Working towards a more intimate relationship

I’ve been no PMO for 61 days now. I’m actually pretty proud of myself. I feel like I’ve gotten passed the urges and have my triggers under control. I now want to go deeper in fixing my relationship with my wife. If you ask her, there is nothing wrong and we have a great relationship, which I would tend to agree with, but for me, I need to get passed the thought that having sex means we are good. I’m putting sex with my wife as the number one indicator that we our marriage is great. I guess what I mean is that, my wife wanting to have sex with me, means that she loves me and that our marriage is great. I need to stop putting that much importance on sex and somehow put more importance on a deeper connection with my wife. Yesterday was a good start. In the past, if we had a day without the kids, all I would think about was having sex and I would get upset/mad because she didn’t desire me as much as I did her, or she didn’t think about sex at all, which would lead me to doubting her love for me and/or start to think something was wrong with me or our relationship. It would ruin the time we had together. But yesterday was different. I still wanted to have sex, but I didn’t let the fact that she had other plans for our day get me down. I went with the flow and just enjoyed our time. Which was a huge step for me. I guess I’m looking for some encouragement that this is normal and will get better. I’d also love to hear some success stories where the intimacy in a marriage came back after P use had stopped. This forum has been great and I appreciate everyone who takes the time to read posts and tell their own story.

 

I understand completely. But I want to figure it out. Honestly, sex has been our biggest challenge in our marriage. P did nothing but fuel that want/need in me. I’m hoping and praying that cutting out P will help extinguish the wanting/needing.

 

I agree, that’s why I’m not also fighting the urge to look at porn, but to also fantasize about sex with my wife. It’s a tough battle, especially on days when the kids are not around, or on the day after we have sex, but hopefully it is worth it. I’ve been training my brain for 30 years, so retraining is going to take awhile.