-working career girls in suits or serious students without the money to go dancing all dressed up. If you're taking a woman home for dinner, you might say, "We're quite casual in the family; just wear your jeans." If it's a dress-up situation, you could blame it on your mom saying, "She's a bit of a prude," but NEVER ask your woman to go and change her clothes unless you want to incite WW3. You're not her parent and you are a fool to shame someone you care about if you ever want to have sex with her again. Give it a year or so, and the styles will change.

Please email problems for Miss Lonelyhearts to lovecoach@hotmail.com or send letters to 1355 Mountain Ave., R2X 3B6.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 5, 2012 A15