From a meeting held by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, compulsive pornography consumption factored into 56% of all divorces. As there are more than 1 million divorces in the United States per year, more than 500,000 marriages end because of pornography.
When finding their partners consuming pornography, studies have found that women largely feel betrayed, mistrust, anger, despair, and loss.
The next question, then, is whether pornography consumption occurs as a symptom to an unhappy marriage, or whether the pornography consumption itself is a catalyst to an unhappy marriage. Per sociologist Samuel Perry, he believes that there is enough data in surveys and studies to suggest causation in these findings, meaning that pornography consumption is a precursor to divorce. This directional analysis is supported by pornography expert, Ana J. Bridges.
When women in marriages stop watching pornography, their divorce rates decrease from 18% to 6%. As for men, surveys and studies were inconclusive because the majority of them would not stop consuming pornography. However, it is worth noting that men who had affairs were three times as likely to be a consumer of pornography, and men who paid for sex with a prostituted person were four times as likely to be a consumer of pornography.
Furthermore, of women who divorced due to the sexual violence perpetrated against them by their husbands, upwards of 1/3 said that pornography had played a direct role in their being sexually abused.