20 Days, the Hard Part Seems to be Over?

Hey,

Joined this forum so that I can improve my accountability to myself, and so that I can have a positive group around me, which can be so difficult when pornography is normalized in our society.

Been 20 days free of pornography and fapping, so far. My wife and I abstained from sex for about 2 weeks, because it used to trigger me to watch porn - which was hell, but we made it! I am so lucky to have a wife that pushes me to quit these terrible habits (even if she threatens to leave me lol) - I know its quite a normal thing in other relationships, which can likely only be a detriment.

I was certainly a depressing and frustrating time - withdrawals are a terrible thing that sneak up on you, and make everything in your life so irritating and meaningless (not that life has any meaning to begin with, other than what you make of it)! However, the hard part seems to be over, and life is continuing on.

This has been my 5th time attempting to quit, and its the best so far. Now that withdrawals are through, I feel motivated to work on my projects again, and spend more time focusing on whats really important.

All previous attempts to quit have been futile, because I could never internalize why it's so important to quit - I always used to say "well, i'm doing this for my wife, so that's good enough". By forcing myself to believe that i'm doing this for me made it much easier to follow through.

I think limiting my access to social media has been a large factor in success - I cannot tell you how often you are just scrolling, looking at cars or something, and you see someone that you are like "DAMN!", and suddenly you just want more of that.

Not to mention, depending on what hobbies you have, it can be hard to get away from sexualized women (or men) - it's a shame.

For now, the hardest part is trying to show my wife that i'm trustworthy! Because at the end of it, it's not the porn, it's the lies.

Thanks for reading, and good luck!

 

Thanks for the responses everyone. One unfortunate side-affect that I am noticing from kicking this addiction is that I am exceptionally angrier - in a sense, my fuse appears to be shorter when presented with situations where in the past I would have managed better.

Has anyone noticed this for themselves? Is this a side-affect of withdrawals? Still going strong, but I would have thought that withdrawals would have ended awhile back.

 

I agree with you that that urges have become less intense, so I agree with you there completely. Often times, out of spite I would want to go watch porn in regards to conflict in my relationship, but I don't feel that anymore - which is good.

Not so good though, is that I tend to stare at women and how attractive I think so many of them are (great for a single guy, im sure, but not for someone married). I think this will take some more work and a bigger mentality shift.

Thanks for the feedback.

Side-note: I really do appreciate the honesty that this forum allows!