Help, please? Husband's disturbing interest in incest

Hello All,

Thank you so much in advance for any advice you could give me. I'd be very grateful if you could point me in the direction of how to begin to approach this.

Today I discovered that my husband watches pornographic videos categorized on porn websites under "incest," "family," "sister," "rape," and even "daughter." I was using his computer and could see that he's used these search terms to find videos with this content, repeatedly -- at least 20 times that I could see, last week.

My husband is a wonderful person. We have a 2 year old daughter.

But obviously I'm very shaken.

He comes from a very disturbed family. Although he insists that no sexual abuse went on, the subject of child abuse and strange sexual behavior comes up again and again. My husband's sister has raised the question with him more than once before: "Do you think our father molested me?" (She decided that, no, he had not, because she has no memory of it.) Meanwhile, my husband openly describes the atmosphere in their childhood home as "highly sexually charged," with his father continually cheating on his mother, and the children constantly made aware of the sexual dynamic between the parents. All sorts of alarm bells have gone off, again and again, in my view. Among other circumstances, my husband never had sex or entered any sort of romantic relationship until he was 29 years old. Both siblings have intense feelings of anger and rage at their father. Both have had problems with sexual and romantic relationships. On vacation a few months ago, I came into our hotel room, and found my husband standing naked in front of his sister, having a casual chat. These are very button-up British people -- hardly the nudist sort! -- and when they realized I'd seen this, they independently offered different explanations for their behavior, which I knew to be patently false.

Obviously, we have a big problem that needs to be addressed. I've spoken with my husband just now, a long and quite calm discussion, and he claims that there is absolutely no history of molestation or incest whatsoever -- despite the difficult and disturbed childhood.

Meanwhile, however, he did admit that he has a sexual interest in the whole area of incest (which is, obviously, sexually, emotionally, and in every way repellent to me). He claims this is interest is only, exclusively, in "the realm of fantasy," and that's he interested in anything/everything that might be exciting because it is "a bit taboo." (A "bit"?? I think not.)

Do you all think this is almost certainly evidence of past sexual abuse/trauma/incest? Or not?

My husband thinks many men might look at such videos, but I find that extremely hard to believe.

Obviously, this creates a terrible problem in terms of our own sex life, too (because it is so repellent and repugnant to me, and if that is what he desires, it is very disturbing to me).

Any thoughts or advice you might have, for how I could begin to disentangle this -- or how to seek advice -- would be very very very gratefully welcomed.

By the way: We live in a very small town and have very little money. So although I would be determined to find a way to get counseling, it will be very difficult.

THANK YOU!
Sailor in Canada

I know for a fact that interest in incest is not normal. Given his strange background, You have
the right to be concerned. Keep trying to talk to him about it. Watch his behavior around children.

Obviously incest is not "normal" in the sense that it is not the majority behavior, but incest fantasy is quite widespread, as is the actual occurrence of incest. Given the rage he and his sister feel for their father, perhaps they were driven emotionally close together and developed strong emotional support that leaked into something somewhat incestuous. Maybe that's why he pursues incest in fantasy, to avoid enacting it. The fact that they are comfortable naked in front of one another may present a slippery slope to him cheating on you with her, but that is possible (given the circumstances) regardless of whether or not they were abused as children. But consider if they were? Why would you hold them accountable for it or be repelled by it? Wouldn't that just mean that he needed your support even more? How is your love for him conditional on his being abused in the past? You should be grateful that he has been able to overcome that abuse and be such a good husband and father despite it. Maybe engaging in those fantasies is his way to take ownership of the concept of incest and allow him to deal with it. Maybe masturbating is the only way he can comfort himself when he feels compelled to revisit disturbing memories. Whatever the case may be, your husband is relying on your emotional support. Your marriage vows did not include any provisos in the case of his sexual interests being different than your own. Life and marriage are about learning and growing.

I've read some posts here that could be interpreted as American prudishness in conflict with European mores about nudity. Not sure here. I look at a lot of porn situations or concepts that I would never act on - sort of the point of porn in a way. Then again, I am a 'victim' of incest.

I think the male libido is pretty ugly to look at no matter who is under the microscope. Erotica itself relies on breaking taboos, plus we live in a brave new world absolutely plastered with porn from stem to stern.

I may have a jaundiced view because I've experienced incest, but I wouldn't call the police or anything.

I can see why you'd feel jealous of the sister if he's fantasizing about bro/sis incest though.