So what do I do now? Ideas for help with staring problem

What you described as happening between us (@slb is my BF) since the "disclosure" (or me just figuring it out really) is very much affected by the PTSD your PA caused me. I know my words/actions/reactions seem crazy and unreasonable and probably don't help your healing right now. If you would like to know more about the effects PA has on me, please read this page http://afteranaffairofthemind.com/ptsd/. It describes what I am going through very well. I need help and healing and therapy... just like you do. I think it would be best for us to think about our healing as a long-term goal for each separately and for us as a couple. I understand that you would like immediate "tricks" and "techniques" to help you TODAY, but healing doesn't work like that. Even if you did find the perfect thing to do right now, I might simply be not ready to accept it at this point. I hope you understand. I love you!

 

Good grief this is like the story is the same only the names have changed for my bf and I . @slb my bf says now he feels like anxiety over making a mistake or doing it and looking creepy is driving him nuts. I'm not gonna lie bc now he's getting a taste of all the repercussions and it does make me feel better to see him struggle like his choices have made me flounder. But as @novibe can probably attest to, the pleasure is short lived bc I also have empathy even though I'm not the one who put "us" in this f'd up situation. I'm sure my bf will pipe in shortly . But like I tell him....he's basically had 15 years of this non stop deviant behavior and never once recognized it as a problem....it's probably gonna take a wee bit more than a few months to clean up the mess .

 

Some observations of my own, which you two may feel free to say screw off...

You've kinda described a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario.

At the end of the day, you still have to use your eyes to look around the world. With all respect to novibe, I think we may just need to trust you that you're doing your best.

Have you ever met someone who analytically is very spiritual? They're constantly analyzing everything they do, the impact on others, how it fits in to mantras, making sure they're not hypocritical. At a certain point, it doesn't seem very spiritual to me anymore and defeats the purpose. There's more spirituality going on with the average joe, if that makes sense.

I guess I'm saying I think you're right in saying that's still objectifying them. Some people on here have said something along the lines of "you spend so much time trying to not think of porn, that really you're thinking about porn".

Sounds like you're already doing pretty good with your reboot.

 

Very good point. We even discussed a proposal, that high IQ makes a reboot harder, because "staying in your head" is what smart people do, when they should sometimes go to the heart and *just do it BECAUSE!* I often wish @slb would stop analyzing and start feeling...

 

And what I meant is I think slb might need to be a bit easier on himself. I think there might be more recovery or at least perception of effectiveness therefore recovery if he trusts himself a bit more.

Why not look at a woman first, then decide if you need to look away rather than worrying about whether you'll have to look away before you even look?

 

I am so glad you guys are here to say these things and support each other this way. As a SO I am probably not objective enough with my emotionally charged comments ;-)

 

I'm not sure I understand. Are you actively trying to stare at women to purposely not objectify them? Or are you just finding that you catch yourself staring at women and have thoughts of a sexual nature?

 

Right staring happens, it also just happens to be that roughly half of the human population comprises of women. As long as you realize your staring and then immediately stop yourself I would say your exercising decent self-control.

 

I will give my answer, but @slb may want to confirm or negate ;-)
I think what he is trying to say is this:
- He doesn't want to stare at the floor in order not to stare at women
- He would like to just look at people in a normal non-objectifying way
- When he looks at people, he would like to assess quickly whether he is "presented" with a trigger or not
- If he feels there is a possible trigger, he would like to quickly stop looking for both: his recovery's sake, and my sake
- He worries that his "assessment" could already be considered as objectifying (and right now it probably is)
- And, reversely, if he doesn't do the assessment, how does he know whether he is objectifying them or not?
- And finally, how does he stop this staring, whether with or without the assessment?
I'm not sure I got it right, but he will be able to answer after we have dinner and kids go to sleep ;-)

 

This is what I've noticed about my bf. He can conversate and not creep out women who are older. Like 35 or over, but I'm sure if Pam Anderson walked by it'd be different. But literally if it's under that age he will glom on to them like Jack the Ripper. Unless they are introduced first via me....then its like oh that woman is a person......We were in a convenience store and this poor 18 year old girl had to literally stop in her tracks wait for him to stop blocking the aisle and finally when he remained frozen she spun and ran off. I think I identified the trigger as long brown hair and petite size bc she wasn't dressed provocatively, she was a normal kid going to high school that am. Of course at the time he denied it. He's done that numerous times....triggers are long hair curly brown or bleach blonde especially, provocatively dressed of course, big boobs whether out there or not, dressed covered but porn star make up look.....he says he doesn't realize it but ......Christmas dinner his mom and sis saw him leering at his uncles wife (blonde big boobs) . When we were were checking into a rehab he fixated on a chunky 80's throwback girl with blonde hair and porn make up sitting across from him in a waiting room. Oh I forgot , then of course there are the environments in which he appears as one of the upper leadership echelon. In this environment I call it the predator pose appears....first he sees his prey , then will lean himself up a wall, kick one leg up bending at knee so foot rests on wall behind him and begins the hunter stare at his quarry.....it's pathetic. Other girls have said while they think he's nice, talking to him is weird bc he just stares at them.....it just gets so f-ing ridiculous after awhile. And then I have my friends who say he does it to me , most don't know the depths of our relationship bc honestly play him off as a fucked up friend....bc it's embarrassing to admit otherwise during all this shit. Now I have to worry gee wonder where we will be when one of his craigslist sext partners recognizes his dumb ass from his nasty little selfies he sent.....but that's a rant for another time and place......

 

For @slb the "targets" are: anything showing skin, anything younger/skinnier/prettier than me, anything in sexy clothes and/or make-up, anything that moves womanly, anything that in any way resembles anything he has ever seen in P, anything that is not me it seems. Note: I deliberately said "anything" instead of "anyone".

 

That's the only thing that saves my bf....some of these chicks are nasty.....ugh....of course I know what the attraction is. I guess I'm also glad I never took him to one of these drag revues I wanted to go watch bc I find some of the performers awesome....depending on what porn he just viewed he might have run up on stage and started humping their legs

 

What's the point in stressing if like you said there is no inherent thoughts about of sexual nature? Don't actively scan the room to find who will trigger you, because there will always be someone that does in every environment you will be in. Instead carry on about your business, and if you find yourself staring shift your eyes a little bit. The whole assessment in and of itself will only lead you to stare at the woman for the whole time your examining possible triggers, so ditch that idea its completely redundant.

 

Staring IS your P-sub. You use your eyes for staring. You control your eyes. If you say you can't control your staring, then you are saying you can't control your eyes. Therefore you are saying that everywhere you go you use P-subs, because they are there and you can't stop your eyes, even though in any other situation you can. Sounds more serious than I thought :-(

 

So @Bel is my SO and like she said we are going through the same battle and I know your pain. I know this is going to be a hard habit to break. I feel like it's the whole theory behind Inception from the movie Inception. They say don't think about that chair in the corner period your first thought is what corner which chair and you're looking around and all of a sudden you're hyper focused on the chair what you're trying not to focus on. I hope that makes some sense. Stresses the living hell out of me to know I have to be around another woman and it doesn't matter who just to know that I'll be around them and could possibly end up staring at them and then trying to make sure I don't, not knowing where to look or how to stand and so on. I definitely think having an SO in this situation makes it very difficult. I will stress more because I'm wondering what my so is thinking or seeing me too. Then my SO has been traumatized by my addiction and is going to be hyper-vigilant and maybe even see it when it doesn't happen or before we can catch on and change your thought process. Or even like you said just the act of looking away will trigger the trauma in our SO. Of course we can't put any blame on the SO in this situation because they are just reacting to what we have trained them to see through our addiction.
I can't tell you I have any trick or quick fix to solve this problem. Like your so said it's going to take time to heal and rebuild. All I can say is you have to be open and honest with your so and the two of you have to be as objective as possible. She is going to get frustrated and angry and that is just going to be her natural reaction. you just have to apologize and keep reassuring her that you are trying to break this routine and it's not something you are doing consciously. She can be very helpful if she can identify any patterns in your body language, posture, when and where it is occurring, type of women you are doing it to and any other patterns she can pick up on.
I recommend you make a daily habit of reassuring your SL that you love her and care about her and she is the only one you love and care about. But this addiction has warped your mind to do things consciously and subconsciously that you don't want. That you are working towards rewiring your brain to not do these things. Then lasrly just try to focus on her whenever you're out with her. I feel it's helpful to constantly try to reassure her that you are attracted to her and not these other women. But at the end of the day she is going to get mad at you over this because she has been traumatized and it's going to be a long road for both of you. I am just thankful as you should be that we are lucky enough to have SO that are caring and understanding enough to come here get on the form and help us with this fight not just get fed up and leave. Hope I was helpful in some way.

 

I think I understand. Personally I think the better approach is not to look to see who might be a problem but to, when you are aware of the problem, stop the behavior (staring and any mental activity).

If you developed a habit of staring then you, by repeated conscious decisions, chose to look and have impure thoughts. At this point, since it is a habit, you aren't really consciously or purposefully staring. It is like any training where you end up just doing not thinking. To undo the habit you have to, as soon as you become aware, stop the behavior. At first you'll not notice what you are doing. As you catch yourself more often you'll begin to notice more often and more quickly. At least in my experience this is how it works. And it can take some time to undo your habit.

I can give a personal example. I used to swear a lot. I'd punctuate my sentences with the 'f' word. I later decided that wasn't how I wanted to talk. But I just unconsciously threw f bombs around. And many people I talked with did too. It wasn't like I was always purposefully using them. What happened was after I had used the 'f' word I'd sometimes, not every time, notice it. I'd then think about how I wished I hadn't said that. Over time I started to more frequently and quickly notice when I'd said the 'f' word. I'd then think how I didn't want to say that. Slowly the frequency of using them diminished. Now about the only time I use the word is when I want to or rarely when I'm really mad or frustrated. It took a while. Progress was slow at first and I was frustrated. But I was able to clean up my mouth.

Overthinking was mentioned. I think that may be true. The approach you have been using seems to me like if you were going to perform some music. As you prepare you look over the piece and think, 'here is probably where I'll mess up, and here, and here'. Now you are focused on messing up. This isn't going to help you. You will make mistakes. But looking for them probably makes it more likely.

 

Yes I know I do over think it but I am just really admitting that I am actually doing it and still trying to tell myself that my SO is seeing me do it when I'm not because she is hypersensitive to the situation. If that's true or not I need to reach a place where she can be hypersensitive and still see for herself that I'm not doing it. I do need to find a balance between subconsciously staring Andover fixating on not staring that causes me to do it or appear to be doing. That all ties back into having to reboot at the expectation level of your SO. Saying that I am still much happier to have her expectations on my shoulders as well as mine then to have her bemail gone fromissing my life all together @Bel and to all of the SOs on here you are incredibly loving caring and understanding men and women and your PA should be grateful that you are still by their side. So do not lower your expectations to fit them but at the same time know that this is a tough fight that we are fighting.

 

@Chris14 I'm literally 2 steps away from using a remote controlled shock collar around your , well ...appendage, activating it and then you tell me if you think I'm being hypersensitive or not.