Mood swings after O

What you are experiencing is called postcoital dysphoria. During orgasm, a cascade of hormones and transmitters are being released, causing temporary changes throughout the body and brain. One such hormone is prolactin, which can cause disturbance of mood.

 

Hey Ed, I can confirm that at some point in the recovery, o feels bad. In the good old days, o was just soooo relaxing. I had a good mood and a good day afterwards. And then, after 1 year into p recovery, o made me feel terrible. Sex felt like an insult to our love and a violation of trust. Dirty. My wife had felt like this for many years. Now I feel it too. Maybe this is my body & soul saying: 'hey dude, stop boinking and start working on all the other things'. So I did. We decided to not have sex for some time. Instead, work on all the other things that make a relationship worth it.

 

Yeah just go no pmo for some time, It's worth it! It's a big misunderstanding that your letting your SO down. In most cases your partner will just be happy you're improving yourself. If not, that person probably shouldn't be in your life. Good luck in your journey!

 

I always feel depressed or angry the day after sex with my wife. I think it was because I always felt like my wife was just doing it out of obligation and I didn’t feel like I could make her happy and I knew it wouldn’t happen again for several days to a week. To me, it’s not as enjoyable when your wife is not playing a very active role. I also had a chaser effect which made me think I needed to M to get satisfied. Of course that never worked. After reading different forum posts, it’s definitely my mind on P that was causing the depression and anger. If I can get out of my own head, I think I will be able to find happiness again.

 

If I had moments of weakness where i engaged in behaviours that either were, or might lead to, a reset/relapse, then had sex with my wife before telling her, I would feel a wave of guilt and negative self-feelings afterwards and feel compelled to own up at that point. The guilt of having suppressed/hidden those moments of weakness until being intimate made it feel worse. As my recovery from actually engaging in these behaviours progressed further and further, and I felt further removed from the version of me that would use porn, the worst things that I did, that even at the time felt like stepping way over a line and into betrayal territory, would come to mind after orgasm/sex. Until I confessed to those specific acts I knew I would always feel this guilt, which was horrific, anxiety inducing and all-encompassing. After sex was one of the most likely times to feel that way. Trying to sleep was another. I no longer justified these actions as part of being a man, a human, and started to feel regret, guilt and shame, due to no longer being self-deluded and an active P user. Coming clean felt risky, and in the days afterwards my marriage was at its most fragile ever. But we talked about how we felt, where the behaviour came from, what we want our future behaviour and relationship to look like. We talked about what I was looking for in porn. Why I went down that path rather than seeking fulfilment from my wife. We talked about rational and irrational reasons for doing or avoiding certain things, about emotions, about desires. About our feeling for one another. About realistic expectations about how we might respond to other attractive people, and the difference between passive and active responses to beauty etc etc. Now, a few months on, things are mostly back to normal. By which I mean before I was feeling this sense of guilt, dread and self-hatred. Things are good. We are ourselves with each other again. We haven't fully healed, that will take time, but owning up to the things that I had done that I knew were a betrayal was important for my recovery, for her being able to make an informed decision to stay with me throughout my recovery or not, and for the authenticity of our relationship. Owning up to my betrayal of her trust was important for building and maintaining trust in our relationship.

You may feel terrible after sex because you are confronted at those moments with the work you have yet to do on your self and your relationship. This was the case for me. The better you feel about yourself, and the better you feel about your relationship, the less likely these emotional slumps should be. Try to work out what, if anything, is making you feel bad, and talk about this with your partner.

Good luck.