i'm too weak

I've spent the last couple hours going through SO threads and reading about some of the truly awful stuff some couples have gone through together. I came here to seek support and advice –– and I certainly received some, don't get me wrong –– but I also left with this yucky awareness of my own fragility.

I'm always wondering if I'm being "too sensitive", too "weak" or making "mountains out of molehills".

For backstory: my boyfriend and I have been together for a little over a year and a half. I watched porn on and off since early high school but watched it very very rarely when I started my second year of college. It wasn't that difficult of a feat, I'll admit, because I wasn't heavily addicted, or even really addicted at all. On the other hand, my boyfriend grew up watching porn and remained addicted to it well into the second half of our sophomore year in college.

It wasn't until we talked about it towards the middle of our second semester that we both realized we wanted to stop it completely. This was because we both think watching porn is wrong and damaging. This was when we both completely cut out pornographic videos. We have both been clean from that content for about four months.

While I am incredibly proud of him –– a PA –– for cutting out a pretty big chunk of his addiction, I got so so hurt one day when he confessed to me that he had looked at some images. I cried (I cry at a lot of things though haha) and I just felt so disappointed in him and how he had derailed our journey of getting completely clean together.

I think I really surprised myself because I considered myself to be very considerate and forgiving and gracious –– and instead I kind of flipped out (not aggressively, but like I said, cried and was very upset). I could tell he was also hurt because he considered this to be a minor setback and he felt like just this little mistake was preventing me from being proud of all the effort he had already put into his recovery.

I realized I was probably hurting him by reacting this way, so I tried to prepare myself for how to respond the next time it happened. We both continued to keep each other accountable, (I text him every day and ask how he's doing), but the same incident happened again one day, just hours after I had seen him and looked him straight in the eyes and said, "I love you. Make good choices."

This time was worse haha. I cried so much more, and I think it was because I had just told him to be careful, to not put himself into vulnerable situations, and to make good choices. I felt betrayed and so angry. He knew how much the last incident had hurt me, and he had done it yet again. I imagine this is what the second betrayal feels like most of the time.

However, we seemed to recover from that, he seemed to be making proactive efforts to do better. We were long-distance at this time so it was hard for me to really be there for him or "watch" him, for lack of a better word.

Then today happened.

I hadn't checked up on him for a couple days, just due to busyness and a lot going on (and he had a lot going on too, and I knew that busyness often kept him from having the time to look at anything). And that was my bad, I felt bad that I hadn't been a responsible accountability partner.

So today I texted him and apologized for not checking up recently, and asked him how he had been doing. He told me it was good, but that he had had a slipup a couple days ago.

Surprisingly, I was pretty calm (besides my hands shaking a lot, which is new) and I told him it was okay and that I forgave him. He seemed happy and surprised by this (which also slightly annoyed me, because he didn't seem to be profusely sorry, he was just relieved I wasn't mad –– can anyone relate to this or is it just me?). But then I did tell him I was upset he hadn't told me the day of.

He said he had wanted to wait a week before telling me so that I wouldn't be as upset.

Now I don't know what kind of bullsh** excuse that is, but personally, it made me even more mad that he had chosen to lie by omission. Also, it seemed like a ridiculous, bizarre mentality to me –– to wait a few days so that I wouldn't be as upset, so the news would be assuaged: whaattt????

I talked to him for a little bit, expressed that I was upset, and then said I needed space and wasn't going to talk to him for a while. I went outside in the fricking 90 degree weather and cried a little bit.

Bottom line and the point of all this:
• I feel guilty for getting all butthurt by him looking at a couple pictures (he did use them to PMO)
• I feel guilty for not being as supportive as I feel I should be. I feel like I should be looking at all the progress and effort, but every time something happens I feel incredibly betrayed
• I feel hurt. Why he chooses his desires, his urges, and other naked women over me hurts so so much.
• I feel like my journey doesn't compare to his. I was never seriously addicted to porn, and I don't struggle as much with saying "no" to looking up stuff. I've definitely had urges in the last few months, but I've had the willpower to refuse succumbing to them. The hard part is how do I empathize with his journey when mine isn't like his? How do I give him advice that he can actually follow?
• I feel like he's proactive in some areas but not others. He makes efforts in some areas, but I know a person who would be seriously trying to defeat PA would do more. I've advised him to do simple things, like keeping his bedroom door open, going outside to a coffee shop to do work, being more active, doing more projects, etc. He seems to think he has more control than he doe, but when he messes up he says he "couldn't help it" and that it was "really hard not to".
• I don't want to be overprotective or "lurking". Some advice on these threads have said to ask for reports of your SO's browsing history, to put controls and monitors on stuff, and while I feel like this could help, I also don't want to be controlling. Where's the healthy medium?
• I feel like his journey is more for me and not for him. What I mean by this is that it seems like he's terrified to tell me when he messes up (exhibit A: today) and it almost makes me feel like he doesn't inherently think porn is all that bad, which could be the problem with these random relapses.

So anyway. This is so so long, and I'm so sorry.

I'm just kind of frustrated, and hurt, and also wondering if I deserve to feel this way. My boyfriend's come so far, and he's worked hard, and I know he's trying and that he loves me and cares.

But when does my hurt come before his satisfaction?

 

@IamGold thank you for this sweet response. I think you have some very practical advice and insight on this: yesterday we talked it over and actually made progress in terms of setting expectations for the relationship in order to avoid hurt and to exercise responsibility over our own persons.

He now has his own accountability partner (which is amazing and I think, like you said, will prevent a lot of hurt from affecting our relationship) and he is now going to be active on NoFap (he's actually the one who told me about it, and he used to be on here more often, but stopped). He's writing a No PMO reason everyday (Today I will not PMO because...) and I've asked him to stop masturbating (he was only giving up porn but I think masturbation is part of the problem too).

I agree with your mentality of letting him be his own person, his own adult, responsible for his own choices. I am here to love him, but not to babysit him.

Thank you for your response I will post more updates here in the future.

 

@NF4L thank you for this.

Sometimes it's hard for me to put myself in the shoes of an addict and to know how to respond to one. I do agree with you that it's his own integrity that will overcome this. I have realized this in the past few days and really think it makes a difference that I not try to control every aspect of his recovery. When I do that, I'm the one taking responsibility for his own decisions, and that's why I end up getting hurt, and he consequently also ends up getting hurt. Really a vicious cycle, haha.

Thank you for your advice. I am hoping for better things.

 

It's been a long time since I've been on here! I wasn't consistent at all about following up on this journey with my boyfriend. Since my last post (in June of 2018), we have gotten engaged and are getting married in June 2020.

After this post was written, we had a lot of difficult discussions (in the fall of 2018) where we decided it wasn't healthy for him to continue to disclose to me every time he PMO-ed. Every time that we did, it ended with me completely a wreck, in tears, and him feeling defeated and discouraged. I will admit, although this decision helped us to avoid a lot of emotional breakdowns, we really did just sort of shove it on the backburner and tried to forget about it. What he didn't know was that despite the fact that we didn't talk about it anymore, I still thought about it multiple times a week. I was triggered by scenes in TV shows we watched together, girls we walked by on campus, leaving him in his apartment alone, and a multitude of other small things that reminded me of his addiction.

Every couple months or so, I would ask him how he was doing. Over time, he told me he had stopped speaking with his accountability partner, but that he was doing better. When I would ask him when the last time he had PMO-ed was, his answer was usually, "About a week ago", which seemed to be an improvement to him. Because of this, I tried every time to completely disregard my own feelings, my own emotions –– the feeling of tears and hurt and anger burning in my throat –– so that I could say, "I'm proud of you. I know you're trying", even though it was the last thing that I felt. I've since realized I am suffering slightly from codependency addiction. I totally stuffed down all my hurt because I remembered how badly it made him feel to see me get upset.

After we got engaged this past spring, we started pre-marital counseling in the fall. Most of our sessions were about regular issues that couples face in having different upbringings, lifestyles, values, etc., but we both soon told our therapist about my fiance's porn addiction. She considered it to be an extremely serious issue, and it wasn't until I was bawling every session that I realized this wasn't something that would go away after marriage. Since our last session, our therapist has strongly recommended my fiance to go to see a therapist and join a group therapy, and for me to find a partner support group. We're still looking into options for this and intend to begin at the beginning of next year.

In private conversations since, my fiance admitted that he began watching videos again (it wasn't just photos anymore), and that he was still finding a bunch of different ways to access porn (Reddit, FB, etc.). I was wrecked. I cried alone in my car.

But in a really intimate, special conversation later on, I told him I loved him very deeply and knew that he was lonely. I told him I understood that his own feelings of being abandoned and betrayed have left him mercilessly at the hands of porn addiction. He cried as I told him this. He's a victim, too. To loneliness, depression, and this horrible addiction.

This post is more of an update, to say a few things:
• When action isn't taken, no progress gets made. I am still suffering from feeling betrayed and hurt, and my partner is still addicted. Nothing has really changed, except for the fact that I know less than I did before.

• Knowing your partner's upbringing and past and present traumas contributes greatly to seeing him with compassion and support, instead of revenge and bitterness. This doesn't mean I'm justifying his behavior by any means, but it means I know the root of what is really happening and therefore I can be there for him when he is triggered by something (friend cancelling plans, feeling left out of social events, boredom, loneliness, inattentiveness).

• We both need help. He needs help, and so do I. My therapist corrected my mindset that my partner was the only one affected directly by the addiction. I have experienced trauma as a result of my partner. If he gets healed, it will not heal me also.

• Community is important. My fiance was on NoFap for several weeks, doing well a couple years ago. But as he continued to journal his journey online, people stopped responding and the interaction he had with support in this community became less and less. Soon enough he relapsed again. We're both finding community will be important for full recovery.

tl;dr: know your partner's addiction. I'm working on understanding it, reading books, articles, doing research, all in hopes that I can better understand why he has this addiction and how we can treat it together. I know some people in this community (as partners and as addicts) have undergone unimaginable, tremendous pain (far far greater than mine), but I think the reason we are all still here is because we want to get better and we want to see the people we love get better. It is our greatest desire, our greatest hope. I'm encouraged by everyone here who is doing their best –– you are seen, and you are worthy.

- A Work in Progress