No erection without fantasy? Normal?

Yes, that sounds normal to me. It took 13 years of bombarding his brain with unnatural levels of sexual stimulation to get him to this point. It may take a life time to recover and he may never fully heal.

That said. Have faith in the process. 17 days is just the beginning of his recovery and the rest of your lives together. You will see improvement. Give it time and stay on the path!

 

It is normal yes indeed. The hypersensitization of porn does that to the brain's reward/limbic system. With time, though, it does get better. Wishing you both all the best!

 

Why do you say a 'lifetime'? Literally?

 

Thoughts lead to feelings, feelings lead to actions, actions determine outcomes. This come from a branch cognitive behavioral therapy. It is my belief that pornography use occurs from wrong thinking. We often don't delve deeper than we are feeling though and because of that never find true healing. I have been free of PM for over 5 years. I have no urges.

There are physical things that happen due to pornography use but it is my opinion that sometimes those aren't so much a result of the pornography use as much as the wrong thinking. The fact that he can become aroused tells me that it isn't as much of an issue with pornography (since it is still achievable) as it is with his thinking, which could be largely unconscious.

Working with a sex addiction coach could help him identify the thinking that is holding him back. This is what I did. It changed my life.

 

Also it may be necessary to try actual hardmode. You said a year without porn, but the brain links all pmo actions so he's greatly slowing down healing by masturbating and even worse, edging. In my experience when I started making compromises to tell my partner I was lying. And if someone is risking his employment for an addiction I wouldn't rule that out. So get hardmode, no compromises, before you can call it worst case scenario. Just to leave there was a post about a man and his wife fighting pmo, they went 6 months with the wife giving hj's over the period with no result. After that they did 2 months complete hardmode and he got healed total 8 months. So go hardmode!

 

Yup. I've met a few people who claim to be totally recovered from their addictions, but I think most find that addiction is a disease that never fully goes away. If someone has fully recovered from heroin addiction, can they start using heroin again and not have problems with it?

Note that I did write that it may take a lifetime. That has been my experience. My troubles are deeply rooted (early childhood) and unless I move to an arctic research station, I will always experience sexual stimuli. One can experience tremendous healing, but it really is a function of how addicted you are to begin with and how hard you are willing to go to get better.

And to second what others have said already, I too recommend hard mode for the best results.