My husband wants to have sex with other women

Again, I don't think that there is anything wrong with noticing other beautiful people. And I definitively don't think you have any bad intent whatsoever. But this woman is in a vulnerable position and you say, indirectly, that it's completely normal for a man in a relationship to desperately wanna have sex with other women (I'm not saying this is uncommon), and that she should be fine with it, and I respectfully disagree.

 

For clarification purposes, my intent was never to condone obsessive behaviors like you stated. My intent was never to say that it is normal or okay to constantly want to sleep with other women. The intent of my original post was to give evidence as to why men are hard wired in such ways. My point was that theres a reason for it. And my suggestion or my intent was to give perspective so that the OP could use this knowledge to gain understanding and hopefully support her husband in his journey, which I thought was whole point of this thread. In no way shape or form was i condoning infidelity. I used the example I did with my ex, because when I was struggling to quit PMO I often felt judged and shamed by her which honestly led me to exclude her in my journey. Not only that, the constant guilt and shame she threw at me, while a normal human response, served the purpose of relieving frustration from her end, while also harboring resentment on mine. The point being, any guy that has made the conscious decision to quit porn after recognizing its negative side effects, is already ashamed. As a female partner in this situation, if you want to be a part of the healing process and you genuinely want to help him to succeed; then shaming him further has the effect of stripping away his masculinity which no guy ever wants from their lover. In response to this men will stop talking to their SO. Which i assume is the opposite from what the OPer would want in this situation. As any healthy successful relationship requires good and open communication, actions which deteriorate this will increase the likelihood of him failing, which i assume is what we dont want here. Do you get my point now? I understand your desire to defend the OP and the struggle shes going through. But please take into context the point of what the OP is asking for, not what you want out of it.

 

I also only had one sexual partner only. My partner knew about me being curious about the other side of the grass since I openly told her so at the very early stage of the relationship. She understood the difficulty of it. Rather than rejecting that idea, simply accepting that thought and channel it out into other feeling helps.

I want to state out facts that men are more visual and women are more emotional when it comes to general arousal (I know there is exception and I do not want a debate on this like in an older post). I want to state that a desire for another women for some men can never be understood by a woman. Just like how a man can never understand a labor pain. As a man, I simply want my woman to understand my struggle. It is so good if the so understands that. A helpful support from so can solve many problem related to this. It is really hard to be a visual creature as a man with all the beautiful women out there.

 

@DeepParkWater

Appreciated your comments man.

I think it was valiant to explain there is a biological element to cheating.
I had a vasectomy, does my body no longer yearn to cheat ?

@Lilla_My
Ok, 90% of couples get married as secret PA’s... here is my question:

Why do women not question the decisions that were made while under brain fog?

So much unnecessary stress because the wife applies the strength of a rational man to the weakened debilitated mind of a porn addict. To me this expectation is actually harmful. The mind of many addicts is like that if a child.., in case it hasn’t been said enough.

Why not reset the “expectations” until a PA can document that his vows can be done with “full conscience engaged?”

 

He's not a bachelor. That life is over for him. He could of chose that life before marrying you. He chose PMO. You stuck by him while he recovered. Now he goes and betrays you. Make it clear he shouldn't do this. Either he has you it he doesn't. No adultery, make it clear you want a committed marriage.

Hope it works out for you

 

If youre asking me whether your surgery had any imoact on ones desire for infelity the answer depends. Juat goin by what i know surface level (your operation may be different) a traditional vasectomy i thought was prevtion of sperm traveling from the seminiferous tubules where they are produced through the vas deferens-----> which lead ultimately towards the ejaculatory duct. In this case then no, since the operation only serves the purpose of preventing viable sperm from being transmitted into semen.
Desire to cheat id say is depending on different factors, most of them being mental, of which shouldnt be affected solely by your operation. The only way you could make a case for this in my opinion is if it somehow altered your hormone levels or if it affected your mental state in someway but then again the latter depends on your mental state not the operation itself.
Were you trying to alude to something different here?

 

This doesn't makes any sense and explain him that now this not a bachelor time it's gone and also he had a very beautiful lady like you which can give you trust, love and sympathy that he always in search for, so ignore those kinds of words and explain him that this is totally wrong.

 

@britneyj28 I am agree with you!

 

He is saying he wants to sleep with other women. That’s refreshingly honest.

Does the: “tell him that life is over” line work on -single people?

If your best friend said to you, “stop doing pmo. That life is over”. Would that work?

If that did or would not, why would that kind of coheresion work on married people?

I enjoyed/concurred with much of what you said.

hormones are chemicals.
The balance of these chemicals or the imbalance of them can affect how we think but they do not affect how we act (directly). Our actions are determined by our thoughts thus brain fog, or high testastarone can impede clear thinking.

One could say our desires to have sex are purely chemical/hormonal. However NOBODY actually shags a another human with the chemical process in mind. We convert the tangible chemicals into something intangible, more ethereal.

Those intangible things are: drive, feelings, stress, pursuit of achievement, desire to collect trophy, conquer ?

So then we would have to ask what are thoughts ? What is conscienceness?

We cannot graph a personals thoughts.
We cannot enter a person’s conscience.


We can affect these thoughts through chemicals certainly but emotions to have sex aren’t simply chemicals anymore at this stage of sexual advancement— right? Meaning when we desire, cherish, yearn, for something then we have an attachment to it.

At what point does the chemical hormone become a physical desire or thought? At what point does the thought become sex-drive?

Again, I like your analysis bc it’s resourceful in a sense because you are advocating for what I’d say is “biological cheating”.

I think in way we ARE programmed like you suggest, but if the body is sterile—it also MUST know something’s off —-right?

Consider phantom pain that amputees experience. All psycho-induced.

What about the natural process to eliminate toxins Like macrophages do, I would expect the body to compensate for the inability to reproduce in other ways.

Women and men who cannot reproduce still technically have the same chemicals to determine sex drive.

Even in extreme cases as imprisonment or malnutrition, ability to have sex is diminished due to extreme stress— but chemically it is feasible.

The predatorial ability for women to seduce is not being discussed here, but certainly they can be just as savage in their craft with expert skills.

In other words I agree there is a common programming for sexual promiscuity, however we need to account for the fact we are also conscience beings—- and this concept (of conscienceness) or transmutation of chemicals into feeling has yet to be explained by modern science.

Loads of people on nofap report pmo leads to negative feelings —- so in that regard “negative sex” creates negative feelings; so positive sex creates positive feelings.

Doctors can determine when a person is conscientious versus a vegetable but people who are in vegetable-state don’t cheat. In other words, there’s lots of truth in what you said , yet there’s an element that’s still unknown and a mystery—the intelligence behind who, where, how, and why we cheat.

What do you think?

 

I fucking love your post that was a brillant masterpiece. If that level of clarity is whats waiting at your level of progress I envy you.

I agree with the majority of your thoughts.. What are your thoughts on the idea that there are hierarchies of brain development? Dont quote me on this, but based on my understanding there is the reptilian brain, responsible for automated processes and basic primitive levels of thought (agression, sexual drive) vs the cerebral cortex (high thinking esp the prefrontal)


I read an idea on this somewhere in this forum about how PA causes cerebral cortex activity to diminish. For me it makes sense based on the decreased level of higher thought and capability to resist basic urges. Im assuming that this means decreased prefrontal cortex activity. I know for a fact that the dopamine reward pathway has to be fried to a certain extent for people with PA myself included. Assuming this idea is true, im assuming that neural connections for these more complex structures must be weakened while the more primitve basal neural connections being strengthened dont you think? My analysis of sexual addiction has been that of a neurochemical need to release dopamine and activate a certain neural pathway. Since the basal primitive pathways have been strengthened one may feel powerless for the learned behavior of needing the activation of the more primitive pathway which tends to fire subconsciously rather than the conscious complex (pre frontal cortex) pathways.


I read an interesting article on what consciousness is, which theorized that internal thoughts (where we can hear ourselves speaking) may lie in between the neural tracts of the Wernicke area and the and the Broca area which are responsible for the comprehension of speech and production of speech accordingly. If true this makes sense because that means your inner voice is nothing more than two areas of the brain sending signals to each other to form and comprehend speech at the same time.


With that in mind, in relation to subconscious thought, I imagine that its a complex firing of your inner voice, basal needs (reptilian brain), and higher level thought(cerebral cortex) weighed on a scale in the prefrontal cortex or another region of the cortex thats responsible for making sense of whats more important. Unfortunately for us since the reptilian brain takes priority unless impeded by conscious inhibition/rejection of sub needs or alteration in the hierarchy of needs in general. I wonder if this is why addiciton is so difficult to overcome.


While my next idea may be offensive to some, I think that to some degree people who are known to be cheaters, do so as they may be a slave to experiencing a certain rush or firing of certain pathways, these pathways being more basal like pure sexual desire, the need to feel desired. And maybe more complex pathways as the need to dominate, achieve complex goals, etc via alteration of the hierarchy of needs. The important part and I think you’ll agree with me however, is that we are not primitive apes therefore have the capability to prioritize higher needs over basal impulses, however this is difficult to accomplish due to the strengthening of the neural pathways to ignore inhibitory thoughts and reorganize hierarchy of needs.


In regards to the negative feelings, I had a thought that maybe this could be partially psychological as ones constant suppression of internal desires causes a state of depression. Not only that much of the human body as you gave example on the hormonal system we know is constantly monitored through feedback inhibition. I wonder at what point does PMO free, start to impact you negatively in terms of decreasing overall production and supply of testosterone. I dont know enough about testosterone regulatory pathway personally, but I wonder if suppressing the subconscious effects of test (agression, sexuality) after an extended period of time serves to tell the body to not only decrease production but also over time ignore the intended conscious effects of the hormones.


Sorry for the long rant, but your post sparked a couiple of questions in my head.

 

Lool. Nofap has helped me tremendously.

I will try to be succinct to keep the remaining readers engaged:

Sexual addiction does more than create pathways to pornic images to enhance pleasure. it fundamentally changes the brain pathways and structure, which shift resources until it ultimately depends on the lizard brain (limbic system).

Think of limbic as fight or flight. When do people live in the constant state of fight or flight? after a terrorist attack, after a natural disaster, when they are refugees in a war zone .

Living in this mode daily will cause the cortisol levels to rise. No bueno. Weight gain, pimples, lethargy all can easily occur.

Most of all , Your brain DOES feel affected.

Repeated decisions (addictive state) to engage in PMO affect:

1). the decision-making part of the brain (prefrontal cortex); it is disengaged and bypassed— as the limbic is strengthened.

2). Gray matter in the brain decreases! This points to hemispherical disconnection (left and right brain functions suffer).

3). disconnectivity with emotions as a result of loss of gray matter and hemispheric isolation which turns porn addicts into emotionless, empathy-deprived beings. A sort of dissociative dysfunctional state.

The result is: a porn addict in a biological sense , is craving dopamine rush and soon struggled to do basic functions. He’s a zombie for practical purposes.

He is soon finding it difficult to remember chains of information (memory loss), make simple decisions (prefrontal cortex) and struggles with even staying focused (prefrontal cortex).

@TimeToQuitNow please watch the video, I think it will explain my perspective.



Your brain needs fats, it uses healthy fats to process many functions. A healthy diet will help clear up a lot of these challenges. Addicts suffer from general malaise in body function, diet, grooming.

So now the guy is falling apart if he’s single or if he’s married he’s barely keeping it together Faking, double lifestyle.

Telling a person who is in this state : “just stop because you got married” does not make sense to me.

I like lilly ‘s points about supporting the wife— which is good and encourages men to be empathetic.

But as you can see— empathy requires left and brain connectivity!!! So why do we expect empathy? Expect heartlessness.

As a PA, depending the depth and damage—- empathizing is impossible.

We can even fake or live off the emotions of others, similar to a parasite, but it’s different. I mean the pathways to do it are there, but cluttered and unused in our minds.

Keep reading stuff at nofap. It saved me.

One article says it takes 34.5 weeks on avg to rebuild the brain’s gray matter to “normal” levels. Beating the addiction in rebooting in 90 days still means we are cold-hearted sex-agents. The humanizing takes a lot longer.

I like to say, I’m here for healing.

In my personal journey, i was so happy the first time I was able to cry again happened last week. I had kept things so separate for a while I couldn’t even cry.

I don’t advocate a “kick the addict out policy” because I believe: “he who was forgiven much, the same loves and forgives much.”

To me—- love cannot be generated using a ultimatum stick or a carrot tied to marriage/kids/having sex-again.

Love includes freedom. Both must be freely exercised in a healthy way. One choice at a time. Not though hypnosis, fear, or grandstanding.

 

Sorry my post was way too long. lol.

Answer is yes. Prolonged porn use affects the brain to where it is hardly possible to reason with them.

Imagine the drunk or drug addict living on the street. They just wait for the next drink or drug.

How lucid are their minds ? You imagine going to them saying: “ either quit this drug or else?”

That’s stupid right? Ok. That’s what I think too.

It’s a sad reality that an addict feels cannot quit.

If you are the non-addict there is a way to regenerate the self control but it’s not in declaring red lines that he cannot cross or walking around brandishing a nuclear football.

 

It may be painful but if he did not have much sex in his early ages and since he may be recovering, he might be fully more sexual and I think that in crease charge in his sexuality may be leading to this. however, I respect that his honest and maybe you guys can have an open relationship for a period of time and see how it goes? remember, its better to Let someone be whatever they want to be and be loved rather then try to control them with manipulative tactics and then feel loved so I so THREESOME!

 

Thank you for post, it really helped me gain a better understanding that I wasnt aware of.

 

I'm saying that she needs to say that he can't sleep around with other people. She should let him know that it would hurt her deeply.

 

I hear you man. Glad to see we agree in that.

What did you think of dr. Ted Roberts?

Your thoughts?

 

This is a wonderful point, and one us SOs can learn greatly from. I'm certainly guilty of shaming my husband, and as you say, it doesn't make it better. It's of vital importance that anyone struggling with porn addiction educate their significant other about what we can do to help, because we really want to be there by your side.

 

I never heard of him. I went on his website street seeing this post. He seems cool. I'll listen to one of his talks I guess, see what he has to say.