Fantasy

You are correct. Don't get me wrong.... fantasizing about your SO is better than fantasizing about someone else. But you run the risk of objectifying her - she is a person, not an object for your sexual satisfaction. Also it depends on the type of fantasies you're having. Is it just you and her having romantic sex? Or are you imagining scenarios, role-playing, other participants, and themes of power or dominance? Are you still be getting sexually aroused by the same things you used to watch but you simply inserted your wife into those scene?

Early in your recovery you need to allow your brain to return to a normal, calm, and balanced state of mind. Fantasizing keeps your brain in heightened state of excitement often during times when you can't properly find an outlet. Those scenarios can eventually become stale and then the desire to escalate enters the picture. Just make sure the only outlet you seek is your SO.

 

For my husband, he's given up all of it. Or working to. Ming, fantasy (not sure if he ever fantasizes about me) and objectifying women. He stopped looking at P 7 years ago, with only a small number of short term relapses, but it was only since giving up M, fantasy and objecifying women that he's come out of the brain fog and truly started to change.

 

Unless you are using straight memory of her, which by definition is not fantasy, then you aren't really thinking about your wife. In fantasy she's not a full person, just your projection of what you want her to be. Your real wife will seem cold, unresponsive, and unimaginative in comparison. It's unfair to make her compete with that idealistic mirage.

Better to let go of sexual fantasy altogether, in my view. Concentrate on fostering a stronger relationship with your wife through more communication, love languages, and non sexual contact. If you do FANOS, it ensures both of you get a chance to talk about your feelings, be grateful, request something, and apologize for something every day.

 

I think that the fact that those we love don't actually match our memories or fantasies of them is part of what makes relationships so fulfilling. Those we love are unpredictable and real, and that's how we know they're not merely shadows or fantasies. A quote from CS Lewis's outstanding A Grief Observed goes well here; Lewis is describing how he wants to love the real, unpredictable, and imperfect parts of his wife after her death, and not just an idealized memory of her:

"The earthly beloved, even in this life, incessantly triumphs over your mere idea of her. And you want her to; you want her with all her resistances, all her faults, all her unexpectedness. That is, in her foursquare and independent reality. And this, not any image or memory, is what we are to love still, after she is dead."