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Lapsed..Replased...I need help. Anyone.

Discussion in 'Rebooting in a Relationship' started by Drac411, May 23, 2017.

  1. Drac411

    Drac411 New Fapstronaut

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    I'm 30. I started PMO since I was 11 and just recently discovered that I can't continue doing that and pleasing my wife. I've been going strong for a few weeks but entered into my flatline. I feel broken. Asexual. Useless. Guilty and depressed because I can't get excited for my wife. No morning wood. Nothing. It feels like my penis is dead. I don't feel like a man. Lonely and scared because I feel like I have no one to turn to and get these things off my chest. I'm being bombarded with thoughts and urges. I fell tonight. I watched porn. I didn't O. I just (look at that rationalization) watched it and got hard. It felt nice, for a little while. I felt like steel. Then the guilt and self condemnation overwhelmed me. Why can't I get excited to my gorgeous wife? Why do I have to resort to porn for that? She figured out something was fishy. She dragged it out of me. She's crushed. She feels like she's at fault and our marriage is in a precarious spot. I'm afraid to engage in foreplay and sex because I don't know if I can stay hard. I sometimes feel like I'm going to stay limp and dead like this forever. Psyching myself out isn't helping either.

    This is the most difficult thing I've ever done. I don't know how I can keep myself together. Besides my wife and my mom, I basically have no one I can talk to in general. And about this, I can't turn to them. I'm not suicidal or anything. I just feel hopeless and like a failure because of this lapse in my judgement and will. Besides just trying to painfully trudge forward I don't know what else to do. I don't want to lose her. But when I slip and fall I feel like I'm doing just that ever so slowly and it's killing me.
     
    LivinginRecovery likes this.
  2. Wouldn't it be an act of honesty to show your wife this post so she is able to understand and maybe support you?
     
    Kenzi and LivinginRecovery like this.
  3. LivinginRecovery

    LivinginRecovery Fapstronaut

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    Hi there. Please don't test the flat-line even though you might want to. There's nothing wrong. It's simply your brain resetting after years of PMO use. Your drives and feelings will come back through in time, you just need to give yourself a good rest that's all. I understand what you're feeling though. This is a tough journey.

    You will start to become excited by your wife again in time and it will be allied to a greater sense of intimacy as well. Porn has become a destructive habitual practice and so it's hard to break those ties. Neurons that fire together wire together and all.

    Then resolve to drop PMO out of your life forever. Talk with her, confide in her, open up to her about how you're feeling. PMO is such a selfish, solitary and often times shameful act that we as addicts become used to living a secretive double life. Throw the doors wide open on your life and bring her into that. This doesn't have to be the end but a beginning. You have nothing to lose. Bring her in and grow in strength together.

    I know it's difficult but please don't apply unnecessary pressure on yourself. It's not going to help. In fact it will simply create more anxiety and you won't perform.

    I know and kudos to you for writing out your story and what you're feeling right now. That takes courage.

    Try and turn to your wife about this. She is your life partner. As I have previously stated, it may be the beginning of a whole new phase in both of your lives. You need to earn her trust again.

    Read other people's experiences here on the forums and see that you are not alone. We all know to some extent what you're going through. Please don't feel hopeless or a failure as porn use is an insidious thing. It's seen by so many as a standard cultural norm when it's far from that. It's thoroughly destructive and corrosive and almost unlimited in its damaging scope.

    You're in a good place actually, both in terms of the site and also the knowledge that you are all done in. Things can only get better from this point on-wards. Keep checking in. Set up a Reboot Journal and chart your progress into recovery. It will help you and doubtless help others here as well. Thank you for your honesty and your commitment to want to change. I wish you all the very best. I look forward to seeing you around.
     
    slb and Marcel0404 like this.
  4. Hi Drac411,

    I know EXACTLY from experience what you are going through. Just STOP IT! Take it from me, you WILL mess up your life, your wife and your marriage if you don't STOP! Read my basic story below and learn from my mistakes before you follow them - and don't fool yourself and say "It won't happen to me"

    I am almost 52 years old and so obviously have PMO'd longer than many here, and as per one of my other posts, my first marriage failed due to PMO and its physical/emotional and personality-altering side effects. The fact that my ex-wife also enjoyed soft porn didn't help my situation either. Unfortunately, I needed more and more, and harder core stuff to enable me to perform. Long story short, I ended up divorced, and she left with my two kids, who now want nothing to do with me. This was entirely because of how me using Porn changed me. That was almost 20 years ago, and you would think that I learned my lesson...

    Nope. Got involved with a fantastic, amazing, sexy lady, got married and everything was wonderful. Then I wakened the monster inside me by watching a porn video that was sent to me on WhatssApp. Instead of being disgusted and deleting it, I watched it over and over. The monster started whispering, then calling, and eventually shouting to be fed more. Being the idiot that I am, I listened, I slipped, I fell, and then then went hurtling faster and faster down the road to destruction. I could NOT admit that this was my fault, that my anger was of my own doing, and "transferred" my anger, resentment, bitterness and self-loathing onto my wife. It didn't take long until my marriage was teetering precariously on the edge of a cliff. I didn't realise that my entire personality changed and soon I found fault with EVERYTHING my wife did. I almost killed her spirit, and made her miserable. Thankfully, I developed PIED, and often couldn't even get hard with porn, and this started me on the road to acknowledging my addiction, seeking help online, joined NoFap and Your Brain On Porn and others and watched numerous videos on YouTube about PMO, Addictions and its effects.

    I know that many people (even on this site) are against this, but I bought a chastity device to prevent me being able to touch myself, which after about 40 years of constant and frequent masturbation seemed impossible. The result was that I stopped all PMO activities. No use watching porn if you can't jerk off, right? Within days my wonderful wife noticed a change in me and being suspicious of it asked what was going on. I showed her the device and she was like: "Oh great! Another of your kooky, kinky ideas". It took a HUGE amount of courage to admit to my wife what I had done to myself, to her and to us. Just telling her the very basics of what I had been doing did not go too well. She was (justifiably) extremely hurt, angry, upset, shocked, dismayed - just devastated! However, because the changes in my personality have been so fantastic since I stopped PMOing, she has started to trust me again, and start to believe that this wasn't just me being nice to try get something from her. We are now closer than we have ever been in our marriage. Our communication every day is better, more personal, honest and just... WOW. We are friends again and experiencing what a marriage should be. My wife couldn't be happier, and tells me constantly. Our constant SMS messages to each other are like two love struck teenagers (without porn) and it is great! We are finally having fun and loving each other like we should. There is obviously flare-ups of her pain, but we can talk it through, AND I am now finally able to listen and hear her without getting upset. We are firmly convinced that every marriage counsellor should be forced to ask the husband is watching porn. We reckon that the majority of marital strife can be traced back to PMO. Who knows, maybe I am onto something.... Sorry, I digressed:

    I know this all sound too good to be true, and is like I have been PMO-free for years, but it is just 28 days! The changes in my attitude to my wife, myself and life in general are AMAZING. I can now look back and see how fucked up I was. how delusional I was, how every erotica book, online foray, magazine, video and any other form of porn messed me up. How it made me into an ugly person with no self control, no self respect, no energy and almost no wife.

    I know it is early days, but the fact that I feel so great about myself, how I sleep better, have more energy, no headaches, am clear headed, focused, and can love my wife like she deserves to be loved and every great aspect of NO PMO keeps me on track. I never want to have to post that I relapsed, and am convinced that i never will. Big talk from a newbie non-PMO person, but seeing and feeling the good, experiencing my marriage stronger than ever and looking back at how it was when on PMO, makes me certain that it is permanent.

    So, drac411, all i can say in closing is: "Just STOP" Do whatever it takes to stop. It is so worth it, YOU CAN AND WILL DO THIS.

    Drop me a message if i can help you in any way.

    Regards,

    Wazzbler
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 23, 2017
  5. Duke of Gine

    Duke of Gine Fapstronaut

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    My experience is similar to yours in that PMO was affecting my sex life with my dear wife.
    The fact that you have identified PMO as a problem is great, because it's true.

    The first few days is hardest. If you can stay away, learn to stay away, and be strong, you'll find that your body will reboot. You can do it and things can get back to normal between you and your wife
     
  6. Kenzi

    Kenzi Fapstronaut

    Think of the Flatline as the calm inside the storm.... Don't test it. Everything will return. The healing process he's peaks and valleys and the Flatline is just the first. And it freaks men out. It does, but it just means You Are Healing!
    Take comfort in that. Everyday.
    And when it's over, you will know. You will look at your wife, and trust me, you will know.
    Keep being honest with yourself and your wife, it's difficult on us, this process... It's more so, if there are lies. We would rather deal with a sting and move on from it then try to unbury the poison without knowing how far down it goes.
    I wish you well.
     
    Marcel0404 likes this.

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