To all the PAs

The honest truth is that I'm not thinking about her. If I do, then I don't do it because I know it will hurt her.

Same goes for Accountability Partners or others on here. I don't think of them or letting them down.

Honestly I don't really think about the women in the pictures (at least not as a person). If I do, it breaks the spell.

Looking at P is one of the most selfish things a man can do. The only solution I have found is connection, both with my SO and with the community on here.

 

And, unbeknownst to the porn addict, that selfishness sleeps through every area of their life. The so knows it, feels it, sees it, but many times is completely at loss as to the why. Until dday. Dday 1. Dday2.dday3 well, you get the picture.,....

 

@Anastasia421, I'm not a porn addict, but I have lived with one for over 25 years, (and have been researching the issue for that many years as well.)

This is what I've learned about the question you posed:

Guy's brains are naturally more like apartments in an apartment building (or like waffles) than women's brains. Thing have their own compartment in his brain.

But porn makes the walls between those compartments much thicker.

What this means is that when he's with you, he forgets the porn. And when a man is with porn, he forgets his wife more easily as well.

Not necessarily the healthiest result.

I hope that helps.

 

@Anastasia421 First off, let me say how sorry I am that you are going through this. Its an extremely confusing thing to unravel for both people in a relationship. If you would like some recommendations on where to start feel free to reach out to me or my wife @GID2020.

On your question of "What goes through your mind..", I can tell you the simple answer is "GIMMEE GIMMEE, MORE MORE". That sounds weird, but as someone who has been "sober" for a little over 4 months and just starting into recovery, I can tell you that is the best words I can use to describe the feeling. You see when you look at porn your brain literally gets hijacked by the lower level brain that controls reward/pleasure etc. The best way I can relate it to "normal" behavior is this: Did you ever start making out with someone you were attracted to, with no intention of sex, then all of a sudden you can't keep your hands off of them? That same loss of control happens to a porn addict almost every-time. When I was in throws of PMO it didn't matter what rational thought my brain tried to interrupt with, my only thought was "I need more and I need it now".

I can relate a personal story as well. About 4 years ago I became interested in watching

Spoiler: Potential Trigger

nude yoga

. It was a strange interest, but that happened a lot to me, just going from fancy to fancy. Anyway, I came across a something that was a Vimeo channel for just that interest. They had a bunch of preview videos, but to get all access and see everything you had to pay $300+ dollars. For a few weeks I ignored it, plus @GID2020 had been asking me to go away for a weekend with her, but I told her it wasn't in the budget. Then one night when i was extremely stressed, I caved, at first the thought was "This was ridiculous! Its not worth $300!!!" but that quickly got drowned out with "GIMMEE GIMMEE MORE MORE" and I pulled the trigger and bought it. I watched a couple videos and masturbated to it. Then the shame and guilt hit me hard. The next day, GID confronted me about the purchase and asked my what I was thinking about when I bought it. I remember telling her that I wasn't thinking about her and I don't know why I bought it, that I just felt like I needed and deserved it. It was one of the most selfish things I ever did. Luckily I was able to get my money back, but the damage was done. It wasn't until this past October that I realized I had a real problem and PMO addiction was real.

If I can give you any unsolicited advice its to watch, when you are ready, a video called Your Brain on Porn it really helped me understand the addiction behind the PA and why I behaved the way I did. It has been instrumental in my and my wife's recovery. In addition, stay here and post. Learn from all of us and ask questions. This community has been invaluable so far. I hope you can find peace soon.

 

@Anastasia421 No problem! I hope you and your husband can work it out! We are all here for you!

 

Either I don't think of him at all, or I convince myself it's not a big deal and won't effect him. It's just like all the other ways we lie to oursleves all the time.

 

Yes. This. Minimize, suppress. Also after habitual use it becomes very routine.

It's a great question you have asked @Anastasia421 It made me think of how I select what I eat for lunch at work. On some level it affects my relationship right? The money involved, the impact to my health. I probably should consider the impact ALL my decisions have on my marriage. When I was at the peak of my addiction, I thought even less of my porn use then I think about my lunch's impact NOW.

 

Just try to remember that it's not about you or anything you're lacking. Trust me, I've been in your shoes, and I know that's hard to do. But it's true. I love my husband more than anything, and he lacks absolutely nothing I need or desire. It's not about him.

 

I haven’t looked at p in a long time.
But I was usually looking for answers about body image.
I have low self esteem and it made me feel better about myself

 

Dear Anastasia421, in all my times at looking at porn the sole purpose was to escape my reality, I'll even go further than that, to be truthful, to escape from me, from the type of person that I am, that I have become; a non-achiever a failure. Having mentioned it in other posts so I won't go into to much detail here; suffice to say that my father kept on saying to me from the time I was 6 years old which was grade 1 primary school till about 13 which was year 1 highschool in between those years he would continually say that if I didn't understand mathematics I wouldn't succeed in life and he would use embarrasment to make me understand it, which it did not; just as dumb now as I was then. Because that had been drummed into me, all those years after school "during those formative years;" lack of self awareness, perception, self esteem, was the cause of what my father was saying to me and it therefore became a self-fullfilling prophecy. Hence, I am what he predicted I would be, unsuccessful. During those years we also start developing sexually and so because I wasn't getting the positive attention, feedback responses that would make me feel happy about myself, I therefore focused on myself, and PMO became my way out from a negative environment where that daily verbal put down became the cause of my awkwardness. I was more an introvert, very few acquaintances rather than male friends at school and high school. So if talking to the few boys, at school, was a problem then talking to girls was impossible. Being able to relate to others was difficult because of the way I was made to feel about myself and if my immediate family couldn't find something positve with me, why would I think a stanger could. So in the end the PMO fantasy, became the reality, since reality itself, for me was just a fantasy, which I could never have all because I could never understand maths to the level expected.
Yes its selfish, yes its all the negative things that you say it is, it is also the quickest means of escape from an unwanted reality. For me, that reality is myself.
Hope this helps.