This is the number one question I was asked more than any other in 2025.
“I told him I was not okay with porn when we first started dating. We have been married for years now. I just found out he has been looking at porn our entire relationship. What went wrong?”
If this is your story, I want you to hear this clearly right away. You are not alone. This is an extremely common question. And sadly, it is common because most of us were never taught how to actually have this conversation. We were taught how to state a boundary. We were not taught how to gather real information.
This conversation feels so hard for so many reasons. It feels awkward. It feels uncomfortable. It feels personal in a vulnerable way. And sometimes the truth feels even scarier than the behavior itself. Part of us knows that if we really hear the truth, we might lose the relationship. Our brains are very good at protecting us from short term discomfort. They help us avoid conversations that feel heavy. They help us cling to hope instead of clarity. They help us accept vague promises because clear answers might cost us something.
This is where curiosity becomes a superpower.
Most of us lead with judgment without realizing it. Judgment sounds like a declaration.
“I am not okay with porn.”
“Porn is cheating.”
“I will not be with someone who watches porn.”
Those statements are not wrong. But they also do not actually tell you who you are with.
Curiosity sounds like this.
“Tell me about your history with porn.”
“When did it start for you?”
“How often do you use it now?”
“What does it do for you emotionally?”
“Do you believe you could stop if you wanted to?”
“Would you be open to stopping if you knew it could make our relationship better?”
Curiosity helps us understand. Judgment often invites secrecy.
Here is the analogy I sometimes use with my clients to explain why declarations alone are not enough.
Imagine telling someone, “I will not date someone who drinks soda.” The person across from you might truly believe soda is no big deal. It feels harmless to them. So they think, fine, I will just not drink soda around her.
You did not learn how often they drink soda.
You did not learn how long they have been drinking soda.
You did not learn if they feel dependent on it.
And you did not find out how they feel about soda.
You only taught them what to hide.
For someone who genuinely does not believe porn is a problem, it can feel just as casual to them as soda feels to someone else. Not because porn is harmless, but because it has been normalized in their mind. So when values do not match, secrecy often grows instead of change.
This played out clearly with a woman I worked with this year. She had been married for three years. Before that, she had broken off an engagement because her ex watched so much porn that it damaged their relationship. So when she started dating her now husband, she told him very early, “I am not okay with porn. I will not tolerate any use.” He said “Okay.” She thought she was preventing the same heartbreak. When she discovered his porn use years into their marriage, she came to me devastated and confused. She kept saying, “But he knew. I told him. How could this happen again?”
What she had done was the very thing all of us are taught to do. She declared her stance and believed that was enough. She thought she had set a boundary. He heard her rule the same way someone might hear a rule about soda. To him, porn felt normal and harmless. So he made the choice to hide it, not stop it. When she and I worked together, I helped her step out of shock and into her power. She learned how to ask the questions she had never asked in the beginning. She learned how to gather truth instead of trying to force alignment. And once she had the truth, she could finally make grounded decisions instead of living in confusion.
Curiosity gives you something powerful. It gives you real information. Not fantasy. Not potential. Not what you hope someone will become. Reality.
I have also helped many women who divorced because of this same pattern. When they were ready to date again, they were terrified of repeating their past. So we practiced curiosity as a dating skill. I taught them how to ask men about their actual relationship with porn. How much they watched. What kinds. Why they watched it. What it did for them emotionally. Whether they had ever tried to stop. How they felt about being with someone who did not want porn in the relationship.
The goal was not to interrogate or judge. The goal was to know the truth early instead of declaring a stance and then unknowingly teaching someone how to hide their behavior better. These women became empowered in dating because they were no longer afraid of the answers. They knew clarity was kindness to themselves. They knew curiosity would reveal compatibility long before attachment formed.
There is also a hard truth we do not like to look at. We avoid these conversations because they feel too hard. We avoid them because they feel awkward. We avoid them because the truth might hurt. And sometimes, the truth might mean we lose the person we love.
But if you truly do not want to be with someone who looks at porn, then knowing the truth matters more than preserving the illusion. Understanding their thoughts and feelings about something you care about this much is not optional. It is essential.
Avoidance does not protect you long term. It just delays the pain.
After betrayal, the conversation changes. Safety becomes the priority. Boundaries matter more. Trust must be rebuilt slowly. But even here, curiosity still matters. Not the kind of curiosity that minimizes your pain. The kind that helps you see clearly what you are truly dealing with so you can decide what is right for you.
You are allowed to say, “This hurts and I am not okay with it.”
You are also allowed to say, “I need to understand what is really happening here.”
And you are allowed to ask, “There must be something foundational we missed in the beginning. Why do you think this is ok for you to do, when I said early on I wasn’t ok with it? Where is the disconnect in our thoughts about porn?”
If you told him you were not okay with porn and now you have learned the truth years later, that does not make you stupid. It makes you someone who trusted. It makes you someone who hoped. It makes you human.
You did not fail this conversation. You were never taught how to gather the information you needed.
If you are sitting in confusion, heartbreak, or anger right now and you do not know how to talk about porn without feeling like you are losing your mind, I would love to help you slow this down and get grounded again. In a personal coaching consultation, I help women make sense of what they are seeing, what they are feeling, and what their next step truly needs to be so they can stop living in constant fear and doubt, and instead learn how to move forward feeling empowered and setting boundaries that actually create safety. Use this link to schedule your personal coaching consultation now. 💛
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