I'm 29, married with two kids, and going Hard Mode for a while

I found NoFap after crashing and burning with porn for the first time in a long time. I felt very low, as low as I've possibly ever felt. I didn't discover porn until a relatively older age than most (probably 17). I didn't start using it somewhat heavily until I was 19. At that point, I fapped 1-2 times/week, and always wanted to stop but really couldn't. This continued for about 3-4 years until I met my wife. After I met my wife, I didn't do it for a long time.

About a year ago, I allowed myself to just think back on some porn I had seen probably 5-7 years ago, replaying it in my mind. I got such an intense high...I couldn't believe it. That started me down a horrid path of inching closer and closer to looking at hardcore porn again. It tricked me into thinking that porn is as good as it makes you think...that it's the ultimate pleasure. What a damn lie. Recently, mainly because I've been going on more business trips for work, I've fallen into it. I can honestly say that on the 5-6 recent trips I've gone on, if I haven't looked at porn...there have been few moments when it isn't constantly on my mind.

It might seem strange that I'm going on a hard mode challenge, being that I'm married. Without going into too much intimate detail (since for me, I do believe the intimate details of a relationship should be private to a point), my wife and I have never had an easy time with sex. There are potential medical/psychological reasons involved. We've been married 5 years, and have a great relationship, but this part has always been difficult. We are coming up on a dr's appointment, and have some ideas that might help. Leading up to this, I want to go on hard mode to give our sex life almost a reset. I also want to be able to focus on pursuing her in other ways, and I want to pray about this area as well (my faith is a big part of me).

I'm also hoping that I will find greater motivation and energy in life. Even though I haven't been a heavy "porn" user for about 5 years, I have always loved to get little fixes by looking at software porn. I always find way to find it on "accident" and definitely get little highs from that. Fantasizing has been a recent issue as well, and I find that I can get really intense highs from that too, and not actually feel that guilty because its only in my head. But I think even those things are killing my drive for actual meaningful things. I am hoping to stop all of it.

I want to thank all of you who are in this community. The authenticity in this community is very refreshing. It's given me hope. Sorry for such a long post.

 

I'm hoping it does help, even though I'm not sure how at this point. My wife does know, I told her about it when I was starting. She liked the idea, and hoped that it would help us as well.