Relapse as a revenge

For me, all of the issues I have in my addiction are due to laziness and my easy way out through escapism. Of course no two people are alike but I used PMO to escape, indulge, and exploit how lazy I was.

I have a degree I’m not using. I don’t make as much money as I could be. I lay around on my days off because I used to think I deserved it after working all week. I struggled to have meaningful conversations with my boyfriend without lashing out, nagging, or being a hypocrite. When I was in the worst part of my addiction, I sucked and I made all those excuses for myself. It was easy to lay back and have orgasms but I felt like a filthy creep and I treated him like shit because I sucked.

I’m breathing easier now that I’ve been clean. The urges are fleeting and I don’t indulge them because I have the memory of too much guilt stacked up. My boyfriend is more important than the dopamine I get from being a lonely bedroom freak.

As for lusting after other people... I can’t relate. If I notice that someone is “attractive”, I don’t care. Their looks have no meaning assigned to them. I don’t know what to say for someone who claims to love their partner yet they want to have sex with someone else. It seems like they must have disconnected what sex and love are.

It all comes down to objectification. When I used to have a vibrator, I would immediately get aroused when I thought about it because it was an object of pleasure. I didn’t love it or bond with it. I imagine that looking at other bodies as a means to arousal could be a parallel experience for some people. It just sounds nebulous and hard to decode when a “committed” partner lusts after other people. I guess the bare bones of that sort of confession would sound like this:

“I love you. You make me feel safe and I get oxytocin from you but I disconnected love from sex. When I look at other people, I don’t see people, I see masturbation toys. You’re not a toy. You make me feel warmth, shame, aggravation, and all sorts of things. Those naked people I look at make me feel nothing outside of a wet erection.”

Partner connection and orgasm is a learned experience for most of us PAs. It’s sort of a holy practice because it requires you to commit your mind/body/soul in service to someone you love. It’s not easy but it is rewarding when you learn to master yourself.

 

Thank you for the constructive answer.

 

I’m not sure if I’m chiming in at a moment where it makes sense. I have to backtrack but I was seeing an argument between ghostwriter and sam. Sam said something about lusting after other women and I’m saying that it’s not real lust. It’s symptomatic of an addiction. No one wants the commitment of engaging in real sex—one night stand or not. Jacking off is more convenient.

Like I was saying, it’s the objectifying that most of us PAs are good at. Some take it a step further and cheat because they think it’ll be fulfilling but it’s never as hyped as jacking off makes it feel like it would be.

 

I think this is perhaps what I mean when I say that a part of myself wants to have sex with other women. I see (or more optimistically, have seen) the images of attractive women's bodies as an object of pleasure. A part of my PMO in the name of sole pleasure seeking. I know that I do not want to actually have sex with any other women. I have become used to using such imagery to pursue pleasure. Part of the reason PMO leads to shame (for me), is that to derive pleasure from someone else's sex appeal while Ming sure looks and feels like deriving pleasure from the abstract prospect of sex with the person depicted or being a part of the act depicted or whatever. This creates cognitive dissonance because I know I do not want to have sex with other women, and yet the idea seems to be an aspect of what is exciting about P. A lot of my shame came from the dishonesty involved in PMO and hiding the behaviour, and I am trying to find the best way to be honest with myself about what I did, why I did it, what I want, and what I can do to get it. A life where I am 'free' to sleep with other women is not what I want. A life where I am 'free' to M to P, P-subs, or even just generally M is not what I want. A life where I am free to enjoy, be present in and be true to my relationship, where I am free to experience the happiness and fulfilment that it gives me, and where I am free from an addictive behaviour that does so much harm in the pursuit of an empty, hollow and lonely bit of selfish pleasure, that is what I want. Maybe it is just the addiction speaking when I convince myself that a part of me wants to have sex with women. Maybe I am trying to rationalise a cause for my PMOing that means I can avoid calling myself an addict. Maybe I try to project these impulses and thoughts onto all men because then I don't have to see myself as broken or deficient. But what does this outlook really achieve? How does it benefit me? I'm still thinking all this through and trying to work it out. I'm sorry that my ramblings and defensiveness have derailed a thread that should have been focussed around a hurt SO. I thought I had some insight into what might have been the PA's thought process and motivations for doing what he did. The truth is I have no clue why he did what he did, and I'm struggling to understand aspects of my own behaviour and conceptualise of them in a way that is consistent and makes complete sense.

 

It's not real lust. I think that is the key. I want to be honest. But if lust is wanting to literally have sex with someone, you are right that it isn't real lust. What I know is that it is real enough to be a betrayal. I don't want to define away the hurt that I caused my wife by arguing that since I never really want to sleep with other people that I haven't done anything wrong. To M to images of other women is wrong. I utilised other women's sex appeal to derive sexual pleasure. Clearly a betrayal. The reasons I am attracted to specific women (in whatever abstract, not-real-lust way that I am attracted to the women I have used in M) are biological/psychological in nature. The same way that real lust works, where I do want to act on it. I want to find the right way of conceptualising my P use that owns up for what were my motivations and yet does not imply a real seeking out of interpersonal sex.

Perhaps a pointless exercise. Perhaps not.

 

Your story reminds me a lot of myself. In my opinion, ifhe is anyway like me, you could take a break, at least that is what made me realize all I did wrong. It can also help you to clear your mind about the matter.