Every time I make another attempt to abstain from porn, especially the type I'm addicted to, some reference to it or image sets me off soon after. From Family Guy to advertising, it doesn't matter. Within minutes of signing up for this forum, a photo of two women kissing in a news story appears on my Facebook page. I'm thankful to have NoFap now. In the past, as recent as this morning, I would have dropped everything. Now, I can come here instead and share the struggle.
I hear you. I was innocently browsing Pinterest today for mythological creatures when I clicked on a board for nymphs, and up comes a porn board. *grr* I felt like giving in, but I didn't which was cool. It's difficult, because you're right, it's everywhere. That's why this reset is so important. We've got to stop letting our mind sneak sex into places it doesn't belong.
Stay Strong, Itmry782 If this is your beginning stage then let me tell you, It won't be much of a problem for the first 3-4 days but the real "false" feeling comes in from the 5th day and that's when your actual test comes in. SO you gotta realize that what kiond of stuff turns you on and abstain from it, be it Facebook or some TV series. Moreover, I agree with your title so it's upto you to filter what you wanna see and what not. Best Regards!
yeah this is a problem I'm noticing too. I just found out that my husband of nearly 14 years has been addicted to porn for the past ten. Not because we have a bad sex life, quite the contrary. Of course this has been a total mind fuck for me, which I guess is a pretty normal thing for a partner to feel, then add in all my issues from the past, like EVERY male in my life has hurt me in a big way, from dear old dad to boyfriends who thought it was ok to hit women, to the neighbor who thought its ok to force yourself on a woman... I love him, and he is a good man, but this is hard. Doesn't help that I am one of those open women, who didn't have a problem watching porn occasionally, and I like sexy movies. Heck even watching something like "dancing with the stars" I NEVER felt jealous or worried that my husband would find other women sexy, even I find other women sexy..... I never thought that any of this would be an issue, I never had a problem watching attractive and sexy women on tv with him because I THOUGHT it was a benign thing. I THOUGHT we were solid. Now we sit down and watch tv or a movie, and everywhere you turn theres a mention of porn, or naked or half naked women, and all I can think is "great"
Thank you for writing. It's somewhat ironic. I just started using this forum and to get just within hours a message from a wife or ex-wife hurt by porn is telling. I hurt my ex-wife with porn, and the money I spent on it (I was buying DVDs then). I guess what I would like to say is that it was never because of her or any problems in the bedroom that caused me to watch porn. I was addicted long before we had met but never knew it. I just thought it was one of those single-life things. I stopped when we first dated up until two years of marriage. Like any addiction, a single relapse can throw a person into right back into a full-time problem, as it did me. It fed on itself, or fed on me, and hurt someone I loved and respected in the process. It wasn't that I found her unattractive, or other women more attractive. I didn't ever consider an affair. I was devoted in that sense. But I was cheating on her because of the addiction. I empathize with your pain because I have been on the other side of it. The hardest part was talking about it. We went to counseling to address my addiction, but the blame of being the cause of our pain was too great. I was too defensive, making our sessions counter-productive. That stigma will always be with me. Now six years apart, when my ex and I do talk, I have no leverage, no standing, upon which to develop any sense of a healthy relationship with her, even as just friends or two people talking. I am glad to have the opportunity to say to someone hurt by porn that I am sorry. I don't know your situation with your husband, whether he is receptive to taking about the porn or not, and I don't know how to break-down the barriers addicts such as myself have put up. My guess is love, time and patience, are integral. I might not have helped you with any of this, but you have helped me. Thank you.
I actually just posted some of my story here, I copy and pasted it from another site I found, but it's slower, and I really need to connect with people on both sides of this right now. i'll probably copy and paste the rest of my comments from there, because as the thread went on, I went deeper in to everything. I'm sorry that you and your ex wife couldn't work thru this. My husband and I are trying to. I love him very much, and I know he loves me very much. I'm trying to be understanding , I know he is only human, I know he finds me increadibly sexy, and the mind, heart, body, soul connection we have is wonderful. He started using porn because I got sick many years ago, we had gone from having sex all the time, to me having our two babies and getting sick... I have late stage chronic lyme disease. So I was dealing with over 60 symptoms, pain that felt like my body was ripping in two, throwing up every day for years, seizures... 9 surgeries... we still had sex, but it was only a few times a month. He rationalized that he wasn't cheating on me, he didn't want to look like the asshole and leave his sick wife with two kids, and if he wasn't going to see my naked body, he was going to see naked bodies somewhere.... enter porn. The hard part for me is the kind of porn he chose...wasn't porn porn, like fantasy crazy stuff, it was just women masturbating, made videos for their partner, the relationship went south and the guys posted it online... so it was REAL intimate moments. well, I started to feel better and my sex drive came back with a vengence, but by this point he had ED, so he'd take pills to get an erection.... we were having a lot of sex, and really good sex at that, but by this time he was addicted, so he was still watching and maturbating to these other women. I am really crushed. He knows that my entire life has basically been hell on earth, he says ever since I opened up to him and told him about my past that he wanted to be my knight in shining armor and make the rest of my life great. Ironically he is the one who has hurt me the most. I don't know how he never once thought that this would hurt me. He's a computer guy, really a genius, so of course friends and family always want him to fix their computers... well many years ago he was working on my mom's bf's computer, and found tons of porn on it... he saw how upset I was for my mom, how I struggled with telling her or not... I did not because I couldnt hurt her (she has since passed away at the young age of 52... ) There were two people in my life I thought I could fully trust, one was my mom, the other was him. I feel so utterly alone. Please feel free to read my post in this forum
and you know what else sucks, is like I said above I used to enjoy watching sexy movies, or even the occasional porn with my husband, and I NEVER even thought twice about it, it was something we did TOGETHER. And now I have to give that up, something we enjoyed doing as a couple... this has actually stolen a LOT from me, from US. For instance TEN years of real connection, TEN years of him not being able to make love to me without taking pills, my self esteem... I don't feel very sexy anymore. Men oogle me all the time. Heck, after my mom died I had to take over her company... I can't be in there all the time, in fact I only kept it open because I'm to damn nice, and I couldn't see taking food off other people's plates so I could be a millionaire if I just sold it, so anyhow, I don't make much out of it, but it's fine, I have a couple people I pay to basically run it, they hired a new guy, and I had been in there and they said "oh here's the BIG boss" he looked at me and his chin damn near hit the floor, he didn't know what to say, he does't speak the best English, so he said he pretty much couldn't believe I was the boss, I was so young and beautiful. I know I am beautiful, but not because of my looks, I know who I am, and I'm a good person, I go out of my way to help others, I pushed thru a disease that has killed many people I know, I was the reliable one, but I feel anything but beautiful or sexy right now. It just goes on and on. This eventually led to him saying "well what about the smut that you read" and I even started writing a book of my own, which I'm scrapping because I feel like maybe it's part of the problem in the world. So yeah I read 50 shades of grey, I liked it, the difference is I wasn't using it as a masturbation tool. I brought my feelings and wants to my husband, told him I wanted HIM to do those things to me. But I don't even know if I can read any of that stuff anymore. I have ok days and bad days... my ok days I'm still constantly thinking about it...yesterday we had a really nice day together, we had increadible sex.... THREE times... without him having to take pills! I finally was able to let most of my walls down, and we really connected. It was beautiful. And all the while all I can think about is, dammit! THIS is what we've been mising out on for TEN years because of what you did, and continued to do. He knows this is it. I'm not giving ultimatums, he just knows that if he hurt me again like this, it would completely break me. I have had lifetime of hurt. 35 years of hurt, and deep hurt. and honestly I know you can die from a broken heart, and I'm quite sure that's the way I'll go whenever I do, I'll eventually get to the point where I just can't handle anymore hurt.
Hey HW (hurting_wife): the thing is, when you watch those movies with your husband, YOU are watching it with him, but HE is watching by himself ... that's just how men operate. Men's "erogenous" zones are highly VISUAL, UNLIKE ladies, who are more touch and speech sensitive. Don't try to make sense of this ... you're thinking of your boy like a girl. Nobody's saying he did the right thing ... he didn't, but you're just going to go crazy trying to make sense of it. He's got to man-up, zip-up, and look away from anyone else other than you. You deserve that. Man ... I knew stories of my Grandpa that he would get into fights with anyone who looked at my Grandma... how times have changed. Stay spartan.
You will never forget what has happened, and the pain is so great because you just found out about his porn use a week ago. My ex-wife has never forgotten. Every time we talk, she brings up my porn use. And she should. Sadly, for us, we talk about it now. We only argued about it when we were married, and those arguments ed to our split. We could have saved our marriage, but like I said, I put up walls because I felt judgment all around me. Judgment that was deserved, but it would not suffice in rebuilding the marriage, the trust, the love. I feel now that had I accepted the judgment and talked about the addiction, as well as my then-wife and our counselor accepting the reason for my defensiveness, we could have saved the marriage. There was no room for trust from either of us. There was no forgiveness and no understanding, or trying to understand, what the addiction was, the chemical/physical part of it, nor the reasons for why it began. At the time, my ex was in law school. I never saw her. I was alone in my marriage. I walked past an adult store and went inside and next thing I knew i was submerged in porn and afraid to talk about it. I wish we both had accepted that what happened will always be part of our lives but that we could work through it, that we could acknowledge that it happened but that we have a future of trust and understanding ahead of us, perhaps making our relationship that much stronger. It would take work, but all relationships do. You survived a disease. Your marriage can survive the disease of addiction. Please remember, love yourself first. Depend on yourself for happiness, no one else. Your husband should do the same, and respect himself, and then perhaps you both will bring that happiness to the same place, your marriage. My ex and I did not do this. Instead, we were both miserable, misery independent of each other and that's what we brought to our marriage. We were too dependent on the other. The result was catastrophic. Neither of us was strong because we kept looking to the other for that strength, and it wasn't there. Whether you were sick, or my ex was in law school, your husband's addiction, my addiction, was not your fault. You did nothing wrong. Nor did my ex, even when I say I felt neglected. I had a choice. I could have said something. I could have told her that. I could have said I had a problem with porn. Instead I chose to hide it, and that as much as anything stole from our marriage. Now is the time to stop hiding before it is too late.
This happens to me a lot too. It's something you can't get rid of. My approach is to simply "take it like a man" and move on. I tend to take a long look at these pictures (like 2-3 seconds compared to just a glance), then I get back to my senses and scroll down. It's interesting because before I started nofap, I used to ignore these pics. So I kinda think this is a good thing But whatever you do, do NOT give in to temptation and scroll back up. Move on
Itmry~ I really am sorry that you lost your marriage over all of this. THat makes me sad. I am able to see past the porn, even when he started using it because like you, he felt neglected, yes, we SHOULD have talked about it, its not like he wasn't getting sex, it just dropped off quite a bit from what we used to do, but for gods sake I just had kids, my body changed, and I was sick... most times sex drops off after kids first come anyhow....but it's all besides the point. I don't blame him. i KNOW he's a wonderful man. I KNOW he didn't really mean to hurt me, he thought in his own way, that he was doing the right thing and not cheating on me. I guess this all as much as it has hurt, and as much as my head is realing, it's all going to make things better in the long run. We are much closer now. He's not hiding a secret from me, and I know that. I KNEW something was wrong, which of course led me to back away. Now for the first time in years I feel safe with him. And I get what your saying about not relying on eachother for happiness, but I kinda disagree with that. I think when you have a marriage like ours, where each is truly the other half... I mean really, he is the other half of me, without him I do feel empty, it's weird... and I know its the same for him... but I think the other should be there to lift you up when you are down. and vice versa if your uppidy that also wears off on the other... if I'm happy, he's happy... if he's happy , I'm happy.. if he's not happy, I will do things to reassure him that I am here for him, and he does the same for me... we've always seen ourselves as us against the world ... you see, the ONLY help and support we ever got was from MY mom, nobody , not his family, the rest of my family, friends, neighbors, nobody helped us when we needed it, we used to be the kind of people to bend over backwards for people... well wefinially said screw that, nobody could do so much as bring a freakin meal over. I even checked myself out of the hospital after surgeries bc I needed to take care of our kids. Funny my cousin just had a very minor surgery and it makes me livid to see how the entire family is bending over backwards, she has no kids, she has a husband, she can lay and bed and recoup... I never had that luxery. I had a drainage tube coming out of my neck and went home to take care of my family. but whatever that's all besides the point. Yes, I am hurt beyond belief, yes I think it sucks that he couldn't handle a drop off in our sex life, we were still having sex, but not every day, he should have been there for me, for us, for our family instead of being wrapped up in getting off, but it is what it is. I can't change the past. What I do know now is that since we are more open, I finally feel safe. Like I said, I KNEW something was up, and for me , for anyone I'm sure, that's not good. But I finally have that security I always needed. and I don't think it's too much to ask to feel safe with my husband. I shouldn't feel like I'm second. And I finally do feel that now. I know we will be able to move forward, we already are. Things between us are so much better. Yeah I have ups and downs, and thats hard for him, its hard for me...shit, I will go outside and cry bc I don't want to cry in front of him, trying to spare his feelings, how messed up is that. I'm tired of crying, its not like I wake up and think, hmm think I'll have a good cry lol... it just happens, we can be having a great day, and something just triggers it. I am sad for all the time we lost. I told him the other night the closeness we have now, its what I always wanted, always needed, it took us way too long to get here, but we finally arrived. Every marriage has problems of some kind, this is ours, and I do believe we are strong enough to work thru it Spartan~ yeah that was kind of my point with him... its totally different when it BRINGS something to US to the marriage. But guess that part of our life is done anyhow, I would never feel comfortable watching stuff like that again....
Thanks for "friending" me on this site. I was inspired to send the request because of what you are going through and because of the pain I had caused my wife. I hope I will be able to use my experience to somehow help others. I hope I can be a help to you. With that, I just sent my ex an email that I'd like to share with you. Again, I don't know if it helps you, but it's certainly worth a try. Here it is: Dear ???: I've debated whether to send the link below to you but finally decided to because I want you to know more than anything that it was never you that caused the problem that erupted between us. I thought I shouldn't send it because it might just bring up bad memories. But by hearing this video, it might make coping with those bad memories a little easier. So I'm sending it. It's a science-based look at addiction, particularly the kind I (and so, so many others) have, and the physical toll it takes on the addicted. It wasn't so much a battle between right and wrong or that I didn't care about you. Fact is, I did care about you. I did love you. The addiction had nothing to do with you, or vice versa. It was very much a physical battle, one I lost and in the process lost you too. Like I said. I'm not sending this for my benefit. I'm not trying to explain things away or find excuses. I am an addict, period. My only hope is that you firmly understand that you were not at fault. There was nothing you could have done differently. You couldn't change a thing to make it different. I should have come to you to say I had a problem. I should have admitted it, talked about it, learned about it, sought help and support and from there recover. I didn't. Instead, I hid, out of guilt, embarrassment and shame. I thought I could quit, but without understanding the problem, it was a lost cause resulting in even more shame ... and solitude because of it. You are a wonderful person. I didn't give you the benefit of being a wonderful person when I needed it the most. That brings a tear to my eyes. I've been crying a lot lately. But I've been writing about this experience, too, and sharing it with others anonymously as well. Here's the kicker. Shortly after joining a community forum for present and past addicts, I met a married woman who is on there because she has been hurt by her husband's addiction. I've shared our story with her in an attempt to alleviate her of the guilt and pain she is going through. Which brings me to the video and why I am sending it to you. I'll never undo what was done, but if I can ever figure out a way to re-assure you that you are not to be blamed, I will pursue it. Here's one attempt. Write back if you like, or don't; either way, I understand. Much love always, ??? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_RIm9ZMN1I
