I am a wife trying to understand my husband's addiction to pornography and strip clubs. He has been clean from clubs for 4 years now but is continuing to use Facebook daily to search through groups and pages where he inevitably comes across sexualized images and videos that he watches. He also frequently uses our tv movie apps to watch movies with a lot of nudity and sex. As far as I know he's not using pornography sites but the Facebook and TV usage appear to me to be unhealthy behavior that feed the addiction. Is this behavior feeding the addiction? Any input or resources/other threads you can point me to is appreciated. Thank you.
From what it sounds like, it does seem like the addiction is being fed... but not enough to make him go back to how he was. And although -to me- this does seem like it, it could be him realizing that the addiction is starting up again. And, maybe by watching these videos and movies, it allows him to still feed it a little without going overboard with pornography and going to clubs. It might also be a cry for help.
It definitely feeds the addiction, but is not a relapse because there is no pornography involved. However, it will make him more vulnerable to relapse again. Sexualized images are as close to pornography as non-pornography can get. On this website we call it porn substitutes, where it is not necessarily showing anything but yet we use it as if it was porn. It is a really bad habit, but I would call it more of a setback instead of a full-on relapse.
Thank you for your input. Is it a relapse when he skips from movie to movie, fast forwarding to the nude scenes and masturbating to them but without climax? He often will fast forward through like 5 movies in two hours searching out the nude scenes and masturbating but not to climax.
If it were me, I would say yes. I think any masturbation to visual stimulation would count as a relapse.
