Advice for Disclosing Temptation

I think you should say exactly what you wrote above. It is sincere and honest. As the SO, I would be very empathetic to my husband telling me this. I would view it as a step in building trust. Asking for extra support is courageous of you. She will respect this.

 

I applaud you, both for acknowledging and dealing with your temptations and urges AND for wanting to keep your SO apprised of the situation. But I admit that as an SO, this is a difficult one. My husband and I have gone through this also. Here's a typical scenario for us: He needs to have a work video meeting that will be attended by a woman. (meetings have been a huge problem for him in the past) He tells me about the meeting. Meeting occurs. He reports in with me afterward and tells me very excitedly that he felt the urge to ogle a young woman at the meeting but took precautions and covered up her face with another screen. Success! He's very proud of himself and rightly so. I burst into tears. Even as I am happy that he was able to recognize and deal with this urge successfully, part of me is devastated that he felt compelled to direct his sexual attention to another woman. I can feel both things at once. What I want is for him to be able to just encounter women in his environment the way a normal person would, but he is not there yet. The fact that he is fighting the urge to stare at her, fantasize about her, then go into the restroom at work and masturbate to the mental image of her EVEN IF HE DOESN'T DO IT, kills me.

But. Painful as it is, I still want to know about it. In fact, I feel I NEED to know about it. He tells the truth about what he is going through AND I tell the truth about the effect of that on me. It feels awful that it is happening, but it would be 100 times worse to be lied to by omission. We have had entirely too much of that.

Of course, I am aware that when I react by showing my pain, I run the risk of activating his shame and give him a heavy incentive to lie about his thoughts and actions. And because of our history of deception, I admit I pretty much always assume he is lying about this and keeps a lot from me. So, it's just a bad situation all around, with probably no good solution. But assuming dishonesty is not a solution you're considering, you might just to have to come to terms with the fact that your disclosures might be painful to her.

Wow. I guess I had a lot to say about this. Sorry for the length! Wishing the best for you.

 

Sorry! One more thing! I think asking her for the support is brilliant. I know I personally feel very empowered (which is crucial for an SO) when my husband asks for help. It helps divert my attention from the pain somewhat, and gives me something to do that helps the recovery.

 

Personally i tell my wife when i have particularly difficult situations and also tell her that i use my process with them. Which is recognize, humanize and redirect. Recognize the temptation humanize the person of interest and then choose to redirect my attention.

With urges in general i sometimes picture myself trying to keep a boulder from rolling down a hill pushing with all of my might is like when i shame myself, then i picture myself steping aside and letting it roll by. I dont know why but i have found that simply visuallizing this when i am feeling the urge to fantasize helps me to move on much faster.

 

This might not be the same difficulty or issue, but I found that it was helpful to me to communicate that although I was having success with avoiding P, not using P-subs and was avoiding M, I still didn't think that I could ever stop noticing attractive people. I felt that it was important for me to have realistic expectations of the changes I wanted to make in my life, and I wanted to be honest about what I felt was possible. My wife reassured me that what she needs is for me to stop using the sex appeal of others as a means to sexual gratification and fantasy. The parts of our brain that assess attractiveness are subconscious and automatic, and we often know within moments is we find someone attractive or good-looking. This is true for my wife too. But what causes the betrayal, what is unacceptable behaviour in our relationship, is dwelling on that attraction and choosing to derive sexual pleasure from it, rather than from my wife and our relationship.

Focus on changing what you can change. You can change how you think about attractive people. They will exist no matter what you do. Notice the observation when you see someone attractive. Accept it, then move on with your life. Don't agonise over the fact that you see someone and think of them as pretty. But don't fantasise about sex with them, or about masturbating to their image or at all for that matter.

In terms of how to communicate your thoughts to your wife... I would recommend a conversation similar to the one I had: removing P and M from my life is possible, but I will never be able to only ever be attracted to my wife or find only her attractive. I wanted her to know this, and know that it has no effect on my attraction to her or my feelings toward her. This is only one element of many conversations that include reaffirming that my wife is the greatest source of happiness, peace, love and fulfilment in my life, and that she is all that I want and need in a partner. But I did not and do not want to promise to do or be anything that I don't believe to be attainable. Sharing your own truth and concerns will be a positive step: openness and communication is key in relationships, and hiding your concerns now could escalate to hiding your PMO behaviours if you deal with these feelings negatively.

After re-reading your post, it seems like your 'temptations' are more linked to your current emotional state, and your habit of using PMO as a coping mechanism is manifesting itself. Perhaps it is worth reframing this temptation in your own mind before speaking to your wife. Are you feeling more likely to relapse as a way of dealing with your emotions? Are your emotions becoming harder to deal with? Do you need to find more effective and healthy coping mechanisms to help you to avoid relapse? Hearing that you are struggling emotionally and need support and help finding healthy coping mechanisms might be less hurtful than saying "I've been thinking about watching porn a lot recently", and might be getting to a deeper level of truth than the latter, which is perhaps only symptomatic of your emotional struggle since it is how you have dealt with (/avoided dealing with) your emotions in the past.

 

Brilliant. Only Tannhauser can say if it is helpful to him, but I am printing this and making it into wallpaper for my living room.