I (M56) am in a kind of awkward situation right now with my wife (F56) and need some advice. I have been married to my wife for almost 34 years now, and we recently had a pretty big fight about something I did a while back. To sum it up, she found out about some embarrassing comments I made on a porn site that were kind of inappropriate. We’ve never had a discussion about where we stand on each other watching porn, but she was still pretty upset about what I was saying. I don’t really want to make excuses — it was pretty bad.
That being said, I am finding my wife’s frustration over the situation confusing and that’s making her even more mad. I’m pretty confused because I’ve been making horrible comments for the entirety of our marriage and she’s never really had a problem with it until now.
For example, one time I was at church and I made a comment about how sexual education for young women was not necessary and we really just needed to teach them how to get their crotch regions under control. I feel like this was pretty awful to say, but my wife didn’t really seem to care then. She is saying I am a hypocrite and that I’m the one who needs to get my crotch under control. Why is she so bothered about this now, but she didn’t care then?
I honestly feel like that's not even the worst of what I say. She was especially mad about one comment I left about being a Black Nazi. Which, like, I kinda am? I know it’s bad, but I tell my wife constantly about how the Holocaust was fake and she never says anything. I even quoted Hitler on Facebook and she liked the post? I thought all of that was making it pretty clear that I’m a Nazi.
Here’s where I might actually kind of be the asshole. Basically, in one of these comments I revealed that when I was younger, I had this thing where I would peep on girls while they showered through a vent. I’m not even really sure why I posted that. It just seemed like a porn site was the only place I could go with that information. I even called myself a perv.
Anyway, my wife was super mad about this. She said that she didn’t want to be married to a man who would objectify women like that without their consent and would publicly admit that they were a pervert. I understand what she means, but again, I don’t really think this is surprising information to her. One of my closest friends, Don (M78), who I talk about all the time, already has at least 19 sexual misconduct allegations.
I tell my wife all the time how much I love Don and how much I look up to him, and she knows about these allegations he has. I am confused as to why she thought that I would respect women.
I guess my point is that I feel like I’ve made it very clear for years that I’m a pretty awful guy, so I don’t know why she is acting so shocked. I thought she knew I sucked. All of our friends are completely divided on this situation. Even Don isn’t fully taking my side. I just feel like I’ve been given the short end of the stick. Maybe I am the asshole, but I’ve at least always been an asshole. Not just on porn sites.
I have a pretty big opportunity for a job promotion coming up and I’m really starting to worry that this might get in the middle of that. Should I apologize to my wife, or is she acting unfairly?
