I've struggled throughout my marriage with placing porn in my mind while having sex. When I wasn't aroused enough I would "lock in" an image and use that mentally to arouse me. In a support group I'm in someone suggested keeping my eyes open. This has worked. This evening I had great sucess. A couple of images flitted in my mind, but they didn't last. I'm really aware that cells that fire together wire together. So if I orgasm with a porn image in my mind, I'm still using porn. But if I focus on my wife, she will be the strongest attraction. A couple nights ago, we already had the lights off, and couldn't be bothered switching them on. I made an effort to focus on how she felt and the sounds. This was healing; I've listened to porn in the car on my commute. Even ASMR can turn sexual with the sounds. So it was amazing to really focus on the sounds. I guess both have their advantages, and we need to be aware of how we need to heal.
Sex with the lights off let's you focus on other senses like touch and sounds. I think it's good to not only focus on the visual aspect even with another person.
One thing that comes to mind is with the lights off you may be more inclined to envision something other than your wife. I do agree with what others said as well about focusing on other senses. I've never had the inclination to imagine anyone other than my wife during sex. So I'm not probably the best at giving advice here. But one thing I know is very important to me is giving pleasure to my wife. P is only focused on your pleasure and the images that arouse you. I think if you can find that state of mind that turning your wife on things will be better for both of you. When my wife is turned on so am I. I also find the things my wife does to me feel better when she's turned on. I think it's a mutual thing. Keep that focus on her and her desires and you'll see improvement I think.
Warfman, I agree with what you have written here and also have (almost?) always focused on my wife's pleasure (in the past) to the detriment of my own pleasure, at least in a way. Our marriage has evolved into a (pretty much) sexless marriage for years. I've used PMO (and hidden it) and justified it and rationalized it as activity and release that I "deserve". Contrarily, long ago when we did have sex, I think that I focused very much on the appearance of her, and us together, to use as visual stimulation. This may have led me to objectifying her rather than living the tactile experience while having sex, and in a way this may have been more of a masturbatory experience. (All-in-all, a pretty juvenile way of having sex; what should have been a loving and transcendent shared experience.) She would mostly close her eyes, which I felt as a type of rejection ("why did she not want to SEE me, connect with me emotionally?") She has told me and, I now accept, that she was trying to "be in her body", to feel it physically and to achieve her own desired level of arousal.) This leads me to my point: somewhere (perhaps somewhere within one of these forums) I've read of the concept of "mindful masturbation." As I understand it, this means to focus (exclusively?) on the physical feel of your body. Ignoring /discarding mental images of other bodies, activities, previous experiences, etc. I've only joined NF within the last two months, so I have much to learn and a long journey ahead. I have already found this approach to be a bit helpful to me. I am still discovering what my recovery will be, what my boundaries are. I start by declaring a 60 day no PMO reboot for myself (hard mode.) I relapsed after 11 days, reset, went 35, reset, went 11 and now have reset again. I have decided to change the parameters of my recovery to P-mode recovery and allow myself mindful masturbation only when the physical "demand"/urge/need overwhelms me. So far, this only occurred (or I have allowed) a couple of times if I wake up mid-sleep cycle (2:00 or 3 AM), already aroused and I do it without visual stimulation and in the presence (but not participation) of my wife. (This keeps me on the path of "no secrets" / being honest.) However, these two episodes also led me to "Chaser Effect" episodes within a day or two wherein I succumbed to the desire to seek out some porn. So, I've reset my counter yet again - RATS! This is only tangentially related to the topic but, I see some overlap in some aspects.
I still struggle with having images of P with the Gf. But her reactions, sounds, and affection towards me is always more better no matter how de sensitized my guy is. Light's off is more of a turn on even for me with her since we don't really do it.. haha Eye contact is key to fighting this and focusing of course. I hope and pray for you and me both to fight these responses.
I definitely can relate and agree with this. One thing I should say is the key to good sex is the mutual giving of oneself to another. Being on the same page with our spouses not only physically, but emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I'm currently trying to improve sex with my wife as well. What sucks for me personally is she's satisfied but I'm not. Working through this has been a challenge, in part it's the frequency but it's also my wife's unwillingness to be vulnerable with me both emotionally and physically. I think even though I'm very much in love and attracted to my wife the issues in the intimacy department have to do with other aspects of the relationship like respect, communication, understanding reach other, vulnerability etc. Its important to have that deep emotional connection that leads to that intimate sex we desire. When you are on that level sex goes from being about getting off to a way to express love for your spouse. I'm in a similar situation as you in terms of reboot and this has been tough to navigate. **In terms to the original post and poster I think our P addictions are an extremely damaging part of the intimate connection we want. And to truly be close to the other that has to go. I read this as well in No More Mr Nice Guy. I tried it. What I found was it sent me back eventually to craving p and eventually relapsing. Partly the chaser effect but also just my mind thinking hey this felt good and I'm doing so much better what would a little p really hurt? And.... Relapse. This illustrated to me that I'm just not in a place where I can really MO and think I won't eventually relapse. It's a slippery slope for me. As to the topic of this post and to Freedom is Coming I'd say P is without a doubt destructive to our sex lives with our spouses. We are taking away a very intimate part of the connection by using. Not only is it affecting your attraction to your spouse but it also affects our spouses as well. And also affects us in many other related ways.
hey man keeping you porn free eventually these thoughts of P will go away just be patient the healing process takes time time is the key here. I started my journey about 74 days ago, I had a relapse, but being here was the best thing that happened to me, I am a different man now, my relationship with my wife has transformed, and believe me, for almost 4 years I had a lot of problems in sex because of pornography, now every day we have more pleasure in sex, ED problems no longer affect me, every day everything becomes easier and more pleasurable. I wish you all good luck, and keep on the path, everything will work out.
