A new kind of relationship

No PM day 181
No O Day 0/15
Bonding Behaviours day 25

Last night's bonding behaviours got a little heated, but very naturally. My wife initiated. I was so surprised and excited! A pity that I didn't go 15 days without an orgasm. However I have moved from watching porn to a very willing wife. Life is grand indeed!

 

No PM day 182
No O Day 1/15
Bonding Behaviours day 25

I was so impressed with the way my wife naturally moved from bonding activity 25 to full on intercourse. It was hardly something I expected. It's usually me that makes a move. She was very understanding about me not wanting to have an orgasm, but like I said, it was inevitable with PE. I feel it's going to take a while for us to move from orgasm focussed lovemaking to pleasure focussed, but we moved from wonderful pleasure to orgasm yesterday. I still want to take the emphasis from the goal to the process. It sounds like @Nicko Stretch has got this down. When I started this journey I promised my wife I would make her orgasm as many times as she wants (manually) but I would like to hold on to mine for a while. Sounded like a good idea but it was hard to refuse the offer when it was so temptingly laid out in front of me.
I listened to an interview with Ian Kerner which made me feel that I'm must be careful with this non orgasm direction I have chosen. I certainly do want to make my wife feel good. I do want to feel good too. The reason I am going down this path is because I would like to wean myself off the need to chase the orgasm - which I feel is partly related to the need for porn. Part of me wants to just go 90 days with no orgasm and see where that leads; 90 days is not going to kill me. A very human part of me says I really want to experience an orgasm, especially when it is offered so enticingly. Another part of me says stop putting all this emphasis on orgasms and just enjoy the bonding activities, things that happen happen, don't actively pursue an orgasm or push them away, just enjoy being with your wife.
I have no solution right now to all the different directions that I am being pulled in right now. I need to choose one. I will speak with my wife more.

 

Hearing this makes me feel very happy! Thanks for telling me. Then you have been through the kinds of conflict I'm experiencing too. For now, this is all new ground for me. I'm pretty much making it up as I go along. Though the books and podcasts I have been listening to have provided a strong theoretical background. The bonding activities have been amazing and my wife and I have grown closer. I want to continue to do these. Sometimes it has been hard to keep it cool. We get pretty hot and then we end up having intercourse, but I feel its a very natural progression based in love. Compared to in the past where it was more "business time" Thanks for that perfect description @Poland. I need to remind myself that three days ago was just one bump on the ride and it's no use giving up now. It's going to take a while to change 10 years of established routines. I need to keep in mind that my wife did not take the same NoFap challenge that I took and she is perfectly entitled to have an orgasm and I am very willing to make that happen. I just need to try and keep myself cool and enjoy the process and sensations. If PE comes into play, just let it happen. I think the main hurdle I need to get over now is to continue regardless and enjoy the bonding even after the early ejaculation.
Coming here to write out my thoughts has been very helpful for me. Knowing that other guys have been through similar situations is the best. You guys are awesome!

 

No PM day 187
No O Day 6/15
Bonding Behaviours day 29

Another weekend is over... Things went better, especially after I got some time to be by myself on Sunday morning. I just listened to some music and sorted out my spotify playlists. When I returned to my wife she said that I looked like I had a great time. So I will continue to add the morning alone routine to the weekend. I do things for myself while my wife and kids sleep. It really helps me cope. I read somewhere that introverts need the time alone to recharge. This was a problem with porn in the past, but I have been pretty good.

Bonding activities:
We did a few in the last few days. I remember reading day 28 about playing a musical instrument with your partners body and thinking it sounds goofy... No it was really nice. I loved the feeling of playing and being played and adding rhythm to touching. I recently also found another resource: The wheel of consent: https://bettymartin.org. Betty Martine speaks about touch, consent, giving and receiving. This sounds like a new level of bonding. I will tell my wife about it when we are finished the bonding activities. It takes the kind of thing we are already doing and makes it more open and sophisticated.
However, my wife and I had a good chat. We have decided that we really like the bonding activities and want to continue and perhaps do them again. We will be finished the list soon, we will probably start over this week.
We also decided to attempt Diana Richardson's slow sex. I spoke to my wife about not wanting to orgasm and PE and the way we have been doing things. We spoke for a long time. We decided that once a week we are going to try the techniques Diana Richardson talks about. This will be the dangerous day for orgasms for me and I we said that there might be some ejaculations in the road early in the experiments because of PE, but we would like to work with them until we can make slow love as it is described in the book.

So we are also starting out a Kaerzza type way once a week. I have not been reading my journal to my wife but I pretty much tell her what I write here. I have tried a bit of self cultivation too, but its hard to not fantasise in these situations.
What do I think the issues will be? Well I think its going to be a tough start, not all plain sailing... I imagine there is going to be a number of ejaculations as I learn to breathe and enjoy what is happening. I imagine there are going to be some little arguments in bed about what to do. My wife does not seem very into the orgasms. I will speak with her again and make it clear if she wants one, she should please ask, otherwise I will just assume that we are in the same boat. Like you say the bonding seems to take over the sex. It has for the last 30 days at least. My wife says that she wants to tell all couples about it.

Yesterday I went for confession and I got absolution. This is another big step for me; a big valley on the path that I had to cross. I was a little disappointed that it was all over so fast. It seemed like the priest had heard a lot like this before or something. To me it is such a big deal! Anyway. I am glad I did it. He told me to keep up the good work and not look at porn.

Tonight we are going to try and make slow love. I am enjoying learning about pleasure in ways that I never imagined it. I am concerned that I need to keep things cool. I get so excited. Will have a report sometime during the week.

 

This is unbelievably helpful! Last time was still too fast and I ended up getting to excited. I’m going to try to be even slower next Monday.

 

Back from a 4 week holiday. I had plenty of temptation to look at P. I did not give in. Glad to be back. I gotta start the bonding activities again and get back into the swing of things.

 

No PM day 223
No O day 1

It was too long to stay away from NoFap. Going back to my home country for a holiday with the wife and kids was a little bittersweet. It was great to see my family again, but it was sad to see my frail grandmothers. In two years they have lost a lot of body weight. One has become a little senile. We said our goodbyes, recognising that it was probably the last time I'll see them. My home country has also deteriorated a great deal, corruption has become quite common place and infrastructure is beginning to collapse with regards to roads and electricity. I worry for my family - this is not the place I grew up in.
While there it was difficult to hold a mediation routine and do bonding behaviours. Everyday we were busy and exhausted. We needed all the sleep we could get as we changed places every 4 days. I stayed in the house I first started watching porn in. I wanted to confess to my father, but there was never a time to be alone with him. My family seem to have a bunch of bigger problems too. I also felt the inferiority I used to feel around old acquaintances I grew up with. I feel that people in my hometown are hard. People walk around with a "don't fuck with me" kind of face and attitude. In this environment more stripper clubs have opened and prostitutes wait outside the the building that used to be the library I went to as a kid. Things change, they seem to be headed in a very downward direction in South Africa.
On the way down I read a book by John A Sanford - The invisible partners. It is an excellent book. It says that inside us is someone of the opposite sex trying to get our attention and help us to become full human beings. As we grew up we decided on a persona or mask to represent to the world. As we push out or repress the things of our personality that we don't like we form an invisible partner inside us. This invisible partner is called the "anima" by Carl Jung. According to the theory, the anima tries to entice us into becoming fully human again, for many men this invisible partner appears as a seductive woman in our dreams. It explains why men are attracted to woman that are very opposite from themselves. We are attracted to all the things we believe we don't have. Certain pornstars have it all for me. The confidence in their bodies, the comfortability with their own wildness and the ability to seduce anyone. I am basically looking for all the things I don't have. The anima calls for union first sexually and later into something more spiritual. I believe that porn gives men a visual picture of their anima. I think that many men go searching for this invisible creature online and find glimpses of her in porn stars. The book says that this is what men do, they look for their repressed other halves externally, when they should be looking internally. The theory in the book says that in order to become a whole person I need to engage with this invisible partner in conversation, writing it out. This is my new angle in the noFap journey. I am going to talk to the seductress within rather than look for her outside.
On the sexual experiences front my wife and I successfully engaged in slow sex. We went very slowly. I lasted a very long time and I felt very empowered. My wife said that she felt very enriched through the experience too. We are going to try and do this more now that we are back home. We will also engage in the bonding activities. I can't wait to get back to the routine and the experimenting with slow intercourse. I'm also excited to see what is happening for everyone else here on NoFap.

 

Very interested to hear what you’ve been thinking.

 

No PM Day 227
No O day 5
Its been a long week. I've been struggling with diarrhoea and jet lag. Fortunately last night I went to sleep at about 9PM and I woke up this morning at about 6AM. My first normal night's sleep since getting back. Now I just need to recover from the shits.
During this time I had many urges to maybe look at some porn. I ended up prioritising things instead. I read my book on Hapiness by Derren Brown. I am on a section about death. Its pretty fitting, since I said goodbye to my sick grandparents while away. I mean really goodbye... They don't seem to think they're gonna make it till the next time I go to my home country. It was sad...
I also tried using Jung's active imagination technique to speak to my Anima.
I'm going to be honest with you all here - I did fantasise. I imagined sexual experiences with my Anima, but I made it a point to talk about feelings while doing so. The book - The Invisible Partners - suggests that speaking about feelings and asking the Anima what they want are a sure fire way to make progress. I fantasised with my laptop open writing the dialogue we had while we had our imaginary sex. I'm not going to say that I am now cured from wanting to Fap but I feel like I was making love with someone who understood me inside out. She also seemed to have advice on how to slow down with my wife and enjoy things. I will continue to write out my dialogue with my anima at least once a week.
I also watched a TV series called "the century of the self" - by Adam Curtis. I bring this up because it spoke about how people were first pushed into repressing their feelings and then pushed into doing the opposite in the last century and how big business have used both models to make a lot of money. The reason I bring this up is there was a mention of Marylin Monroe - In her final days a psychologist had her stay at his house in order to show her what a "normal" family looks like. In the same year she danced and sang her sexy "happy birthday Mr. President." - I then went on to read how she continued to take acting lessons and was hoping to break out of her usual blonde bombshell role in romantic comedies, she only did one serious movie and then went back to her publicly accepted persona. She finally committed suicide. Perhaps she got so tired always playing the same person and never being allowed to move on, never growing. Trying harder to force herself into a "normal" way of life must have just made it even harder. Like trying to stop all thoughts of sex to be "normal" , whatever that is.
The reason I got onto this Anima bus was actually because of my daughter. We watched Frozen 2 in December. In the movie the main character, Elsa, keeps hearing the voice of a Siren calling her to something. Its interesting that they use "Siren" because NoFap uses the siren to describe the creatures the entice men with their seductive voice and then rip them to shreds while they are unconscious. In the movie however, Elsa follows the Siren's voice and goes on the greatest adventure of her life. By following the voice she realises who she truly is and befriends seemingly violent spirits along the way. She has a spiritual awakening. Elsa's siren can only be heard by Elsa which means it must come from within. This is what got me started on this whole Anima thing. Instead of trying hard to ignore the sexual thoughts coming up - I want to recognise them as that part of unloved life in me and love them. The book I was reading says that this Anima will help me become a fuller human being and teach me things that no-one else can teach me about me.
Perhaps it is better to think of the Anima as the muse that Animates men and gives them motivation.
I realise that most of this must sound like the diary of a madman, but then in the words of Gnarls Barkely - We're never gonna survive unless we are a little crazy.

 

No PM Day 230
No O day 8

Just checking in again. Yesterday I listened to a podcast featuring Emily Nagoski. She was talking about how different people are wired differently for sexual desire. Apparently our brain has some kind of two part system. Some things accelerate our sexual desire and some things put on the brakes. I know for me porn was a great accelerator and a Nazi movie with torture scenes was a real stopper for me for a romantic evening my wife had planned a few years ago. Anyway, she also mentioned that people there are outliers on the big bell curve - some people can have many things that accelerate them - some people can have many things that slow them down. People who have many accelerators can end up using sex to self sooth - that sounds like me. She also said that it seems that people seem to choose partners who are wired opposite. Sometimes it does feel that there are many things that decelerate my wife's desire - especially things like context (the room, the smell, the lights etc)
She wrote a book - Come as you are - It's more aimed at woman, but it sounds pretty interesting.
Bonding behaviours to start this week again.