Help from married ppl

Married people don't stop PMO. Quite the opposite. You will soon realize that your wife won't come close to your porn fantasies (unless you are completely rebooted and have no desire for porn anymore).

Secret pornography use turns your sex life into a big disappointment for your wife and yourself. It's equal to abusing your partner, and it's scamming an innocent person into a life she did not choose.

Some women like to have sex every day. Some only once a week. Others less than that. There are women who doesn't want to have sex at all. So marriage in itself might not help you kick the habit whatsoever. Only you can do that for yourself. Good luck.

 

Having tried it I can say that It treats a human like an object which is exactly what is so troublesome for us about pm+. In the case of pm+ I was thinking of people as sex objects, in the case of trying to use marriage to fix an addiction I was thinking of a person as if she were a pill. Maybe you are thinking that you need a lot of sex and getting married will give you that. If so it will only increase the selfishness not decrease it. In my case I'm very lucky that in addition to looking to an unqualified human who had only a little interest in fixing me to fix me I also happened to have true love for that person. It's counterintuitive but we can be selfish and selfless at the same time, in percentages. Beyond that is a paradox: as much as I thought selfishness felt good selflessness actually feels better, and feeling good was the top plate reason I acted out. Cultivating that true love which was painfully difficult got me happily through a couple years of terrible sex and a lot of issues on my part such as rage.
As far as data, I know one person who said he used to have a "problem with porn" (that wording he used tells you it probably wasn't to the level we've found ourselves at of addiction) and that after he got married that went away, and I've known at least a dozen guys who told me they thought they'd have all the sex they wanted in a marriage and found themselves unsatisfied so they ended up cheating, some bought sex, most had legal consequences such as painful costly divorces, etc etc. Being unsatisfied is part of how you spell addiction: I'm lucky I found a solution before having to get into alternatives to my spouse but I had already noticed that I was never satisfied. My careful observation of my fellow people is that none of us is ever satisfied with any thing outside ourselves, no matter how much we think and say that I just need x to be happy we end up not as happy as we want to be afterwards we could always use just a little more unless we learn to practice contentment, choosing to be happy with how much we are given.

 

As a married man...no. I thought it would. But no, it does not. Only internal changes can help us manage this problem.

 

As another married man... this. And it will be especially difficult if you start with a lot of great sex in the marriage and then for reasons within or beyond her control she becomes sexually unavailable to you. That is the point where many husbands, myself included, have resorted / relapsed back into PMO because it is much easier, safer, and more socially acceptable than having a physical affair.

 

It depends on how important marriage is to you.

Marriage used to be more important and commitments meant more, in modern times it means even less.

So you understand, a woman may be a smoker and find it hard to stop, but as soon as she is pregnant - stops. Because importance of her child's health overrules everything else.
She did not need to use her willpower - she just did not smoke during pregnancy, because it conflicted with her beliefs and goals.

When people to do not learn to take commitments seriously - they are unable to keep commitments unless there are significant bad consequences.

Generally, being committed to the health of the relationship as important as marriage, means very high degree of trust, transparency and safety.
If you use pornography and your wife knows about it and honestly does not mind - you remain committed to your relationship.
If she does not approve, then you would be lying to her, and lying in relationship as important as marriage about something as trivial as porn use means you have no serious commitment to your partner (why in the world did you get married?)

If being married would stop you from using pornography, I would expect you to say - I would never do that if I am married! That would mean you have strong values around that and feel behavior is wrong.
The very fact you do not know how you will act - means you have no beliefs about it, and do not feel that marriage will affect your behavior.

If I tell you that there is a person carrying a briefcase with one million us dollars in cash, and all you have to do is steal it. Most people will say - no thanks.
Because they know it is wrong, they do not agree with it and they will not go against their values to do it, despite becoming rich.
And small minority will ask - what are the chances of me being caught? Is money traceable, is the case locked, is there police or security around? Is the person armed?
We can guess what they are thinking

Your values define your behavior, and being married means different hings to different people

 

No. I'm married and have been watching porn all of our married life, and my reason for joining NoFap is because I now resent my wife... for not being 18, for not wanting constant sex, for not wanting 'interesting' sex, for not being fresh and new...

And honestly, I blame her for all of this, and she's oblivious. In cold daylight this sounds awful, but this is just something I've slowly managed to become conscious of. These resentments were unconscious until recently, but now I'm quiting porn to rekindle my attraction to my wife.

 

Yes, I sometimes think my relationship with my wife is crap and I'd like to cheat, but that's too much effort so I'll just watch porn... But it's the chicken and the egg... I'm starting to think my relationship is crap BECAUSE of the porn. That's been a massive realisation.

 

That is not how it works.

Relationships feel special because of our effort, same way objects feel special because of our effort.
If you are open and honest with your wife, or husband, if you care about them, if you truly invest in to making sure he/she enjoy life - then that individual becomes very important to you because of all the hard work you did.
Same way if you go and find a peace of random firewood and then spend 10 years carving it in to statue, its still firewood, but try burning it somehow it has huge "value"

If you do not feel deep sense of connection and respect for your partner, then most likely you do not invest heavily in to them, you do not spend the time to make them special and so they are not special to you.

People often get confused about receiving in a relationship. how can I keep giving if I never get? They make relationships transnational, that simply means that they do not put much in to the relationship.
You give your time and dedication to the relationship not the individual, that can mean you pickup your partner from work so she does not take the train. That can also means you talk to your partner about concerns you have about making a purchase.
And you do not hide issues that can damage your relationship, you bring them up for discussion.
Relationship is not just about being nice to each other, it is also about keep everyone accountable and if problems exist being open about them.

People cheat because they think they can get away with it, if individual has strong relationship of trust with his spouse and strongly upholds them, then he knows he would have to be honest about cheating with his spouse.
And that carries huge consequences and that is what motivates not to do it. but you have to invest very heavily in to your relationship for it to be of this value.
In fact this is the reason we have Marriage Commitment, its symbolic way to give great importance and sense of value to the relationship, so it can have positive effect on your decisions.

What happens is people do not invest in to their relationships, and so they do not care about want and needs of their spouse. Then the cost of lying and damaging that relationship is low.

It really comes down to accountability, being open and honest with people makes you transparent and vulnerable but only if you lie, and this way it prevents you from doing bad things - because everyone will know and you will have to be responsible.
This makes people actually behave the way they want others to see them, instead of lying that they already do, when they make promises they know they have to keep them.

Instead people tend not to form deep relationships, keep their distance and have private lives, lie and deceive and loose the benefit that comes from close relationships - feedback for improvement.

You like everyone else here, blame it on porn, you live with your spouse and she does not know you do not enjoy being with her sexually. This causes pain for both and you are hiding that.
Its like knowing there is a fire in the basement and not only are you not doing anything about it, you do not even tell your spouse its there. So your relationship will burn down and there are probably multiple fires there for some time now, blazing.

Being honest is the most difficult thing, because you make yourself accountable to others and that accountability in turn becomes a big motivational force that helps you make right decisions.
If you lie - you loose the ability to make right and improve decisions.

Being honest is very simple concept that if you follow it - will get your life back on track, but I will say - it is hard to do.