Been in a relationship for two months; how it's changed my PMO habits

Hey guys, I thought I'd take the time to share my story, as PMO is something which has been on my mind a fair bit recently.

Basically, prior to my relationship with my girlfriend I was watching porn and masturbating two or three times a week. I honestly didn't feel that bad about it. I've had my stints of NoFap, and I have to say, some part of me gave up last year. Or at least I accepted that PMO was a part of my life and that I wasn't equipped to deal with it. This is a lot different from how I used to be with regards to PMO. I used to think that doing NoFap would change my life, make me happy, and get me a girlfriend. After trying and failing over and over I realised that I was putting too much pressure on myself. I actually decided to feel OK about PMO, as long as it didn't feel excessive, and focus on other parts of my life. In some ways I think this approach has been a lot healthier for me, as I don't believe it was PMO that was hurting my life, but video games and self-doubt and depressive thoughts.

However, in the back of my mind I did always believe that although PMO may not be the biggest vice in my life, it's still a vice nonetheless. It's not helping me, and it's a crutch that makes me feel sexually satisfied in an unnatural and unachievable way. I personally think it has many subtle mental side effects that chip away at a healthy sense of sexuality and feed into negative ways of relating with women. Now to the relationship part.

While on my summer holidays here in Australia I continued to work at other parts of my life while PMOing two or three times a week. I started exercising and going out more. I met a few potential girls that I liked. I noticed that I didn't have that much confidence in my ability to initiate an intimate or sexual relationship. Anyhow, somehow I managed to push through that and ended up with a great girl who's my current girlfriend. In the beginning stages of us dating I was still PMOing, but as soon as our sexual relationship started I stopped for the most part. I would PMO once a week maybe every two weeks. Then for the last month or so, I've PMOed once. Although during this time I would still check certain sites to see if there was any new material I could PMO to. So the habit persisted in this form. The material itself always paled in comparison to the real thing, so I never ended up acting on it. Recently though, I've felt much more drawn to search for it, and the other day I did PMO in full for the first time in 2 - 3 weeks.

I think initially the real-life sexual relationship with my new girlfriend completely blew masturbating out of the water. However, now that the excitement is dwindling a little bit I'm trying to fill it in with porn. Also, I have to admit I miss all the different types of girls and scenarios I can access online. But after PMOing the other day, when I saw my girlfriend, my usual sex drive wasn't there. We've also been experiencing some issues in our relationship and I didn't feel like I was dealing with them that well. So, as a result of all this I want to make a commitment to NoFap and my sexuality again.

I have to say though, I really struggle with the idea of just having her as my only sexual outlet. I have come to enjoy masturbating quite a lot. I'm wondering how people on this forum have approached this issue, and what your thoughts about any of this might be.

TL;DR: In a new relationship, want to stop PMOing and particularly searching for pornographic material. Struggling with the idea of only having my girlfriend as my sexual outlet. Thoughts and comments welcome.

 

I appreciate your confidence and positivity Buzz Lightyear. Discipline is something that I want to build up this year.

Ezpz I think you are right about the wiring. Despite not actually masturbating as much recently, I have still engaged in the searching and fantasising of pornography.

Thank you both for your responses.

 

Hey fuzzywaz, thanks for your reply. I found what you wrote spot-on the more I thought about my habits not only to do with PMO but also my life in general. I am often looking for a hit. Whether it be through the thought of specific porn, watching a video game stream, playing a video game, eating a certain thing, or wanting a specific response from my partner. Even this site can be a part of my dopamine addiction if I'm checking it all the time to see if I've got replies or likes on my posts. Since I read your post I've been looking at the 'why' in what I'm doing, and identifying what I can change and avoid to help me overcome this mindset of craving stimulation.

GG2002, thanks for your reply also. It's true what you say about it leading to a life of solitude, and I agree that this behaviour can only lead towards an unsatisfactory sex life. I also think I'm at a stage of my life where I can kick this addiction, and moreover, this mindset of always needing another hit of some sort to make my life 'better' or 'alive'. Looking forward to sharing my journey and helping others with theirs.

 

Hey guys, thought I'd share an update.

Things have been going mostly well. About 4 or 5 days ago I did search for porn for 20 minutes and touched myself for a moment but then stopped myself. Apart from that I haven't searched for any porn, and rarely fantasised about it. I've masturbated once in the last 12 days and that was on the phone to my girlfriend. The sex we've been having is getting better and I'm finding her more and more attractive as time goes on.

It's seriously amazing to me how much more real and sexually vital she's become to me as a result of putting porn out of my head. I'm interested to see what the effects are long-term. I'm aware that my 20 minutes of searching definitely threw me back a little bit. However, I think overall it didn't have too much of an impact. I have noticed that my gaming has increased this past week. So my brain is definitely looking for some replacement dopamine. I feel that the next step for me now is to set clear limits on how much I game and stick to them.

Oh and my girlfriend is going away for a bit over a week in a few days. It's not long but I have been used to having sex with her at least twice a week, so this will be a challenge for me to keep clean. Looking forward to it, though.

Thanks for everyone's support.

 

Hey Ezpz, sorry for the very late reply. I've been really busy with uni as I'm doing my Masters this year.

That's awesome that you completed the 90 day challenge! I hope you're still going strong since that conscious relapse. I agree with you that searching for it plants it in your brain. I'm happy to say I haven't searched for any since my last relapse. I felt like looking tonight but I came here to post instead.

In general I've been watching a lot less porn and have only been orgasming with my partner. I've found that our attraction for each other has only been increasing (which feels remarkable considering we have been going out for over 3 months now) and I find her extremely attractive. More than I ever have, actually. Also, I really love and care for her, and I'm getting much better at expressing my feelings to her. So staying away from porn has been really awesome. However, I will say that not everything is good regarding my brain wiring. I've been playing a lot more video games, and today I actually decided I'd quit for awhile. I was replacing the porn with video games, and as a result I've been experiencing some level of brain fog, and a lack of motivation to do house work and complete assignments. Pretty much every day I've woken up alone I've had this instant desire to play video games which is reminiscent of how I might think of porn when I used to wake up in the mornings. Also, it reminds me of when I was really stressed at uni the last couple of years and I'd find myself watching more pornography than normal. So all-in-all I need to tackle my video game addiction and my porn addiction. Both seem to stem from a desire to get a quick high and distract myself from anything stressful going on in my life. Today I took the disc out of out of my console and put it away. I forced myself to have a productive day and I achieved a lot. Planning to do this for the rest of the week.

I hope everyone is facing their demons and trying their best to overcome them. It's really worthwhile to do so, and remember that you can always redeem yourself no matter how far you fall.

 

Wow man. That's brave and steadfast of you to kick all those habits at once. I'm happy to hear you've been making good use of your time. I can only imagine how hard it must be at times. I've still been watching some gaming streams (too much) but I haven't been gaming, and I've got more done in the past few days. I've felt pretty depressed at times going through this. I often want a high or a release. As you say though, you can only get through it if you commit.

I'll go all in with you man. I'm tired of time wasting activities that are sucking up my energy and I'm feeling a deeper desire than I ever have before to improve. I'm going to cut out the video game streams from today. I want to start meditating daily, so I'll begin doing 20 mins of that starting today.

One thing which I've been struggling with is sleeping properly, because I've been watching video game streams in bed. As a replacement to that I'm going to read when I'm in bed. I'll keep you posted on how I'm doing. I'm going to make a journal now to track my progress so look out for that.

Let's do this!