Recovering my relationship with my girlfriend

I was using porn daily from 13 till now I'm 30. I've been with my girlfriend for 3 years after a few months into our relationship I started getting ED, at first I really thought it was just me and because I was getting older or out of shape. Over time my girlfriend caught me with porn and figured out it must be what's going on. Over those years my girlfriend became very insecure with her physical appearance and it didn't help I had wandering eyes at the time.

I tried to stop watching porn and was successful for about 7 months, during this time I told her the truth and followed up with her, had a therapist. I masturbated to videos we had or my own thoughts occasionally, usually when we had different work schedules. But over time we stopped talking about it and I got tempted and gave in. She had told me if I ever watch porn again and lied about it we'd break up and if I was tempted I should talk to her about it and we could watch it together.

Two weeks ago my girlfriend and I had a big conversation about a shift in our relationship, I admitted to use porn a few times and she got very upset and of course our fight was on the day entering our anniversary and we were in NYC. She's mostly upset about the hiding part. The next day we were quiet but civil, still went out and watched a musical, then we came home and I moved out of her place to give her space.

Fast forward to now and she's at least willing to talk on the phone and text me, she seems ok with that. Before she was avoiding me, only sending one word text and she wants us to see a therapist. Since then I told my parents and a few friends of my porn addiction, I feel better then I have in a long time. But when my girlfriend sees me in person she feels so uncomfortable she can't even make eye contact, maybe because there is so much anger in her. I guess I have to be patient and go to therapy with her, thanks for listening guys.

 

Thanks for the reply ghost writer, the timing wasn't really my choice, we ended up reading a relationship book together and she needed to get stuff of our chest and she indirectly asked me so I told her. Although It think we both agreed that it wasn't going to come out at some point, I think she felt it.

I was never the most introspective person so it's taken me a while to see things in a certain light about myself probably mostly denial and lack of perception. Even when I was having ED I tried telling her it was me, which I did believe and I felt bad I let her down even at that time. Either case, I have to keep working on it to have her understand it wasn't about her. I've given her a lot of insecurities about herself from this and the lying so it's a long path up.

The decision to take a break was her idea, but I think it was a good idea. I understood her one word answers were bad and was prob 20/80 on the chances we would get back together at that point. Part of it was she said she was running from the problem going out a lot with friends to take her mind off of it. I spent more time thinking about it for the first two weeks, so she's still processing now. But I agree I can only take it one step at a time, I'm trying to leave everything out there at this point and see if it works out.

Although I do agree it's important to work on myself, I think we've had communication problems at the base of our relationship. Our relationship is pretty top down, most fights ended up her basically mad and me and I'm just eating it. I think over time I felt there wasn't a safe space for me to talk to her about things and also I was scared of disappointing her. I know that was probably a mistake, but can't do much about that now except move forward. I guess we'll see what happens. My main goal right now is just to be honest with her moving forward and try my best.

 

Thanks, I pretty much feel that way. And that's a great idea I'll suggest it to her. I know even just reading other stories helps.