My journey: From first love to single life, fear of being 'trapped', porn addiction, and NOFAP

Yerrrrrrrroooooooooooo what's good y'all???

I'm new to my NOFAP journey but I've been loosely skimming many websites, including this one, for several weeks now and I felt like I needed to join. This doesn't mean I know everything, in fact, I have many questions, but I will ask those separately in the appropriate section* (scroll to bottom for asterisk). First, a little introduction to me (in the context of what brought me here). If this post is too long then skip to the last paragraph (my present-day journey, but you'll miss the context).

I'm a 26 y/o man and I can recall first masturbating to porn as long as I've had high-speed internet. I would say around 2004-2005 (~13-14 y/o) is when I started. I fit the typical 'first-generation' of young men with ease of access to porn beyond print (read: Playboy) magazines. I've personally never had issues with attracting women. I became sexually involved with women by the time I was 15 (~2005-2006), from oral (BJ) to sex so I don't recall having a period of time where I binged on solely watching porn without any womanly sexual interaction. I mention this fact, because I suspect it plays a large part as to why I'm finally experiencing issues with libido opposed to experiencing issues several years ago. I actually had a consistent girlfriend from 17-21 y/o and we would have sex multiple times a day, some times literally spending entire days and weekends to have intercourse. There's only 24 hours in a day so the more sexually involved I was with my girlfriend, the less I was involved with porn, often times too fatigued to even be interested in porn after enjoying my time with her. I suspect that my brain became wired to porn over several years, but not immediately. I would only watch porn on a day that I expected to see my girlfriend but plans changed or we both had commitments that made it hard to spend time; it was rare that we couldn't meet, because we lived close, had access to cars, and we were young, so we had few commitments.

Anyways, fast forward, I'm 26, I live in NYC and around 22 y/o, I broke up with my first love and have been single mostly ever since. I dated one girl (my first post-college GF) for almost a year until June 2016 but she was too needy for my type and I've been single ever since. Towards the end of my relationship with her, I actually began watching porn to actually avoid having sex with her because I found her annoying and burdensome. My ex was also in her early thirties and wanted to start a family. I was 24-25 then and focused on improving myself professionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically before I felt ready to start a family. Many of our issues stemmed from us living on these different timelines in life and ultimately I knew breaking up with her was the right thing to do.

From June '16 - present (or October 2017), I binged on porn like never before in my life, in large part to avoid women who want to trap men into starting families. I know this sounds crazy, but I would meet a woman on occasion (not every woman is like this!) who openly vowed she would have a baby with someone for the potential spousal and government benefits even if we didn't make it past a few months. I didn't even have the greatest paying job, but my personality generally makes people feel like I'm someone they want to be associated with in their lives. Given my aforementioned goals on self-improvement/transformation, those shared ideals obviously disturbed me and made me uncomfortable. To emphasize, during my single run and post-my-first-love/girlfriend (22 y/o - present), I actually had an incident where a woman that I had intercourse with suspected she might be pregnant (by me). She was one of those women who openly conceded that she would 'trap' another man (we had this conversation after having sex, unfortunately). The universe was on my side so she was not pregnant and I have stayed away from her ever since. As a result of my experiences in dating and just being single, my porn addiction grew massively and I was highly averse to any type of intimacy with women. I did have sex with several women during this period, but they were often one-night stands or FWB situations and even those situations eventually dissolved. The only consistent interactions I had with women involved platonic friendships that existed already for several years, family, or colleagues.

This is a total tangent, but I'm just trying to give context to my story, experiences, perception, and life. I personally think living in NYC is a different beast compared to living in most places, because there are so many affluent people who live here as housewives/husbands that manage a business (e.g. yoga studio, hair salon, nail/massage spa) that may be barely (or not even) profitable in large part due to their significant other being the bread maker. Seeing is believing for some, so I believe exposure to these lifestyles definitely helps the imagination of young men and women who are considering how they will achieve their long-term goals.

This brings me to present day (October '17 to now, December 2017). Around October, I began wondering when I would finally start dating a woman that fits my ideals, even if it didn't work out long-term. I did not and still do not feel lonely, but I wanted to make a quality friend to relate to, share our journeys with each other, and hang out with on the weekends. I have female friends like that, but we all live in different places across the globe post-HS or college so it isn't currently reasonable for me to date those women. I was visiting my family one weekend and I had sex with an old friend that I've known for over a decade (she was one of my first sexual partners ever). We've always had an unspoken FWB relationship, but we're genuinely friends and hang out without always wanting to have sex so I think that's why we've had a healthy friendship for so long. She was giving me oral because I couldn't maintain an firm erection after having sex for only a few minutes and then she made a comment like, "are you tired? You're not usually like this". She had to go to work and we only had 30 minutes, which shouldn't have been a problem in terms of performance for me, but it was. Although I had other smaller instances that occurred from 2015 up to present, that was the defining moment that helped me realize the damage porn was doing to my brain. I realized I was unfit to date anyone until I could perform on the level that I know I'm capable of. However, I was unsure how to reach that level. Kegels? Sounds good but I'm pretty sure I have good control of my PC muscles. I started doing them again just in case. However, once I researched 'NoFap', I realized that porn rewiring my brain sounded like the actual issue. I also noticed during my porn addiction stage that whenever I stopped watching porn or masturbating (always unintentionally at that time just by living my life productively), that I always had stronger erections, more energy, confidence, and focus. Learning about nofap helped me understand why that occurred. So around October, I began my Nofap journey, and surprisingly, it was very easy for me to go cold-turkey on watching porn. However, I found myself relapsing by watching nudes from women who I had previously had sex with and masturbating to those photos. I would make it a few days, a week, maybe 2 without masturbating then I would relapse. What really helped me focus on no PMO was when one of my friends challenged me to committing to meditating for 40 days. She had (and still has) no idea of this part of my journey, but she knew I wanted to renew my focus and she's a spiritual guru lady. She emphasized meditating for 40 days because it's a full moon cycle and she says a full moon usually allows for transformation on a spiritual level if you speak positive affirmations into the world and universe. I tried it and was at day 20 but I messed up on Black Friday. I was still masturbating but the more I got into meditation, the easier it's been to let go of masturbation & orgasms. Currently, I'm on day 13 of my consistent meditation (even if it's just 3-5 minutes in the morning before I start my day) and I believe this cycle will be the one that I go to completion (full 40 days) as long as I don't pull any all-nighters, which is how I messed up the 2 times I lost my streak, otherwise, I've been meditating consistently for 1-2 months. I don't quite know if my no PMO streak is on day 14 or day 0... and I will explain why on a separate post... see the asterisk. Anyways, that's my introduction, so I'm grateful for the resources available here and I'm happy to be a part of this community because it is very positive, supportive, and helpful. I hope to add to that and maybe that starts with sharing my journey up until present

*I will update this post with a link to my next post on any questions I have, just to keep it organized so I can find any responses condensed easily. See link here: See my 5-6 reboot questions post HERE

 

Hey DJ! I don't really know... i read somewhere that you're most likely to result to PMO when you're:
1) tired
2) anxious/worried
3) bored

That resonated with me because I really feel like those emotions cover 99% of the time that I PMO and I'm leaving 1% for any situations that I haven't accounted for.

When posed with scenario 1, easy go to sleep

Scenario 2 is kinda hard for me because as a stress reliever in THE SHORT TERM, it's tempting to want to masturbate especially if I won't be able to see my friend with benefits until the weekend. My best technique has been to meditate, focus on the present, and look to new habits with relieving anxiety or stress

Scenario 3 isn't bad because I just need to focus on something either productive or fun if I'm drained from Working all day and I always have something productive to do.

Any suggestions on how to mitigate violating my PMO? Also do you think I'm violating my PMO abstinence by having sex (orgasm & ejaculation) with a friend with benefits?

 

Thank you, I am encouraged and appreciate you showing me love through posting!