Hey guys. So I started dating my now ex-girlfriend around 2 years ago. Everything at first was great and I was very much attracted to her. I showed her a lot of attention and you could tell that I wanted to be in the relationship. Fast forward a few months into the relationship and I started to masturbate regularly, first without p then with it. I’ve always delt with an addiction to p, but I had stopped doing it because I was in a relationship and it felt like cheating to me. It got to the point where I would use p a few times a day some days, all this time I never told her about any of it. Looking back on it, I think I started to break down and lose interest in the relationship when I started to heavily use p. Suddenly, instead of me wanting to do all this stuff with her I just wanted to sit around. I stopped wanting to share my emotions with her, it’s like I wanted out and it only got worse as time went on. I started thinking about other girls, and thinking I could do better. Keep fast forwarding to now, I heavily used p in our relationship for the past year and never told her. She always complained that I never wanted to hangout with her, or gave her enough affection which I honestly didn’t. We regularly had sex but it wasn’t anything but the action. We just broke up and I feel a lot of things, but I honestly want her back and thinking how I could improve myself I thought about quitting p. I’ve been 5 days clean now. I’m just wondering if anyone has dealt with similar things, or thinks that me quitting p might actually restore my interest in her. I don’t expect this to happen over night, but I really want to be attracted to her again and be the boyfriend she deserved. Thanks guys.
Hey man, welcome! Sorry to hear about your relationship, it must be a difficult and confusing time for you. I think most men that are in a relationship or were while being addicts to P ran into a similar crossroad. My advice would be first and foremost to sit and think very well on what is it that you really want. You have to choose between porn or the relationship and commit to what each one of the choices may imply. There's other choices (like a life without p and no gf) but i wanted to highlight those because in the scenario you presented one excludes the other. Both will be really difficult. If you chose the relationship then you have to start a journey to change yourself. I cant stress enough that if you chose to be in a relationship you really need to commit to the recovery and do whatever it takes to make it happen. Otherwise you are taking your partner for granted and that in the end means failure for the relationship and whole lot of trauma for your partner that she probably doesn't deserve. It makes the pain for you and her extend for years. This is comming from someone that half arsed the recovery, so if I could offer something from experience is commit fully. Go step by step but fully comited. Also to clarify on the previous point, if you are planing on recovering so you can get your ex or gf back, it may not work. You gotta do it for yourself first. Gotta do it because you are so sick of the pain that porn causes that you want to get rid of it for ever. If when you think of porn there is a burning fire inside that makes you feel like running away from it, well that is probably a good sign. On the other hand if you chose P you are choosing to hurt your life and alienate yourself from a what a "normal" life may be. Actually growing a voice inside of you that basically cheers to self destroy you slowly. One last thing, I'm not exactly sure what your journey has been with P, but my advice comes from someone who has struggled for a long time with porn, so it's easy for me to advice looking back. Maybe from someone that hasn't been through all that doesn't make a whole lot of sense but if you have the time to slow down and think with your heart of the possible outcomes your decisions could create then I have helped you! Good luck man, and remember: you are the owner of your life, not porn.
I appreciate the support. I am still very much in the early stages of our breakup and haven’t had time to fully understand how I’m feeling and what I truly want. Everything feels like I’m thinking in circles. Since I’ve began thinking about why our relationship failed I started remembering all these unhealthy habits I developed, and how they ran side by side with my addiction to p. Right now I want to blame everything on p, and start to heal myself. I think that once I go long enough without it, hopefully I’ll start truly thinking clearly about whether I want her still or not. Thank you for the support man, it really did help.
Only you will know how much your addiction to porn is to blame. It could be the other way round of course. Maybe you got bored of the relationship and found solace in fantasy. No harm in trying to make another go of it if you think it's worth it. Quitting porn could go alongside that but I'd focus more on the other aspects to your relationship as well. Sometimes relationships fall into a rut and it's not one thing but a lot of things.
