Q Dear Doc, I think I am a fairly attractive married woman. Many guys hit on me, expressing how they would like to date me if they had the chance, and stating their admiration for my looks and personality.

My husband and I have been married for 11 years, and are still 'best friends'. Sex has always been good, but recently, I have not been getting any. We go four weeks or longer without making love, but this is not MY choice! I get miserable because of that.

When I speak to him about it, he agrees to have sex with me, in order to appease me. Then my husband will tell me how great my body looks, how nice my curves are and so on, but when he has got me excited, he just says 'I would really like to have sex now, but I have to go to work.'

What is making it worse is that I know he masturbates a great deal. He has started enjoying porn on the screen and masturbating to it. This has now become part of his lifestyle. I will be in the kitchen cooking, and when I return to the bedroom I find that his TV is on porn.

Many nights we will be watching television in bed, and I fall asleep before him, because all he wants to do is look at TV. In my sleep, I am awakened bythe sounds of him masturbating.

I cry every day, because it feels as if I am competing with the girls in the porn films. I feel as if I am not sexy, and that is why he has to turn to the porn for better gratification.

I can't compete any more. I know that sometimes he is happy when I leave the house for a few hours, because that means that he can be alone with his on-screen porn. I sometimes catch him in the act, and he looks embarrassed and stops immediately. Sometimes he comes home tired from work, and says how exhausted he is - but he is not too tired to watch blue movies and get off.

Please help me. I think I am going crazy, and I feel that the first guy who shows me some attention or affection, I might just turn to him. Help !

A I am real sorry to hear about this appalling situation. Unfortunately, your story is NOT an unusual one these days.

In the last few years, a strange phenomenon has occurred all over the world. Men have discovered that it is incredibly easy to sit down in front of a computer, or perhaps a TV, and find pictures of pretty girls getting up to almost any kind of sexual activity. Some of these guys move on to getting involved in online sexual chats - or even to dating women who they have contacted via sex lines.

I am not talking about the 'average Joe' who occasionally switches on his computer and types in keywords like 'beautiful' and 'breasts,' smiles at what he sees - and then moves on.

No, I am talking about guys who prefer on-screen sex to the real thing - guys who spend hour after hour in front of their personal computer or TV, continuously staring at the pornographic images - and usually masturbating. Psychologists describe these men as 'sex addicts' or 'porn addicts.'

Now, I am afraid that this is what your husband has become. He is addicted to watching naked girls disport themselves on the screen. His primary source of sexual satisfaction has become not YOU - but these two-dimensional women.

Why has this happened? Well, experts say that these addicted guys cannot cope with all the difficulties of committing oneself to a real woman, and satisfying her sexually. Instead, they find it easier to react to female images on a screen, since these images don't require any communication or consideration, or even conversation. All the man has to do is masturbate.

This is really very sad. The causes of such behaviour probably lie in the guy's early life, when he somehow picked up the idea that the important thing in life is to 'satisfy yourself' - and not to fret about the feelings of other people. Unfortunately, the Internet and porn TV have given these guys the ideal opportunity to devote themselves to self-interest, self-satisfaction and masturbation - while completely ignoring the needs of the women in their lives.

So what can be done about your marital situation? Well, I think you should confront your husband and tell him that you have taken my advice, and that I have diagnosed that he is a sex addict.

Then urge him to seek treatment from a therapist. That is really the only hope for him. If he does not seek therapy, he is just going to spend the rest of his life 'jerking off' in front of a screen.

Frankly, if he cannot accept that he must get help to change his behaviour, then I feel there is very little hope for this marriage. I wish you well.