Making love or ?

Just to clarify my stance on choice and why I chose to share it. The phrase "for two years he chose porn over me" suggests a belief that a value judgement has been made and a preference for P over the SO is in place as a result of such a value judgement. This is at least the way that I interpreted the comment. I think it is important to make the distinction between making a choice based on such a value judgement as described above (which seems highly unlikely based on my experiences and on the fact that the PA did not leave the SO to be happily alone with his superior P as a partner) and using the word 'choice' to assign full or partial responsibility to the PA for their behaviour. Without getting into discussions of psychology and the philosophy of mind, determinism and so on, yes a choice was made in some sense, but not in the first value judgement sense. And I think it is likely good to remind oneself of that in order to minimise the pain that you suffer as the SO of a PA. You are not the lesser companion in the eyes and minds of your PA afflicted SO. You will always win in the value assessments. Especially those of you sticking around, supporting us and helping us to grow. My comments have been intended to bolster the self-esteem of SOs rather than render the PAs innocent parties.

 

So out of the 3,7 billion men on this planet, why did you choose to fall in love with a porn addict?
Why didn´t you choose to leave?

You all sound to me like like you always made the right choices in life.
Please teach me how to do this.
And if you didn´t, how dare you judge others?

You will not physically be harmed by your spouse watching porn either.

We know we will feel miserable after using. So according to you, we choose to be miserable. But why choose porn all the time? There are so many ways to feel miserable. So instead of porn we could choose to drink too much, leave our partners or take a knive and ram into our leg. But nothing feels quite as miserable as watching your own reflection in the mirror after you watched porn for hours, right? The void in your eyes. The empty shell of what could have been a man. What used to be a man. Breaking down, sitting in the shower crying, contemplating suicide. Yeah, nothing quite compares to that feeling, right?

This discussion is so off topic. And so pointless.
Seems to me like everybody just wants to let out their frustration about how their PAs are not progressing as fast as they should in their opinion.

And the SOs always complain about the lack of empathy from their partners. But what I am seeing in this thread is a complete lack of empathy towards porn addicts. And honestly, I don´t blame anyone. When you´ve never been addicted yourself, it´s very hard to imagine what an addict is going through.
But telling an addict to just stop it... well just does not work that way.

 

I think the reason we choose/chose to use P while in a relationship was because of the way we staryed choosing to watch P. Other than the inherent issues around P, simply using (when we first started) hurt nobody in the way that it would now, since we were single, virgins and just starting to explore the sexual side of ourselves and the future possibilities for us. As we continued to explore, the tentacles of P use developed their grasp on us and habits start to form. As with any behaviour, the more itis repeated, the more it is delegated to the subconscious mind to take care of, freeimg up the conscious, rational mind to find other tasks that require its attention (just as athletes repeat serves, kicks, breaks etc until they become muscle memory and totally automatic). By the time we find ourselves in a relationship, such behaviours have already been internalised. We may stop using when the flood of hormones associated with falling in love are saturating our bodies, but just like riding a bike, that behaviour is never really unlearned. Because most men do not see P use as cheating (we all wanted the real thing to begin with as virginous teens and it becomes a release-machine for us) we may return to using and not see it as problematic. When you first express a feeling of betrayal we may think you are wrong and placing ridiculous expectations on us. When we stop amd think about your reasons and come round to your way of thinking, the pmo behavour is so long-established and so entrenched in our subconscious that it requires a great deal of conscious effort to override the urges and to abstain from using. There are degrees of choice, and the most conscious ones regarding P use are the ones to stop using and to continue to abstain. The last time we chose to use P with as much conscious effort as we now exert in the opposite direction was as a single, spotty virgin. Yes the PAs are responsible for their actions, but their conscious decisions best represent their true desires and their true selves.

 

All of your husbands made a choice.
The choice to stay with you.
They chose you over porn.
Out of all those infinite perfect virtual girls online, they chose you.
Otherwise they would have left you a long time ago.

And they want you to choose them, too, even though they probably feel like they don´t deserve you. Because they always let you down.

Believing in free will and choice is like believing in god. Some do, some don´t. And probably no one will ever prove that these two exist or not. I personally prefer knowing to believing. And I know that the concept of free will helps us to be accountable for our actions, and thus helping us in recovery.
But at the end of the day, we´re all in the same boat together.
We all want the same thing.

Well said.

 

I will answer this post and then I will let it be my last on this particular topic since we kind of hijacked because I don't want to argue or make enemies but I do wish to explain myself.

First let me say that I know that I am direct. I have never been one to coddle or treat people with kid gloves. I call it as I see it and most people, men in particular, tend to prefer it that way. I can tell my words got under your skin @Properitas and I'm sorry for that, because I wasn't trying to be callous. I will answer your questions, as well as elaborate on my earlier post.

First, we have been together nearly 25 years. I did not know he was as involved in PMO as he was. Back then the internet was brand new, so even if people had computers, very few were connected to the internet. No one even had cell phones. He had a couple of magazines here or there. That does not a PMO problem make. Trust me, if I knew the extent to which there was PMO, I would have ended it. So there's that. Second, I do not consider him an addict. I don't consider many PMO users to be addicts, rather I feel it is a compulsion. I understand there are real PMO addicts out there, but I think it is a much smaller number than what many believe. In addition, I think the term addict keeps the users bound to an idea that they are forever a slave to the PMO and to others is an excuse that "it's not my fault, it's the addiction."
It was only within the last few years that I found out his PMO use to the fullest extent. I chose not to leave because we have built an entire life together and he has turned it completely around. But as I have mentioned, he had to make the choice to do it.

I'm sorry if my frankness makes you feel as though I'm judging you.

What I meant was that in clinical addictions, going without the main "drug" can cause dire physical consequences. For example, an anorexic will eventually die without food. A heavy drug user or alcoholic will go through horrible pain and can possibly die if they are not weaned off of the chemicals while detoxing. The same cannot be said about PMOing. You can go the rest of your life without watching porn or M-ing or ever having another O and live the rest of your life just fine.

You may know you will feel miserable after using but you also know you will feel good DURING the using. So according to me, you choose the one that at least has a payout. Isn't that why you do it? Because it feels so great in the moment? And the breaking down, sitting in the shower crying, contemplating suicide? Yeah, that also describes a large number of SOs that are on the other side of this. Except they are the ones left with broken hearts, broken spirits, picking up the pieces, holding everything together because many still have families to take care of, jobs to hold down, bills to pay after the men's jobs have been lost, bank accounts have been drained and their world has been torn apart.

I will be the first to tell you that my husband has never had a lack of empathy. In fact, I have only told him a small portion of how his use has made me feel. If I were to share with him exactly how shattered my heart is, it may actually send him over the edge and I would never want to do that to him. I would rather hold my heart break inside forever than watch his break more, since he has acknowledged his actions and done what he could to rectify it. His PMO use was separate from his intimacy with me, except for the fact that it interfered with his intimacy with me. Sometimes I am able to wrap my head around that idea and other times I can't make sense of it. He is PM free now, but the hurt is still there. But we are healing.

I will conclude with this: I recognize that although I fully believe it is a serious of choices, I don't think it is as easy as turning a switch on and off. I know it is a process and can be quite a lengthy one at that, often with stops and starts. I am thankful for a community like this so that both SOs and nofappers can find the support they may not be able to find else where. You all have my respect, even when we disagree.

 

How can we have won when pretty much every PA agrees that his wife appears less attractive and he lost interest due to porn?

 

Yes we all know that. We know it when we have a clear mind.
But when the urges are strongest, there is no knowing or forgetting.
There is no thoughts about feeling good or bad at any moment.
There are hardly any concious thoughts at all.
There is just this one road in our head. Highway to hell so to speak.
Now imagine sitting in a car with a broken throttle. You always accelerate. Your only chance is to take the very first exit, if there is one. Otherwise you will be way too fast and crash eventually.

I would not describe the feeling as "good" or "great". Those are the words I use after sex with my gf. The word I would use in this context is "intense". Like jumping out of an airplane. An intense rush.
When I am feeling good, I usually smile or laugh. I can remember no occasion, where I smiled during relapse.

Sometimes the urges are so strong, you can not focus on anything else. You can not take one conscious thought. And in the back of your head a voice screams "You know how to get your conscious back! Just a little PMO and you will be free of urges!"
And it´s true. The moment we come is the moment we come to our senses. We can think rational again. But at a price. The price is the feelings I described above.
So in the beginning it was all about feeling pleasure, now it´s about not feeling discomfort.

Maybe in some ways it´s comparable to food. A healthy person knows when they are hungry and prepare a good meal beforehand. This prepared meal tastes very good and is satisfying.
For porn addicts the hunger can strike at any time. And the feeling is quite like starving. The only thing you can think about is food. So what do you do? You eat the next best thing that is available. People in war sometimes ate the soles of their shoes, just so they are not hungry anymore.
And the worst thing is, you are not even hungry! You can easily survive another week without any food. It´s just your brain urging you to eat anything because the hunger is so overwhelming. So after eating the sole of your shoe, you are not hungry anymore but you feel like throwing up. That´s kinda how porn addiction feels.

 

Maybe my own experiences are too far from your own for me to offer comfort, but it is probably also worth noting that there is more to a relationship than sex. Because P is capitalising on the same base desires that cause us to pursue sex, this is where various dysfunctions in a relationship can start. The escalation of acts depicted and the constant novelty of P is not available from a single SO, and so, if conditioned to seek extreme acts and to swap between many women in a pmo session, real sex cannot compete in terms of constant stimulation of the brain. It CAN compete in terms of value as an experience and the way it makes us feel. But for those men who suffer PIED, DE etc, there is an added anxiety around real sex that isnt there for P use. This could well contribute to the 'lack of interest'. If your PA SO really had no interest in you then they would leave. Washing pots in the sink is better for the environment and doesn't damage or tarnish the glasses. Most people with a dishwasher still choose to use the dishwasher. If you were anxious that your hands could not remain firm enough to hold the dishes and that you would have to lie awake next to them in bed all night ashamed and embarrassed if you tried o wash them by hand then you are more likely still to put them in a dishwasher, even though they will deteriorate over time. Not the best analogy, but people often make the easier choice, not the best choice, and not always the choice that they want to make. If you are hungry and busy then you may well buy food that is convenient rather than what is tastiest. And again, if found yourself struggling to chew or swallow when eating your favourite home cooked meal, you are more likely to snack on other food to deal with the hunger.

In terms of your objective attractiveness and your PA choosing to M to other women who you will compare yourself to, no woman can be the most attractive woman in the world, objectively speaking. In addition to the unrealistic standards of body and beauty often depicted (enhanced through make up, surgery, flattening camera angles, wigs, outfits, airbrushing...) the real appeal of women in porn is the endless and constant novelty. You can be more attractive than the women in P and they could still be appealing to your partner since the brain is wired to seek novelty in mates and to mate with as many different females as possible to increase the chances of passing on genetic material to the next generation. It is an ancient part of the brain that is responsible for this novelty seeking sexual behaviour, and the equivalent in mice and rat brains has been responsible for the deaths of many rodent males when offered the choice (there is that word again) between food or access to a new, novel female. They literally choose to fuck themselves to death and starve. These are powerful instincual brain pathways you are competing with, but the yconscious, rational, more recently evolved parts of the brain that are responsible for the long-term-relationship type behaviour that keeps your PA SOs with you can override the powerful impulses of the ancient brain pathways with concerted and sustained effort. The rational mind is competing with these urges but it is the part of our selves that makes us who we are, is responsible for our personality etc. To inspire your man to want to ignore his primal urges toward novelty and nurture instead your loving relationship is to win. You partially lost him to P, to greater and lesser extents between you, but he would prefer to have you than to have P. To us men, P was never personal until we woke up and saw that it (of course) was.

 

This is regarding sex addicts who are married/partnered in committed relationships.

Me too. Same. 25 years. I had no clue my hub became addicted to porn during the marriage (became curious when it was a free-for-all when high-speed Internet came into our home) and then he started with BackPage and prostitutes. What I saw was someone, little by little, becoming less intimate (and I am not just talking sex) and I thought his lack of intimacy was due to his job. (It was, partially!) But I didn't know the whole picture.

And yes - porn addiction (if it's an addiction) escalates like other addictions and often men go the next step --- anonymous meet ups, whores, restroom encounters, etc. THAT behavior absolutely can harm the partner. Or what about an affair partner? She could blackmail the husband. Or what about when these guys put their wives in other types of financial risks. It happens A LOT. Again - more harm. I could go on and on.

One more point. This disorder involves lying. Compartmentalization. Marriage vows broken. What kind of life do you want to live? One of integrity? Or one of lying and manipulation and gas-lighting? The effect on the spouses, especially the ones who didn't know what was going on at all, can cause trauma, yes real trauma b/c it's shocking. And trauma can cause severe physical issues:
http://theinstituteforsexualhealth....rtners-and-spouses-impacted-by-sex-addiction/

"Just quitting" isn't true recovery. It's very, very, very good to quit, but that's only one very small aspect of recovering from this issue. My hub's therapist told him he is "in remission" - not in recovery - but that was a few weeks ago and I hope he is doing the work to be in recovery now. It's a very long road! I see glimpses of empathy and I am experiencing a great deal of intimacy from him like I haven't felt in years. He's 1.5+ years clean.

Why did I stay? Because I live MY value system. I live MY moral code. I made marriage vows which said 'for better or worse, in sickness and health' - I can't make my decisions based on my husband's lack of morality, ethics, and honesty. I make my decisions based on what I think is right. That said, I have boundaries. There are limits.

Women in our situation often are traumatized by the therapists who are there to help us, and we are judged by others whether we stay or whether we go. I don't give a frack what other people think at this point. That is their issue. I am living my life by my choices.

 

I actually am physically harmed by pornography use. It feeds into my anxiety attacks and ptsd. I get physical symptoms!

 

If it gives most of us trauma.... Isn't that physical?

 

I already had the ptsd and anxiety, but it's made it worse. The physical symptoms are unbearable. I've had to leave work midday thinking I needed to go to the hospital. I am the sort that never had sick days before.

 

This is very true. I have also had severe anxiety due to my husband's PMO. Although, that was not the point when I mentioned physical harm. I probably should have phrased it differently.

 

I have PTSD also. It manifested after stopping my hub's extremely gory suicide attempt and his divulging of his secret life.

PTSD is absolutely horrid. I know I am not sharing anything new to anyone on this thread who has it. I also understand how mental health issues (anxiety, depression, and more) are serious! Our culture seems to downplay those issues and there isn't enough properly trained help in the U.S. for these conditions. (Not sure about other countries.)

Just want to send out some good thoughts and peace to the women here on this thread. The struggle we have is real, and "just leaving" isn't solution. Whether we leave or stay, we have tremendous work to do and that starts with sled-care. (and it does help to "get by with a little help from our friends" - esp those who really get it).

 

Hey everyone! Found this thread while browsing around and feel compelled to respond.

I think it's unfair that some have framed this issue in overly simplistic terms: addiction vs. choice, as if it's either one or the other. It's no different than when people propose the question of "God vs. science," or when talking about homosexuality, "nature vs. nurture."

No one actively chooses addiction. I think that's important to make clear. No one consciously decides, "you know, I think I'd like to give up all the best things in my life for temporary surges of brain pleasure."

There are most definitely free will, moral-agency choices made in the early stages. Sometimes these choices are made in ignorance. Sometimes men don't acknowledge that porn is addictive and destructive. But after a while, the hooks get into them, those neuropathways start to strengthen and solidify, and before you know it, they're bound to a behavior that supercedes their power to choose.

Step 1 of all 12-step recovery programs says "We admitted we were powerless over our behavior and that our lives had become unmanageable."

Powerless. As opposed to "I can change, I just need to make better decisions." Compulsive sexual behavior is given that word because it's stronger than the will to resist: we are compelled to do it, even if we don't want to, even if we've tried to stop many times before, and even if we know it will hurt the people we love most. Powerlessness is why the addict must get outside help to start recovering. Their willpower has been hijacked.

That isn't to say the addict isn't responsible for the consequences of their actions--but it is to say that it's important to extend grace to people struggling with addiction. Unless you've experienced addiction yourself, you can't possibly know what it feels like to keep finding yourself drawn to behaviors that you hate. It already makes an addict feel horrible about themselves ... if the people they love the most have adopted a mindset that "it's a choice," how will that help them? It simply reinforces the idea that, "yep, I'm a horrible, awful person, because I've chosen this of my own free will. And the reason I'm not getting better is because I'm incapable of making better decisions." No addict will be helped by that.

It's okay to talk about "choice" when discussing the behaviors that led up to addiction, but once the hooks have dug in and addiction is real, we need to be really careful with how we throw that word around.

In Romans 7, Paul talks about how he doesn't do the things he wants to do:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!​

Paul writes, "it is not me that does it, but the sin within me." He recognizes that there is something inside of him, something not truly him that's running the show. Does he absolve himself of responsibility? No ... but instead of trying to change by his own will, he surrenders and admits that he needs to be saved. He can't do it on his own.

I wish more SO's and family members understood this. Addicts don't need to be absolved of responsibility and/or consequences, but we do need people to realize that our behaviors within addiction are no longer matters of choice.

 

Thanks for the secular part of your post, there is sense in that bit.

 

I am going to get a little incendiary here, but I feel like this forum should be a nice place for us all.

I understand what you are trying to say here. Yet, to me, it comes off as if you haven't truly been in a long term relationship before, and are excusing behaviors for yourself (while brandishing the "all addicts are just like me" card). You're belittling our experiences as women, as wives, as addicts (which many of us are), as victims.

To me, you seem to be doing a lot of SO blaming (even if you say you're not). In my opinion, your posts are not always appropriate and you are not coming from a place of heartfelt communication. Take a gander/actually read any of the other journals and threads here and you will see the truth of the matter on our feelings and our sympathies- and how hard it can be to love someone in the throes of this consuming, cancerous addiction.

I can love my SO, support him, have empathy for him, and still be upset over how he's treated me in the past (and no, I'm not perfect, but I didn't do anything to deserve this). There is no dichotomy there.

If you think it's an off-topic and pointless thread, please journey elsewhere. The rest of the men on this forum have often disagreed with us, but they listen, and they try to see all sides before posting helpful insights.

 

I agree. It wouldn't be the 1st time I've seen this type of stuff on this forum. And regarding victims - yes - CASRD
http://theinstituteforsexualhealth.com/compulsive-abusive-sexual-relational-disorder-casrd/

^^^Yes. THIS. So much this. I have a great deal of empathy for my husband and his pain from many factors (one of which is the pain caused by sex addiction which he used to "medicate" other stresses in his life).

That said, he did make choices to buy secret cell phones, choose his whore on BackPage, etc. They are choices. Choices in direct conflict with marriage vows. Choices he knew were wrong and continued to make them. Choices which he regrets. He told me he could have made a choice to ask me for help b/c I was there in his life. He told me he should have asked for help. He told me he chose not to ask.

Now the secret is out and thankfully, he is alive and waking up and also making a choice to recover.

 

If possible, I encourage you to use the quote function in these kinds of comments, because I can't tell if you're responding to @Properitas or me.

And if by chance you are responding to Properitas, you'll understand why I put him on my ignore list weeks ago.

And thank you for the backhanded compliment.

My scripture reference was about the exact same dynamic--so if there was sense in the 'secular' part of my post, there was sense in all of it. No need to be flippant about my faith just because you're an atheist.

 

Oh, it's quoted from Properitas, no worries on your part. You must not be able to see it due to blocking him. I'd be careful in other responses on the forums you might misconstrue as being directed at you instead of him. Eek!

You've never participated in these behaviours-from what I have seen.