Those with spouses/S.O.'s/partners

I am quitting for my wife. I know a lot of guys on here talk about quitting for themselves, but PMOing, though taking a lot of time from my life, did not interfere with my life in the way it has for some. The most serious effect it had on me was the inability to O during real sex, but as for having sex, no problems. And, since the sex was good for my wife I initially thought "no problem". (I have not been married that long and my wife knew about my PMOing before we got married and we used to laugh about it, but once married, she found it less and less amusing). But, my wife's self esteem suffered from it since she knew I was PMOing, meaning, essentially, climaxing with another woman's image in my head, when during real sex, I could not. Looking back I was naive and selfish, but isn't that a side effect of PMOing? Since setting out to stop I have gradually made improvements, and I suspect so have you. I am uncertain that an addict can go cold turkey; I know I tried and failed. For me quitting took two things, one aspirational, the other practical. I found it was not enough to just to want to quit, I had to take affirmative steps to stop it. This site is one. I can talk about it and read other people's struggles and become educated, and that helps. I can and do use this site as a porn substitute. Idle hands are the devil's playthings they say, so, if I have spare time and am in front of a computer, I can come here and post. This will take me about 15 minutes that I might otherwise be surfing the net with. I would not necessarily be looking for porn, but sexual imagery is a trigger, and it is nearly impossible to surf the net without seeing at least women in bikinis or swimsuits. You mentioned movies, and you are right. I watched "The Lucky One" recently about a marine coming home from the war. It could have been a Hallmark movie. But the actress was deliberately sexualized, and sexually suggestive, and there was a PG sex scene. Those are tame images compared to what I used to regularly watch, but they are still sexual images and my brain wants me to look at them. I found myself subconsciously looking away from the screen, turning my head without even thinking about it not to allow a trigger to go off. Just writing about it here is a little trigger--I had to think about it to write about it. Also, use porn filters and use search engine filters that block certain words. I found it amusing that after blocking the word "porn" on my google search engine I can no longer google "Uncle Bob porn addiction". Thankfully I know how to get to that site without the search. I have also blocked google images because that seemingly benign site does not block any porn images, meaning I can go there, search blankety blank blank blank, and it will come up. I have put road blocks up that will not stop me if I want to go around them, but give me pause a moment to remember why I put them up in the first place. Also, if I may, don't kill yourself when you relapse. You will, I have. Initially I was disgusted with myself, but over time I have realized the times between relapses is growing. When I first decided to quit I was PMOing every day, usually at least once, sometimes more. That was 18 months ago. Since April of this year I bet I have not PMOed 5 times, less than once a month. Initially, even when I separated the P from the MO I was still watching P daily, and MOing a few times a week. Now I go long times, weeks at least, without watching P, and I seldom MO. For a while there I could not O with my wife during sex; now I O with her twice a week, and that has become my sexual outlet. I try not to think sexual thoughts at all, but especially about porn, and instead I think of my wife. I suppose the brain chemistry rewire I am attempting and have had some success with is not merely quitting the addiction, but rewiring the brain to be if not addicted then at least more sexually attracted to my wife in place of porn. Please do not misunderstand me, she is not a porn substitute, but part of my personal process (which was inadvertent trial and error) has been to switch or attempt to switch that little switch in my brain to associate a sexual reward with real sex away from PMOing. This is probably more information than you want, but part of this process has been that before I had sex a lot more with my wife; she is very orgasmic and often had a half dozen, whereas I had none. Now I have one O during sex, she has fewer orgasms because I cannot go as long, (currently one and done) but the sex for both of us is much more gratifying, especially for her because she knows she is my outlet for that. Before, and this was part of the reason I began quitting, she would ask me: "What if I could have great sex with you all the time, make you cum over and over, but you could not cum with me, but had to go watch a stranger on the computer to do it?" Once I started asking that question, I did not like the answer, and knew I had to quit. Well, that's my novel. Thanks for posting and thanks for allowing me to reply. Good luck.

 

William - thanks for your post. Really great. I don't think I have appreciated the full impact on my girlfriend.

 

Chris4nj, you are welcome. I think part of the addiction is that we tell ourselves it is harmless fun, no one is getting hurt, no one even has to know, so what's the problem. I used PMO like a cigarette, (I don't actually smoke, but this is how people that do tell me it works) just a quick meaningless hit and things felt better. Translation, I used it to release brain chemicals that I associated with feeling better. The thing with my wife was, it eventually really bothered her, no matter how good or how often the sex was, that I could not O with her (when I say "could not" I mean months between, and I really never tried to O during real sex). My brain had rewired such that the visuals and audios that allowed the dopamine to release could no longer be triggered with real sex, my brain had come to require pretty hardcore imagery to O. It didn't bother me, I loved my wife, enjoyed being with her, felt the sex was actually pretty good even without the O, and since I had an outlet I selfishly wondered why it bothered her that I did not O with her. But once I understood her self esteem needed for her to be my outlet, my only outlet, I realized it had to change. Deciding to quit PMOing to make my wife feel better about herself helped me quit. I, myself, never really felt bad about PMOing, that is until I tried to stop and realized stopping cold turkey was impossible for me. Put some tools in place. P was/is a compulsion with me. On a computer is was never more than three seconds away if I want it, so I put up some blockers which slow me down and give me a moment to remember why they are there. Also, think about the illness, and the rewiring that has occurred for me is an illness, and rather than surf porn, surf sites dedicated to ending the cycle, like this one. The illness gives you a reason to visit sites other than porn, and an hour here is a lot better than an hour there if you are trying to quit. I wish I had known about this site when I first started trying to quit, 18 months ago, but I only started searching this site recently, and before that Uncle Bob's You Brain on Porn. Porn addiction is a relatively new phenomena, some experts don't even recognize it as an addiction, and sites like this to combat it are relatively new, but do a great job of helping. Good luck and don't quit trying. And thanks again for the encouragement, it helps.

 

I came to nofap in mid May this year not planning to tell my wife. Over the next month I just decided I had to tell her so she knew why i was online so much lately. (Not porn but the nofap club) then just deal with the fall out. I was surprised by what she was concerned about. She wanted to know if it was illegal stuff like child Porn. (No it wasn’t.) She said Ok do what you need to do to get it under control. We’ll deal with it like everything else we’ve dealt with in 45 years of marriage. Since then I’ve also told 2 of my 3 adult children and their support is really encouraging for me. They are so much more familiar with porn than our generation. They’ve seen this issues in their friends. I’ll likely tell #3 child when I see her next time. I hope your wife can understand your desire to beat this thing and find it in her heart to help you knowing you want to recover b/c you love her. It makes all the difference. If not you need to find someone. Hopefully with a real life person on top of the nofap site.
Good luck. I will say a pray for you, your wife and your turning this around. Peace