Chances of recovery: being caught Vs voluntary admission

I think it depends not on which Dday you had, but how willing and honest you are after.

 

I do feel the people who admit to it and decide to change are more likely to quit. It is a choice they are making for themselves. Often times when someone is caught they are not ready to change, or haven't hit rock bottom yet. But that is not to say that is always the case, I am sure there are people who are caught and then keep their word and quit and ones who see it is a problem and say they want to quit but end up slipping up or just giving up. There are no hard and fast rules.

 

My experience has been th at a PA who decides to quit on his own, is more likely to recover. Men don’t like to feel like they are being controlled or forced into anything. Often they do stop for the SO, but then develop anger and resentment towards her because they blame her for not being about to PMO, that is what happened in my situation. Some addicts may originally quite for the SO, but overtime realize that this is the best situation for them and they do recover. In my opinion in order to truly fully recover, the addict needs to be doing this for him, because he wants to. Like if you left the PA tomorrow he would still continue in reboot.

 

My so asked me if i had been. I declined at first then asked her why she wondered then i told her the truth. Before that i had been trying to kill the monster for a few months. I read somewhere admitting it is the first step to cutting off the monsters legs. I have not been perfect in recovery but the relapses I’ve had I’ve been able to pinpoint the triggers and cut their head off. Telling my spouse helped me a ton.

 

Well, the first step in the recovery is to admit that you have a problem. I don't know if they have better chances to succeed, because road to recovery is long, but the sure ahead of someone who got caught and still in denial. It all comes down if PA wants to recover, just cause you admit you have a problem, you might not wanna do anything about it or not have a will power to do anything. Same as the person that got caught might realize that he hit rock bottom and will do what it takes to recover. It took me 3 times to get caught so that I would do something about it.

 

I was caught a couple of times, but still had to decide on my own I wanted to fix the problem. And merely wanting to doesn’t fix it either. I had “wanted to” for years, but never took any action, because I wanted to PMO more.

 

If they come to you with it, chances are much higher for recovery. The reason is, they've finally realized what they are doing is wrong.

If you catch them, time and time again and then all of a sudden they decide to change, it's because they feel pressured into it because they don't want to lose their S.O. Then they keep relapsing because they didn't start off their recovery on the right foot/for the right reasons.

 

BTW there is another option, between caught and voluntary admission. My wife has more-or-less always known that I did pornography, the change was that she could no longer cope. I wasn't caught, I didn't admit to anything, I just found that my porn habit had destroyed my wife's self esteem and that she needed me to stop.

 

I'm sure he did want to quit. I wanted to quit over and over again. In fact, I wanted to quit every time I PMO'ed. The shame is overwhelming. The sense of weakness at wanting to do it, but being incapable of making the right choice is enough to drive the addict to despair. Addicts need to want to change, but also need to know how to change. There's a big difference. If we could just stop on our own, I'd say we're probably not addicted.

I know it's hard for a non-addict, especially a SO, to hear and to understand, but "It's not about you." In my mind, the things I was doing had nothing to do with my attraction to my wife. To make it even worse, I was looking at gay P and she knew it, but it still didn't mean I didn't want her or that she was not fulfilling to me. It was quite a few years in before P addiction began to cloud my mind so that I became resentful toward her. But I own all of that. I totally understand it had nothing to do with her and what she was doing or not doing. Rather, it had to do with an addiction to a behavior and the guilt I was feeling. Maybe not everyone had the same experience as me, but that's the way I felt and that's how it impacted us. One thing that I think finally helped her some was to couch it in different terms, to help her understand it as an addiction, just like alcohol, or drugs, or even as an illness, like depression or schizophrenia. What would her reaction be if that was my problem? When we began to talk about it in those terms, I began to see her anger turn toward compassion and she became totally supportive. I didn't deserve that kind of treatment and I know many PA's do not have that privilege, so I consider myself very blessed.

 

Someti

I have to disagree. Often times realizing what he (or she) has to lose is the best motivator. It is often exactly what the PA needs to get started and to stay sober. Many PAs cite that they had wanted to stop but couldn't have done it alone and their spouse/SO finding out was the catalyst and their support or thought or losing their family was sometimes the only thing that kept them going during the hard times when they wanted to give up.

I think that pendulum swings both ways though. It really depends on the individual and the relationship of the couple. Getting caught vs. disclosing I don't think makes a difference.

 

My SO caught me and, for some reason, I said: "yes, I was looking at porn". In some ways, it brought me relief. My SO also praised me for being honest. Now we face the impact it's had on our relationship and whether I can keep up my abstinence.

 

It really depends on the person. Generally, though, I think voluntarily disclosing the addiction is the best way and has the best chance for getting better. That being said, someone who is caught can make an immediate change, 100% be into recovery and did incredibly well. Again, it depends on the person and their individual situation. But generally I would say voluntary disclosure is the best.

I say this ( also I did not disclose myself, I was caught many many times) because if they choose to disclose, chances are they've realized, mostly be themselves, that they need to change and they are most likely going to be more willing to do so. I don't think that there are many PA's, if any that don't want to stop. Unfortunately good intentions aren't enough. I've ruined our entire lives and after two and a half years I'm finally doing better and realizing a lot.

If I had realized more and choose to disclose I believe I would have began real recovery a long time ago. Again this isn't a this or that situation. It's different for everyone but I think that most voluntary disclosures yield better results.

 

Great subject, so if voluntarily disclosure is the way to go ... how do you do it?

I mean when you realize you're an addict and if you're seeking recovery, you start your education and you learn about how pmo affects your relationship. At first, you try to stop and despite your intentions you relapse and hate yourself for doing so which dumps you in another vicious crisis but in any case you know that what you're doing is not only hurting you but your partner. The idea of betrayal, infidelity and deceit becomes a reality and the further you examine the situation you know you are in the red zone no pun intended. Let say the SO doesn't suspect anything or is not aware of the problem to the full extent. How do you disclose something like this? Do you say ..."hey Honey, today, I'm gonna ruin your life and make you feel worse than ever ... but please support me"

True that it won't make a big difference once the bomb is dropped but still in my mind there's no way she could prepare for an assault like that because make no mistake what we've done is terrible. In my opinion, the difference is that when the SO's partner confronts PA, she has the power and controls the conversation and perhaps power is needed to cope with the situation. Don't take that from her ...

I was caught and I'm thankful for it and perhaps I wanted to be caught. I agree with @Jak3 on one thing though, I wish I was caught way earlier.

 

In my case being caught led me to realize and admit to having an addiction. I acted out and escalated for years, including infidelity, and admitted to the it after some time. It wasn’t until my stash was found that I was able to see I had a problem, and start the recovery. Up until that time I spent nearly every spare moment I had viewing P. I can say after I was caught, and boundaries were made, I took recovery seriously and have never relapsed. Although the discovery and the depth of my addiction it revealed was a rock bottom for me. Everyone’s circumstance is different, and it always depends. Ultimately it came down to me choosing to admit to my secrecy and lies and coming clean to have a honest and truthful life with my SO.

 

I knew because she told me. Our DDay was in 2010. I don't know the exact date, I wish I'd noted it down somewhere. We we out walking the dog and she told me that my pornography use had eaten away her self-esteem and that I had to stop or she would have to leave in order to protect herself. There were two things that made it really hit home to me

1. I could not risk losing my wife, I love her more than anything in the world.
2. She was frightened. I could see how frightened she was that I would choose porn over her. I felt (feel) shattered by that. We started dating in 1983 and married in 1990, how could I let her reach a point after all those years where she honestly thought I would chose porn over her? What the f**k?

Anyway, that's when I started trying to quit porn. I have great willpower so I assumed it would be easy. It wasn't. I realised that I was addicted to pornography. I had lots of short streaks, days, weeks, or months, and one very long streak of almost two years. But each time I would fall back into porn use. Depressing (and dangerous for my marriage). Just when I was losing hope I found these NoFap forums and the help and support I needed to turn around my recovery.

Good luck

 

Another note...

My husband being caught was a huge wake up call. He did not realize the amount of time he would spend looking at porn. What he thought was 10 or 15 minutes was actually 45 min to an hour or more. He would stop and look at rbe time and not believe it passed that fast. Then swear next time it really would only be 5 minutes.

What he thought was looking at "a couple of websites" before I came from work when he got off early in reality was a massive amount. The program I had installed collected over 1000 screenshots in 2 days amount of time. He had no idea about the program at that time. Later when I showed him that, he was floored. He truly had absolutely no inkling that he got so involved in it that he lost so much time and was so completely unaware.

Just recently, since he's been sober, he came across an old file full of P he had saved a long time ago that he had forgotten about. He pulled it up (didn't open it) to delete it and saw how big the file was. He didn't believe it was that big. He asked me to open it to make sure it was the right file so he didn't accidentally delete something important. I did and, Yep, it was P. It really opened his eyes to how incredibly blind he was in his PMO stupor.

Sometimes being caught is the only way they will be able to stop.

Sometimes them doing it on their own is what they need.

Sometimes, like @kropo82 , said there is is between.

None make sobriety more attainable than the other. It is the character of the PA and willingness to do whatever it takes to get there.