Day 7 and my gf just broke up with me. About to relapse.

You guys just aren't getting it. It's not about putting the addiction on someone else or manipulating them into staying. It's the loss of the relationship that will drive the addict into relapse. The key word here is loss.

 

So it's totally out of his control whether he relapses? I disagree. Not all relapse in this situation.

 

I guess I'm speaking from personal experience. I was destroyed when I was dumped and I fell into a year long binge that made my previous binges look like child's play. I pretty much gave up on life.

 

Just dismiss my comments. I'm speaking from a place of grief, not logic.

 

No that's okay, totally understandable and I know that many others feel the same way on here as you do, so sharing helps with that. Many people fall back into their addictions (not just PMO addiction) when a traumatic event happens in their lives. The end of a relationship is very traumatic! Often times though it makes us feel better to place the blame on the other person who left. In my opinion you have to see the damage that PMO caused your relationship, and accept full responsibility for it, without laying blame. Part of the reason I ended things with my partner was that he would never accept responsibility for the pain he caused. He was always trying to find a way for it to be my fault that he was an addict, or my fault that he relapsed. He would say things like "well if you would not fight with me I would not do it," or "you made me give up all hope in the relationship, so I had to." Looking back I now know he was trying to get me to stop bringing up what he did wrong and could not cope with the pain himself. The partner is never to blame. That's not to say that things that she does to you do not cause you pain, but she cannot be blamed for a choice that you make, that is your own. Blaming another person stunts your progress, it gives you a reason to keep PMOing. It makes you believe it is justified for you to PMO becasue she was so horrible to you. It's your addiction tricking you.

You also need to develop healthy coping mechanisms to deal with pain in your life, as you will likely encounter many things that will cause pain in the future, and will need to have a tool box of coping mechanisms that to help you. I am not an addict, but I have had some really horrible breakups where I felt like my world was ending and could not get out of bed for days. It gets better, and this will pass and you will move on to find the woman that is right for you. I know it does not seem like that right now, but you have to know that it will. Each day it gets better. People said that to me when I was in turmoil and i said BS! But it did get better. One of the hardest things to do is grieve the loss of someone that is still alive. Hang in there!

 

Make sure you dont stay idle always keep yourself occupied espcially reading motivational books or stories it helps a lot.

 

These people need to be apart. People feel pressure to be in relationships and its ok to be alone sometimes. I feel like people should develop themselves and work of fixing their problems before they get into relationships and destroy eachother. People are always mixing up dating and marriage. If youre a girl dating a guy who is so addicted to porn he ignores you you need to leave him alone for his sake and yours instead of clinging to a relationship that is damaging for both of them. The girl leaving the OP was an excellent wake up call because he needs to deal with his problem and not saddle other people with it. People need grow up, stop confusing lust with love and focus more about what they bring to the table in a relationship. This would save everyone alot of heart ache.

 

This has been my great failure throughout life.

 

It's a big ask to expect a partner to stick with you through addiction and recovery, with addiction it's not just the addict who suffers but their immediate family, partner and possibly friends too. I remember when I was at my worst I told one of my old school buddies I couldn't come to his stag party...I told him I was ill, I wasn't ill, I wanted to stay home and get drugs and PMO. Many of us have probably chosen PMO over other more important things and the OP has clearly made choices with PMO over his GF and she rightly feels upset about that. I think if she feels like she can't be strong enough to stick with you through it then allow her the space to get her life back together, so you can also get your life back together. If however she decides she does want to stick by you then you must respect the fact that she will have difficult emotions to contend with as you will too. Recovery is a rollercoaster sometimes as you look at yourself in the mirror and ask some deep soul searching questions about what you've done, how you got there and where you want to be.

 

This coping mechanism theme is abundant in all addictions , but especially seemingly more so in the PMO addictions. Low self esteems, inability to deal with others opinions, no real defined communicative skills.....just a broad range speculative opinion based on so much of what I see here.

 

I agree. I think part of that may be the that pmo addiction in itself is a solitary addiction. So for example alcoholism for the most part is a social addiction. People have drinking buddies even as alcoholics. Even addicts need to interact with a dealer to get drugs but usually also have other addicts that they use with. Rarely if at all do you have PMO addicts getting together to use or even talking about it with others. I think all addicts lack coping mechanisms in that their addiction is an attempt to escape pain be that the pain of mental illness or everyday life but PMO addicts seem to have trouble overall with intimate relationships with humans and by that I mean women and men. Friends family etc it develops out of failure to able to experience intimate connections with people. They fall into porn maybe because they feel rejected by women and are afraid or just plain have social anxiety and never even try. The men I have dated who were able to use porn with no issues would never chose porn over real sex or porn over hanging out with friends or any other social interactions. Just my guess.

 

I think intimacy is a problem for sure. I wouldnt say i struggle to 'be' intimate but because of social anxiety around very beautiful women i never had the guts to ask anyone out on a date and all my previous attempts were met with harsh rejections. The only relationship i had was with a girl who asked me out and i was only 17 at the time. I used to think what can a woman do for me that porn cant?That was how bad it got and all that does is reinforce isolation, lonliness, bitterness and resentment. I have a friend who is always a hit with the ladies and i asked him if he ever watched porn and he told me he did when he was a teenager for a very short while but found talking to girls a lot easier and less depressing. He thinks its sad for men to sit on their own watching porn when they could be out there having fun. He says it like its easy. I think some people are born with a natural skill to make people fall for them and others see it like some extremely complicated mathematical problem. Ive never been able to get past the 'friend' stage when ive met a girl despite wanting to take things further. I think porn addicts are riddled with self doubt, shame and lack of confidence and women can sense that i the way a man conducts himself around them

 

My SO thought he had no issues with intimacy either until he was in a relationship with someone who asked for it and explained what it meant. When I asked him what it was he described chemistry. He described strong sense of passion. Intimacy involves being vunerable, allowing the other person to see and know everything about you, even the ugly stuff. Since PMO addicts are hiding a huge secret even those in relationships do not have intimacy. With all due respect I'm not sure based on your dating history you even had a chance to have intimacy, it may be that you
only see you have a problem once you are in a relationship. Intimacy is not sex and has very little to do with it. As far as hitting on women maybe try and hit on the average looking girl. If you go for the really pretty girls there is a lot of competition. Porn often tells men that they must have a perfect 10 but there are lots of 6s thsr would make great partners. Some people do have a charism but many others can learn it. Practice. Make female friends, go out more, join a club, volunteer. These things will build you up. Being comfortable interacting with women in non dating situations helps a lot. Finally, the one thing porn can't give you is intimacy and once you open yourself to it and receive it you will see what you have missed!

 

No Fucking shit,this will mess you up i am telling you.Had the same damn experience.I was doing so good at nofap like easily going 2 months or more and suddenly i found out that that frigging woman was cheating on me and she was the fucking one to break up with me.I loved her more than anyone and anything and we were togehter for 4 years and since that incident i have not been able to go even more than a week at nofap.Get control over your emotions right now man or you gonna end like me.

 

I will never buy this when it comes to PMO. There is always a choice.

 

Then don't believe it. You're not a PA so you honestly don't know what you're talking about. Once your brain is hooked on something, it's going to get it until you actively fight it.

 

That depends on a lot of other things, today I feel like it very much is a choice but when I was at my worst 4 years ago I had difficult to overcome compulsions. When you decide you want to stop and find that despite putting barriers in your way and thinking about stopping it to the point of obsession only to find out you can't, that's when you have an addiction which needs proper treatment. A lot of our decisions are made at a subconcious level and compulsive and/or addictive PMO is a problem you have to work at consciously until your subconscious behaviour changes, this is called neuroplasticity, it takes time and practice to grow out of bad coping mechanisms plus it requires support from compassionate people. It's very comparable to cocaine addiction (of which I used to be an addict as well) and neurologists have performed brain scans on people who are actively engaged in PMO which has shown the same areas of the brain light up as with a cocaine user, it is the dopamine reward centre and some people are more prone to problems with this than others.

 

Thank you for making my point. You have to actively fight it. You just have to make that choice first. I recognize it can be a process and it isn't as easy as flipping a switch. But it also isn't that one has no self control.

 

Agreed. You can choose to go to counseling, you can choose to educate yourself, get a sober coach, put locks in place so you can't access porn etc. if you know it's something you struggle with controlling then you take action. You don't just throw your hands in the air and say well I'm an addict so I can't stop! And if you do you certainly can't expect your partner to stay. We as partners expect that you will likely slip up a few times but we want honesty when you do, recommitment to change and change. I truly believe addicts of any kind can do whatever they want if they put their minds to it. I'm not saying they don't need help to do it but reaching out for that help shows desire to change. And the addicts that keep screwing up and lying can only expect their partner to stand by them for so long!

 

Sorry to hear this mate. Hope you make it through. Gb