Cybersex Addiction

I've had a similar arc in my experience. I'm married and went from porn to cybersex until I stressed out about it to the point I started having anxiety attacks. I was completely addicted and would spend hours daily chatting away or going on cam.

Recovery to a healthy sex life is completely possible, but I'll add that I highly doubt your "insatiable" sexual appetite was healthy in the first place. "Pestering" partners for sex or deceiving people via fake online profile for sexual contact is not healthy at all. You almost certainly have an unresolved, underlying issue or issues and have been using masturbation and sex to cope with, suspend or temporarily relieve it.

In my case I developed abandonment and intimacy issues because of how I perceived the suicide of my dad from when I was 2. Since I'd never resolved those issues, they really flared up when I was about to get married, and even more when my wife was pregnant with our daughter. During those times my porn and cybersex use ramped up uncontrollably. I had no idea at the time that I'd been using masturbation my whole post-puberty life as a way to cope with things like depression, anxiety, boredom, loneliness, grief, etc... I too got to the point where I would no longer initiate sex with my wife, who is beyond gorgeous and someone I truly love.

I haven't watched porn, used cybersex, or masturbated for over 7 months now. I haven't just been abstaining, I've been actively working directly on my real issues. You absolutely can recover from this, I am living proof. I just want to be clear that this insatiable sexual appetite that you may be targeting a return to, is likely just a bloated masturbation addiction, inflated from ogling women in real life and on screen (including "safe" things like Instagram, FB, Youtube, ect...). It's likely you've used your real sex life in the past in much the same way as porn or cybersex - as a way to temporarily suspend self-hatred or self-doubts or as a "bump" in your self-esteem - as a way to feel validation since you haven't built any actual, credible self-esteem on your own.

It's not just that abstaining from cyber and porn will directly heal your brain and you'll become healthy. Abstaining from cyber and PMO will force you to have nothing to hide behind - you will have to finally address your true problems head on. You may not even be consciously aware of what your true problems even are at this point if you've been floating in a cybersex haze for a long time.

I have certainly been exactly where you are right now. Things can get better. My life is better than it has ever been - truly, sincerely. But I had to make some big-time decisions that were scary as shit to make. I had to deny a lot of excitement and commit to long-term recovery. It's the best decision I could have possible made, and I continue to make it every day.

There are tons of resources on yourbrainonporn.com. That's a good starting place. Sounds like you have an awareness of the very basics. I wish you the best of success in applying yourself to reboot. It's real and it really works. You are going to have to give up your ego and the life of fantasy that you've built around yourself. You are not at all the person in those fake profiles. You are a real person with real problems that are going to encompass you immediately when you begin to abstain. You have to finally learn to cope and resolve them, or else you will continue the PMO cycle indefinitely.

Best of luck to you and your future wife. I hope I haven't scared you off with these tough words of warning. My life is absolutely wonderful since I got the ball rolling with reboot. I hope yours will be soon!!

 

Welcome to the forum. My addiction never escalated into interacting with others online or in real life. But cybersex is just another manifestation of the same underlying addiction process. @Strength And Light did a great job explaining the emotional and mental side of your problem. I will try to explain some of the physical and chemical things going on inside your brain that result in the symptoms you are experiencing.

I'm not sure how much research you have done so I'll start with the basics. When we have sex we get natural doses of dopamine during sex and opioid-like chemicals when we orgasm. Through frequent exposure we build up a tolerance and need higher doses to experience the same physical effects or to block out any emotional distress we might be trying to medicate. We either use porn more often, find more hardcore versions, or try to bring those fantasies to life in the real world. After months/years our brains are used to massively high doses of dopamine to feel pleasure. Real world sex does not make us feel anywhere close to the high we feel when we PMO. We become desensitized to real sex and only respond to the lightning bolt of excitement that porn or camming can make us feel. That is why we can lose interest in real world sex even if our wife/girlfriend is gorgeous... we simply cannot generate the same massive doses. Real world sex can feel disappointing in comparison to our alternate sex life.

We also condition our brains to respond only to our hands. We can become physically desensitized to anyone's touch but our own. Also, our brains stop responding to the same environmental and social cues that signal that good times are ahead. We can train ourselves to become aroused simply by lying down and turning on the laptop. We get excited even before we engage in anything erotic. On the other hand, things like kissing and caressing no longer stimulate us in the same way because it is not part of our normal routine. We can even start to develop a performance anxiety whenever the possibility of real sex is imminent because we no longer trust how our bodies will respond and the possibility that our partner will discover our secret becomes more real.

Not finding your partner as attractive as they used to be is also part of the progression of addiction. It's called the Coolidge Effect. Familiar images do not produce the same level of excitement over time. Therefore, when we are exposed to something new we get that maximum level of excitement again. The internet is the perfect place to find something new. There is always a new video, genre, actress, website, or cam girl available. The internet has caused our attention span to shrink and makes long term relationships much harder to maintain.

Here's the GOOD news. It's called REBOOTING for a reason. The more time you spend away from porn and camming the more your brain will return to normal. You still have to deal with the underlying reasons why porn/camming was so attractive to you but behind the scenes the brain will start to become desensitized to the real world and real people. When the only naked body you see is your wife's then your brain and body will respond naturally again. Symptoms like PE, DE, and PIED start to disappear.

Here's the BAD news. Everyone's reboot is unique and progresses at it's own pace. There's no way to accelerate the process and make your brain rewire itself faster. Like any other addiction there will be withdrawal symptoms as your brain chemistry tries to rebalance itself. Underlying mental health issues will start to rise to the surface and need addressing. Moodiness, anger, frustration, and irritability are common for weeks or months. Trying to go through this process in secret can cause our SO's to become extremely confused. 'What happened to that happy, lovable guy I used to know? Now he's moody and short tempered all the time.' Trying to reboot secretly, while engaged, and having an upcoming wedding is possibly the most stressful scenario I can imagine. Your addiction is screaming for you to indulge in it even MORE during this stressful time. Addicts need a bedrock of stability beneath them in order to build their recovery.

As someone who was addicted for over 25 years I can assure you that recovery is possible. Identify your triggers - physical, emotional, and environmental. Avoid the ones you can avoid, eliminate the ones you can eliminate, address the ones you can address, and learn to cope with the ones you cannot remove. That is the basic formula. I hope you are able to put together a plan that enables you to achieve your goals and have a happy marriage.