Beginner here - I hope this is the right path

I'm not sure if my story is the same as many here, but I know that I want to have the same success. I feel I should give you some background. I'm a 41 year old married man who has always been somewhat of an introvert. I was first exposed to porn at a very young age and possibly because of that, I can't remember a time when I haven't loved porn even in the days when I didn't have it readily accessible. Since the emergence of the internet in the late 90s, I have used porn regularly up until present day.

Although I've always been attracted to women in everyday life, I never really got as excited when engaging with them (dating, making out, sex, etc.) as I did watching porn or just imagining having sex and masturbating. This led to a very delayed sex life (I could never "get it up" during the first few tries with women). Eventually, I was able to be comfortable enough to have sex, have a sex life, and get married. But it never matched the intensity that masturbating to porn had. I would masturbate, but I would mostly edge myself to prolong the porn watching session. I got to the point where most of the time I would just edge and not orgasm, watching porn for hours. My tastes in porn started to evolve into different fetishes, and sometimes I couldn't get an erection for sex with my wife unless I fantasized about those fetishes.

A couple of years ago, I decided to do an experiment on myself and see if I could go 30 days without watching porn or masturbating. That's when I found out about NoFap, but I didn't really think I needed to be part of the whole community and quit porn forever. So I ran my experiment, and within a couple weeks I seemed to lose my libido and erections. It freaked me out, so I decided to start masturbating again to make sure my body was ok (a common mistake I've now learned). I passed the 30 days without porn with no problem, but I still had the fear of facing possible impotence down the road. I eventually turned back to porn. Since then, it has been increasingly tougher to get erect for sex which I was chalking up to as getting older. Knowing that porn never let me down as far as my libido goes, I started to believe there might be an issue to look into. I feel like I might be going through PIED. I want sex to be real for the first time in my life, and reading about NoFap has me thinking this might be the solution.

That's why I've decided to join the community. I have been thinking about doing this for a few days now, but have since regressed and looked at porn and edged myself. I knew that if I didn't create a profile and start a reboot log, there would be nothing stopping me from reverting back to my old ways. Here's to hoping this is indeed the right path.

 

D.J.,
This will not be a full hard-mode, PMO reboot on my part even though I supposed that would be the best way. I will still have sex with my wife, so I will indeed have orgasms with her. I'm trying to design this so that sex will be scarce during the first 30 days, though.

As far as a strategy, I don't have currently have anything solid other than occupying my time in other ways. I will update my reboot log often, I will spend more time excercising, and I have various other hobbies of interest that have fallen by the wayside. I have gone without porn for 30 days in the past, so I'm hoping that experience will help with this more difficult task.

 

douggie1962,
Thanks for your advice and encouragement! I will do my best to follow that.