New journal

Do you and your wife know and understand betrayal trauma? You have severely damaged your wife with your lies. A good start would be the dvd “Helping Her Heal”, then the book Worthy of Her Trust. For her Intimate Deception by Sheri Kefer. It takes around 18 months to 3 years for her to heal if YOU do not lie. Her healing goes back to the very beginning with each lie and relapse. So, you have several issues and problems. You need to get into recovery, so you will need help to do that, she needs to get into recovery ( from what you have done)and she will need help, and the relationship needs to be healed. She will be behind you in healing, she needs to see concrete, sustained changes before she will even start healing. Once both of you are well on that path, with more work the relationship can be healed. My husband began recovery work 4 years ago. We both still struggle at times but life is so much easier, better and honestly just incredible… I will never go back to living with an active addict. Never. If you don’t change she will eventually leave. Or you will end up in a sexless, disconnected marriage, where she pretty much lives her life ignoring yours. If she’s still getting angry, you still have a slim chance. Once she no longer gets angry, you’ve lost.

 

I think a good start would be stepping up your game a bit. Get some more support by not only posting on NoFap every day, but also seeking out a group such as SA, SLAA, SAA, or CR. It seems like you're just trying to stop using willpower which is a horrible strategy. Trying new and different things will not only help you break free, but also will show your wife that you finally mean business.

 

I can attest to triggers being complex. For me it's taking a long time to process it all. Because so much if it is truly a subconscious reaction to an external stimuli.

I think it's important to not come down too hard on myself that it's a hopeless cycle and acknowledge that even though many of the stimuli can not be changed by me. I still control my reaction to it.

 

Yea I was just trying to add to what you stated because I agreed. It can get easy to be hard on ourselves especially when we know something is bad but don't know why we do it or don't know how to stop. I think this is something SOs don't understand fully when their partners are struggling. I venture to guess most here started as 12 year old kids. So it can be hard to identify whats happening exactly. Many of my relapses (and I bet others too) happen in a state of discouragement and feeling like we are a lost cause. I don't think that's the truth but those feelings creep in and it's important to not blame ourselves for having those feelings. It's important to face them realize they are natural, that we are safe, and respond in a healthy way.

 

@Warren of fleabags

This show has really helped me. In other ways than just P. But this one I think is really good.

 

Here's another good one.

I've listened to these and others many many times. I hear things differently each time as well as I process my feelings.

This one in particular I need to make a post in my forum on.

 

Making changes such as putting your phone away, will at first seem like an act. This is where time and consistency does help with healing. Only time and consistency will prove it’s not an act, not temporary, and a true change. One of the hurdles for us has been, that with the changes, comes a whole range of feelings. Not all good. For instance, in 27 years my husband only cleaned the kitchen twice. This was a huge area of contention. Since recovery, he has made sure the kitchen is cleaned almost every day. Before recovery, he was constantly on his phone first thing he’d grab in the morning and last thing at night. Now, he gets up and makes me breakfast, takes one of the kids to work then we go out for the day. Last thing he does at night? Talks to me,while massaging my back, sometimes its a few minutes, sometimes for hours. He’s been consistent now for almost 3 years. I no longer think or feel like it’s an act.

 

I'm going to attempt to answer this question. Why do I do this behavior?

I seriously thought and was experiencing in my mind the greatest feeling in the entire world by having physical sex. And when I say sex, I don't mean sex in the context of a relationship. I just mean the physical act. Doing the nasty. It didn't have to be with someone I liked or with someone I even knew. In my reference frame, there was no better feeling that came close to 1/10th of the feeling that I got when I was physically "doing the nasty". Of course, since I was too young at that time to find anyone to have sex with, I resorted to fantasy with MB, which escalated to porn. Over the course of years, I successfully conditioned my mind to continually use fantasy and lust, shoot myself up with dope, and left myself wanting more.

Although I saw how my behavior was damaging my life and my relationships with others, I couldn't stop because all the benefits of a sober life, greater self-esteem, better relationship with God, better work performance, better grades at school, better relationships, didn't exceed the astronomically high amount of value that I placed on porn. The diagram below explains it well.



So my conscious and subconscious self were simply making the logical decision. If porn is so incredibly valuable, why give it up?

But the truth is porn has no value. It's worth $0. It's completely worthless. Porn doesn't cure stress, it creates it. It doesn't relieve anxiety, but leaves me more anxious. Porn doesn't feel a void, it creates one. Because after the dopamine wears off, I'm left feeling more stressed, anxious, obsessing, craving, then ever before. And pleasure? The only pleasure I received from it was the pleasure of relieving the withdrawal pangs that were caused by porn to begin with. That's not pleasure. That's a lie, an illusion, a miserable existence.
But my mind, both consciously and subconsciously, was completely deluded. I was brainwashed.

The first step was allowing my conscious self to understand that giving up porn is not a sacrifice. How can something that has no value have any power over me? The only value porn really has is the value that I assign it. The only power that porn has is the power that I give it.

The second step was managing the fact that my subconscious is broken. There's no training or controlling my subconscious. I cannot teach it what I know. My subconscious is set on its old ways. So it's important for me to not expose my mind and eyes to those things which would cause my subconscious self to flare up and lead me to do destructive things that act against my own conscious moral beliefs.

I'm not sure if this all makes sense to everyone when it comes to answering that question. But it helps me to spell it out for myself. Thank you

 

I definitely agree. And with your attached illustration I think p is the one thing that is literally on demand that we can control completely in our lives. (When, where, how, we use. The type, etc.).

The other side we very much don't control. Like relationships, family, etc. And the others are often things that don't give instant gratification.

It's difficult to give up a quick easy feel good drug and replace it with something thats benefits are much more long term.

Very well written post @KevinesKay