Warrior Monk Journal

Day 91 no PMO; Day 201 no P
Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for family, friends, colleagues, SMART’ies, Fabstronauts, AP’s, Mentors, Therapists for your support, encouragement, and much needed guidance to make it to this landmark.

As I suspected, day 90 came and went with a whimper. It marked a significant day nonetheless, as 90/200 are big numbers in my life. It is the longest I have ever gone without PMO in my entire life.

I’d like to list the new disciplines that are now a routine part of my life that has kept me from relapse, which simply did not exist 200 days prior to today:

- intense therapy on the self, both professionally and self-guided, working on family-of-origin and lifelong traumatic and painful experiences that have shaped my sense of self;
- weekly meetings with like-minded individuals on a similar path towards freedom from maladaptive behaviors and self-realization;
- weekly marital therapy with a trusted professional;
- monthly meeting with a sex-addiction therapist;
- frequent connection times with spouse to process our individual and marital recovery;
- a rigorous reading and listening routine to curricular, self-help, and recovery books and audiobooks;
- routine exercise regiment tending to the needs of the physical body, along with awareness and adjustments to nutrition;
- routine mind-body-soul-spirit work that leads to prayer and meditation;
- routine journaling;
- connecting to AP’s, Mentors, and Peers via online forums and 24/7 online chat resources.

I know the regiment is intense. I know that it will not be completely sustainable long-term, and that adjustments will have to be made to create long-term sustainability. However, I am very thankful that this is what I have today, and that it is all working together to build a completely new life, and a new person going forward.

 

Day 95 no PMO; Day 205 no P
So today went really crappy...and I might have made a bone-headed move in regards to my marriage, but I felt it was totally necessary. Here it goes. First a little background. My wife had put together the terms of my reboot, really without my full buy-in, which resulted in a complete abstinence from sexual touch during the course of the reboot. I had wanted just a no P reboot in the beginning, but she insisted on a PMO hard mode, and I had two restarts. BTW both those acting out moments were in defiance of what I felt was something that was put upon me. All in all it turned into a 150 day reboot with the 2 resets due to MO, but no P the entire time. My mentors told me that while it was unfair, and I had every right to feel what I felt, tough luck bud...if you want to keep your marriage, suck it up and grow a pair...basically.

So here we are at the end of the 90/150 day reboot, and just as I thought, there is no end in sight in our lack of physical intimacy, even though I did everything right and am working insanely hard at my recovery, with all of the components listed earlier in my journal. So her AP unloads upon us an entire curriculum towards restoring intimacy. I should be ecstatic right? Well not so fast. The curriculum is so intense and difficult that the AP didn't even do it with her husband, and they passed on it. Well I thought, WTF? Why did you give it to us then? Upon my inspection of the curriculum, it is an all-in-one curriculum which includes: 1) self-discovery and therapy; 2) addiction recovery; 3) intimacy recovery. We already have an insane amount of resources in place and curricula for the first 2 aspects. We need only the third piece.

We started the curriculum nonetheless. I once again felt like I have absolutely no say in the freaking matter.

So this morning, my wife asked for a supplement to our Full Disclosure. She wanted to know the strategies I utilized to hide my addiction, which she called Disclosure of Strategies. I was like, ok, this is a bit much. What things did she spin in her mind to cause her to feel unsafe, and how in the world is what amounts to a 2nd disclosure going to make her feel better? If anything it will cause a lot of damage.

Nonetheless with the Christmas season upon us, and my workload will be insane for the next 3 weeks, I thought I better knock this document out. So 5 freaking hours later, I got it done...all the while being completely pissed that I had to do this in the first place, and that it'll probably do much more damage than good for our relationship.

So in my frustration, I wrote an email telling her that I was dropping out of the aforementioned curriculum completely. The reason being that this was yet another unilateral move on her part, and that if our relationship would work going forward, there would HAVE to be a power balance between us, and not lop-sided anymore, especially when it comes to work and curriculum that affects both of us, on work that we would do on our relationship. There would need to be discussion, buy-in, and consensus. I did not think that it was an unreasonable ask. After her disclosure to me regarding her own infidelity, I truly feel that the tables are equalized and I cannot sustain an unequal relationship.

Well I know the bone-headedness of the situation was in the manner in which I handled it, and that I told this all to her in a freaking email.

Well there it is. We'll see where the chips fall. We have a couples counseling session tomorrow morning. Please pray for us. Thanks guys.

 

Phenomenal advice Tao. Thanks I will take it to heart and to prayer.

 

Day 102 no PMO; Day 212 no P
Holy cow I went over 100 days and I didn't ever freaking realize it. To be completely honest I am a bit tired...it has been such a long time since my wife and I made love, and on Black Friday we talked and it became clear to me that it is still an insanely long ways off. I was so despondent that I subsequently wrote to my wife and told her that it might be Valentine's, or even Memorial Day. I don't want this, and the entire thing feels out of my control. So in our couple's therapy I did voice my frustration, that when it comes to our relationship, that we will need to work together. NO more power-plays from either, as overseen by our therapist. It would slow things down even further, as we only see him once a week. But perhaps this will break some of our old patterns in our relationship.

 

Day 111 no PMO; Day 221 no P
So I still have this little cold hanging on. It's going on the last bit of 4th week now. I think because my wife and I started making out (still no sex) we're passing it back and forth. So there's that. I'm anxious to get back to the gym, and back to Muay Thai class and the workouts, as I know that is a big part of my coping right now with all the stresses of relationship rebuilding and personal therapy.

**trigger alert**
We are finally starting to make out, although she still has a lot of pain in her heart...so much so that we cannot be naked together at all, and only first base with all our clothes on. We had a moment when I had her touch me down south, and she busted out crying because it was triggering for her. She can't stop thinking about where my "sword" has been, since her discovery of my sexual past. Even though those things happened 20+ years ago, her pain is very much right now.

It's all still something, and everyone tells me that it's a lot to celebrate; the fact that our physical intimacy is returning, albeit at a glacial pace.
**end trigger**

So I have relented and started our new therapy called Sexual Reintegration Therapy (SRT) (Bercaw & Bercaw.) It will be a long freaking road. My rational brain rejoices because I have been asking for a solid path back to sexual intimacy through our betrayal trauma. SRT represents that for us, and it's a well-worn proven research based path. My emotional brain is still very much bitter and harbors resentment of how a big part of the recovery path, our intimacy, my PMO choice or no-choice, all happened without a fully consensual process. Of course, I know that being a betrayer I gave up that right a long time ago. It still doesn't make the feelings of resentment subside. It's something I have to deal with.

All of this was really complicated by the fact that I found out that she had an affair with a married man during the time when we were in a committed relationship before marriage. Hence, I'm both a betrayer and a betrayee, and so is she.

Oh man am I glad to have a support network like NoFap and SMART, along with my therapists and peers. Speaking of which I'm off to see my therapist now. Thanks for reading. The struggle is real.

 

Day 0 no PM Reboot

So I had a big lapse last night. I went and found cable on-demand movies, and binged on soft-porn movies for an hour, with MO 3x.

Earlier yesterday was an intense day of my dad’s open heart surgery to fix two valves in his heart. The hospital of choice here in NYC is an old institution, and they apparently have never heard of patient-centered care. It’s doctor and hospital-centered care. Basically my family spent an entire 13 hours at the hospital cardiac surgery waiting room, half of which was waiting for dad to even go into pre-op. Yep, an entire 6 hours of waiting for pre-op. Oh and pre-op happened in 5 minutes. Mom didn’t even get to say good-luck/goodbye and give him a hug. Another 6.5 hours later, he came out of surgery, and we waited another hour for a nurse to lead us to his ICU room, but we had to go find them. Turned out he had been there about 45 min. Luckily he made it through, and the surgeon reported “routine.” That was the good news of the dad.

In my exhaustion, I turned on the TV. Well the rest is just crappy downhill slide from there.

Basically I feel like my recovery routine, travel plan, and accountability plan had all failed. It felt so fragile, and I really failed at this first major test of my sobriety since the Discovery, Disclosure, and Hard Mode Reboot since May of last year.

I sought out my DOC, found it, and binged. In drug world this would be called a relapse. I know that a one-time one-night in NoFap is only a lapse, but I had been slipping with P-Sub’s basically since mid-Dec. I had two disclosures/lapses since 12/18/19.

I may need another Hard Mode Reboot. This time I would have to discuss it with the wife. Maybe for 30 days this time.

I will journal some more about the why’s of what happened. I DO NOT feel that the entire surgery experience is an excuse for the lapse. I really thought that I have been in therapy and recovery enough by now (Recovery since end of May, with a 150 Hard Mode successful reboot) and that there have been enough plan and alternate ways to deal with big emotions that this wouldn’t happen again. I feel my Recovery-Self had completely checked out.

Yep, I reset a 258 day counter of no P with a binge, and right now I have no idea how/why it happened, other than I was careless. I know it goes way deeper than that.

Well if any guys have anything to share if you feel it would be helpful in my situation please comment. Thanks much.

 

Reading this today is very helpful to gain some context of what it takes to maintain sobriety. I will send you a PM on what I discovered on the “why’s.”

 

Day 2 No PM Reboot
After a 5 month pause I am back here again. I had my one year anniversary of my Discovery on 5/12. A lot has happened since then, there has been a lot of growth, yet I have a long ways to go. I have been inconsistent the last 5 months, and had frequent lapses.

Things I have learned in my on-year sobriety journey:
1) you have to keep and maintain a recovery routine;
2) get an AP and check-in often;
3) get a therapist for yourself, and for your marriage;
4) keep an urge log;
5) self-care is paramount for your body, soul, AND spirit;
6) read, read, read
7) work on mindfulness, and pray without ceasing.

The stresses have been very high, and the anxiety has often boiled over into various acting out, including P-sub's, MO, and PMO. Sometimes the P-sub's were daily. I lapsed into full-on porn on 2 occasions. I simply gave up trying for a couple of months, and then on-and-off for the rest. I'm now finally tired of running, and now facing my pain. The areas I would ask for prayer for today are:

1) a renewal in my calling, as I am now very lost due to being aged out of my work in the Church;
2) continued work on myself in my family of origin issues and current pain;
3) continued work on my marriage and the restoration of our peace.

I am thankful for NoFap and this group. God bless you on this Memorial Day.

 

Day 1 No PM Reboot

I finally got the courage to come back here and get back to journaling. It's been a rough go since COVID started and we went into isolation as a family back in March. I've been getting back on Reddit regularly and tried to manage the addiction by myself. I went clean for several weeks in May, and again in July, but overall I've been living in relapse. It's a devastating internal defeat.

Overall I would say that I slipped and didn't get on my recovery journey. I didn't employ all the tools at my disposal and fully got off the recovery train.

I covet your prayers as I get back on track here and put the pieces back together. Thanks @Tao Jones for your encouragement and support. Here's to a new start.