Decades of porn and decline of sex life

Hi everyone, here's my story:

I'm a 40-something guy with a great wife, and traditionally a pretty high sex drive. I've been with my wife for 12 years, and we have sex 2-4 times per week. But in between that, I was using porn pretty much every day. Sometimes I would even have sex with her, then masturbate to porn after she went to sleep. I never had a problem with erections or anything like that.

Then, a couple months ago, I noticed that my orgasms weren't as strong as they used to be. Then I noticed my libido was slipping – I thought about sex less, and I had less of a desire for it. My penis felt less sensitive, and it took me longer to orgasm when I was having sex or masturbating. I would still PMO, but it was getting more and more difficult to find porn that really excited me. Sometimes I would spend 30-40 minutes just looking for that right video clip that got me going. I noticed that I would usually PMO in the evenings, more out of habit than anything else. It was sort of a comforting ritual, but not because I was particularly horny.

Then, my erections started to slip. It started to take longer to get hard, and it would go down sooner. I used to be able to have sex, and then 10-15 minutes later do it again. But not anymore. It was one and done.

Then, I couldn't even get an erection via masturbation. Impossible. It's really strange to be stroking it and just have nothing happen. Most of the day, it feels like my penis is just dead. Lifeless. Hollow. This is a pretty scary feeling. All of these things were like a slow cascade of symptoms over a couple months that just got worse and worse. I started doing some research and found YBOP, which made me think that this is my issue.

But, I can still get hard and have sex with my wife. It takes me longer than it used to, but it still works. So, right now I am at 2 weeks of no porn. I'm committed to be done with it for good. There is still this doubt in the back of my head that it really is a porn issue, and not a health issue. But I also read if you can't get an erection via just manual stimulation, but you can with a partner, then it's very likely PIED.

For the first week, I was pretty flatline and that was scary as well. But this week I have felt myself perk up a bit sexually, erections with my wife are coming quicker and easier and I think more about sex now. I'm hoping this is the start of my recovery, and I definitely feel better than I did the previous week. I can feel some of my natural sex drive returning.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to participating in this forum.

- ATL