How should I start my reboot? Married guy

I have a girlfriend. I talked to her about it. About what the plan is. We agreed no PM but can O when I'm with her. We don't live together. I just started, myself.

But talking about the entire situation in 1000% honesty is a start. Tell her your goals, let her tell you how she feels. Allow her to have feelings that might be hard for you to hear and understand.

It's my opinion, in my relationship, that in need her (my best friend, partner, keeper of my secrets, my lover) to walk, and sometimes crawl and stumble through this process.

 

Is that your only goal here? Better sex?

I'm the SO of an addict and I'll say without a doubt that if my husband were to want to open a discussion with me as to how he'd like to have better sex with me after all he's done with PMO over 24 years?...it wouldn't go well for him.

Congrats on being here, it's a big first step!

As an SO, I can promise you that you won't see intimacy the way you expect it to be just because you give up PM. There's a LOT of healing that needs to happen, a LOT of trust to be gained, and a LOT of work to be done. We are messed up, pretty bad, too, and need some work on ourselves as the victim to be able to offer any intimacy in the bedroom ourselves during this time. And a reboot is rough for both sides, especially after a few weeks.

@Mourde may be able to better suggest some things starting out to open discussions with your partner. It is hard when married and we are definitely stumbling on the bedroom do's and don't issues. I think every couple does, as Guitarnerd101 stated above (congrats to you by the way!) I will say from an SO standpoint, that even after over 5 weeks of no PM for my husband, he still was 'drifting' off mentally during our times in the bedroom. Flashbacks, thoughts, that type of thing still snuck into his brain, and it was very hard for me to distinguish what the heck he was thinking, and very hard for him to stay focused and in the moment.

Others go cold turkey altogether, some manage to be intimate, it just depends on your own process and your own goals.

 

Not a lot of detail to go on, but I did notice a big difference in how I was attracted to my wife with a full PMO reboot (not the right word really) over my earlier work dropping only P.

But, hard to do PMO without some disclosure after a while. Does you wife know about your PMO use....and if she does, where is she at with your PMO use? More info = more detailed advice, but in general, some type of a mix of no PMO or no PM . No P only isn't really giving you the benefits of turning towards her for your sexual needs.

 

I would have to agree with @Faceplanter need more info! But I can say for myself after 7 weeks of just no PM my wife said there was a little difference but not much so I'm on my 36 day no PM and O to see if that makes a better difference and we agreed on the days cause on the 36 day would be her birthday! And she wanted it that way so I agree to that. so its is best to open a line of communication with the wife so I hope that helps you!

 

With a couple this is definitely something that you should discuss together. Being open and honest about this is the only true way to heal. Alone, even if you get better the relationship is still not right and she will be even more confused than she already is. For us, we went with no PM and it worked out quite well, not only in the physical but in all aspects of our relationship. The key was being open and honest.

 

I'm in the same boat. I'm going PM free and will O only with my wife for now. I have pills that I use because of PIED that we use on the times we do have sex (which is infrequent due to my addiction but getting the pills helped). I have multiple reasons for wanting to quit, but having better sex with my wife is one of them. For me I'm just going to abstain from P and M as I think having an O from regular sex is healthy and will hopefully rewire my brain to continue to want sex since I will no longer be getting pleasure from PMO. I was so deep in PMO I honestly never wanted to have sex again for a while and just live my life as a PMO addict. Horrible stuff.

 

First off if your therapist just suggested quitting P and nothing else I think I would look for a new therapist cause he or she most definitely isn't helping you figure out the underlying issues!

If you're doing this just to have better sex with your wife then your doing it for all the wrong reasons! Sex and being intimate with your wife is two different things, if you want to create a bond with your wife that will help in all aspects of your relationship! Learn to be more inimate cause women are looking for that in a relationship rather then just the sex aspect of it!

Hopefully this helps!

 

Agree with many of the above posters - quitting P is not enough! M is a poor substitute for intimacy and is only going to lead you into recycling your way back to P. Cut both out. If you and your wife are willing to work together, doing a brief PMO free run would be the most beneficial. When I first started, my wife and I agreed to a 30-day hiatus to kickstart the run...probably the best decision made. We ended up extending to nearly 45 before having sex again and I haven't M'ed since, so it can be pretty effective.

 

for me actual sex is always better, but it took awhile of not having actual sex to see that.

fact is in the videos they never cum the way you like, they're never really into it. its for the camera, not even for them. when i get it on with my wife it is a secret between us, and we make each other finish strong. porn can be crazy, but real sex is the sweetest sanity

 

Hey beesknees,
I totally agree with Guitarnerd101. Be honest with your girl and develop some routines that work for yourself to change your PM related habits. When I'm looking back to my longest streak earlier this year (around 60 days) the quality of sex increased rapidly without any tricks or gimmicks. I like it but make the failure to feel safe enough to have a sneak at my old p favorites. That's why I relapsed several times in the following weeks. Now I'm back on track.
Good luck!

 

One thing this site is great for is experimentation. Find what works for you. You've taken a big step coming here and a bigger one getting a therapist. Try things out. Talk things through with your wife. I agree with others that your goals seem too narrow but I suspect you will find that out for yourself. For me that journey has been one of those 'virtuous circles': giving up porn is harder than I ever imagined and so to give up I needed to go deeply into my psyche, and so porn-sobriety became the lens through which I could examine myself. I needed to examine myself in order to succeed, but that success brought with it further opportunities to examine myself.

For myself giving up porn was not enough, masturbation alone kept pulling me back to porn. But giving up masturbation and porn, while still having orgasms with my wife, is the reboot that seems to have worked for me (though I'm ambivalent about the term 'reboot', as Mad-Eye Moody would say "constant vigilance").

 

"masturbation alone kept pulling me back to porn."

cuz without visual stimuli its just your ugly ass tuggin at yourself life a goddam monkey or some shit.

every time i have sex with my wife i recommit. i am hoping my recent self exploration and shit makes this commitment a firm reality now