Fallen After7 Months

It's really great to find a website and forum like this. I have been attempting to go straight for a long time and recently had a second seven month abstinence from which I am struggling to pick up.

My name is Jim and I have moved to my wife's country after almost two decades in Asia. I have been having problems with M and P since I was in my teens, and I am now in my late 40s. My reasons for wanting to quit are primarily religious and secondarily because I simply find that it interferes with the quality of my relationship with my wife. I told her about it eight years ago, and she was and still is very supportive even if she sometimes gets frustrated with my overreliance on hardware and software-based security as opposed to willpower.

I started by relying solely on software, going through several web filters in order to keep the fap at bay. I have finally found the best one for me, but even that is not perfect. I am using Covenant Eyes, which is terrific on PC and my PC seems watertight, but is virtually useless on iOS because although it works in the absence of other browsers, in-app browsers have become the bane of my existence because so many apps have them and CE is so easy to disable without a notification going to my accountability partner. I find myself checking for in-app browsers whenever I have a new app, but whenever I find one, I find myself caving in.

Thus I find myself in the position of knowing I need to develop my willpower, although I would still love to know better ways of protecting myself on the technical side. There are simply too many ways for me to fall (smart TVs and devices belonging to relatives to name but a few) for me to rely on one method to the exclusion of all else.

Technically, this is what I do:

Family devices are controlled by my wife via Screen Time (iOS, we are an all-Apple family). I only have logins for my own devices except for Screen Time, which is enables with Covenant Eyes as browser and a thorough pruning of apps with in-app broswers. It's amazing where in-app browsers can pop up, even if Safari is blocked. The worst ones are the Facebooks ones, which can, if not using a Whitelist, bring up porn gifs by tuning off Covenant Eyes and easily getting to a search engine that allows pornographic materials through the UI (Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo).

The home network is owned by Optus and the controls are pathetic, so everything is device/software based. I cannot figure out what to do in this area. This leaves me at risk from the smart TV (we have 2) and Xboxes, the latter of which requires my wife to lock me out because Microsoft does not allow parental controls on adult accounts.

I know many people here are not religious, but for what it is worth, that helps me to a degree, but when I get porn in my head, I just get all Jekyll-and-Hyde, and I find a way.

My 7-month abstinence ended because i finished work prior to migrating and am still off work now while taking care of my mother-in-law and nephew. I am alone a lot and depressed. The fall from grace, so to speak, was crippling, but I have maybe 2 days off then stumble again.

I feel encouraged by the success stories and would ideally like to be part of a challenge while at the same time having more accountability partners. If anyone can partner up with me and join a challenge with me, that would be encouraging, and I will reciprocate by helping where I can.