Pursuit during Reboot?

Take it slow. Be friends. Where's the rush? Keep listening!

You definitely need to fix YOU. It seems you're very observant and inquisitive about the mote in the eye of potential wives... and we both have had this beam of PMO in our eyes. Ouch. Let us first cast out the beam! And, then perhaps we shall see clearly to help a brother or sister with their vision. Well, applying that a little in this situation, let's not be judgemental of these great and maybe not-quite mature sisters all who would likely hate to date a guy on a 3-day streak or a 30-day streak. In my experience, a Christian lady wouldn't want to have any kind of serious relationship until a guy is more like past 365. Not saying they won't proceed and be forgiving, but I'm saying it isn't their first choice.

And, sadly, those women would be right to be choosier, because TONS of us in 40+ brought our p use and pmo addiction into our marriages. Sure, it was buried for a while, and then the right triggers hit and we caved. Don't be like us! Get well. Get recovered. Get all the healing you can straight at the gentle hands of Jesus himself. Visualize it and fast about it and pilgrimage it out if you can... be committed for life to God. Seek first the Kingdom! And, then, all these things will be added unto you. Because I don't think that applies to just money and land, but a wife, also

Your eyes are becoming clearer in your reboot. That is amazing. Knowing what you want is ideal! Go get that goal. *BE* the guy that straight-up deserves the right girl that's the worship leader and gives all glory of her beauty and talents to the Lord. You have a wonderful way with words in expressing your true yearning. It will happen. And, it will happen with the best results when you are in the right place of receiving grace and forgiveness in your own walk.

REALLY glad you are here. Thanks for tagging me. I hope the things people say will edify your life in the near future. Seek out all things virtuous! You shall find, indeed

 

Try 30 days bro. Good luck.

 

I think you know the answer to this already.

If I was you, I would tell her exactly what you are going through, how you feel, what you fear, everything. Just be open and honest, and if she doesn't respect you for that then you can walk away knowing you are better off alone or putting energy towards someone else. Be honest and have integrity. Some people recover in no time, some take years. 3 months is bare minimum for most of us.

 

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Hello, Søren. I'm not sure what it is you're asking of me, other than whether or not you should date this girl before getting your 90 days in.

But let's start with this prerequisite 90 Day stretch you're imagining.

If the sentence I quoted above is a true indication of your mindset right now, it's already over. You're like a smoker who threw the pack of cigarettes away, but didn't make the decision to quit first. It's just a matter of time before you pick up a fresh pack. You need the certainty first, then comes the ability. If you go into a 90 day stretch and your opening bid is, "I don't know if I will reach it," your car is already running on fumes at the starting line. I hope I'm not coming across as an asshole ... I don't mean to and don't want to ... but you're looking to make some substantial decisions that will go on to define your beliefs about yourself and this potential relationship, so I would prefer to risk offending you than to slather frosting on your situation.

Bottom line ... I don't enough about you personally, but looking at that sentence you wrote and the streak history in your signature, I would say a goal of ten days would be a substantial but still believable undertaking at this point ... and one you need to be fully armored up with practical resources for, not just "hoping". Get that 90 Day reboot idea out of your head for now.

If you were to go back through a bunch of my earlier posts, you would see that I'm adamant about men taking on only chunks of time that they can clearly conceptualize in their heads. No one except time management geniuses can conceptualize 90 days. I think average people can think out about three or four days at a time, max. Losers think out maybe one or two days. Very productive people can plan out five to seven days in their heads. Beyond that, everything is an abstract blur. For that reason, for guys who are struggling, abstinence goals should be lengths of time such as four days, six days, maybe twelve hours if he's under stress or depressed. If he's feeling strong and capable, ten days ... max. But ten days is rare for a new guy or someone stuck in a whirlpool and having trouble.

Four days, two days, another four days, then five days ... then you daisy chain those shorties together and create your 90 days. But you never think about 90 days except in fleeting glimpses ... in retrospect ... unless you want to overwhelm yourself and create that hopeless or distracted state that causes most men to act out. Right now, with regard to PMO goals, it sounds to me like you're the dude who only got entrusted by the master with one talent. You're not ready to wheel and deal with ten talents yet. So focus on small achievable victories that you know you can pull off. Again, you start with certainty. And in porn and masturbation addiction recovery, certainty is a product of how many days you are focusing on at a time.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11:24

I think one of the things that must really irritate God about Christian prayers is how often he hears requests from people who do not believe it's going to happen. How is God supposed to answer a prayer like that? It's like my wife coming to me and saying, "Well, I wanted to ask you to take me to the movies, but I know you probably don't want to."

Strange, honey, when you have that attitude about it, you're right. I don't want to take you to the movies. Prayer request rejected.

Next time, ask me for something you actually believe I'm happy to give you ... and which you can successfully argue that you can competently handle ... and I'll move heaven and earth to get it for you. Do that often enough, and you can become more and more confident in me to give you bigger and bigger things.


Same with asking God for help with abstinence. Your request is a partnership, involving your responsibility in addition to His provision. Ask God for things you know you can wrap your hands around for now. Big things come later when you've built up bigger faith.



As to the girl, my instinct is that you're in a similar situation there, too. Do what you are certain you can make work - not what you "wish" would happen in some abstract or fantasy sense. If a relationship with her is going to be awkward and based on contrived efforts, it's not going to get off to a good start. Fortunately, among maturing Christians in a functional church environment, the awkward secular dating model doesn't need to be your only way of going about this. If you have access to group activities, even double-dates and such - but ideally ministry or small group environments ... I can't imagine anyone who posts as intelligently as you do being unable to function very well doing the peacock thing in the company of other people. Rather than try to cobble together some identity of yourself as having to have your act together in a private setting, do what you know you can do. In a group or church setting, all your secrets and insecurities don't matter nearly as much as they do on a private date.

You know how poor people often make the best rich people later in life because they learned early in life how to make things happen with very little resources? If I was in your boots, I would make a challenge out of seeing how close I can get to this girl in the context of group settings. When that has completely exhausted itself and you're able to go into private time with her with certainty about your standards and your intentions, at that point you can move her into some private time with you.

And by the way, about that group thing ... back in the day when I was a young guy in church and hanging around other young Christians all the time ... I was the guy who created the social activities for my circle. I'd have ten people on a list that I would call and invite out to something interesting on a Saturday afternoon ... knowing that statistically, about six would usually join in. I did that about every two or three weeks and within a couple months I had the reputation of the guy who put cool activities together.

And let me tell you, Søren ... when women see you as the guy who makes the stuff happen, they go nuts for that. The women you invite along will pursue you ... and the men will defer to you. Just doing that one thing (organizing memorable, quality get-togethers) with any noticeable frequency means you'll never have to work to impress anyone in the group. You can sit back quietly all evening shyly and awkwardly while the rest of them socialize, and you'll still be the most desirable man in the group. If you have one lady already in mind, that's a much better way of going about this than working your butt off to woo her and contorting yourself into some one-on-one dating situation that puts all the pressure on you to be attractive.

And if the question was simply whether or not you should do this before hitting 90 days, I would say of course. Start today and make it all work. The Christian community is very short on competent men. We're swimming in hesitant losers who are only imagining faith in God. We desperately need every able and aggressive man we can get.

Go vigorously about your life and get it all in. ..The clock's ticking. ..There's not enough time to do anything half-assed anymore.


Good luck with your goals.
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Hi Søren ,
Thank you for valuing my opinion in this, i was raised Christian myself, but i never was as devoted as you or as any of the other guys who answered you here.
As you may have read, i value a great deal the Buddhist values as a life philosophy, but ofcourse i still try to live by The Ten Commandments as well

I don't know how severely addicted to pmo you are/ were, and your "reboot" time is ofcourse greatly dependent on that.
The "standard" around here is 90 days, but that is only just a number really.

However, physically spoken the brain changes that have occured when you're a pmo addict, start to change at 28 days (diminishing the "sprouts" on the p-related pathways), and 42 days (DeltaFosB protein concentration is lower which stops the p-related pathways to grow). So for a "clean" reboot 90 days seems enough for some people to at least notice some very real changes in their behavior.

If the above is not familiar to you, i suggest you take a look here: www.yourbrainonporn.com
It explains all these things in great detail.

In your case, it's maybe wise to just keep talking to this girl, get to know each other as real good friends, and while doing this keep rebooting, trying to stay free of pmo.
You will notice the positive advantages the further your reboot goes, you can read these on lots of "Success Stories" here on the forum.
On the website i mentioned, is also a lot of information about rebooting experiences and the benefits of it

Since addiction is not a disease but a symptom, a flight from your real life for some reason, getting emotionally closer to that girl, will imo help you a lot to stay away from
pmo, because you have a big goal in your life right now: getting closer to that very special person to you...

Connection is the opposite of addiction so once again: trying to get close to the girl will make you feel less lonely, and keep you away from pmo

Even if you fail once, or more than once, you will still make progress compared to turn to pmo every day and never try to stop it.
The result will always undeniably be better for you, so just go for it. You'll see how it turns out going your journey !

I wish you all the best for your future, and ofcourse it's you who has to decide how to go about this !
If you have doubts or any questions, just reach out here to this community, we're here to try to help you my friend, all my best !
Have a good day Sir !

 

I appreciate you valuing my opinion in this. Here are my thoughts:

My first question is, how close are the two of you? Are you acquaintances? Friends? Good friends? Do you confide things in each other? Do you pray together? Depending on how close you are, it would a good thing to find a way to bring up the subject of PM to her and confide in her what you are struggling with. I do not suggest pursuing her before you are clean and when/if you decide to, because you are friends, this needs to be disclosed before a date or relationship happens. She should be allowed to have the choice to decide if this is something she wants to take on in her life before she has a chance to fall in love with you and her heart is involved. Once the heart is involved, it is much harder road.

My question to you is, what are you doing to win this battle? What do you have in place? Are you simply abstaining? Have you put safeguards on your phone/internet? Do you have an accountability partner? You need support and back up, and you need to figure out why you keep going back. What is drawing you to PMO, what needs are being met that you continue to relapse? Have you identified your triggers and found ways to work around those? Have you sought outside help? If not, why not? Not meaning to give you the 3rd degree but trying to dig a little deeper to both learn more and help you think deeper if you haven't already.

 

I know it’s not my thread but thank you for this. So much helpful wisdom and wise words. You’ve really spurred me on!

 

Here's what I meant in my tldr byline...

NOTE: This is heavy and takes serious thinking. Do more of that. The time invested in these posts by the fathers on here is invested and well-distilled into valuable information that you then must consider, weigh, and decide which elements to accept as wise counsel.

Yes: be friends. Don't get intimate and keep s respectful distance. This might mean she dates other people. Perhaps even semi-serious. But, you can say you're working through some things including your life priorities, and especially your relationship with God. If she's half the awesome you've described, she will respect that. This is the "Take it slow".

Being friends means you hang out, it means you treat her like a confidante and that you like spending time with her, when it happens to work out. It means you don't actively court her and show massive amounts of romantic affection. It means you say you're very interested in her and you let her know that your life path is XYZ right now. Maybe she wants that. Maybe she hangs out with other people other times. Be cool with that. "Be friends." Don't be demanding or hating on the friend-zone which is a lie the world tells that has nothing to do with a godly relationship. If we are to cleave
unto our wife, then we are certainly to share everything. Start with friendship! You'll learn more in that phase about what to expect in real life after marriage year 1 than at any other time in the dating process.

Also: you need time. There is no rush. "Where's the rush?" means that you are in this for QUALITY and not a specified timeline. Average marriage ageis of course lower for Christians because we do believe in waiting for intimacy until after marriage. But, you're totally safe in thinking that you should be ready. So: don't rush it. There will be time to rush once you've had the interim time to improve on yourself. Did you hear me say a lady would rather date someone at 365 in their reboot. Think longer on that. Don't be dismissive. The day WILL come when you talk about this with your girlfriend -- BEFORE she is your fiancée. Because you cannot ask for that commitment without full disclosures prior to the big question. Walk this at your own pace. I'm not telling you to get to 365 before dating. I'm saying if you're not ready to get married TODAY, then where is the rush? Reconsider it, even if you feel rushed. The lady will not be rushed - that I can guarantee you. Rush when you are ready. Not now.

I like other things about what McClean said, but you can see this common element. I'm just trying to expound more on what I meant since you repeated the refined question. And, my point is: it was already answered!

Oh, and it's awesome you've been doing a lot of listening. Keep listening! (to her) The rest will all work out in time because you are on an awesome path to becoming even more awesome. All with God's help, my friend. Accept that help whenever you find it!

 

Some great responses up in here, wow ^

Naturally. On the flip side, you probably don't want to complicating things by relapsing all the time. If you keep getting to know each other, she will find out sooner or later. It seems like the later you leave it, the more she will feel lied to by omission. Even if you hit that perfect streak and never P M again, it would still be in everyone's best interests to be open and honest. As other's have said, P can sometimes find a way to creep back in, even in the midst of otherwise rather healthy relationships. Get comfortable by all means, just don't wait forever.

 

Vx said pretty much what I was going to say. (minus the religious aspect) because I'm not Christian.

 

@Søren K.

I've been thinking about this and something that came to mind is that if you reach a point where you don't think she would take the news well and you decide not to share it with her, then I don't think it would be wise to pursue a relationship. I'm sure you can understand the dangers of starting out a relationship with secrets. Especially if you read enough of the SO's experiences of feeling as though their relationships have been built on falsehood because the truth was hidden. This is just my perspective, of course.

You are wise to seek out counsel on this issue, as well as recovery. Good luck to you in all of this!

 

Have you ever thought about how many hours per week you spent PMO'ing on average? Would you say it was 3 hours? 7 hours? More/less?

What you can do / must do instead of just abstaining is fill those hours with something else:
* working out
* reading books about PA
* watching/listening to YouTube or podcasts about addiction and addiction recovery
* finding other positive outlets

Simply abstaining is not enough.

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I read your posts--are you going to sleep earlier? In the morning, are you lingering in bed [with your phone]? Avoid being on whatever devices brought you porn while in bed. Don't do it. Only use your laptop/phone while sitting at a table or on your couch. Setup these boundaries and others -- they will greatly help you reach your goal of 90 days.

 

I mentioned books...here is a short list of books -- I highly recommend them all, especially the first one for you.

Book list (all Christian books related mostly to PA / marriage)
* The Game Plan by Joe Dallas
* Worthy of her Trust by Stephen Arterburn and Jason B. Martin
* The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy Keller
* Sexual Detox: A Guide for Guys Who Are Sick of Porn by Tim Challies
* Finally Free: Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace by Heath Lambert
* Sacred Marriage by Gary L. Thomas
* Overcoming Lust by Jim Vander Spek

 

+1 on this. A couple of marriages in my immediate family ended because of secrets relating to PA. The worst thing about secrets is that it's pretty much a guarantee that you will not be able to escape PMO as long is you are pretending it is not there.

There are a number of occasions in my life where I confessed my PMO problem. All of those occasions were awkward. But regardless of the outcome of those concessions, I always felt like I had stepped up to a higher rung on a ladder.