PMO in a long distance relationship (married)

Hello. I've just joined NoFap and wanted to share a little about my situation. I'm a 30 year old male, married, and been PMOing all my adult life. I'm trying to take control of my PMO both for my wife's sake and my own. What makes our situation challenging at the moment is that due to my job where I work abroad we're forced to live apart from each other for extended periods. Currently we're into our fifth three-month period apart (we've been doing long-distance on and off for just over two years). Of course being able to connect regularly by WhatsApp and FaceTime is a modern-day miracle, but this can barely help with the lack of basic physical intimacy we share when together in person. When it comes to my problem with PMO, the consequences of being apart for such long periods of time has been mixed. Let me try and explain:

When I moved abroad for the first time, I felt so miserable and lonely, the desire to PMO was completely undercut. I just felt so homesick and alone, missing my wife (we were only engaged at the time) so much that PMO was out of the question. However, once I started to settle into my new home and job, PMO quickly made its way back into my life. I've had similar experiences as I return to my job abroad after spending time at home with my wife (sometimes this is for month, sometimes for three months). When I arrive, for the first week or two I'm so lonely the desire to PMO is totally subdued, but then I settle back into routine and it emerges as strong as ever.

However, what I find more disturbing is that my PMO while abroad has motivated a desire to seek out real sexual encounters with women I work and socialize with. I haven't yet acted on this desire and have remained faithful to my wife (although the more I reflect on it, the more I think PMOing is its own kind of unfaithfulness), but the urge to have a sexual relationship with a woman other than my wife is at times so strong it feels like the only logical option. Writing this now I can't believe I've even felt this way before; I love my wife so much, I miss her terribly while I'm working abroad, and the thought of actually being unfaithful to her--the pain it would cause her--breaks my heart. Nevertheless, the need for physical intimacy is ever present and this need sometimes manifests in some terrible ways. Why I'm sharing this situation here is that I think the fantasies of infidelity I have are in some way coupled to my PMO habits--I don't want to go into detail here as this may constitute triggering material, but I'll just say that I'm worried the distinction in my mind between PMOing and the real world gets so blurry I can imagine actually have a sexual relationship with women other than my wife.

I will write more about my situation soon, but at this point, if anyone has been in a similar situation, I'd be interested to hear if my problem sounds at all familiar.

 

I want to write a little about some of challenges of living in a long distance relationship and the role of PMO.

Because of the time difference its usually difficult for my wife and I to talk on FaceTime for more than a few minutes during the weekdays. Usually we try and talk as she's finishing work, which for me is around 11 or 12 in the evening. On the weekends we have much more time, but during the week its often hard to having meaningful conversations. Also, when we first started living apart we text and sent photos to each other all the time, but now that has dwindled. Often I feel very detached from my wife, and I want to express this feeling to her, but when it comes to talking on FaceTime it always feels there's more important things to talk about, and talking about the tough stuff--feeling down, angry, alone--is really hard to do in the FaceTime setting. So, basically, while we have the opportunity to communicate everyday, doing so is often unsatisfying and I find it easy to become complacent.

It's times where my wife is not returning my messages or won't pick up on FaceTime, or does but is too busy with work to talk and seems uninterested in having a conversation, that I often turn to PMO. It sounds pathetic and childish as I write it, but in these times I feel unloved, worthless, and upset that she's not interested in spending time with me. I'm usually always pretty tired at this point and often wait up late to try and talk to her. It almost feels like I will PMO to spite her--kind of like: "if you're not going to love me then I will find someone else (virtual--a pornstar) who will." At these times I find it very hard to control PMO urges, and basically just say "to hell with it". If I think about it now, though, if my wife knew that's what I was doing she'd be hurt. It's the dishonesty and spitefulness that I find such a problem when reflecting on the situation. I need to find other, better ways of dealing with that feeling of rejection (as superficial as it may be). I need to step up to this challenge. I can't just keep saying "I'll get around to it another time."

 

Thanks for your comment! Really encouraging. Focusing on empathy for my wife and my non-sexual needs is exactly what I need to be doing. And yes, the unavoidable time apart is great opportunity to abstain complete from PMO and MO. Appreciate the support.

 

Thanks for your comment. Very solid advice--the truth rings so true when said this clearly. And it's quite disturbing to really consider how powerful porn and PMO can be in obscuring this truth.

Fortunately our long-distance situation is coming to an end soon and we will be living together again. The possibility of kids is on the horizon too, which we've been holding off on while I've been working abroad. I really want to take charge of my problem with PMO before our family starts growing.

 

I've mentioned this in my introduction but I'll say it again: two things that brought me to the NoFap forum--1) to help cultivate abstinence from PMO and 2) to better understand PMO. I've tried doing both numerous times throughout my adult life but have always returned to PMO while forgetting or overlooking (willfully or not) some of the key things I've learnt about PMO from the various things I've read about it. The number one thing I've learnt about it, and which I've struggled to face up to, is that IT'S AN ADDICTION. I want to briefly share some of my thoughts on this key issue.

First, it's hard to recognize an addiction when it is such a normal part of your everyday life. If there is one thing that has remained almost consistent throughout my adult years it has been PMO. It's everyday regularity has allowed me to view it as NORMAL. So, even when I reflect on it and questioned my behavior, it's not long before I've moved on to something else more ostensibly pressing--work, wife, family, friends, etc. Of course, as I've known for a long time in the back of my mind, because PMO is an everyday occurrence it IS affecting these other essential things in my life. The specific and many ways in which it has affected these things I'm still unclear on, but I know that it has had a NEGATIVE affect. (Hopefully if I can abstain for a significant period I will see the problems its having start to diminish and therefore will recognize what exactly PMO is affecting.) When part of me is feeling guilt, shame, regret, disgust, fear, confusion, etc, about my PMO--even if it's only in the background--it's nonetheless going to affect how I go about the rest of my daily life. There's been plenty of times I've actually recognized this and thought about it carefully, but it's always been the case that I rationalize the problem in a way that avoids the ultimate challenge of actually committing to quitting PMO.

I have talked to my wife about my PMO at several points throughout our relationship. She knows I do it--although I don't think she is aware of the regularity (I haven't disclosed this to her yet which is certainly something that has to happen sooner rather than later)--and the few times I have talked to her about it my motivation to quit has been amplified ten-fold. But it's always been the case that the deeply established addiction always gets the better of me. And I believe this is the case because it's become such a fundamental part of everyday life. The ogling, the fantasizing, plus the self-disgust and loss of faith in my ability to function as the better person I wish I could be--these are at play through out the day (and night--often my dreams reflect these same problems). Basically, PMO is not just a problem when I'm sitting at my computer; it's weaved within every part of my life. That's why quitting has been such a massive challenge.

All this is not to offer an excuse for my behavior. If there's one thing that's been reinforced through my reading and interactions on NoFap it's that dealing with PMO is ultimately about taking total responsibility for my own actions. If I want to quit I've got to really come to terms with this fact. This is something I haven't been able to do. Writing about it now, however, is one way of working through it, I think. I feel like it's kind of "short-circuiting" the behavior in a way. I also need to remind myself everyday and frequently throughout the day why I want to quit (it's too easy to forget this and slip into well-formed habits of thought and behavior). Here's some of the main reasons for quitting as I see them now (I'm sure they will evolve as I come to better understand this problem):

It's FAKE, but it's affecting REAL LIFE
It's regressive not progressive
It hurts me, my wife, (not to mention the many people who are adversely affected by the production of porn)
I could be doing something much better with my time and energy!

 

Bit of an update: I MOed last night after edging (no P) that morning. Didn't fantasize about porn while MOing. Fantasized about my wife. Very different experience to anything I've had sexually for a long time--possibly something closer to "self-love" than "self-abuse", but I'm not really sure (could just be my PMO logic trying to rationalize a gradual return to old habits--I've been in this position many times before when trying to give up P; it starts with occasional MO than eventually ends up back at daily PMO). Not sure how to proceed with my attempt at PMO abstinence at this point.

The last 16 days (my first PMO-free streak recorded on NoFap) have been difficult but I've already had a glimpse of what a PMO-free existence could feel like. Social anxiety has been relieved somewhat; feeling closer to my wife (despite our physical distance); small elevation in self-esteem; and also the ability to reflect a little more critically on my addiction to PMO--I'm more aware of how it overlapped with my everyday life, especially with its influence on my habitual ogling.

A question for anyone reading this: are there any good books out there that discuss "life after porn" or something along those lines? Maybe something on sex for people recovering from porn addiction? One of the recurring thoughts I've had over the last couple of weeks is that porn has completely messed up my true/natural sense of sex, what it means to have sex with my wife, how to be empathetic while have sex with her, what it means to think about the sexuality of other people, etc. Porn has shaped my view of sex in a way that now everything/everyone is filtered through a lens of sex and sexuality (both of which have also been defined largely by my consumption of porn). This relates to a concept called "Pornotopia"--something I discovered recently: basically the idea is that when people consume enough porn they implicitly start to view the world in a similar way to the fantasy world of porn--everyone is sexually available, everyone wants to have sex all the time, (by and large) woman exist primarily to serve the basic sexual desires of men (no connection to relationships, love, or dignity), and everyone is viewed in terms of the categories defined by porn (busty, teen, MILF, etc). It sounds kinda ridiculous--how could watching a bit of porn actually determine the way you view the real world in everyday life--but if we consider how for addicts like myself who have been PMOing regularly for a decade-plus, we can start to appreciate how the boundaries between the real world and the "porn" world can easily be blurred. Basically this is the long way of me saying I'm starting to appreciate the broader effects of my PMOing and I want to start building a better conception of sex and sexuality, one that while help me imagine a PMO-free future (although I expect I'll always be a "recovering" addict) and one that while help me building stronger and healthier sexual intimacy with my wife.

 

So, I've been keeping up the PMO abstinence which I'm really pleased about. This is probably getting close to the longest PMO-free streak in my life, which seems crazy when I reflect on that fact. However, this success has been overshadowed by another large problem in my life over the last few weeks: I'm suffered from a significant rise in anxiety. I feel like I'm going crazy. I don't feel at all present in the world. It's as if I'm in a dream and I just want to wake up. It's not as if I'm worrying about anything in particular, I just have this constant feeling of dread, confusion, hyperawareness, and rumination to that point that I feel totally lost in my head. I've struggled with anxiety since I was a kid and have been in therapy on and off since. I haven't seen a therapist in around 3 years and I've got to the point where I'm desperately needing to see one again. I don't know whether this recent spike in anxiety has anything directly to do with my PMO abstinence but I thought I'd mention it here in case any other NoFap members have experienced something similar.

 

I relapsed today. This was my longest streak ever. After today's relapse I think I'm realized one of the reasons I've used porn in the past while also in a relationship: it's a way of trying to gain control of my sexual desires when there's a conflict between me and my wife. I do it out of spite, as a way to say "you can hurt me but you can't control my sexual desires". It sounds petty, but it makes sense when I reflect on it.

After this period of abstinence I know I can get back on a PMO-free path. I've just gotta assert all my will power over the next few days and weeks to avoid the slip back into regular and shameful PMOing. I've gotta find other ways of dealing with the feeling of being hurt by my wife. Things are not great between us at the moment so I need to focus on addressing that. I've gotta realize that PMOing is really not sustainable way to react to relationship problems.

 

Really appreciate your comment. Excellent advice.