Married for 4 months and it hasnt gone away

you r wife doesn't have to know about your nofap journey , focus on the reasons why you want stop tapping and every time you get that feeling to jerk the chicken think about the multiple benefits that not masturbating has for you. focus all that sexual energy on your wife and a healthy sex life with her.

 

Marriage doesn't automatically make PMO issues go away. It can be very healthy for each partner to own their pleasure, and not to look to their partner to fulfill all their needs, and to be secure in approaching your partner, and then addressing whats left, and being happy and secure in them doing the same......

(But lets not kid our self.... that's not what happening.)

I know that its difficult and you want to maintain respect for her feelings, and worried about what she thinks of you. However, you have to reach out and see what her feelings truly are. You have to express the feeling of weakness and where you think its coming from. And ultimately to embrace change, you need to experiment with different ideas as to what might best help, and she needs to be clued in as to what is going on. Often PMO isn't a true addiction, but instead we are using it to comfort ourselves when there are unmet needs we won't and can't address.

Fixing all of that starts by losing the guilt and communicating with her. There are other challenges in your married life that will come up, and will need you to be able to freely communicate no matter what hurt is behind it. Start now. Chances are, your partner is a perceptive person, and already notices things about you. She may not know 'why', but there is a real danger in letting that go on too long, so she just assumes she knows why. The truth is, in silence you are still negotiating and committing to 'what's normal and allowed' in your relationship, and that can be so very very dangerous.

It could be that she feels secure enough that she is ok with you having your needs met (if hers are being addressed) through PMO, as long as you can present it not as a failure or weakness in her. Knowing that she is ok with it, or even having her be present why you indulge would strengthen your connection. If she isn't ok with it (which is very likely), perhaps she might be open to experimenting with you to fill more fulfilled more often. (There is a couples bonding practices out there if your interested, that include intimacy without orgasm as a goal).

The saying is 'normal is what works'. There is no right and wrong in how you as a couple meet your needs, as long as it's been discussed and negotiated where you both are in acceptance with it. This has to be an ongoing conversation, because acceptance yesterday doesn't equate to acceptance today.

The strength that comes through that realization, is how you attack an PMO issue while in a relationship. Don't let PMO attack you back by forcing hiding in guilt and withdrawing so not as to show your shame, feelings of weakness, and unmet needs.



I will offer some of my history of failure so you might benefit from it.

In my marriage (now in divorce), I didn't feel connected. I had a higher libido, and had Delayed ejaculation which meant that any intercourse was a lengthy attempt. (There are no quickies for me/never has been) My ex wife didn't/couldn't attempt to keep up. So I turned to PMO. I withdrew and hid from her daily so I could practice PMO to exhaustion, which in a practical definition meant I didn't go to bed with her at night (but instead staid up, often in a private place like my garage, or later my home office). She often expressed tearful disappointment that we didn't go to sleep at the same time. An uneasy balance was struck, arguments happened from time to time, and this went on for 17 years. Later when it ended, I found out that she had been going frequently outside the marriage for sex (going all the way back to the beginning early days of our dating).

Now before you automatically make assumptions...

(Was my lack of connection actual instinct that something was wrong? Or did my lack of connection come from withdraw into PMO leading me to not address my unmet needs, and failing to see her unmet needs? Did my withdraw in PMO not allow her to feel secure enough to commit to me fully, so she instinctively made up the difference on her own? Is PMO the same as cheating?

I will never know. I didn't communicate well enough to have any evidence. For that, I have to own that I had part in this drama. I don't blame myself for her lies and lack of fidelity and I do suspect that it was motivated out of insecurity, fundamental selfishness, and that she never truly committed to the same concept of marriage as mine. But I also have to acknowledge that from a distance my lack of communication, and use of PMO looks awfully similar.

 

Tell her , its like medicine it will hurt theyll be tears figths , i did it once , i PM , and instantly text her with out wanting , i knew what was coming and yea i saw hell face to.face , now.ive been 43 days with out PMO was hard but in the way it.build trust respect and.courage , do it.for.you man luck man

 

You have to tell your wife about what is going on. The only thing that's worse than looking at porn from your wife's point of view is being deceptive and lying. If you hide and lie and act deceptively then that will destroy her trust in you and then the relationship starts to fall apart.

Many of us were under the false impression that getting married and having access to unlimited sex at any time would satiate our sex drive. Unfortunately, our problem is not a sexual problem. It is an emotional problem. We use porn as a coping mechanism to make ourselves feel better.

Also, many of us married men tried fixing this problem on our own in secret. All of us have failed. We need all the help we can get. Fear is a powerful force that can hold us back from taking positive steps. Right now all you can see is the potential for disaster. There is no one who can help you more than your wife. It's time to work on this problem together and when the both of you are involved in your recovery then your odds for success go up.

Write out a script with what you plan to say. Tell her what has been going on and what you've been doing to fix the problem. Answer any questions she might have and be open, truthful, and transparent. Apologize for whatever pain you have caused her. Talk about ways you can work together to battle this as a team. Many couples have used this opportunity to bond when confronted with a common enemy. Addiction thrives in secrecy... you need to bring this out into the light so that you can forever get rid of this problem.

 

I think I understand your intent in writing this. It's an ideal world where pornography can actually strengthen a relationship and fulfill unmet needs for the one indulging. I believe that ideal world is a fantasy, and it's part of the lies that pornography sells to us. I do not believe that everyone who views porn is automatically an addict, and I do think there are those out there who are able to indulge and also be in a "satisfying" relationship with their SOs, but it's an extreme minority. I've never had direct encounters with any of those successful porn users, so admittedly I'm biased as most of us are, participating in an anti-porn website. I would approach any encounter with a successful porn user with warnings and extreme caution. If needs are not being met in a relationship with your SO, turning to porn to address those needs makes as much sense as drinking salt water to address the need of dehydration. The dangers far outweigh the temporary benefits, and the original needs only worsen and become more enhanced - these are the seeds of addiction because it thrusts users into a cycle of "need" that pornography will never fill.

I don't believe that mutual viewing of pornography will provide any kind of strengthening in a relationship. It's normalizing and accepting a behavior that will ultimately create a wedge in the relationship. It's turning to an external false solution to provide and add intimacy when the actual solution is already present in the room - your SO. There is no acceptable amount of pornography that we can engage in - and by we I mean the users of this site and those who are seeking help for addiction and porn related problems. I limit what I said because I believe it to be fact for users of this site, but I'll leave it as opinion for society at large under the premise that there are those able to "successfully" view porn - but as I suggested previously, I have serious doubts in that regard.

 

Tell her and be absolutely upfront about it. YES, that includes having lied about it. Tell her everything, full disclosure, and tell her as soon as possible. You're scared to upset her? She already has been given reasons to be upset. You lied! She's already hurt. You lied! There's nothing you can do about that. What you can do is NOT make it be even worse. Don't allow yourself to be scared by your partners' feelings. I know it's tough, I broke my relationship while living in fear of opening up and being honest. Don't go down that path. There is NOTHING you can hide forever from your partner. That person sees your face every day. You do NOT want to send that kind of message to your partner " We share a life together and STILL I find it acceptable to hide hurtful stuff from you and never tell you about it" because that obviously makes you a VERY lousy husband.

One thing my ex would always tell me was that she didn't need me to be perfect, she just needed me to be honest. We don't need to be perfect in order to be a good partner or husband, boyfriend,wife or girlfriend, we just need to be HONEST. With honesty, we let our partner decide for themselves if they want us or not, since they'll be choosing us for WHO WE ARE. Can't get better than that. Best of luck to you, and truly, I know you must be frightened, it IS frightening, but do whatever it takes to get it done. It's practically a life and death scenario of a relationship, every time we battle with a crossroad that involves choosing between honesty and dishonesty.

 

As long as your lying it will never get better. Tell her the truth.

 

My husbands lies destroyed our marriage. A man who confesses earns a womans respect and trust. Keeping secrets destroys a marriage. Trust me if my husband would have told me I could have forgiven him. Its the lies that destroyed our marriage. Be brave. Be a man. No woman wants to think her husband is a coward

 

I like this. No one should ask for perfection but honesty and respect is our human right. When it is violated everything else falls apart. I cant trust anything my husband says now. He may well be in recovery after 9 years of relapses but the lies have destroyed everything

 

Hi,
I am a partner of a man that suffers from porn induced delayed ejaculation. My first question to you is is your porn use/masturbation effecting your sex life with your wife? I presume that is why you are going on this journey but I can't tell. If it is I can say this. When a man turns down sex or is unable to perform in any way in the bedroom with his partner and the reason is due to porn use and/or masturbation that does a number on a woman's self esteem. However, you know what hurts worse? Lying and being secretive. Because lying carries over into every area of your relationship, betrayal about any issue is a horrendous burden to bear and much more damaging overall to your marriage. Many men do not tell out of fear but I say man up and be honest. Let her flip out, yell, scream, cry and take it like a man. Don't make excuses don't yell back or get defensive, just let her vent. Then move forward. Let her know you are trying, get into some counseling and consider getting a porn blocker on all of your electronic devices that she can have access to if she wishes. Tell her you may slip up again even though you are trying hard not to. Don't over promise. This could be a long journey and it's only fair to set her expectations appropriately. Only you know now bad your addiction is. We have no clue and you all usually hide the extent of it. But tell her when you do screw up you will tell her every single time. Also you may consider letting her know when you are having an urge and see if she can satisfy it rather than turning to porn. Be open honest and proactive in showing her you see you messed up and how you are going to fix it. Good luck!

 

I confessed my pm addiction to my partner after 2 years - she was devasted. It has been a year later and our relationship is hell. Im still rebooting and she has immense anger towards me - it has triggered alot of her own self esteem issues she she is finding very difficult to work through. She has not been able to forgive me for the deceipt and the nature of the addiction (she says ....if only it was alcohol or some other drug it would be forgivable)

It was the hardest thing to tell her but i knew it was the right thing to do. When you keep it as your dirty little secret that is really destructive. When you open up to her she may be your ally or she may not , i think ultimately it is your journey to overcome the addiction. (In my experience you need to go within yourself to heal the emotional & mental layers in order to release this most terrible habit).