Journal. Cheer me on?

I would not do well waiting 2-3 weeks for sex. It’s challenging enough to wait a week. But I’m still dealing with both external provocation and internal thoughts. So @Rebooter2021 we are once again very similar. Keep going! Reading your journal encourages me!

@End it good to hear! Let me know if you are ever looking for at recovery group in the Des Moines area. We have a good thing going at my CR on the east side.

 

MO always led me back to P sooner or later. MO was just another way to keep lust alive within me, another way to keep a focus on sex when I had no other outlet for it. I firmly believe that sex for addicts like us can never be a solo activity. Its proper context is marriage, and it requires the physical presence and engagement of two. MO is childish, selfish, and -- at least in my case -- little more than a gateway to more P, lustful intent, sexual ideation, etc. No thanks.

I'll take your word for it that MO without any fantasy is a thing. (That's never been the case for me.) Even if it is, though, is it really a good practice to seek out ways to sexually gratify yourself? It just seems sort of a silly thing to do. I was trapped in the practice myself for many years, but now that I am free of it, it grows increasingly strange to think of. It's not even something I want any longer. If it is not in the context of being physically intimate with my spouse, then a sexual feeling serves no helpful purpose, and I shut it down immediately. I do not see any other way to be, esp. not as a PMO addict in recovery.

Maybe NF has a different view. I am not all that concerned with their advice. I know what works for me, and I know what keeps me close to and dependent on Christ. I do not want to give that up for anything. I am willing to make great sacrifices, as long as it means my peace in Christ and connection with him will remain vibrant and intact.

I know it is hard. It may be that the current moment is not the one in which you will find freedom. It may be that the amount of pain and loss must grow greater before the defeat of this evil in your life becomes your highest priority. I cannot say. I will continue to pray and hope for the best. Only you, with Christ's help and at the Spirit's direction, can count the cost of discipleship and arrive at the moment when you are willing to pay the price, no matter how high.

 

Hi Rebooter2021, I've been continuing to follow your journal and remember you in my prayers. I don't post much here as I can't relate to how hard this is in a marriage context, but I want to offer thoughts based on my own experience. Actually, these thoughts are pretty much a more detailed version of what's in my signature!

Please remember that it will never feel like the "right time" to quit PMO. Life could get harder, or even when it gets easy for a while, one day another trial will come along and take you by surprise. The right time is always now. Apologies if I come across as pessimistic - ultimately your future is in God's hands and he has promised at eternity of paradise with him But what I'm saying here is that the "not the right time" excuse doesn't work, because until that day we ever eternal rest, we may encounter many more "wrong times".

Another way of looking at it is that it is like saying that you need MO to get you through difficult situations, which leads me to my next point:

Think about this sentence for a second... here you are giving MO a purpose and stating that you need it. The ideal place to be is in a place where you do not need P,M or O. The more you depend on MO - for ANY reason - the harder it will ever be to shake. I'm saying this from personal experience.

How did you solve problems or deal with stress before you gave in to PMO? How do you deal with stress when you are at work and PMO isn't an option?

I have failed on all the above points multiple times, so I am not judging. It's great that you are fighting this battle and that you are talking to people here about it and addressing the issue. So many do not do this, and are trapped with no real desire to escape. Already you have come so much further than these people, but please keep pressing forward. It's tough, but it's worth it.

 

Same here. I tried to open the link and I got this: Safari can't establish a secure connection to the server 'www.reuniting.info'. Be careful, unsecured websites might impersonate real websites to get your personal information, intercept your data in transit, or even contain malware. Don't worry about your CE filter, I think it's working properly.

 

I think there's a lot of anti-MO motivation on the NoFap website. You can try to avoid the pro-MO scientific propaganda. Nobody really explicitly tells me to masturbate or orgasm, but that's because I don't hang around those types of people. I distance myself from any offline sexual conversation. I also keep some daily hours away from the internet because the internet is a very sexual place.

 

That seems to be a bogus site. I could not get it to load.

 

Hello friend I am with you all the way and I pray for you to be successful and glorify God in your body.You can do it in Jesus name.

 

@RedeemedIowan. Thank you so much for alerting us to these Christian podcasts. I had never heard of The Pure Victory Podcasts before. The episode: 'Masturbation Helpful or Harmful?' is episode #10 from 1 jul. 2020. Inspiring and interesting stuff.

 

I've probably mentioned it before but I strongly recommend material by Jay Stringer. Mainly his book 'Unwanted' but also an article of his that covers the main points of that same book: https://www.covenanteyes.com/2017/09/28/what-sexual-fantasies-might-say-about-you/

Though not a Christian resource, the 'SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION' method also helped me a lot. For some reason there's a bug that makes it difficult to link to from NoFap because it seems to parse it as something else... but google "SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION quit masturbation" and you should find it.

 

Some people of nofap are anti-MO because they want to save MO for marriage. I guess that's not anti-MO as much as just postponement. There are definitely people here trying to abstain from it.

I used to be antisex or against sex, but nowadays I focus more on the dangers of sex like STIs, sexual cannibalism, crime, and sin. It is not easy to find people who are against sex because both my local city and the internet discriminate against antisexuals like any other sexual minority.

You might find better luck in studying the dangers of MO and observing articles and media about the dangers. I think one danger of MO is infection.