A new kind of relationship

Just introducing myself here. I have quit porn for ore than 150 days. I have confessed to my wife and I am very blessed that she is so willing to help me work through this. I have been writing in a journal in the 40+ section but I feel that I need to take the focus off of just me. I am in a relationship and I am trying to do new things rather than simply avoid porn. A podcast with a sex therapist I listened to was saying that bad habits need to be replaced with new healthy habits. SO my wife and I have started doing the bonding activities by Marnia Robinson. https://www.reuniting.info/download/pdf/Bonding.Behaviors.pdf
These have been relaxing and enjoyable. Last night we did day 10 and I am hoping to use this journal to share my experiences and learn from others.

 

No PM - Day 161
No O - Day 3
Bonding behaviours day 11
Just checking in. Last night my wife and I tried day 11. All we had to do was take turns spooning. I was surprised when my wife didn't know what I was talking about. I had to explain in quite a bit of detail about how we should try and lay our bodies together as much as possible.My wife climbed in behind me first - it was very relaxing. Her warm body against my back seemed to melt away any worries I had from the day. I held her hand against my chest and enjoyed her warmth mingling into my body.
We then switched. My wife is a lot shorter than me and so spooning was a little difficult at first. She seemed to continuously roll herself into a foetal position. It almost seemed that she wanted to expose as little of her body to me as possible. I felt quite disappointed about this. I stopped and demonstrated what it felt like and asked her if we could try again. It went much better. While laying side by side I started to feel her breath and I synchronised mine with hers... I felt and exchange of heat between our bodies that was very satisfying. It felt like an electricity.
Two things from this experience.
1. I can't believe that I have never spooned with my wife before. Perhaps we did when we were dating and just forgot about it, perhaps I did but I got the same foetal position treatment and decided it wasn't her thing in the past.
2. This is just a small thing, but in the past I would never talk about something like this with my wife. When it came to sex I would try to read cues instead of talking. I may read things wrongly. This bonding behaviour list is helping for communication. I feel that in the past I have accepted so many things in silence that I have ended up being quite dissatisfied. I feel like I am catching up on years of uncommunicated desires for affectionate touch from my wife and it is wonderful!

 

No PM day 163
No O Day 5
Bonding Behaviours day 13

Another check in. To be honest @Nicko Stretch , I haven't seen the need to show my wife this or my previous journal. I am pretty bad at speaking my mind. I come here to put my mind together and organise my thoughts. I usually go and talk with my wife later once I have figured out what I am thinking.
We do an activity we learnt called 3 positive 3 negative a lot. We must each describe 6 emotions we felt and why we are feeling this way. E.g. I feel encouraged because my friends on nofap know what I am going though. Sharing feelings like this has been a great source for our bonding.
The last two days of bonding activities have involved touching each other's stomachs and ears. When I read about the activity on paper I was quite skeptical at how much pleasure would be derived. The results were very exciting. I had no idea that having my ears pulled could feel so good. My wife is really into these bonding activities. We are holding each other more than we did in the past. We can both feel the difference they are making.

To be honest I feel there is a bit of resentment coming to the surface. Why did my wife not touch me in the past? It felt like I was putting in a lot of the work for foreplay and then her sole mission was to make me orgasm as soon as possible...
I have some theories.
1. My wife is normal and my expectations of her came from porn. I was expecting my wife to be as into sex as the porn stars. That is not a fair expectation. It's not even real.
2. I was so busy trying to please my wife in giving in a porn style fashion leading to orgasm that I left no time to receive anything from her and ultimately felt let down. SO I tried harder the next time trying to set an example of what I want. Not actually saying what I want. The orgasm would always satisfy my physical needs and I would want to sleep and my desire for reciprocal affectionate touch would stay unsaid.
3. Perhaps she simply didn't know any better. I said nothing. She also was brought up in a world where getting someone to orgasm as soon as possible is the most loving thing you could do.

Like I said, I'm just putting my thoughts together here.
I still feel an urge here and there too look at porn but it is easier to just bat it away. I can do this...

 

No PM day 164
No O Day 6
Bonding Behaviours day 14

I had a tough Friday. This has been a hard week. I have been really busy at work and my sleep has been interrupted by dog seizures and baby kicks. Otherwise I'm doing fine. The urge to listen to audioporn on the way home yesterday was very strong, but I listened to Jordan Petersons 12 Rules instead. He was talking about getting your house in order and delayed gratification. Exactly what I needed to hear.

Day 14 called for us to play music and move our bodies while laying down and touching each other. It was a little strange, but I could feel the energy there. We hugged each other afterward and the hugging spontaneously spilled over into some gentle kissing. My wife confessed that she hasn't been touching me, she said her need for human touch was no doubt being fulfilled while she spends time with our baby. She didn't realise that I was craving so much for some affection. To be honest I don't think I realised it either. I knew I wanted to be intimate and once we were in bed I really thought that gunning for an orgasm was the ultimate affection for both of us. Sure, I felt satiated. My wife seemed satisfied too. Come to think of it - I was really attracted to the porn where the actors touched a lot and seemed romantic more than others. Perhaps I was just looking for non sexual affection all along.

I haven't been told this but I believe the exact same thing was happening in my relationship.

Last night I had a dream of making love to my wife. I take dreams quite seriously and as a gauge as to how I am healing. When I just started nofap I would have dreams of masturbating too porn. Slowly it moved to dreams of sex and now it has moved to dreams of making love with my wife. I'd say that is progress!

My wife and I are talking more. I do not feel the overwhelming type of satisfaction of an orgasm but I feel that we are growing closer. My wife mentioned this in an email yesterday too. I did wake up this morning and I fantasised over making love to my wife. I have come far - When I started this thing, the only fantasies were recalls of videos.
I still have very sexual goals in mind sometimes but I am much better than the man I was yesterday.

 

No PM day 166
No O Day 8
Bonding Behaviours day 15

Thats the end of a tough weekend... This last weekend I went drinking out with a bunch of other dads. I made sure my wife and kids were all bathed and ready for bed when I left the house. This night had taken weeks of planning and I was quite excited to get out there. My wife was very supportive of me getting out the house and having some guy time.
I was out for 4 hours. The night was okay. This is like the first time any of us had been out on a night like this in a year. We are all pretty new friends and it felt awkward at times. I'm pretty introverted and I had enough at about 2AM.
I got back feeling quite tipsy but nothing crazy. I spoke to my wife about the night and had shower before going to sleep in our spare room to ensure I could get some sleep without being interrupted by crying babies or kids. I woke up naturally just after 3 hours feeling pretty bad. This is when I checked my fitness tracker - I recently upgraded and my new one can measure stress. I saw that for the last 7 hours my stress was pretty high. In fact during my tiny amount of sleep my stress was constantly at a medium level. I have always heard that sleep after large amounts of alcohol is never good sleep. Now I have scientific proof - yeah - Even if I did get some sleep my body wasn't resting at all. This affected my mood for the entire day - I was short with my kids and irritated all day Sunday. Sunday night was painfully slow. I finally got some rest. My wife and I were unable to do a bonding activity. I had had a bad day.
What I learned -
Large amounts of Alcohol are going to exacerbate the emotional rollercoaster of no PM and no O. Being hungover also makes me want to PMO just to feel better. I had all kinds of fantasies running through my head. I was too tired to fight them off. I was also alone when I woke up. I had avoided being woken up by my kids but I felt lonely - I would rather be with them and the chaos they bring than have to wallow in my self pity and fantasies.
I didn't fall off the PMO path but I did expose myself to a bad situation.
Last night I slept like a baby - fitness tracker shows 8 hours of low stress. I can't wait to get back into some bonding activities with my wife and this next weekend we have a family outing planned at a hotel in a beautiful part of the country. I am glad I am leaving this last weekend behind.

 

No PM day 167
No O Day 9
Bonding Behaviours day 16

Have made some changes to our sleeping arrangements here. The kids need more space. The new arrangements means there are new challenges and ideas that need to be worked with. Last night my wife and I did day 16 of the bonding behaviours. It felt really good to have my wife lean into my chest and I loved being touched as I leaned into hers. I felt really loved again last night. This morning I woke up an our early again and I can't go back to sleep. So instead of laying tossing and turning trying to not think about sex, I thought I would come here and read other people's posts. It really helps.
This happened the last time I hadn't had an orgasm for a few days too. By day 13 of No O I was becoming a bit of an insomniac. I'm not sure if there is any scientific evidence behind this but I did find that not having an orgasm affected my sleep and finally having one put me back on track. Let's see what happens tonight. I am trying to get to day 14 without an orgasm. I can't afford to lose sleep at the end of the semester, this is crush time for me. I need to be alert.
I find myself thinking more of falling into traps like browsing the lingerie sections of shopping apps or listening to sex story podcasts. I haven't done any of these yet, but the urge is there. I think I need to delete said shopping app from my phone and continue listening to audiobooks. No installing adult friendly podcast apps. I need to cut off the hand that causes me to sin. I also need to replace these things with positive actions. Perhaps I can send messages to my wife telling her about my appreciation of the bonding we did the night before when I am having the internal conflict while looking at my phone.

 

No PM day 168
No O Day 10
Bonding Behaviours day 17

Slept like a baby last night! Yes. There are quite possibly a million other reasons why I couldn’t sleep in the past.

 

No PM day 169
No O Day 11
Bonding Behaviours day 18

Just Checking in... Woke up an hour earlier today again and couldn't go back to sleep. So I came to work on my publication and check out this forum. Thanks @river tree star for sharing about PAWS a while back. It seems that it could have a hand in my insomnia but my importantly my mood swings. I've been pretty moody. I noticed my wife noticing it yesterday. I could see she was tip toeing on eggshells. Then I know I've been a monster again. I was happy to read that PAWS fades after 2 weeks. Well, its 11 days now. I may have bad sleep tonight but that is okay, my workload is decreasing because its the end of the semester. So I can afford an hour here and there.
Bonding behaviours were awesome yesterday again. We had to synchronise our breathing. I felt as if energy growing out of me was gently swaying into the her body as we embraced. When these activities are eventually over I can't wait to have slow meaningful love making with my wife. Porn never exposed me to this type of sensual touch. This is what I feel I've been looking for all along.

 

No PM day 170
No O Day 12
Bonding Behaviours day 19

I woke up an hour early again today and came to read nofap. This is a great place to inspiration to stay on the path. I do feel that these bonding activities are making it easier to replace the need to orgasm with something more meaningful. Almost two weeks without an ejaculation. I feel like my body is also feeling the change. I feel a full reminder between my legs of the lack of an orgasm. I told my wife that my terrible mood the day before and waking up may somehow be related to me not ejaculating. I apologised but explained that I was happy to find out that its a pretty normal part of the process.
This weekend we are going to stay in a hotel with the kids to see some Christmas lights. Hotels usually mean some kind of sexual encounter with my wife. She is not in the best state. She found a boil yesterday and she is feeling very unsexy. I feel this has come at just the right time to push my No O count a little further. We can certainly build some more intimacy through the bonding activities. Here's hoping I can push that number way higher.

 

No PM day 173
No O Day 0/15
Bonding Behaviours day 19

An interesting weekend, filled with all kinds of emotions. So staying at the hotel was a great idea. It was a lot of fun. My oldest daughter really enjoyed seeing all the Christmas lights and there was even a fire show. My wife and I decided that we must try to continue having these little family holidays. We are going to shoot for once a month. As predicated not much on the intimacy side at the hotel - to be honest we were both just too tired and just fell asleep almost immediately.
We made our way home on Saturday really slowly with kids crying in the car. This drains me a lot. Once we were home I just wanted to relax. No such luck. Eldest daughter was on a mission to take out every toy she ever owned and put it on the floor and my wife wanted to do all kinds of house work while we were trying to watch a movie. I went to sleep in a bad mood on Saturday night. I was sulky all of Sunday. I feel like the No O policy had a lot to do with this. I'm not sure why but I had the resentful thought in my head saying that my wife was not interested in making love with me. I knew that I AM the cause of me not having orgasms. I decided that instead of listening to the thought - rather just believe it is part of the healing process of Nofap. This is probably something I would have thought a while back and justified my porn use with. My wife could tell that I was not in the best of moods and I could tell that she was doing her best to work around that. We had a small family outing - it was great to get out of the house. When we got back the dog had trashed the house. I flipped my lid. I was furious - its like all the anger from the weekend just came out.
My wife was very understanding. She bathed the kids who were pretty whiny late at night and she told me to take some time to cool off. I had a shower and I felt better - read some stories to my kids and put them to sleep.
She prepared some wine and two glasses and we then sat down. She was wonderful. She suggested that I take some time to meditate on weekends. My routine during the week clearly is keeping me sane with all the stuff going on. On weekends there is very little structure. Lots of stuff just happens on the whim of rowdy kids. She said she understands that I recharge my batteries by being alone and making music or something. We spoke about the kids and future and later went and made love very heatedly. She was very into it.
I am so glad I did not act out on the thoughts running through my head. My wife loves me and wants the best for me. I am so lucky. I love her so much. In the past I used the alone time to look at porn - I want to avoid being a lone for this reason but I have replaced watching porn with a good meditation routine. SO good that I have had a number of streaks on the app I use. I am so glad that I can have some time on the weekend to myself too.
Tonight we will continue the bonding activities where we left off. I am excited. I feel loved. I feel wanted. I feel understood. I will not trust the thoughts coming to mind from the negative emotions - rather just see them as part of the process with NoFap. 14 Days of No O. Next time I going to try to go 15 days without orgasm. I have come far and I have the most supportive partner ever!

 

No PM day 175
No O Day 2/15
Bonding Behaviours day 20

A little bit of a chaser effect - it doesn't seem as strong since I know what it is. Last night we did a bonding behaviour where we had to try and mould each other out of clay. It was pretty neat. I feel like I am getting touched the way I have wanted to be touched for a long time. My wife seems to think that these activities will also help our health. For my mental and sexual health I couldn't agree more.
@Nicko Stretch I have read a fair bit on anger too. Unmet expectations? Yes, I expect my dog to not rip open the garbage and put it all over the house. I also expect to have my kids in bed early because I know they get whiny when they're up too long. I used to believe that anger made me a bad person and repress that too until eventually it came out as rage. I read somewhere that females cry when they are overcome with emotion. For males anger seems to be the default emotion. Reading this made me feel better - I am surrounded by women. I thought I was just being a monster, but its pretty normal for men. Even Jesus got angry... The trick for me is to not become overwhelmed by emotion. Before I start meditation I usually acknowledge all the emotions that are happening in me. I use an app and I literally choose them from a list. In this way I am not repressing them and they don't build up to anger. When I don't take time to do this - like on weekends - when I'm feeling sexually frustrated - like after 14 days without an orgasm. Its easy to switch to that default anger emotion.
I will try to ask myself: "is this thought helpful?"
Thanks for the advice, it also gives me a chance to share what I am doing. I have started a routine of running, making music, furthering my career and reading books on sexual health on different mornings before I meditate while I am alone. These activities have been very good for me.

 

No PM day 178
No O Day 5/15
Bonding Behaviours day 23

its been a long week but a good one, things are calming down at work as the semester draws to a close. I don't have to work as frantically to be ready for class. I'm more relaxed I can feel it. I'm more willing to stop and talk with people and take time with my daughter in the mornings. I am very excited about our upcoming holiday.
On the PMO front - I can say that most of my thoughts about sex involve my wife. In my head I am planning an extravaganza evening for my next orgasm with her. Well I say that - Actually I spoke about this and I told her that I really want to try and ignore the orgasm instead. when it happens it happens, I certainly don't want to stop after it does. I feel this has been the one thing that has been bad for my sex life. When the sex therapists promise people that they will have better sex after giving up porn I am hoping that this is the one thing I can move on from. Our life in bed has been extremely orgasm focused. The bonding exercises have opened up worlds of other less intense but very satisfying pleasure. I am hoping to somehow combine the bonding activities with very slow intercourse. I don't want to AVOID an orgasm. I just don't want it to be the goal and deciding factor of when our lovemaking stops. With PE, an orgasm is inevitable but it doesn't need to be so important.
@Strength And Light shared an interesting podcast this week about shame. The definition of shame and the contrast of shame with guilt really spoke to me. The guilt of PMOing was bad enough, I have been ashamed of my body my whole life. I realised while listening to this podcast that this is definitely having an impact on my sex life too. I decided that i need to open up to my wife about the shame I feel about my pigeon chest, having a stoop, PE and being thin. I feel so ashamed about these things I feel they make me less of a human and less worthy of love. No one could crave a body like mine - not the way I lust over the perfect female form in porn. I really feel that this is part of the breakthrough I need to make behind the drive for PMO. I think this is what I like about bonding activities so much. It calls for a lot of touching of the body - in a non sexual way. I feel that my wife is appreciating me warts and all, not just trying to make me feel good with an orgasm. In the past she may have tried to touch my chest and in my shame I most likely would have pulled her attention away from the parts of my body I was ashamed of. In that way I made the problem worse. That podcast - speaking of sex - also had another episode about taking turns. Although I found it pretty triggery I liked what they had to say and the advice echoed everything I have been reading and feeling about bonding.
I didn't take on hard mode because I feel it is hard for me to avoid an orgasm. Instead of avoiding it - I just want to give it no value as part of my reboot in a relationship. Avoiding ejaculation while having PE is a game I don't want to play. I think it is going to lead to more stress and arguments in bed than I think it is worth. However I do feel that the long stretches between having orgasms is helping me overall. So I do want to schedule nights for intercourse that grow further and further apart and my wife and I doing a lot of bonding in between. What my wife likes best about the bonding is that the activities are completely achievable with kids sleeping in the same room and are they are sustainable with the exhaustion of having children. In fact, now I feel that we are both sleeping better because of the activities. I go to sleep feeling loved and that is fantastic!