makingsense
Fapstronaut
Hi all. My husband is going through the reboot process (6 weeks no PM, 3 weeks no PMO; hard mode, no provocative material at all and no sex but we do makeout to maintain the connection and help both of us feel wanted). I want to give you a broad picture so I apologize for the book I am writing here. I'm sharing some of my own reflections and also some that my husband has shared with me. Feel free to scroll down to the bolded section about rebooting.
(Intro) We've been together for 12 years, married for 1.5 yrs. I'm in my late 30s, he's in his early 40s. Early on we had a 2 year no-contact breakup after emotional infidelity (his) and then reconnected and rebuilt trust. I thought our last 6 years together were the strongest, healthiest we've ever had. Unfortunately we both have histories of trauma and abuse so maybe that's not saying much. Early in our relationship we openly shared porn, but that dissipated long, long ago. I have a very casual, very rare relationship with it and don't think much of it. Or anyway, I didn't. About 6 years ago my then-boyfriend/now-husband vaguely told me about a compulsive porn habit that he felt he had finally conquered and was several months "clean" and thus willing to tell me about it. I didn't know what this meant, didn't research it, but was happy for him and his pride in himself and trusted him as he occasionally updated me that he was still clean and happy with his decision to abstain. During these years, his career took off for the first time and we became stable enough to entertain the idea of marriage, so we eloped.
In spite of the health of our emotional connection, our shared hobbies and social life, I struggled to maintain sexual attraction to him and have tried everything under the sun to address the issue while he has maintained a casual "when it happens it happens, I can wait however long you need" attitude and resisted any change on his part. Our sex life used to be many times per week, and had dried up to maybe 3 times a month, and kind of obligatory at that (on my part). He seemed lackadaisical, I have been seriously distressed by it.
It turns out that at some point soon after his initial "success," he started using again but continued to claim he had stopped. This took the form of regular "peeking" at home while I was present and unaware and also while he was at work, and has escalated to compulsive porn use while at work, with further escalation in extreme subject matter. He has a lot of shame and has done a lot of damage to himself, and to both of us.
My dday was more like a dweekend with various lies unraveling about 4 weeks ago. I've been in counseling for 8 months for my own trauma and encouraged him to get one several months ago for general support (work conflicts, anxiety) and coincidentally this counselor is a CSAT recommended by my own counselor, so I feel very supported in this. He was almost immediately ID'd as a sex addict (I still did not do any research and was supportive and reassuring that I didn't see him any differently but adamant that he take therapy seriously). He totally resisted talking about it, working on it with his counselor, joining the mens support group his counselor advised him about, doing his therapy hw, etc, for months, after claiming the behaviors were all long long ago in the past and not still happening so he's not sure why his counselor tries to bring it up. Until dday. He is now thoroughly invested in the therapeutic work, states he has come totally clean to his counselor and myself, and I have a lot of confidence in him, even if I still have mountains of fear and pain to work through. I am deeply hurt, and terrified, and unnerved by the strength of his compulsion nearing self-harm, and have so much compassion for him and the horrible childhood I know put him on this direct collision course.
(Some impacts and reboot reflection) What I really wanted to share is how much his lifelong addiction (over 30 years, he grew up in a household with abusive sex addicts, which is why the denial has been so strong) has affected our relationship over the years without our knowledge. I think the impacts are important to know to really understand the turnaround from the reboot. He has acted out so much against me, including isolated acts of physical abuse and a larger pattern of non-consensual sex, and has now been able to recount how those things almost always copied whatever porn he was consuming at the time. He had many periods of PIED that he wrote off as performance anxiety or even time periods where he questioned whether he was asexual, and occasionally weaponized it against me as if I were "sick and hypersexual" for still being interested in sex together. He's had urinary symptoms (thanks to the users on here who gave us some insight for that being connected), severe memory recall issues, empathy issues. So, so much lying. Constant lying about inconsequential things not even connected to porn.
Since a couple weeks into his reboot, there has been an extreme turn around in many things. He has started to read my body language again (we were both floored by the damage to empathy and body language that porn does to your brain), resulting in a miraculous recovery of my own sex drive. When I say miraculous I mean, I had grown to hate his smell, his breath, and now that's all gone and I enjoy his scent again, the taste of his kisses, and making out with him feels organic and wonderful and thrilling, like it did when I was in my mid-20s. His physical interactions with me feel giving and loving and responsive again, and not at all like I'm an invisible object being used. His urinary symptoms have disappeared and his morning wood has returned (a symptom he also had no idea was related and one I had no idea was occurring), he was shocked to find that he can easily recall daily happenings that before seemed shrouded in fog, and has told me that the lack of memory recall played a huge part in so many conflicts and lack of change between us, as he was routinely forgetting entire conversations and "epiphanies" around his behavior, which was deeply damaging to me. He tells me he can now clearly recall his behavior and even my resulting body language, over a long span of time and including many past conflicts that he struggled to make sense of before. He's said he finally understands why sometimes I looked at him with such fear or sadness or anger and before he never could see it. This has all helped me feel incredibly validated and seen and understood, and it gives both of us hope.
He feels he had some withdrawal symptoms (severe anxiety and stomach upset) that have helped cement his commitment to nofap. He also gives credit to having a weekly (now twice weekly) counselor, researching "your brain on porn" scientific evidence of damage, having my support and ability to speak openly with each other and weather the conflict as best we can (my anger included, which has mostly cooled after the first couple weeks and with the evidence of his commitment to therapy), having opened up to one mutual friend about everything and gotten their compassion and understanding and support. He has been especially thankful of our continued physical connection (cuddling, hand holding, occasional making out) and honestly so have I, because my self esteem has taken a devastating hit as I believe all of the spouses here are familiar with..
He also has been doing things he's never tried before while attempting to quit, such as simple changes like setting digital well-being timers and strict safesearch on his phone, keeping his location on, refusing to use his habitual locations of porn use at work for anything (certain bathrooms, etc), no longer taking his phone with him to the bathroom at home, talking to me about it and his feelings every single day, and privately writing in a paper journal every morning before work to sort his thoughts, revisit his motivations and insights from therapy, and just generally keep track of life now that he has seen the extent of the damage especially to his memory.
We both know that if I had been financially independent on dday I would be long gone. But honestly we are both thankful that circumstances pushed us to try to work through it together. It's going to be a long road. But right now, it still feels worth it. He has hope that he can finally kick it for good and stay in recovery from PM for good. And I have hope that my libido didn't die and neither did my love with it, and that with this missing puzzle piece maybe our relationship can finally become as healthy as I've always hoped it could be. My own work right now is to become more financially independent so that if he fails to stay in recovery or if I fail to ultimately recover from this betrayal, my choice to stay is one I can make with my heart alone. It's been one hell of a rollercoaster. I am constantly floored by the strength of the seriously committed nofappers here on the forum as well as the significant others affected by this. You are all working so hard and navigating such painful territory. So I just also wanted to say how proud I am of all of you no matter which "side" you are on. If you read all of this or even just part of it, I am so grateful. Thank you.
(Intro) We've been together for 12 years, married for 1.5 yrs. I'm in my late 30s, he's in his early 40s. Early on we had a 2 year no-contact breakup after emotional infidelity (his) and then reconnected and rebuilt trust. I thought our last 6 years together were the strongest, healthiest we've ever had. Unfortunately we both have histories of trauma and abuse so maybe that's not saying much. Early in our relationship we openly shared porn, but that dissipated long, long ago. I have a very casual, very rare relationship with it and don't think much of it. Or anyway, I didn't. About 6 years ago my then-boyfriend/now-husband vaguely told me about a compulsive porn habit that he felt he had finally conquered and was several months "clean" and thus willing to tell me about it. I didn't know what this meant, didn't research it, but was happy for him and his pride in himself and trusted him as he occasionally updated me that he was still clean and happy with his decision to abstain. During these years, his career took off for the first time and we became stable enough to entertain the idea of marriage, so we eloped.
In spite of the health of our emotional connection, our shared hobbies and social life, I struggled to maintain sexual attraction to him and have tried everything under the sun to address the issue while he has maintained a casual "when it happens it happens, I can wait however long you need" attitude and resisted any change on his part. Our sex life used to be many times per week, and had dried up to maybe 3 times a month, and kind of obligatory at that (on my part). He seemed lackadaisical, I have been seriously distressed by it.
It turns out that at some point soon after his initial "success," he started using again but continued to claim he had stopped. This took the form of regular "peeking" at home while I was present and unaware and also while he was at work, and has escalated to compulsive porn use while at work, with further escalation in extreme subject matter. He has a lot of shame and has done a lot of damage to himself, and to both of us.
My dday was more like a dweekend with various lies unraveling about 4 weeks ago. I've been in counseling for 8 months for my own trauma and encouraged him to get one several months ago for general support (work conflicts, anxiety) and coincidentally this counselor is a CSAT recommended by my own counselor, so I feel very supported in this. He was almost immediately ID'd as a sex addict (I still did not do any research and was supportive and reassuring that I didn't see him any differently but adamant that he take therapy seriously). He totally resisted talking about it, working on it with his counselor, joining the mens support group his counselor advised him about, doing his therapy hw, etc, for months, after claiming the behaviors were all long long ago in the past and not still happening so he's not sure why his counselor tries to bring it up. Until dday. He is now thoroughly invested in the therapeutic work, states he has come totally clean to his counselor and myself, and I have a lot of confidence in him, even if I still have mountains of fear and pain to work through. I am deeply hurt, and terrified, and unnerved by the strength of his compulsion nearing self-harm, and have so much compassion for him and the horrible childhood I know put him on this direct collision course.
(Some impacts and reboot reflection) What I really wanted to share is how much his lifelong addiction (over 30 years, he grew up in a household with abusive sex addicts, which is why the denial has been so strong) has affected our relationship over the years without our knowledge. I think the impacts are important to know to really understand the turnaround from the reboot. He has acted out so much against me, including isolated acts of physical abuse and a larger pattern of non-consensual sex, and has now been able to recount how those things almost always copied whatever porn he was consuming at the time. He had many periods of PIED that he wrote off as performance anxiety or even time periods where he questioned whether he was asexual, and occasionally weaponized it against me as if I were "sick and hypersexual" for still being interested in sex together. He's had urinary symptoms (thanks to the users on here who gave us some insight for that being connected), severe memory recall issues, empathy issues. So, so much lying. Constant lying about inconsequential things not even connected to porn.
Since a couple weeks into his reboot, there has been an extreme turn around in many things. He has started to read my body language again (we were both floored by the damage to empathy and body language that porn does to your brain), resulting in a miraculous recovery of my own sex drive. When I say miraculous I mean, I had grown to hate his smell, his breath, and now that's all gone and I enjoy his scent again, the taste of his kisses, and making out with him feels organic and wonderful and thrilling, like it did when I was in my mid-20s. His physical interactions with me feel giving and loving and responsive again, and not at all like I'm an invisible object being used. His urinary symptoms have disappeared and his morning wood has returned (a symptom he also had no idea was related and one I had no idea was occurring), he was shocked to find that he can easily recall daily happenings that before seemed shrouded in fog, and has told me that the lack of memory recall played a huge part in so many conflicts and lack of change between us, as he was routinely forgetting entire conversations and "epiphanies" around his behavior, which was deeply damaging to me. He tells me he can now clearly recall his behavior and even my resulting body language, over a long span of time and including many past conflicts that he struggled to make sense of before. He's said he finally understands why sometimes I looked at him with such fear or sadness or anger and before he never could see it. This has all helped me feel incredibly validated and seen and understood, and it gives both of us hope.
He feels he had some withdrawal symptoms (severe anxiety and stomach upset) that have helped cement his commitment to nofap. He also gives credit to having a weekly (now twice weekly) counselor, researching "your brain on porn" scientific evidence of damage, having my support and ability to speak openly with each other and weather the conflict as best we can (my anger included, which has mostly cooled after the first couple weeks and with the evidence of his commitment to therapy), having opened up to one mutual friend about everything and gotten their compassion and understanding and support. He has been especially thankful of our continued physical connection (cuddling, hand holding, occasional making out) and honestly so have I, because my self esteem has taken a devastating hit as I believe all of the spouses here are familiar with..
He also has been doing things he's never tried before while attempting to quit, such as simple changes like setting digital well-being timers and strict safesearch on his phone, keeping his location on, refusing to use his habitual locations of porn use at work for anything (certain bathrooms, etc), no longer taking his phone with him to the bathroom at home, talking to me about it and his feelings every single day, and privately writing in a paper journal every morning before work to sort his thoughts, revisit his motivations and insights from therapy, and just generally keep track of life now that he has seen the extent of the damage especially to his memory.
We both know that if I had been financially independent on dday I would be long gone. But honestly we are both thankful that circumstances pushed us to try to work through it together. It's going to be a long road. But right now, it still feels worth it. He has hope that he can finally kick it for good and stay in recovery from PM for good. And I have hope that my libido didn't die and neither did my love with it, and that with this missing puzzle piece maybe our relationship can finally become as healthy as I've always hoped it could be. My own work right now is to become more financially independent so that if he fails to stay in recovery or if I fail to ultimately recover from this betrayal, my choice to stay is one I can make with my heart alone. It's been one hell of a rollercoaster. I am constantly floored by the strength of the seriously committed nofappers here on the forum as well as the significant others affected by this. You are all working so hard and navigating such painful territory. So I just also wanted to say how proud I am of all of you no matter which "side" you are on. If you read all of this or even just part of it, I am so grateful. Thank you.
