"My partner deserves..."

I think I'm catching your meaning and I agree. Our recovery cannot be based on making our SO happy. Our recovery needs to be based on doing what is right. We need to take ownership of our recovery and accept whatever consequences that may entail. Therefore our failures are our fault but our success are our own too. If we reboot for the wrong reasons then we can blame someone or something else when we fail. That is immature and delusional thinking that we must get rid of. Man up everyone!

A secondary or additional reason to get better can be to make our SO's happy and to make up for the crappy way we treated them. We need to take ownership of the pain we caused others and do what we can to rectify the situation. We cannot expect our SO's to just get over it. We injured them and we bear the responsibility to help them heal. It's nice when they offer us support, and we should be appreciative of whatever help we receive, but we should never lose track of our need to help others.

If anyone wants to go Hard Mode and abstain from sex then they need to explain to their SO's all the reasons why. If any are reluctant to help out then I think it's because we didn't explain it properly. There might be a small percentage that don't want to abstain, but a majority of our SO's are awesome women who love us very much and want to help. It is our responsibility to be honest, truthful, and communicate clearly the reasons behind our requests for help. If we can't do that then we need to learn how. Decisions like these shouldn't be made unilaterally. Talk it out and explain the long term benefits.

This addiction robbed us of who we once were. We need to reclaim our humanity and learn how to be a human being again. That journey is all about self-discovery. Socrates once said 'Know Thyself'. We need to dig deep and analyze what made porn so attractive to us and start to address those problems. That's HARD WORK and most men are not able to muster up the courage to change. Too many people try to do just barely enough when we should be trying to SHOCK and AWE this addiction into submission. Only when we are able to do this can we celebrate our achievements.

 

Curious - @BlackMarble - are you married? If so, how long?

Agreed that it's the responsibility for any addict who wants to do the work to recover to make themselves better, healthy, and able to enjoy an authentic relationship going forward.

I'm sorry if your partner isn't willing to support you or a "no sex" request. That's rough and most likely hurtful if you desire your partner's support in your recovery. Not sure if I am understanding your post? Partners do have the choice, though. They did not choose to be in a relationship with a sex addict. They have to right to choose what they want/need sexually, emotionally and spiritually.

This is CRUCIAL if the addict wants to stay in the relationship or marriage. Ownership by the addict is crucial or the partner can't heal. Not taking ownership is abusive, IMHO. I am going through that with my husband right now. He doesn't seem to understand what I mean by ownership, and I may start another thread about ownership. @whyte

If the addict just chooses "F her" and I'm all about myself, bye-bye, I could care less that I blew up your life, now I'm gonna work on this for myself only (I don't care about our relationship or marriage) and then find someone new... well... that's extremely selfish, and most likely those issues will resurface in another relationship.

I'm not saying the original poster is saying any of this (above), but trying to make the point that if the addict is in a serious relationship or long-term marriage, the addict needs to address the pain of the partner. The majority of the work needs to be done by the addict so the addict can recover and have a more fulfilling life going forward for himself and hopefully with a partner if that's what the addict wants (a relationship).

Doing the work solely for another person (the partner) isn't genuine. Maybe that's what the original post is about?

@i_wanna_get_better1 said "...we should never lose track of our need to help others." YES. This is human. This is "the juice" - the good stuff in any relationship. It also feels good to help support others here and in real life (give/take).

YES!

*edited* b/c one of my sentences didn't make sense.

 

I'm so sorry you lost a long-term/8 year relationship due to this addiction.

Avoiding ownership in a truly committed relationship isn't helpful. Sigh.

The real "juice" is in human connection, but yes, I assume, addiction to better highs in sex is the goal for many who aren't awake yet.