Great to be here!

Hi everyone! This is my first ever official reboot (soft--I'm only avoiding porn). Over the past couple years, I've wanted to minimize my porn use but I would generally go back to it, and in some cases binge, after a few days to a week without it. Now I want to quit it entirely.

I just don't feel good after masturbating to porn. I feel like I'm wasting valuable time and hurting my relationship with my wife. I also don't like the feeling of it "hijacking" my brain through its "persuasive technology" (thumbnails of related videos, etc.).

I want to be able to be present, patient, focused, and the best version of myself, and I feel that the pull of porn, and other addictive combinations of pixels, gets in the way of that.

Thanks to the people who have created this site and to those who keep it working. I'm hopeful that will be the start of something big!

 

Hi James,

Thanks for the encouragement and for the food for thought!

A bit more background on me that's relevant to your questions: I feel that Ming to P worsens my relationship with my wife. It lowers my sexual confidence, which sometimes makes me nervous about her trying to initiate sex, which makes me less affectionate. This mostly happens during stressful periods, when I binge on P. I also feel, as I mentioned, that it wastes a significant amount of time--time that I can't afford to waste, especially now that I have a daughter. But for the sake of clarity and honesty, I should also say that I don't feel I have a P addiction and I do feel that my use of P has a low to moderate negative effect on my marriage, though our relationship and our sex life are relatively good. I just feel they could be better.

That being said, I told my wife I'd joined NoFap last night. She was a bit surprised and said she hadn't realized I'd been watching much P lately. She does know I watch it on and off. She doesn't have strong feelings about me quitting it, though I think it's hard for her to tell what effects it has since she's not aware of how much I've watched at any given time. So if I go through a heavy P stretch and turn her down for sex, I probably won't tell her it's because of P, so she doesn't know it's had that effect. Anyway, she seemed a bit amused by me joining this site but she's certainly supportive.

As for no Ming: it's something to think about. At this point, I don't get the sense that Ming is a problem for me, though I don't doubt that it is for others. I feel like porn can induce me to M a ridiculous amount; when I'm not watching porn, I don't M a problematic amount. I also sometimes have too much sexual energy for my wife, so there are times when Ming might be beneficial. As for M leading to porn use: it doesn't seem that way to me. For me, porn use seems driven mostly by my stress levels and access. (So, of course, working on those is also an important part of this process for me.) But I definitely try to be open-minded on this point and will keep an eye out for the effects of Ming during this reboot.

Again, thanks for reaching out and best of luck to you! Hope to see you around the forums.