[WikidPissah]

Crap, Crap, Crap....
I didn't get to T today. I had a medical emergency that sent me off to the hospital all day. Thankfully I was discharged...but that isn't the issue.

When I got home there was an email from T, I thought how nice...then I opened it and it was just a web address....spam email, so his account must have a virus. I didn't click on the link, of course...but I did notice the list of recipients from T's email list that this spam was sent to. One was a woman's name at puckerup.com. Yep, an adult only porn site. If he has her address in his address book, he must use it.

I am so upset. It's like EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. How can I possibly talk about my sa background with a porn addict? I would be so afraid he'd get off on it. My dad had a porn addiction.

OMG....I have never connected with a T before, and I've been at this for 6 yrs....3 T's..... and I connected with him...and I am not very stable these days....OMG.

How should I handle this? Just run...or tell him why I'm running? Man this sux.

[Elana05]

WikidPissah,

Or it could be from previous spam, couldn't it?
I hate stuff like this too. I'm sorry to hear this happened.
I think you have to confront him.

[online user]

Wow! That's one possible explanation. But he might also use (or have used in the past) a service-provider that automatically adds addresses to the mailbox. He might be on a mailing group for therapists, and it might be all quite innocent and professional. Like, Ms. Puckerup writes to the psychologists' list and makes a post. Your T just discards her post as junk mail, not realizing that his service provider's programming has already added her to his address book. And maybe he gets the virus that way too, from proper professional conduct gone wrong--virus inside what he thinks is professional email.

I'd ask him about it. See what he says. Another thought: He might have gone to the site to do some research if he has another client who is tortured with his infatuation with this babe, to see what it is really all about.

I saw recently that a TV talk show was doing a show on porn and the boom it's having, that many happily married men are accessing it online instead of being with their wives. Worth asking your T what is going on. You can assess how he answers the question and see if you are comfortable with him after that.

[WePow]

WikidPissah, don't rush too fast into the cognitive distortion trap of catastrophasizing. I work for an ISP (many years of experience) and can tell you that getting a spam email does NOT in any way mean that those are the addresses in an infected computers address book. In fact, the odds are against that because of the way spammers work. First of all, most accounts that are compramised use a spoofed email address. Spammers have TONS of different ways of getting email addresses. In fact, it would be more likely that your computer has some tracking software installed that picked up your T's address and that is why you got the email that looked like it came from your T. Not saying that is how it happened, but that is one of the ways spamming works. One of TONS and TONS and TONS of ways. I do this all day long with checking emails and seeing where things came from, and usually the bottom line is a combination of SOMEONE having an infected machine (rarely the machine name being spoofed - because that is the machine people first suspect and they spend too much time trying to clean it when that never had the problem at all), and people asking to be removed from lists (which just adds their real email address to a list that is sold to spammers).

So please don't rush into judging this poor T because he was the victim of spoofers.

Talk with your T about the event. That is the only way to get to the truth.

[lastyearisblank]

Oof, that is terrible luck. Hope he can give you a satisfying explanation.

[granite1]

i just asked my husband how spam works and he just explained the same thing wepow did.i wouldnt jump to to many conclusions at all.it probibly didnt come from T.

[WikidPissah]

My hubby is a security pc tech...he looked at it...too many things matched. No way it could have come from mine, he checked... plus there were too many matches for it to be a coincidence. I know that T didn't send the email...but it was definitely his yahoo email that was hacked.

ugh....there weren't that many names on the list...he told me he only has a few clients that email. There was what looked like his personal (home) email address, then a few normal yahoo or gmail addresses, a couple professional addresses, then a few that like porn site addresses...the puckerup site was familiar to me...I read something about it a while back. I can lookup the other address extensions....but I am not really a snooper. The names alone told me they weren't client names.

I kind of feel badly for him, several clients received this email...I am certain I'm not the only one who noticed.

[Kacey2]

Wow no matter what the case is, "Bad day for t." Even if you did confront him he would never admit it. Pretty much would be committing t suicide for him. Now the question is, "How will this affect your t relationship?"

((((((((((((((WP)))))))))))))))))

Wow, that just sucks, seriously...especially on the heels of a day at the hospital and a missed T appointments. I am so sorry. what a day!

The only thing you CAN do is talk to T about it. If you just never go back, you'll always wonder. Hopefully, T has an explanation that makes sense. I have a teenage son, and we have all kinds of stuff blocked on our computers so he can't access it with his teenage curiousity...but I can easily imagine a group of teenage boys at a sleepover looking around the internet for whatever is out there. So, maybe someone else was using his account? Or maybe T has a client who IS a porn addict, and there was a reason for looking at the site. Or, or, or... We can come up with all kinds of scenarios, good, bad, and otherwise, but unless you talk to him, all you have are guesses.

I hope you can rest tonight after your long day, and are able to reschedule soon with T so you don't have to sit with this for too long.

[turquoisesea]

Originally Posted by treehouse

((((((((((((((WP)))))))))))))))))
Or maybe T has a client who IS a porn addict, and there was a reason for looking at the site. Or, or, or... We can come up with all kinds of scenarios, good, bad, and otherwise, but unless you talk to him, all you have are guesses.

I also agree with WePow, that we really can't know if or why that email address was originally in your T's address book. So we can guess all we want or you could confront him about it. Even after confrontation you can always choose to end service and move on - at least this way you get his side of the story and the possibility of moving on from it. Good luck!

[WikidPissah]

Thanks everyone for calming me down. No way of sleeping tonight, between all the morphine and pain pills and this...forget it. I replied to the email, and the reply address was indeed T's (sometimes you can spot these things by hitting reply and a different email addy comes up), anyways I basically said: I received the following email, and it seems to have come from your email account, maybe you should have a tech check for viruses. As you can see it sent it to some others as well.

After H investigated he figured out that the link directed to a Canadian pharmaceutical company. So it was probably a fishing scam or something. Again I know T didn't send it. Several of the addresses were doc's and t's that work in his office with him. I don't know, all the other addresses look to be ones he'd have. I actually went to the pucker up site, it is mostly sex education (how to please your partner, mostly for glbt)...so it could have been a clinical thing. The others though...sheesh. I guess I'll just wait for a reply.

[gaia67]

I don't thik he owes her any explanatination. An interest in porn does npt a porn addict(or perv) make. Don't most men look at porn from time to time?

Originally Posted by lastyearisblank

Oof, that is terrible luck. Hope he can give you a satisfying explanation.

[ECHOES]

((wp)) I'm sorry this has shaken you up.

What came to mind for me is that I have never used, nor would have any use for, Viagra, yet there in my spam/junk folder the email to buy it appears....

[PTSDlovemycats]

I agree with what WePow said.

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by ECHOES

What came to mind for me is that I have never used, nor would have any use for, Viagra, yet there in my spam/junk folder the email to buy it appears....

Heck, I get e-mail "from" myself, offering Viagra...

[Perna]

PuckerUp.com is a highly respected author/sex educator's site; not just a "porn" site; it's much more complicated than that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_Taormino

I would go to your session and discuss the whole situation with your T, find out what's what and how it influences your relationship to know T might be corresponding/going to lectures/reading books by that person?

[WikidPissah]

Originally Posted by Perna

PuckerUp.com is a highly respected author/sex educator's site; not just a "porn" site; it's much more complicated than that.

Yea...well I don't think "highly respected" is accurate...she's pretty controversial... as I said earlier in the thread:

Originally Posted by WikidPissah

I actually went to the pucker up site, it is mostly sex education (how to please your partner, mostly for glbt)...so it could have been a clinical thing. The other(sites) though...sheesh. I guess I'll just wait for a reply.

I was just using pucker up as an example at first because I thought most people had heard of it. There were other address extensions that were questionable as well.

Will I ask him? probably not. It has me pulling back...again. For the past few weeks little things have come to surface that leave me wondering if this is a good fit for me. This is just another on the "con" list. If the list starts getting heavier on that side I will probably move on.

[gaia67]

WP I mean no offense by this, really. But...amI really the only one who thinks that her T's (legal) online habits are not WP's business?

[WikidPissah]

Originally Posted by gaia67

WP I mean no offense by this, really. But...amI really the only one who thinks that her T's (legal) online habits are not WP's business?

Honestly, no they aren't my business. This wasn't something he shared, it's some stupid virus/fishing scam that got him, and I feel bad for him because I've had that kind of crap happen to me. But it's not me snooping or anything that brought it to my attention, so I am not to blame either.

I am really sensitive to this issue, for very personal reasons many of which have put me into therapy to begin with. There was a thread a while back something like "what is your biggest fear about your T" and I wrote something like "him being a pervert". I just can't do therapy with someone who hangs out on sex sites. It's a personal thing.

[Perna]

I don't think the question is whether it is/is not one's business, Gaia, but if one gets an email from one's T that has disturbing information in it, one has to "feel" about it and try to figure it out. If you accidentally get something in your email you think is for you and it turns out to be a note discussing "murder" (or "porn" or any other words that are triggers to you) you are going to feel/react, whether you want to or not.

I think one should talk to one's T about it but sometimes talking here first can make one feel more comfortable either talking to T about it or understanding where one might be thinking and concluding things that may/may not be true and help calm one down until one sees/can talk to T again.

[Elana05]

Originally Posted by WikidPissah

Will I ask him? probably not. It has me pulling back once though...again.

I think it's Sunrise who has the quote, "Therapists are experts at developing therapeutic relationships." Imho, I think you should mention this to your T. I am of the opinion that pretty much any communication we have with our T is open to be discussed, whether or not it's messy. This just happens to be a messy one. But you didn't ask to get this stuff forwarded to you - and so you have a right to your feelings in this situation. You have a right to be angry. Even if you want to withdraw later I would argue that it would still be valuable to bring up your feelings, hurt, confusion, anger, disgust, whatever they may be to your T. Let him see them. Again, just some of my thoughts.

[Chloe2]

I understand why you would be upset. But I have been hacked, and I only knew becuase I got bounced back emails from addresses that weren't addresses. I went to my sent box and someone sent out an email to a combination of some, not all of my contacts and some addresses I have never seen before. I also would think your t would keep his personal and work email separate. But becuase of my experience, I lean towards these not being his contacts but the hackers work.

[darkrunner]

I feel it would be monumentally unfair for you to assume anything about your T without discussing it with him.

Between this and the previous incident when you were in the ER, it seems like you are looking for reasons to run from your T and to not trust him.

If you keep looking hard enough, I'm sure you will eventually find a reason not to trust him, as you would with any T, because they're all human.

[WikidPissah]

Originally Posted by darkrunner

I feel it would be monumentally unfair for you to assume anything about your T without discussing it with him.

Between this and the previous incident when you were in the ER, it seems like you are looking for reasons to run from your T and to not trust him.

If you keep looking hard enough, I'm sure you will eventually find a reason not to trust him, as you would with any T, because they're all human.

You're right. It would be unfair to judge him on this. It's to "iffy" and uncertain.

I know it may seem like I am looking for reasons to run, but that's not my history at all. I have had long term relationships with T's, and with others as well...most of my friends I've had for more then a decade...and h, 26 yrs. I am not a runner...it's just that I want to trust this guy, I really like him, but stuff keeps coming up to make me hesitate. This hasn't happened with other T's....but I haven't ever felt this connected with other T's either.

The ER room thing, he took the blame for. He said he didn't take the time to get all the facts, and he made a bad call.

[lastyearisblank]

Originally Posted by gaia67

I don't thik he owes her any explanatination. An interest in porn does npt a porn addict(or perv) make. Don't most men look at porn from time to time?

Yeah, I agree, I didn't mean WP should ask, "why do men enjoy porn??????" I mean that's TMI (though it might be fun to hear a psych explain it).

But I mean it would be offputting if WP came into the office to find porn magazines everywhere and t said, "that's none of your business, I have a healthy sex drive." (Pardon the example WP). For internet age etiquette stuff I am mostly at a loss so I try to go by how it would be in real life. Imho I would ask