WOW! Very good and deep posts. Thanks everyone for sharing. I think make up is degrading for women and a sign how we raise girls to become insecure women. (generalising enormously here Girls are told to look pretty, with nice clothes, nice hair, make up, jewelery. In other words, you yourself are not good enough. And you need to talk about your emotions and analyse everything. In other words; more self doubt. Men are raised on the other side of the spectrum. You can become dirty an be boisterous. Play rough and establish dominance with the other boys. Keep emotions simple and don't show them for that is weakness. So the brain is more suspectible to simple commands and triggers. It isn't trained for complicated situations. This is all partly genetics and hormones but like everything there is nature and nurture. I believe we can be way more nurtured and luckily we can do this ourselves. So love yourself. Put yourself in the number one spot, after that your relationship and partner the rest, even the kids comes third. For without proper self love you cannot love someone else. And if you put your attention on someone else you do not give them the space to be themselves. (and what use is diverting all the energy to the kids if dad or mum get depresses or seperate because they forgot about each other). So keep an open mind and mix things up. Make-up in itself is not bad. Someone thinking s/he isn't pretty without it does not sound good. Wanting love and sex isn't bad. Fixating on getting it one way might not be to best way to balance. Thanks again! Good to see good conversation.
@akitty820 I can totally relate. Because of my husband's preference for made up women in porn for two decades, I don't feel comfortable without make up anymore. I don't wear it heavy, but enough to cover any flaws I might see. It doesn't help that I will intermittently have a skin flare up from a medical condition that he has commented on before. It sucks because before Dday, I never used to be self conscious or looked for physical flaws in myself. Now I think about it everyday.
That is really awful. I can only imagine how terrible that is for a woman to hear As a male, I’m surprised that I’ve never heard I’m not muscular or tough enough, but a few partners have told me directly that I don’t earn enough money and / or that I don’t measure up in the pants department We are all beautiful and unique individuals with so much value - it’s a shame that media and even cultural values continue to pressure us into being what we’re not. We can’t all be models and lifeguards … nor should we all want to be!
I disagree with a lot of @Roady s comments and abrasiveness. He must not hear the tones coming across as he "you shoulds" on you. I'm sorry @akitty820. Let me give another perspective and my opinion. You know what is super hot and sexy? When my wife feels good about herself. For years and years I emotionally abused her. I didn't have the capacity to be intimate, empathetic, selfless, mindful or present most of the time while I was stuck in my behaviors. Whether she knew it or not she carried the burden of my destruction, apathy and betrayal for far too long. What was normal was she often didn't always feel good about herself, and I was no where around emotionally to help her grow out of that. So you say on one particular day, to boost some personal esteem you added some make-up. That's wonderful. You deserve to feel pretty, not for his sake but for your own. I think subconsciously we (men) also can feel a shift in mood or morale with our partners. Sometimes it is those subtle ques that almost give us permission to behave differently. We simply treat each other better when we feel better. So perhaps his sensing your little uptick in confidence, and self-love was a huge turn on for him. Hell, for years we beat her down, seeing her feel good for a moment is exciting. And since us porn addicts have very little emotional control, and/or an all or nothing mentality, it is no surprise he goes from cold to hot so drastically. The regulated in-between emotions are difficult and foreign to us. Yes your make-up could be fetish or trigger toward some porn scene or learned arousal template. But I bet it's more about a perceived invitation or openness where he can connect. Pretty, Sexy, Hot, Horny are his realm of emotional vocabulary. All the other emotions still elude him. We long to connect. We are just learning that in recovery. Also one of my wife's triggers is how I treat her the few days after we have sex. She feels so used and objectified if she vulnerably ever has sex and then I don't spend equal time listening, hugging, serving, sharing, etc. the next day. It is a very sensitive time in which I have to go above and beyond normal attentiveness, because it is absolutely essential for her/our recovery. Now about make-up itself. It is wonderful and beautiful. Sure it is just colors. But that's what makes it so beautiful. Vibrant shimmering colors, soft pallettes or bright attractive ones. Colors are beautiful, faces are beautiful, combining them is beautiful. There should be no shame projected on any woman for choosing to wear it. My wife has been a professional in make-up over years and I have seen the joy it brings her and other women. It's amazing to see her teach low-esteem women how to use it to enhance their natural beauty and draw out the life and energy from these girls who didn't see it within themselves. It has nothing to do with men or being made objects, or billboarding their faces as advertisments. Make-up is art, to dismiss it or berate it is to not appreciate it's importance and impact. Ladies wear it, feel good about you. There will be enough negativity and emotionally immature men around you in your life to bring you down regardless. There is hope in healing. Blessed be.
A few things come to my mind... First Thought: I wonder if you wearing makeup serves as in indicator to your husband that you are ready to make love? I know sometimes my wife sends me signals, and being the brute of a man that I am, I often miss them, but other times, I'll be like... "She's got that tone of voice and that look in her eye, we making whoopie tonight!". And... might you be subconsciously more agreeable and pleasant when you have makeup on... could you be thinking in your head.. "I put this makeup on and I am going to make sure my husband ravishes me in bed tonight! I'm not taking no for an answer!" Second Thought: For argument's sake, let's assume that your husband has a makeup fetish and only gets aroused when you wear makeup AND that this fetish developed as a result of porn. Furthermore, let's assume that the Fetish is here to stay, and no amount of NoFap will remove it. Why not just embrace the situation. It would be kind of like... hurting your back and no longer being able to run a marathon, so you switch over to riding a bike to get exercise. The bike is different, but not necessarily worse, and isn't life that way anyway... things change and sometimes that change is due to bad decisions or mistakes. I say, roll with the punches and make the best of a bad situation. Only downside from a dude's perspective is... it must suck having to put on makeup, and then having to clean it off, things could be so much simpler if only your husband would stop being so weird about things. I think you risk creating more problems by over-analyzing these things (I write that after a thorough over-analysis, hahaha). Third Thought: You must be a pretty awesome chick to both put on makeup to make your husband happy and be willing to talk to him about his PMO problems. And, your husband must be a pretty decent dude to be smart enough to marry an awesome chick like you. It is amazing we let little things like PMO complicate what at the base level should be an excellent relationship. Cheers and happy marriage to you two.
It hurts to hear you all say that, because I can empathize. Sometimes I am not very attractive to my wife. Either I haven't been a very nice person to be around or I haven't been taking care of myself very well (staying in shape, shaving properly, dressing nice), or my wife is in a bad mood. My wife is nice enough to not explicitly tell me, "I don't find you attractive right now". But, I sometimes it is obvious. However, I have had a lot of success not taking the lack of attraction as a personal insult. If I am in a low mood, I often am not the nicest person to be around, I don't eat right, I don't smile very much, I don't get a lot of sleep, and I don't find myself very attractive. Also, compound my monthly ups and downs with my wifes own high and low moods, then combine those with the stresses of having kids, and jobs, and in-laws... Emotions are complicated, even seemingly simple emotions, like attraction, are complicated. In an ideal world our spouses will always find us attractive and always be supportive and always be in a high mood. I don't live in that world. The next best thing is to be comfortable with myself enough that when my spouse doesn't act the ideal way, I don't take it personally and I see through the bullcrap and continue to believe that my spouse wants to love me, wants to be attracted to me, but they just aren't having the best day (or maybe I am not having the best day) or the best month. I guess what I am trying to say is... we need to love ourselves more and do our best to keep our spouse's low moods in the moment or for the month (sometimes we have bad months), from creating false realities of ugliness or unattractiveness. If you are in a good enough mood and are willing to help him compensate for his problem by wearing makeup, then do so if you want too, but don't turn his difficulty seeing beauty into your own negative thoughts about being ugly. Just because your husband doesn't find you attractive one night or many nights, does NOT mean you are not attractive. Feeling ugly because your husband is not attracted to you is pretty normal, but it shows you are giving credence to fictitious unhealthy negative thinking. If your husband will never you find you attractive, then leave him, but I would guess that he finds you attractive a lot, and we humans tend to fixate on the negative moments and forget about the positive ones. That is why it is very important to not feed into negative emotions. We all need to be careful about coming to the conclusion that porn addiction has spoiled our spouses or ourselves. Peel away our problems and we are still excellent people underneath. It is too easy to conclude that porn caused this problem or that problem, but most of the time, those problems are a result of ourselves or our spouses being in a bad mood or being in a negative place. Most of our perceived problems are transitory, if we try to tie every single bad action, thought, or statement to some root cause we just make the problem worse, because most of the time, we are just in a bad mood (maybe we are hangry, or sleepless, or something else).
I'm curious. My wife and I aren't the most attractive people in the world. I find my wife extremely attractive, but if I am being honest, we both are somewhere between 4 and 7 out of 10. Although, I think we have both aged quite well and our numbers are slowly going up in our age range . I'd hazard a guess that the more attractive you are, the more likely you are to marry someone who puts more importance on looks. Don't get me wrong... if what you wrote is a true reflection of the situation, it is hard for me to feel much sympathy for your husband based off what he has said.
I wouldn't mostly blame that on porn. I struggle with porn addiction, but I am not bitter, resentful, or a chronic liar and I don't think I am an anomaly. Sounds like you and your husband's relationship has gotten pretty terrible, probaby irrecoverable. I went through my FIL and MIL's divorce while one of them was using our house as their place of refuge... once the relationship started going, things got nasty, and both people stopped making logical sense and started acting out of pure emotion and rage. They fed off each other. One of my friend's had her husband leave her a couple of years ago, it totally caught her off guard, prior to the the split she thought he was amazing, now he is a 'piece of shit' who has always been a piece of shit. From the outside looking in, those situations were obviously made worse by out of control emotions. It is easy for me to say these things though... if I had to dissolve 15 years of compromise and life building, it would turn my entire world upside down and it would be devastating.
Unfortunately, studies show how men change the longer they look at porn. Are you clean? At least 4 month no porn, no m, no fantasy? Because if you aren’t, you see yourself as someone that most likely isn’t what your wife sees. I do not mean that as a dig or criticism. My husband thought he was a great guy. In many aspects he is. But until he was really clean, he had no idea how resentful and selfish he really was. He told me “ he always thought he was a great husband and father”. Now he regrets how he has lived for most of his life. He said” I don’t even know who I am”. Until he got clean, he was blind to reality. I know my husband loves me, and he has never said he finds me unattractive. However, his dick sure didn’t want me even if his mind did. Married 27 years, with in 32. This past year is the first time I’ve met the man who isn’t white knuckling or using. So I can attest that yes, pmo drastically changes your personality. It’s so sad.
I have read most of the studies, read lots of books, and been looking into this problem trying to help myself for years. I joined nofap about 4 years ago, prior to that I tried other websites. Been to couples counseling, confronted my wife, and other stuff. At this point I know that chronic PMO is a symptom, a coping mechanism. Or, at least that is what a bulk of the science shows. I have to say that with enough digging you will find that the science doesn't support a lot of the symptoms people attribute to porn. I used to think my constant anxiety was a product of porn, now that I fixed that problem, I know that porn wasn't the cause. I am a pretty happy dude, have a good life, not much bitterness here. I used to be pretty unhappy. It has been a long journey for me dealing with high anxiety. I finally kicked that pretty good, and that is one of the reasons I am trying to kick PMO again, I am a stronger person now than I was 4 years ago and an even stronger person than I was 10 years ago. I am happy for you and your husband.
I agree with you about some of the symptoms people attribute to porn! Take depression.. for my husband depression was initially why he turned to porn. Anxiety also. Porn didn’t cause it but did make it worse in the long run. I’m just saying that no addiction to any drug will leave you unchanged. Once the addiction is tackled, only then can u see other non addicted behaviors that may also be a problem.
Way to go on minimizing and gaslighting. You have continually told her that her feelings and perceptions aren't real or valid. Instead you keep excusing her addict husband's behavior. This neither constructive nor appreciated. It is very hurtful and harmful to all SOs whose partners have abused them through their addiction. Just. Stop.
I guess that if I feel strongly that porn is not the atomic bomb of relationships that many in nofap claim it to be, I should just keep my opinion to myself? I do my best to be kind, empathetic, and thoughtful in my responses. We can have different opinions and let the original poster decide for themselves without hating on each other. Personally, I think much of the marital advice on nofap is one sided and not healthy. I truly want the couples to find peace and love in their marriage. My research and my personal experiences shaped my opinion on these matters, just like yours shaped your opinion.
This is fascinating to me. My husband was already pretty addicted when I met him. However, he was never critical of me, or oppressive/insulting/angry. In fact quite the opposite. He has always come to me for advice, didn’t always take it, lol, but held my opinion in very high regard. He hated when I would leave the house ( he knew he’d act out and wanted so bad to quit, but to ashamed to talk about it). Even so, he always encouraged me to chase my dreams. He’s never been the angry type. It was more like he was just a shadow. Not good but not bad? If that makes sense. Not motivated? Whereas at work he was highly motivated, hard worker, and confident. At home, not so much. I’m really just now seeing him without addiction. I’m more shocked by the physical changes! His voice has changed! His face has changed and he has more hair, like he never had much hair at all. No more pied or de which he literally had on our honeymoon and I thought was sex supposed to take that long? I could list out the changes. I told my csat, if he had been like this our entire marriage instead of addicted, I would’ve walked through fire for him. If he had invested even half of the amount he is now, I would’ve said he was the love of my life and I couldn’t live without him. Instead, I think about leaving, running, never speaking to him again. His addiction destroyed our marriage. They can’t see it though. Not Until an addict gets clean, it was 6 months before my husband really acknowledged and SAW the damage he’d done. He saw that no, he was not a great husband. He was not the great father he thought. It broke him. He saw how very selfish, self absorbed and disconnected he was. He was so busy living in his head, he missed the joy of real life.
Part of the problem JustADude is that you aren’t clean. You’re an addict who is still using. You absolutely cannot view yourself, your relationships, or life in a way that is real/true until you are clean. So even in spite of your research, your view is still skewed. At least you are trying! I give you kudos for that.
I agree I am not clean. I also agree that being clean would add to my personal perspective and will likely change how I feel about nofap. Obviously, I don't agree with a lot of the advice given. I am ok with that. I am just trying to be another voice of reason. I was here 4 years ago. Most of the active couples were different but the advice seems to be about the same. That advice did not help me or my wife back then. Why? because BOTH of us had deeper issues. We both had lost our faith in the goodness of each other, we stopped given the other the benefit of the doubt. We frequently looked for signs of trouble, looked for faults, we frequently had bad arguments, slammed doors, scared our kids during some arguments, and vastly more sad days than happy or neutral days. Rohini Ross was big part of my marriage turning around. Maybe she can help others. https://thriveglobal.com/stories/yo...ts-but-you-don-t-have-to-take-them-seriously/ Of course, I realize we are all different and the same approach may not work for everyone. I assume everyone else knows that too and leaves space for alternative opinions.
