Girlfriend Discovered My Porn Collection

Remember this feeling every time you think about watching porn.

And think of better things you can do with your time then watch porn. Maybe you can clean around the house to distract yourself or do some laundry. I'm sure your girlfriend would appreciate that very much.

 

So streaming the stuff is fine, but downloading somehow makes it bad?

 

Yep, that's your wake-up call. Don't waste it or you'll feel as pathetic as you're feeling now for the rest of your life. You've got a girlfriend, so respect her. Downloading porn is almost the furthest from respect towards a woman, and it doesn't matter whether you watch it or not. Delete everything. You won't need it in your life. Why would you need some pixels?

Stay strong, use that harsh experience, and become awesome. Don't waste your time any longer. Cheers!

 

Get a therapist, build health habits outside of porn usage, make recovery from porn addiction a daily part of your life. Start a journal.

Encourage her to learn about porn addiction. She needs to make a decision if this is something she wants to sign up for because recovery can take years. The worst thing you can do to her is not be honest with her and give her the chance to leave now. She’s signing up for a lot of work and emotional pain and she deserves to know that and make that choice with open eyes.

 

something about having hundreds of gb of porn can upset* people even if you never watch it.

 

OK, you and I are about the same age, and I’m going to give you some cold hard advice that I don’t think you’re going to get much of here.

Where I come from we call this bullshit. The fact is that things were never really going great as you call it else the porn would be gone and she would have been your #1 priority in the relationship. You have a better relationship with your porn than you do her. Think about it. Things were never really going what I would call great as you would like for us and yourself too to believe but what you would call in limbo…that is until you got caught and everything turned to shit. Sound about right? JSYK you did her a grave disservice by moving in with her. It was only a matter of time before your real identity was revealed to her.

Just in case of what? You needed a hit of dopamine? How is this any different than any substance abuse? Alcohol abuse? It’s not. Any time we hold onto things that feed and fuel our addiction “just in case” we haven’t relinquished our addiction. We’ve only whiteknuckled it. Are you telling the truth when you say “would rarely watch it”? Somehow I doubt that.

If she didn’t care this never would have been an issue at all. Trust me we care.

Of course you need to take a better approach. Of course you need to kick the habit. How has NoFap and all of the other different methods you’ve tried worked out for you? They haven’t. You know the definition of insanity right? Repeating the same thing over and over again expecting a different result? Well there you go. What makes you think this is going to be any different this time around? What is different about NoFap than was a few years ago when you started? Feeling like trash? That’s shame calling. We learned that you must make the distinction between bad behavior and a bad person. Are you a bad person? This shame of yours? That’s all on you.

No it won’t be easy. It’ll be very difficult. Nothing worthwhile ever is. There’s that definition of insanity again. What makes this endeavor any different than your previous attempts? Moving in with her? No, that’s not gonna do it. So why so serious this time around?

I imagine it hasn’t.

Doing this is not helpful for addiction. Your brain will associate these tasks as punishments for bad behavior. You need to do these things as a normal part of healthy daily living anyway so don’t use them as a distraction. Otherwise you will relegate these chores as something to do only when you want to watch porn. Nothing wrong with distractions but use distractions that are positive reinforcement that you’ll want to do. Nobody wants to clean house or do laundry. Everybody has to do it.

I thought that too. It doesn’t really matter now does it.

I’d say that’s one of many wake up calls you’ve already experienced.

A therapist is going to do nothing for you that you cannot do for yourself if only you were properly motivated. Unfortunately rock bottom is where that is most of the time. It can even go way below rock bottom. The point is if you aren’t 100% invested and submit to the process it makes no difference how many therapists coaches counselors or whatever. You’ll end up right back where you started. Addicted.

Yes make recovery a daily ritual until it becomes a lifestyle choice. I wouldn’t encourage her to learn about porn addiction either. Trust me if she is experiencing it she’s already learning about it anywhere and everywhere she can get her hands on it. Besides nobody wants advice from the very person who betrayed us. Would you?
So don’t tell her anything except you’re willing to work on it. She wants understanding validation and empathy. She doesn’t want an apology not that she would believe it anyway. It’s not going to matter what you tell her anyway. It’s only going to matter what your actions and behaviors reveal to her. And trust me she’s watching them very closely. It is that which allows her to make her own educated decisions about what is best for her in her life. That’s what I did.

Nobody who ever had hundreds of GB of porn didn’t watch it. That’s almost as bad as “I jerked off but I didn’t cum”. Riiiggggghhhhhhhtttttttt! Remember he said “just in case”? Yeah well there you go.

Since you’ve already been here several years don’t you think perhaps now would be a good time to look somewhere else outside the box? I mean it never ceases to amaze me the number of people that are recycling through the same old endless patterns here over and over again. What a tragedy. I do hope you find the right kind of help in a program designed to help you from start to finish. That’s what we did and it’s the only thing that saved our marriage. For the first time in my life I actually trust my husband and I know beyond all doubt he is sober from this awful addiction. We know. You don’t have to say anything at all. We know.

Anyway best of luck to you. I hope you find what it is you’re looking for this time around.

 

I can see why downloading as opposed to just watching might cause a different reaction. Streaming could be viewed as something casual, whilst downloading and hoarding likely comes across as far more obsessive and somewhat creepy. Contrary to what has been said though, I don't think all women care if their partner watches porn or not, not in this liberaltastic world we live in.

 

You kept it, because you wanted to have it accessible to watch it, and probably so it didn't show up in your search history in your web browser when you did.

You've quit hundreds of times, yet relapse. Maybe because you keep doing the same thing but expecting different results. You want to be successful at sobriety, then you need to change the habits that lead to relapse. Stop using the internet. Get an accountability app. Whatever you need to do, otherwise, it's just all talk with no intention.

I'm sure things were going great...until you got caught. I'm sure she felt the same way, until she found out what you were doing behind her back. There is no nice way around the fact that you were lying to her, and you didn't feel bad about it, until she caught you. You don't want to feel like trash again? Don't do it again. If you do, expect her reaction to get more angry, more hostile, and less forgiving every time it happens. And it will happen.. again, and again, and again.. unless you make some changes.

She doesn't know you. She only knows the person you let her see. There's a whole side to you that you've hidden from her because you knew it was wrong but if she knew, you'd have to stop your behaviors, and you did not want that.

If you want my honest opinion, unless your absolutely 100% invested in sobriety and willing to take whatever steps it takes to get there, you should do both of yourselves a favor and go your separate ways. She deserves someone who is going to be honest with her about everything, not someone who seeks sexual gratification with others behind her back and lies to her until he gets caught again. It's a vicious cycle that not only ruins relationships, but people as well. You have no right to destroy her because you can't control yourself, so leave before you do that, or worse yet, have children together. Your current values obviously do not match. Do you really want to spend a lifetime hiding your secret from your partner if you don't or can't stop? It's exhausting to live a double life, and it's exhausting being with someone who has a double life.

 

Storing porn on your computer is obviously not conducive to quitting, it's facilitating your use of porn. If you're downloading videos and keeping them stored, you're not really trying to quit. Delete all that stuff and develop a protocol for when you become tempted. Whenever I became tempted, I'd commence a certain activity I knew would distract me or prevent me from doing it. It could be playing a video game or even leaving the house. Breaking the cycle over weeks and months is the way to go. If you fall off, get back on. There's no magic bullet, it's perseverance.

With regards to your girlfriend, time's a great healer. Tell her your intention not to fap anymore and that you're sorry for breaking her trust. Just explain honestly that you let these urges get the better of you and that you're going to take steps to improve in that regard. And then follow through. Don't dwell on it, just put it in the past and move on from it.

 

It also ghappen to me, a lot of times with my GF and it gave her a lot o f selfesteem issue that she's trying to resolve. My path started not so long ago but every time tried to quit P, my brain was always pity and founded ways to get me back to it. Until found out that this was an addiction also and started to learn about it so i could fight it. Good luck! And hope you can rebuilt your relationship, don't make my same mistake and worship every relationship you have and appreciate the person you have by your side

 

Dude why did you even downloaded it for? That's like a bank robber getting a haircut in the middle of a heist.