My Story

My wife and I have been married for one year. We dated seriously for about five years before we tied the knot, and lived together for three of those five. We've had some rough patches, including a time when she cheated on me with another man (about a year and a half before we married). It's a long story, but we were fighting at the time and she ran out of her anxiety medication and was on a self-destructive streak. I went out of town for work for a week, and she told me everything that happened the night I came back. Long story short, she didn't sleep with him, but he gave her oral sex until she realized what she was doing and told him to stop. She told me she didn't enjoy a bit of it, either--that this was a way of destroying what we had together, and now she was afraid that this moment of recklessness had done us in for good.

Of course I was furious. I considered breaking things off right there, and thought for sure there was no way we could make things work. But over the course of the next few days, we talked things out. I hadn't been attentive, myself, and for a while had been questioning our future. In that way, I brought this upon us, too. We decided to renew our dedication and use this as a way to grow together, not apart.

Meanwhile, I had been PMOing regularly since the age of 11 or 12. While we talked about her cheating, I confessed that I regularly watched porn, and she just sort of laughed and said it was okay...as long as it wasn't "like every day or something." I didn't speak up, and I kinda wish I did. But it felt nice to know that she wouldn't hold the occasional PMO against me or consider it cheating. She told me she'd watched porn a few times when she was single, and we had joked about the vibrators she left at home when she went to school (where we met).

Flash forward to now, and here's where I am: I never told my wife that I watched porn once a day on a regular basis, but I'm changing things so I don't have to. I've now been porn free for more than two weeks. I don't feel amazing, and I'm tempted sometimes when I'm bored just to put it on the way some people put on a TV show as background noise, but I'm sick of feeling dirty and like I'm keeping secrets from my wife. I know even this technically qualifies as a secret, but I truly believe even married couples need some personal privacy. My wife believes that, too, and we have also joked in the past when I've told her that I MOed while she was away for a few days.

I can tell you from personal experience that it helps to know my wife isn't unforgiving and isn't particularly possessive of my genitals. The way I see it, and the way I believe she sees it, is that although we are married, our bodies are still our own individual bodies. If she wants to get a tattoo or a piercing or dye her hair, that's her decision, and vice versa.

I also believe that it isn't particularly bad for a person to masturbate without watching porn. I've MOed three times in the past two weeks, and we've had sex only once (she just got her period, so sex has been off-limits). I honestly find it strange that some people vehemently don't want their SO to masturbate. I'm not judging, but to me, as long as you aren't thinking of other people (which I was doing with porn for my entire life), I don't see the harm. I would have no problem with my wife pleasuring herself without me if I were out of town or not in the mood. I'm not going to get jealous over a vibrator, and I know my wife wouldn't be jealous of my hand, either.

For me, the issue has always been about whether or not my sex life--and my sexual relationship with my wife--has been as healthy as it could be. I know that an overuse of porn is unhealthy and unfair to her, so I'm cutting it out. I also feel like daily masturbation would be unhealthy, too. But I don't believe MOing once or twice a week is unhealthy, especially when she's unavailable for a few days, and some studies have even shown that frequent ejaculation can reduce the risk of prostate cancer.

I'm not here to challenge anyone's views, and everyone's dealing with a different situation, but I feel like healthiness should be the primary motivating factor. If I find that my current approach isn't working, I'll change it. For now, I am just proud to say I'm changing things for the better.