Wife At a Crossroads, Husband At a Breaking Point

Ok, I will try and keep this from being a novella, but at the same time fully explain the problem. My wife and I have been married for almost a year now and we dated for several years before we married. When I met my wife I was a graduate student who was also a virgin. My wife asked me how I managed to stay that way for so long and I explained to her sheepishly how my porn collection helped with that. At first she thought that it was cool and wanted to watch it with me, which we did. However, she made the mistake of telling her mother (more on that later) who informed her that it was sinful and that I was not committed to her because of it. My wife then relayed this to me and told me that she could not be with me if I looked at porn. My decision was easy, I gave it up and continued on my journey with her. I looked at my decision as a positive experience, after all, here I was preparing to start a family and all-i need to grow up. However, my wife’s jealousy did not stop with porn-it was as if her mother had flipped a switch in her and she became increasingly jealous. Girls on tv, coworkers, even billboards were enough to set her off in an explosive rage. I believe most of the problem comes from the fact that she has had a tough past (she was adopted as a young girl because of an abusive family, she was then abused again by a member of her adopted family) and this has bred insecurity within her. I continued to stand by her and I secretly hoped that our marriage would sort of stem her jealousy by proving to her that I wanted to be with her forever. (which I do!)

fast-forward to today. We are for the most part happy-expecting our first child soon and living in a house that is nice enough for our small family. Unfortunately, the distrust and jealousy rages on. That in itself would not be so bad if not for the confusion that is now being caused by my wife. She is beginning to open up a bit, and because of this it is actually hurting our relationship even more because she is at a crossroads and cannot make up her mind. Last month she approached me and asked me if we could watch porn together-which I admit was very surprising. At first I told her no because of all the trouble it had caused before-however she assured me that it was what she wanted and so I eventually agreed. What followed was a week of pure bliss-we shared intimacy like we never had before and I actually felt more in love than ever before. Was it the porn? I don’t think so-i think it was the new “adult” feel to our relationship. We shared our innermost thoughts and feelings and cuddled more that we had since the honeymoon! Unfortunately, after about a week my wife began to act strangely-one minute saying she wanted to watch something and the next minute stomping off angrily when we turned it on. I also noticed that she was becoming increasingly paranoid-questioning my every move and accusing me of things. One night during a fight I took every explicit thing that we owned and threw it out into the woods-telling her that it was doing more harm than good. The very next week she came to me again, telling me that she wanted to watch it together and that she promised that she would be okay. At first she was, but then the same thing happened again. I have a suspicion that she has told her mother (because she tells her mother everything-which is another reason that our relationship suffers) and that this causes her to revert back to the jealous wife. My question is-what should I do? I am an adult and have been on my own for a long time now. It is difficult for me to have someone watching my every move and treating me like a child. I am tired of feeling like I have to ask permission just to go to the store or go play ball with my guy friends. I love my wife more than anything in the world, and I don’t want to hurt her. However, I also am a man, and while the porn is easy to avoid-girls in general are not. It’s hard to go anywhere these days without seeing scantily clad women who catch the eye-followed by me catching it from her whether I look or not. I have tried reasoning with her-in particular because she keeps telling me one thing but doing another, but thus far it has been met with a combination of anger and repentance. She is angry because she is jealous, but she is also upset because I truly think that she doesn’t want to be like that anymore-it’s just that she can’t stop.