Day 21. What effect is P having on my relationship?

Hello Fellow Fastronauts!

This my first time posting. I'm on day 21 of a 6-month no-P challenge. I've MO'd twice in that time but only to imaginary scenarios, which in the first instance I'm allowing.

Background: I'm 36, and have used P since I was 14. First magazine stuff and then as the internet kicked in I switched over to that. I've used with varying degrees of severity, at it's worst once a day for perhaps an hour on average although that was a few years ago.

I have been with my current girlfriend for almost 2 years. We've been living together for over a year now and in that time our sex life has declined somewhat partly because we both work hard and are tired a lot and party because I've started to find her less physically attractive. I have been wondering whether it's been my porn habit or whether our relationship has changed or both. In any case I've decided to separate the variables by kicking P for 6 months.

When we first met I was on a 3-week no P streak. Everything was great, I thought she was awesome and I found her really attractive. Although it was never part of the plan I told her about NoFap on the first night we met as I felt like it had given me super powers. She respected it a lot and said that she had big problems with P since she is a feminist (and rightly so!). A week or so after we started going out I had a minor relapse (possibly a chaser induced effect) and I told her about it. Hell hath no fury etc. She barely spoke to me for a day and acted like I had cheated on her. I could understand it in some respects but I also felt that she did not understand the addictive nature of P. In general I don't think there is a great awareness in the general populous that this stuff is as bad as crack!

Since then I have been going through phases of kicking P for a couple of weeks and then getting back into it for a few weeks with varying degrees of severity. I've also been going through depressive states of mind that are connected to my stress levels- I live in London and I'm doing a PhD in Physics. I probably spend too much time thinking about global and environmental problems and it gets me down sometimes especially living in London, where I'm constantly reminded of the insanity of high consumer Capitalism. I don't want to digress too much but P has been a useful stress reliever and a way of numbing myself from others pains I think. Overall I use P a lot less than I use to but now I want to quit in order to clarify what's going on in my mind and with my relationship. I have only spoken about P with my girlfriend once since the first time and I lied about it and said I wasn't using it. At the time I was down and didn't feel like I could deal with another day of anger and getting kicked in the guts.

My girlfriend and I understand each other very well and are very similar in our way of thinking for the most part. There is an imbalance in our relationship however as early on I found out how fragile she is and how weak she can be at times. I think I distanced myself emotionally from her because of this. This effectively ended my romantic infatuation and our relationship feels now more like a companionship to me. She still has romantic feelings towards me and this has started to cause us problems. I have had periods of dreaming about romantic relationships with younger women and I when I'm out and about I feel like I'm looking for that in some senses. I work in a strange place where about 70% of the student population are male (science). I don't know if that is also a factor but I feel like my brain is starved of romance or flirtatious interactions with women. I missed out on having sex in my late teens- I was completely sexually paranoid after having grown up with an alcoholic father who instilled a great deal of fear in me. Even though I fooled around with girls and finally had sex when I was 22, I wasn't until I was in my mid 20's that I started to feel comfortable with a real partner. In some ways I feel like I want more sexual experiences although I recognise the special relationship that I have with my girlfriend. I also need to remind myself that I was single for 2 years prior to meeting my girlfriend and I didn't sleep with any girls during that time: I don't often find people I feel well connected to.

So I've decided to quit P to see if it improves the physical relationship with my girlfriend and to see if I can capture some of the romance back into our relationship or whether there is now too much history (plenty more things I could probably write about but don't have time). At the moment I've reached 20 days and I'm on a bit of flat line. We had sex on the weekend and it was good but generally in the week she wants sex in the evenings and I want it in the mornings. I think my sexual brain is all over the place at the moment- sometimes waking up with massive boners, sometimes nothing. At the beginning of the week I was having quite heavy withdrawal symptoms- depression, lack of motivation, pressure in my head. No massive cravings except for today I wanted to look at pictures of beautiful women although not P in the conventional sense. Manage to avoid it except for a pilates video (!) but switched that off very quickly when I realised that I was sliding back into old habits.

Lots more I could write but realise this post is getting long now. Any advice especially from those in similar situations welcome.

 

Hey FredSamson! Thanks for your reply. I'm not sure what you mean by 'not sexually compatible'? I mean we had really good sex at the beginning of our relationship and still do on occasion, although it has definitely become less frequent since we moved in together...

I agree the attraction must diminish as time goes on but I suppose the question is whether I'm too young for that to have happened already! Or is it just an affect of P?! Not sure.

What did you mean by: "To be with someone that always "makes love" is a road to disaster sexually. After 15 years in that position I was a depressed and bitter man just wanting out to get some good sex. And more than 3 times a month."? Did you leave your partner?

I think men are conflicted animals- all my friends are the same at this age. We all want the comfort and security of a long-term partner with the excitement of other sexual encounters. Unfortunately that's not allowed...

 

Thanks @BlueNotes! I feel the truth in what you say and glad to here your story. "...masturbating with a body."- that's a good way to put sex without a mental connection. I've been feeling a bit better about things over the last few days. It's day 26 now and I feel like my system is calming down a bit. Had great sex with my girlfriend last night without and problems with ED, which had been affecting me recently. I feel like this journey is taking me to where I need to go, where ever that place may be. Thanks for the words of wisdom.