Is there hope?

Well, that sounds pretty much like how my last serious girlfriend must have felt before my life fell apart. Pretty painful stuff to read through.

I'm going to tell you to set standards for yourself. First decide whether it is or is not a horny thing. Doesn't matter, because that's separate from validation. So decide whether sex is on your list of things you require because you're horny for it. That's what I'm doing that's what I think everyone in the community should be doing first and foremost, because this whole thing is about sex, as is pretty much everything in life. So once you clear up that little confusion... move on to ..

Other women! Yeah, does he pretend you're someone else? Yeah. Am I a random stranger on the internet who has no problem being cold about it? Yeah. So, myself, being a male, I'm like.. trying to build myself up in all these ways... like yes I need sex in my life, yes I want to please women, yes to all of that, and more importantly, no I'm not willing to cry about it anymore either. Back on point here... do you want to marry the love of your life who you feel like they pretend you're someone else when they try to *** you. Damn! Hellll no.

So you just want to help this person be the best they can be for you? Then that's great, and you will have to be honest. Say boyfriend, your porn addiction hurts you and your ability to please me, and I feel less and less valuable every day, this is not good for me, you are being selfish in our relationship and I am not satisfied by you, and I will stay with you and work with you but only if you try to change, because I know that you know what the problem is, and this disease is degenerative and will only get worse if you don't fix it, and all challenges are easier with support so I will stay with you if you focus on me.

Try that?

 

I have been with my husband for 6 years now. It was a little over 2 years ago that I found out about his addiction. I was angry, hurt, felt betrayed, etc. Anything that you could possibly feel after finding out your SO had been cheating on you through the entire relationship is how it felt to me. He promised to quit, and he did for 2 years. He did it for me, and only because I didn't want him to do it anymore. Then he relapsed in August of this year, and needless to say, everything I felt from the first time he told me came back 10 fold.
Here is what I learned. You can tell him how you feel, how it hurts you, that you want him to stop, etc. But he won't hear you. I mean, he will on the surface, but internally, he won't. If he is to stop, it has to be because he wants to do it. I'm in no way saying your feelings about it are invalid, because they are not. Just like with other addictions, he has to want to help himself before you're able to do anything to help him. I have 2 years of working with my husband that was wasted time because he didnt want to quit and felt like I forced him.

Showing him the science behind what it does to his brain could be an avenue to take. Your brain on porn is a good book to get him.
After my husband joined this site and rebootnation, he has finally decided he wants to quit. He has made more progress in the last month then he made in the 2 years. It was after he made the decision himself to quit that he was able to hear me, and acknowledge the hurt he caused.

It isn't easy to stay with someone who makes you feel like you're not good enough. I spent 2 years trying to convince myself that the issue he had didn't have anything to do with me. I knew it did, but he tried to convince me otherwise. After coming to this site and seeing all the stories in the support groups, I now know I was not alone in my thinking of how their addiction relates to the relationship.

Is there hope? I would like to say yes. But I don't think it will come until both parties have fully healed.

 

That is sad, let me say what I think about that. Others have written similarly, that a general rule of evolution is that it is 10000 years behind the modern enviornment, so what you are feeling is a very primitive reaction, it is no match for the modern world. This is why people feel like using technology is hurtful in a profound way. I am not sure, if you are a user of porn or social media yourself, or not, but you must consider this signal that your emotional situation feels like some central element to your survival or wellbeing is being threatened, yeah, it's not very good, you will have impulses to remedy the situation and put your life on track, and rightly so.

 

PA who never comes to this sub forum I read a couple of posts recently and it shook me up and provided motivation.

I'd think about what you want. What would a happy relationship for you would look like? What do you need? (Emotionally speaking primarily). You need to know what you need and expect.

Background:
I am in my early 40s. Got married in my early 20s. I have fought unsuccessfully against a PM addiction the entire time.

I have rarely from my side not been willing to have sex. It's never been more than a day or two. I feel it's important to connect through conversations nearly every day. If you are feeling isolated, that's not fair, even if there is a PA.

I think there may be some bigger issues for your BF. We all come with baggage but if you don't like the baggage going in, you are not obligated to stick this out. Dudes tend to show worse after marriage. We also feel helpless at times, so who knows what the issue is for your BF?

In a healthy and loving relationship, you would be able to forgive and move forward. Once you know what you need, I'd start by asking him more about what's going on. You might get a better sense of what you need to do. If you know the relationship is wrong for you, I feel sorry for the heartbreak. But you may find the connection you have been missing through that communication and open a door that leads to healing.

I'm sorry you have to go through this. It's not your fault and you don't deserve it. To answer on of your questions, P addiction isn't about the partner, or sex. I think my wife is more beautiful than what's in Porn. It makes me want to throw up. I check out of reality completely and my dopamine feedback system is messed up. I feel like crap after not using Porn and I haven't gone forward far enough to heal all the way. It's literally has nothing to do with my wife other than all the pain I cause her (we have great kids and a happy life outside of my issues btw)

You deserve more and I wish you luck in fixing this relationship, or in finding closure as you prepare to move on. In your decision making, I'd consider a possibility the addiction won't go away, but might just be managed for years.

 

He is addicted to PMO like all of us here. Its a bad bad thing that leaves us empty and depressed unless we should fight against it together and and really try to get out of it. Try to motivate and do sports together maybe running?it boosts health and confidence. Sign up for dance classes or activities you guys are together and there is some emotions in public involved and maybe things get better.

 

I totally understand what you mean. It’s such a strange feeling. After my husband admitted the addiction and devastated my heart, I went about 1-2 days where I didn’t want him to see me in the shower, getting dressed, etc - and then all of a sudden switching to needing to have sex with him all the time. Day/night/anytime. I read about how it can be common to not want to have anything to do with your partner after such a heartbreaking reveal, but how it is also common for some to want their partner’s body/that connection all the time. The therapist in the article said that it was almost a way of ‘marking your territory’, even through the hurt. It is confusing though, because the validation feeling only lasts so long, and may make your partner confused and/or think he is forgiven. (My husband and I had to have some deep discussions about this part). There potentially may be some healing slowly happening depending on the situation, but definitely not completely. That hurt/betrayed feeling still comes roaring back afterwards, at least for me. I still haven’t figured it all out, but wanted you to know I’m right there with you on this.

 

Along this thought, can you explain what it really means to crave porn as an addict? Are you craving and fantasizing about the women because your brain knows they bring the high but you just crave the women (or whatever the porn is)? Are you just craving the high? As a woman, and as a not addicted to porn person, I can only think of it in terms of my husband wanting to see these other women and delight in them to orgasm. And it makes me so so sick.

 

I can speak for myself as two paths

1. Porn was an escape from any bad feelings (and in reality all feelings). Stressed, angry, anxiety, sadness, etc. Porn never let me down to take me out of the real world and into something where I had control. Through therapy this is the number one trigger for me, emotions I don't know how to express or deal with.

2. Through porn I found connections. I'll try and explain. The gifs and videos and still images and erotica made my brain think (because it doesn't know the difference between real and digital) that I was there and experiencing the things I was watching. Those digital files never said no, always wanted me, always were available, never were disappointed, never talked down to me or questioned me, they were the most reliably pro-trobone element in the world. On top of that role playing gave me even deeper connections I was afraid of attempting to make in the real world. Don't get me wrong, I had/have friends, but they were mostly superficial and none were deep emotional friendships. So role playing gave me people who seeked me out, complimented me, etc. All of that together makes me feel validated, wanted, desirable, etc with minimal effort and almost zero chance of rejection. This is why I went to porn to escape those feelings, because I found comfort with no effort or pushback.

To sum it up - it was never about replacing my wife. I still enjoyed sex with her and wanted it often. I never stopped thinking she was smart or funny or sexy. I never told her I wanted her to look a certain way - she's 100000% more hard on herself than I ever was or will be. It's not about wanting another woman in bed or wanting some digital woman more in a sexual way (to me). It was about being unable to deal with emotions and afraid of opening up and being honest because I feared rejection in return.

For the past 100+ days I'm working on understanding/accepting emotions. I'm working on feeling them and expressing them, and working through my shame I have inside me. So far it's helping me recover, stay sober, and my relationship improve.

I hope this helps you understand some.

 

Thank you for taking time to share that to help me understand what it could be. I can see I need to have some harder conversations with my husband to figure out more what it was for him and if I can live with that or not. I'm really really struggling with this idea of not replacing wives yet going to these digital women for an easier but kinda same thing. This is all so confusing. God I hate porn. This addiction is so painful for everyone involved in it on both sides.

 

Just try and remember - that most likely (vastly most likely) - at no point did he consciously or subconsciously ever think he was replacing you or could replace you or wanted to replace you with any of the women on the screen.

I suggest you check out Bloomforwomen. It has a lot of FREE content specifically for spouses like yourself. I watched some to learn how I affected my wife. Your husband might want to too. My wife wasn't a huge fan because she's not a podcast person, but seeing a therapist that has experience in addiction trauma has helped her.

 

I know I should feel relieved that he didn't want to replace me. It's just the "in addition to" that makes me sick. Trying to gauge and understand that intent is really hard.

I've done tons on bloom. Mulling paying for the forums. Right now I am working through two of Dr. Skinner's books - the healing from trauma one and the treating pornography add treating pornography addiction. I might consider starting with a therapist on bloom soon. I have very little time during the day because of my kids, I cannot afford to trial multiple therapists and I suspect my trauma is complex.

 

I disagree with you here. Men consciously choose to replace their wife when they expend their sexual energy on porn. Then they are too tired for sex, or lack the same drive to pursue their wife, or can’t get it up because porn HAS replace what should have been saved for their wife. Or worse, they reenact porn scenes or want to “ try” new things they have seen in porn effectively reducing their wife to someone they are using rather than sharing connecting and loving. Both scenarios are very common.

 

I see your point. I can only speak from my point of view. I personally, before entering recovery, never said no to my wife, and initiated most of the time, I never had PIED or other physical symptoms, for me it was a escae from anger, sadness, anxiety, etc.

 

Yes, my husband used porn to cope with all these same feelings, my point though, is he should have turned to me, his wife, for support. Intimacy is more than just sex, it’s leaning on someone else, it’s trusting someone with your emotions, it’s being vulnerable and open and honest. That’s what I meant by “ choosing” porn over the so, not that you would leave your spouse or even want to. Healthy people don’t turn to addictions to cope. The opposite of addiction is connection.

 

This is what my husband did as well, including the part about never saying no and often initiating with me. After 11 years, PA resurfaced after job stress and got so much worse after being laid off due to Covid. I had no idea. I finally had begun to fully trust him so my guard was completely down. He should have come to me and leaned on me. Psalm you spoke my thoughts, again.

 

100% agreed. It's one of the top things I'm working on with my therapist and wife.

 

I agree. Virtually having sex with another woman aka watching porn is fueled by sexual desire for that woman. It might not be the motivation to seek out the behavior, as any addiction is triggered by negative emotions and a need to escape them, but a natural physical reaction is taking place that is linked to sexual attraction and desire, which most women feel like should be exclusive to their SOs.