Any married men complete a hard-mode challenge?

this is a rationalization. sex is good for a marriage, for sure. but quitting PMO is 100x better for the marriage. don't tell yourself these things to give you a way out...

keep the big picture in mind - if you don't get a grip on this that "woman that you enjoy checking out" will be gone and some other guy will get to treat her the way she deserves. or she'll stay and you'll be roommates - and then you'll be tormented forever. and it will all be your fault.

sorry to be an ass - but sometimes we need somebody to crash our rationalizations. I'm on your side, bro

 

so I just noticed that you are brand new here - perhaps I was too hard - forgive me if I offended.

so what are doing to quit PMO? it's a lot more than gritting your teeth, manning up and "just doing it." if you've been at this for years like most of have, you're gonna need some education, a plan and some tools.

some quick recommendations:

1. devour all of yourbrainonporn.com
2. read George Collins' book "Breaking the Cycle"
3. read some SO journals here (but don't comment yet!) to better understand what your wife is feeling
4. find an IRL face to face group. SA, SAA or a church group of men dealing with this problem. I can almost guarantee you won't quit long-term without this.

hope this helps. ask whatever you like - there's no judgment here.

 

Welcome. It sounds like she already knows you have a problem. Discuss this with her, open up. She sounds like she is already upset with things. Initiate conversation about this and be proactive. Let her in and also listen to what she says, carefully. It won't always be what you want to hear but she needs to say things. And she will tell you what she needs. No hiding anything and never lie, it will come out at some point.
Best wishes for you both. Read and learn and ask lots of questions here. We will help all we can.

 

My husband did. But we did it together while still being intimate. It's called karezza, or sex without O. It took a few tries for him to make it to the full 90 days without O because he did O with me before making the goal so we started over. See the link in my signature for more information. If on your phone, turn sideways to see.

I think this is amazing and I wish my husband had had access to it. But there was no such thing. So he quit porn, started his reboot more than 2 years ago and his last relapse was a year ago, without this. It is possible. I say that because not all people or areas have access to this kind of thing.

 

My current counter (10 days) only says PM, but currently it also counts as PMO/Hard mode. My current plan is "Hard mode until my wife makes a move, then return to PM". As with a lot of women her drive is lower than mine so without myself making a move it may be a little while, was my reasoning at first, but as if by fate, she had to have unexpected urgent surgery on an ovary, and we can't have sex for about a month now anyway, so I'm in a sort of involuntary hard mode anyway, but I'm going to take the opportunity to really fully reboot myself over the next month.

...Unless my wife offers me a hj/bj, which I'm not gonna turn down, heheh. But I have told her about my reboot now so she's probably not going to sabotage it by doing that.

I don't have a particular number of days goal in mind. I just want to get the counter as high as I can and see how much better I feel. Then I plan to return to occasional M and regular sex with my wife, but as a more sexually healthy person. It's not that sex was bad or anything, but I lasted far too long due to my PMO habits, and she couldn't get me off with hands or mouth very often before tiring herself out.

The way I see it this is all about restoring good sexual health, not about completely abstaining from something forever. I should be able to ejaculate while fooling around with my wife, and a solo session should be less frequent, without a 'death grip' and with simple vanilla porn.

Regarding your wife - Does she miss it too, or is she just very understanding of the reboot situation, considering you said she thinks you're just using her like porn on a screen? If you are worried about no sex in your marriage for 90 days becoming a problem for the relationship, NoFap's Getting Started guide mentions something called "Karezza" which is worth looking into. Basically really slow sex with no intent of orgasming. The other thing I think would help is to hold onto the thought of how amazing and special it will be once you have successfully rebooted.

 

Hi Steve,

I’m doing it, and this is day 41 for me. I’ll write more thoroughly later (at work) but you can check out my journal here if you like:

https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.p...-my-wife-and-i-abstaining-for-90-days.185083/

I think hard mode is the only way to go, really, in our situation. But don’t listen to me ‘til I get to 90. We’ve got a night away planned for then. My current tentative plan is to do another 90 day challenge after this, focused on staying clean while reintegrateing sex.

 

Welp. My wife woke me up with a lovely hand job this morning...

It's only been 11 days, but evidently my 'death grip' (the main reason I started this in the first place) is cured because it felt freaking amazing and I came long before she was even close to getting tired. Didn't take long at all!

We're all different, obviously, but clearly what I've done so far with this has been very effective and made a difference. Some people will probably take a lot longer than others if they're further down the porn rabbit hole and stuff, of course. But this is great and proof that it works!

 

Great to hear. What a difference a little time can make.

 

Definitely! To think that all these years 11 days was all I needed to re-sensitize? Insane. But in the past abstaining made me extremely sexually frustrated and grumpy, but this place and the counter make me feel determined enough that I don't get those feelings. It's also shown me that we should all keep this up and get better sexual health. It'd be easy to fall back into the old habits now but this stuff is worth it, to get that rush of real pleasure shared with somebody else, no more "It would feel better if I was doing this by myself", and maybe doing it alone seldom enough that that feels amazing too. Channeling that sexual energy and those urges into different things, learning to be less reliant on instant gratification and being patient for stuff which is way better in the long term... I've still got a long way to go on the self improvement but this is great and I hope the rest of you who are married have similar success!

 

For sure. Everything and I mean everything is so much better.
Not taking things into my own hands and also being open with her about everything was like lifting the weight off both shoulders. Not to mention the feeling being much more intense physically.
I hope she is healing well also.

 

Hey Cowboy Steve,
I am in a similar boat and at day 14. Really have noticed the difference in just two weeks!.
I have not told my wife but have noticed I am paying her a lot more attention which has been noticed by her. I am unsure if I tell her or not or just to keep going to 90 days and try to refrain from O when we have sex... Will be interesting nonetheless..
Hopefully see you at day 90 for success!

 

@CowboySteve
Hard mode should be the most efficient way to see quick changes and offer the least temptation to relapse. I didn’t get past about 3 weeks on Hard mode but I’m at 150+ days PM free.
As @phuck-porn! said, read all of yourbrainonporn.com has. He also nailed it by saying don’t rationalize or you’ll lose her.
It’s very easy to underestimate this problem. Many of us tell ourselves that we have “high libido” and our partners don’t so that’s why we need porn. THATS NOT TRUE! Porn has fucked up all of our perspectives and turns us into addicts. We are driven to continue to PM no matter the consequence. You ( and I) risk our marriages and family because P creates neural pathways in our brains that trigger very powerful bio/chemical addiction. The science is there. This is not a personal preference or perversion or high libido. Reboot is about breaking the dopamine neural pathways. It literallly chemically resets your brain.

Your love life is suffering not because of her or you, but because of Porn. Porn addicts are lousy lovers. Look at SO’s posts. We look to cum as quick as possible and we try to recreate porn and imagine porn while
We should be making love to our beautiful spouses. I promise if you make 90 you will feel more balanced and far more in time with her. Your body won’t feel need to PMO constantly and you won’t trigger as much.
Advice,
No M ever, never never never. Doesn’t matter
No P substitutes like instagram, Facebook, chive, dating sites
No fantasizing about P or P scenarios with other girls.
Read, Read and read more about the addiction.
90 days is a good start, realize that this is life long. No more P ever, M well that’s so closely associated with PMO that it’s dangerous.
Focus on wife as much as possible, no ogling other women.
If only doing PM then watch for chaser effect. Very real and hard to manage early in Reboot.

Lots more I wish I had time to add,

keep family in focus when your tempted to breakdown.
Families don’t last with addiction involved.

I tell myself “act so you can tell the truth about how you act” when I’m slipping.

Good luck buddy

 

I'm a SO supporting my PA husband. His therapist recommended we go 30 days hard mode, for the reasons you mention; to rewire brain. I was very against this at first. It caused fights between us. Now I know the "intimate" sex we were having post dday was REALLY just me being traumatized, thinking sex would heal everything, & him still being an addict needing to satisfy his wants. Recipe for disaster. Sure enough, the sweet, intimate "sex" turned into a 2 min "my PA needed his needs met session" & I blew the whistle. Agreed to hard mode alongside my husband.

It is working. It is really, really working. In 7 days he's become more attentive, quick to console, asks about & validates my feelings, uses praise words towards me, touches me in non-sexual ways that make my heart skip a beat. He's become so much more desirable. I imagine when this ends after 30 days, I will receive the man & intimacy (emotionally & sexually) I deserve. I couldn't be more thankful he persisted & I came to realize how necessary an actual brain rewire is to success in this addiction & the only way to do that is suck it up & abstain.

I enjoyed your post! Thanks!!

 

That’s awesome your finding so much progress and happiness so quickly! Pretty amazing how effective the reboot is at turning around relationships.

I read an SO’s post about “P addicts are bad lovers” It was scary how accurately it spelled out my behaviour. Just to really prove the point my wife and I got into a discussion about how good our sex is now and she said that I was not good before. Hurt like hell to hear it directly from her but made sense and I knew it to be true. As if my ego needed any more kicks
Important thing is that the sex is really good now, for both of us! It’s shocking how corrosive P addiction is to a relationship: Trust, confidence, honesty and even sex are all at risk.

We also found positive changes quick. One thing that needs to remain a focal point is concentrating all sexual energy on my wife. Fantasy and ogling can be as destructive as Porn as it essentially is the same thing, searching for sexual gratification. Perhaps not as strong an addictive behaviour but damaging to reboot efforts and allows triggers and temptation.

With PMO gone and a dedicated effort to simply focus my attention on my wife, I feel like positive change is certain and I’m actually freed from a great discomfort that was PMO.

Hope your Husband finds the same.

 

@CowboySteve
I realized I failed to answer question, I found I didn’t need 90 Days O free to feel positive efffects of Reboot but what was critical was avoiding making sex like Porn. Don’t think about P, don’t recreate P scenarios or P based fetish. ( most fetish is part of P addiction symptoms and will fade during reboot). Try concentrating on her and avoiding O for yourself for a while. Stare at her and remind yourself to focus on real life not pixel versions.
I do wish I had gone longer in hard mode as I think it speeds things up and sex is awesome after a break but I’ve heard it argued that intimate, positive, and caring sex with partner (not thinking about P during) is good training for brain to reassociate pleasure and sex.

 

I would reccomend the 90 days of hardmode. Its brutal, but anyone can do it. Every relapse is a choice, and it is that simple. 90 days of hardmode helped me realize how bad my problem was and forced it to the forefront of my mind. From there I was able to deal in reality and recognize just how dependent I had become on lust, porn, fantasy and masterbation. Then I eventually realized how much I didnt need all of those things to feel some happiness and clarity in life.

So go for it. Let the neuro pathways for arousel in your brain that take you to porn breakdown for 90 days, then let them rebuild towards your wife. Its worth it.