"Should I stay or should I go ?" (Sex drive edition)

Check out some tnntra, and pro sexual sex coach sessions with your wife.

Cupids Poison Arrow is a worthy read.

Good Luck. Don't leave your wife.

I would say have conversation.

 

I think you should be talking to your wife about this.

 

I agree with this.^^


True libido takes over a year to begin to return.
That's if you don't relapse.
I would also consider taking this into account... But it's a conversation for you and your wife.
Not you and the forum.
Good luck!

 

It’s quite possible your thoughts are porn induced. I know for while under the fog of PA, I was always disconnected from my wife and had one foot out the door. I was always ready and willing and seek out ways to fulfill my P fantasies or to look elsewhere to satiate my addiction.

While it is easy enough to blame an SO for a lack of sex drive, it takes some serious introspection to realize a PA is reinforcing the high sex drive ”need”. The reality is we’ve trained our brains to need the constant release of dopamine through P abuse and M to O. I didn’t think it was possible in the beginning of my recovery to go a few days, let alone a week. After a successful reboot, I can say my “need” for sex isn’t really there. There is a need for intimacy, and that doesn’t have to be defined as sex. My sex drive settled out to a more realistic level of once a week or so, literally on par with what your wife is.
Until you can reboot successfully and make the necessary changes in your life to stay PMO free, I don’t think you can actually know what your real sex drive is. On top of that, your wife can probably feel the disconnection in your sex or intimacy, she probably knows you aren’t present during sex, and it negatively affects her sex drive or need to be intimate with you.

Take the time and diligence to get yourself clean, and focus on having vulnerable intimate moments with your wife. Be present, be connected, and concentrate on appreciating her and loving her to bring you both closer together, rather than as a release or tool to feed your addiction.

 

I second what @Kenzi said.

When I met my husband I was under the impression we had the same sex drive (mine is daily/every other day) and once he stopped PMO and stopped for a while his drive was much less. It's been over 2 years since he stopped and I think his natural drive is finally here. He wants it less than I do still but it's not a problem if we are talking, having other types of intimacy.

As the higher sex-drived person I know how frustrating it can be to be wanted/desired/ to have intimacy and have the other person reject you/be not interested/not desiring you.... it can really hurt. But communication is key. I've talked to my husband countless times about sex drive and we have found an agreeable amount for each of us. Of course, with life circumstances sex isn't always the biggest priority (we have a 7 month old, so sex doesn't always happen as much as I'd like it to, but that's not my husbands fault, it's just that we have a baby and babies needs are priority).

Talk with your wife. I don't know your personal circumstances, but if your wife was deeply hurt by your porn addiction that could be the decrease in sex drive. For me there was a period that I just didn't want him to touch me let alone have sex with me. So I would talk, openly and non-judgmentally. Come from a place of wanting to understand. See if there are things that could enhance her sexual mood like more foreplay, more romance, etc.

Don't leave her. I see your counter says only 2 days, and as Kenzi said, it takes about a year to get your natural sex drive back. My husband originally thought he had a high sex drive (which wasn't a problem because I still had the higher drive), but once he realized his drive wasn't high he was shocked and confused and it took time to get used to that. He always thought he had a high sex drive because he would get off 2-3x/day but in reality he just had a high drive to escape problems, had nothing to do with sex. I think my husband doesn't even think of sex on a daily basis. I think about it 5+ times a day. So there is a big gap between us, but it's possible to work things out with communication and compromise.

 

KAREZZA

 

Wow, I have the exact same problem! Wrote about it extensively in my journal this morning. It is so hard to imagine and let alone admit that my sex drive isn’t real! I guess the difference between “drive” and “addiction” can be that in addiction, if I don’t get the drug, tension builds up and I get irritared. Let´s share more experience as we go along. I have new hope now. Let´s not leave our wifes just yet!

 

I listened to it and it is amazing how spot on this is. Steve, the patient in the podcast, is experiencing not only the same situation (i.e. not having sex enough) but there the same mental and behavior patterns and the same kind of misunderstanding between him and his wife about what sex is. I think, we men, have a great task here, to BREAK THE MYTH that sex for us is just something mechanical where we "stick it into something juicy to ejaculate as fast as we can". For me at least, it is the highest form of giving love and connecting to the other person, becoming one. A female orgasm is the most rewarding and beautiful thing I know. That's why masturbation pales against sex with a loved one. That's why going to a brothel SUCKS EVERY TIME. I want sex to last long and have various forms and be warm. And I don't think I am a feminine type of guy. I think in our masculine society we are presented with "macho ideal" and supposed to show off with how many we "banged" and keep the score as high as possible, otherwise we are not alpha enough. And yet...all we all want is a human connection....but our behavior, ironically, leads to the total destruction of the connection! Would love to hear from others on that topic.

 

Just a quick reminder of reality: leaving your wife will not make an unending rotation of women that meet all of your preferences, physically and in terms of how they behave in the bedroom, suddenly start propositioning you for sex three times a day. The alternative to loving monogomy is nothing like the fantasy you have cobbled together through watching porn. It consists of starting again at rebuilding the sort of loving relationship with a new person, or in having the freedom to be alone with your bad habit. Most women consider porn use a betrayal. Those same women consider sex with people outside of the relationship a betrayal. And no one woman will ever embody all of your preferences. Your preferences when browsing likely change. No woman is waiting for the man who wants them to play a fleeting role in living out the lifestyle of sleeping around, acting out the behaviours they saw in porn of escalating extremity, then moving on as soon as they orgasm.

Your relationship is (more likely than not) a much better dource of happiness, fulfilment and purpose than madturbating to pixels can ever be. Porn creates its own mythology, making it look like a man can have as many women as he wants, in any way he wants, and that the women will all be eternally grateful and enthusiastic at the chance to play a small role in servicing that man's fantasies. It is all a lie. A fiction. A damaging illusion that can only be witnessed in porn and can be experienced in no reality.

The choice is not between your wife or all other women. The choice is between the woman who loves you, or the pursuit of something that cannot exist. It is a choice between being with your wife or being alone.

 

By watching porn so much, you have desensitized yourself to all of the things she does specifically for your pleasure. By seeking out your own pleasure through porn, secretively, you have chosen to go elsewhere when lookig for whatever 'more' you thought you required. That little bit 'more' you think you need had been getting more and more extreme and demanding the more you have watched P. Failing to engage in the sort of sex acts that people are paid to engage in on camera is not a failure to attend to your pleasure. If you have always taken the lead in bed (by focusing on her pleasure, as you put it) then what is to indicate to your wife that that isn't your preference? The way that you most like things to go? If you chose to google something rather than suggest it in person, then how is she supposed to know what you want?

A word of advice: a lot of the things that you want from your wife are unreasonable. Before seeing it in porn you didn't know what some of it was, and you had no interest in it.

Another bit of advice: her pleasure depends on your own enjoyment and enthusiasm. Just as you have felt awful when your wife has felt pressured or coerced i to sleeping with you, showing no enjoyment or enthusiasm, she likely sensed a disconnect if you were conjuring up porn imagery in your mind as you have sex. You might think the sex was all about her, but if you were just resenting the fact that the sex was too 'vanilla' the whole time, how can you expect to blow her mind? And the more you do blow her mind, the more sex you will have. The more she will want, and the more your advances will be accepted, and the more she will proposition you.

Try to be present in the moment, and to be communicative, when you are having sex. Enjoy the parts of your wife that you can see and touch, enjoy the sensations of the motions and movements that you are engaged in. Don't let your mind wander to what you would rather be doing. Communicate your enjoyment, communicate your pleasure. If you are concerned your wife is not enjoying herself, communicate, but frame it positively: "how do you want me to touch you?" Is better than "well, this clearly isn't working". Be patient, be kind, and be willing to do what she wants you to do, in the way that she wants you to do it, for as long as it takes. Most women take longer than men to reach orgasm. They also need to be in the right emotional frame of mind. Your P use and betrayal is probably the reason why your wife is engaging in sex with you more often (fear of you choosing it over her if she denies you) and the reason why she isn't able to enjoy it as much (preoccupied with thoughts of you using P that will make her feel distracted at the very least, but also quite possibly like a worthless sack of shit and so very angry).

Time. Give it time. Be willing to wait. Wait for her to be ready for sex. Wait for her to be capable of enjoying sex more fully. Wait for her to catch up with you and have the patience to stimulate her for as long as she needs to give her the pleasure she needs. Wait for her to forgive and forget. Wait for your recovery to begin. Wait for your unreasonable expectations in the bedroom to lessen. Wait for your capacity to be present in the moment and to appreciate the moment to come back.