TO check in with partner or not??

This is a tough addiction to beat alone. Has he joined this forum? It would be a good idea if not, for community support. It is difficult for us as SO's to provide that support since it hurts us on a deep level. However, other men facing the same problems can help him.
My husband and I tried to do it all on our own for 2 years and barely got anywhere. He also wanted to go a more spiritual way, but he kept falling into addictive patterns and eventually relapsed. Once he found out he was not alone with his problem, he was more motivated to quit.
Finding a therapist is also a good step for him. Addiction is a symptom of a bigger problem so it will be important to get to the root of the problem and address it. He will need to find better coping mechanisms other than escape.
Finding an accountability partner, someone he can trust and confide things in will also be helpful.
All of this will help take the burden off of you so that you're able to heal from all this as well. Find yourself a therapist to work through this trauma so you're both on a healing path together. I was my husbands accountability partner, counselor, and someone he made confessions to all the time for 2 years and I would not recommend that to anyone. Even though it helped him, he resented me for being "the one in charge" and felt as though I had to parent him. This caused other issues that he is still working on to this day.
If he is committed to quitting, he will take the steps to do so. If not, he won't. He has to want to quit for himself. Best of luck to you both!

 

Hey, so I was an addict and I understand quite a lot about how this addiction works in general. First of all, this may sound harsh, but do not trust him fully. Its not because he is a bad person inherently, but because he is addicted. His brain subconsciously thinks that porn is good for him on an instinctual level because of the surge of dopamine he gets from it. He will have to abstain from this dopamine surge for a while, resensitize himself to dopamine, and then get this surge in dopamine from having sex with you. It is all very elaborate operant conditioning. He has to recondition himself to have orgasms with you rather than a screen. This is a long process, so you must be patient. Be very careful and set clear cut boundaries and abide by them. I repeat, ABIDE BY YOUR BOUNDARIES. It is normal to be impatient, but do not release your frustration on him. His brain is wired for porn, so he WILL break promises he may make because that is how strong this addiction is, and considering how long he was watching, he will be strongly addicted. You have to understand that for his brain to rewire to enjoy sex with you is going to take a very long time. Its almost like he is negative right now, and he has to get his brain back to baseline (zero) before he can enjoy normal sex (positive). The stimulation porn has on the human brain makes it very clear why it should be considered a drug. Consider a heroin addict. They have to get off heroin, get back to zero, and only then can they enjoy real life again. Your partner is similar, except his poison is porn.

You should be with him on this journey. Don't let him go through it alone. Expect lots of negative emotions (anger, frustration, annoyance at you) from him during the process of rewiring. It is normal, and it will get better. Trust me, it will suck for a while before it gets better. Trust in the process. Its interesting because all these negative emotions are a sign he is on the right path and is facing the problem. You won't see real improvement for a while because the rewiring process takes a long time, so don't ask him about it frequently. That will cause most guys the become annoyed and resent their girlfriends ( I am a guy so I know). Instead, try to be intimate with him outside of sex (spending time together, cuddling etc.). This will have a much greater impact on his recovery than continually asking about why he isn't recovering. It will also help his brain associate intimacy with you.

The way I beat my addiction was to use a porn blocker. You see, all these half assed attempts people make aren't good enough. Watching porn for ten minutes or two hours is the same thing to his brain. He needs to stop completely. Spirituality does not matter to the addicted brain. The addicted brain will try its level best to get its pleasure, because it NEEDS it. He may be motivated today, but I guarantee the urges will become primal (because of the dopamine I mentioned above) and he will desire porn strongly when he does not watch it. This is the psychology of addiction. It is what I and so many other men have gone through. I am only twenty so I was able to quit more easily, but since your partner has been watching for so long, he will have a much harder time. The blocker I used was Detoxify. It blocks porn completely and even blocks nude pictures and 18+ forums etc. This was tremendously useful for me. There were days where I wanted to watch porn badly, but because of the blocker, I could not relapse even if I wanted to. It forced me to look in the mirror and face my addiction. It can be installed on multiple devices and requires a pin to remove. Plus, there is a feature that sends you an email if he tries to remove it or something. This way, you cut past the bullshit and the lies and see the situation as it is. Talk to him about the blocker. It helped me overcome my addiction so it may help him as well.

Lastly, patience is key. Trust in the process. He will get better, and your relationship will flourish if you and him put in the work together. Some days will be tough, but as Jordan Peterson once said, "Slay the dragon, before it slays you.".

Godspeed.

 

A lot of his improvements were cognitive. He had better memory, better recall, better focus, and did better in his classes as far as learning new information. Our sex life wasn't really impaired through all of his P use. However, before him and I got together he suffered from PIED. There were only a few times in our marriage that he couldn't get erect and it was after I gave birth to our daughter, unfortunately. So I thought it was me, but in reality, it was because his P usage increased substantially during the time I was healing.

What did suffer was our communication and connection. He was very distant from me. Although we would have long discussions about things regularly, he hardly remembered what we talked about from one day to the next. He also compulsively lied. Things have gotten better in those areas since he's been in recovery.

 

My God I can't tell you how much NoFap helped me academically. I feel like I gained 40+ IQ points. I've always been good academically, but my brain just evolved after 90+ days. Every man needs to do this to reach the limits of their natural intelligence.

 

Glad to help you out. I want to help guys reach their fullest potential, and porn just destroys any masculinity a man has. Truly disgusting stuff.


If you don't mind me replying to what you asked DefendMyHeart above as well, at first it might seem like he loses attraction to you. He will be in flatline, a period where sexual desire just goes into hiding till the brain normalizes. That is normal. It happened to me, and all other guys who have rebooted. A lot of women don't understand exactly what flatline is. It is like a weird depression, but not in a clinical sense. Very difficult to describe. Expect his body to not respond to you at first because it won't. It is the hardest part because it feels like shit. Anxiety, stress, mood swings, random emotional spikes may happen as the brain learns to live without porn. Brain fog is common too (Brain fog is essentially like a type of confusion, makes you feel kinda dumb). The length of the period of normalization depends primarily on his physiology and the amount of time he has spent watching porn. In his case it was years, so those neural pathways will take a long time to rewire. It could be months, even more than a year to FULLY kick the addiction and lose absolutely all side effects of porn. This period of reboot will be unique in length for him. After he kicks porn, the positive effects will be very evident. First of all, erections are like rockets after no porn. That is because men resensitize their brain and body to sex. This may take a while to happen, but when it does, you will know because the sex will be better. He will be more turned on by you because he will notice you more. Since his sexual energy is not being wasted on porn, women in general, especially you, will be more attractive to him. Other positive effects will probably be unique to him, so you'll just have to wait and see. It will happen in due time as long as you and him stick to it.

 

You did the rigth thing, it is healthy to set your boundries.

This is good, he is willing to work on it. As he ask you, be supportive not controlling.

Words are important but actions are far more important. Trust in him, support him if needed but let him take action for hymself. If he commit to it and get better, great! if not.. then you know that every word that came out of his mouth was BS and you are better off without him.