PMO is killing my marriage.

My wife has known about my PMO habit since before we were married. We both thought it was "under control." I know now that I was just suppressing it, hoping that the real thing would replace my need to go after porn. Well turns out the emotional stress marriage brings made it harder to not turn to PMO.

Fast forward we have been married 4 years and have a chid, now and things are much worse. Better in some ways but worse in the PMO department. We both went to therapy for a year (me for 2 years), she stopped going, then I stopped and we tried to just push it under the rug and just focus on the positive things in our relationship.

Well that works when life is coasting along, as soon as we hit a disagreement or stress trigger it's like the end of the world. Yesterday, I wanted a divorce after a disagreement on parking!!! I know it is because of underlying things that we are not addressing. I also know a big part of gaining her trust again is being clean.

Currently I am not clean though and I don't know the best thing to do for our relationship. Deep down I want to be emotionally open with her, but it scares the crap out of me to have needs. So instead I shut off isolate and watch porn.

Any ideas on how to start being emotional open or vulnerable? I think the biggest issue is my own shame for my behaviors keeping me silent and isolated.

 

Thanks for idea about journalling first. I feel like that would help both of us feel a bit safer instead of feeling the shame or feeling defensive and just reacting to it.

I have seen two therapists both LCSW. The second was working on his CSAT. Both using a CBT approach. They were helpful to an extent, but I never got more than 30 days without PMO.

 

Thanks for sharing a bit of your story with me. Yeah some days it does feel like I have tried everything and there is nothing else left to do.. . I guess for me it boils down to doing it consistently.

I am pretty new to NoFap...just joined a couple days ago, what is hard mode? I am guessing there is info in another thread?

Thanks for the support.

 

The two of us talked yesterday and agreed that we have been in denial the last year just trying to forget that my PMO even exists. It worked for a little while. We both just ignored it and pretended like it wasn't hurting us. Then the other day when things got ugly, I couldn't deny it any more and it was very obvious that the pain was just leaking out of other areas in our lives.