"Should I stay or should I go ?" (Sex drive edition)

Wow, thank you so much for your message !! It's very relieving to read that you understand my questioning !

Yes, my efforts about quitting PMO are mine and mine alone. I don't expect her to help me in any way because it's 100% my problem. She has nothing to do with me falling into that addiction or failing to get out of it. That's clear for me.

I'm not sure what you mean by working out a plan for "her recovery". Can you please elaborate on this ?

I'm willing to see the counselor's journey all the way through. I want to figure out if we have a future together, if we are fully compatible. Getting rid of PMO will give me more clarity on this, but I need to see what will get out of this active analysis.

I'm sorry to read that you are in a sexless mariage. I feel your pain, I'm very sorry for you. I understand your steps and you are right to put a time limit on this. It's been more than 11 years of recurring questioning, I should have put a time limit on it too.
The sexologist says that 6 months is enough to get rid of porn addiction. I hope I can get that far and that I can see all of this more clearly. I'm hopeful too, because the therapist clearly knows her business. I'm fearful about the importance of the sex-gap never being able to be resolved. I'm terrified about it, because it could potentially mean having to leave her while still loving her, in order to stop suffering from the sex-drive difference. I seems profoundly heartbreaking.

We do not have kids, so... I suppose a potential divorce would be "simplified", having no children.
In general we get along well, but the last month have been very hard, communication-wise. We made the finishing works on our first house for 7 month, and it was hell everyday. Now, she irritates me almost every time we are together. Another thing on which we have to work.
About attractiveness, I feel like I'm losing touch with the beauty I once saw in her. I'm having a hard time finding her beautiful. Gosh, that's harsh... but true, I must admit. The more the time passes and the more I find myself attracted by other women, but again I tend to attribute it to the PMO addiction.

I've been open and honest about thinking about leaving her. She knows I'm struggling with this questioning, for years now. She never proposed anything about it. She says she just... lives with the Damocles sword above her head, waiting for the time I'll decide I've tried enough, for the moment I'll decide it's time. We've always been crystal clear towards each other.

Thank you for your encouragements, they are well received. I hope you can figure it out for yourself as soon as possible and that you can work it out the best way possible for you, your wife and your children.

 

I've tried it for years and it didn't work out for me. Works for her, though, so I'm keeping up to it. But yeah, my sex drive is clearly part of my addiction, alongside PMO.
I'm currently unable to know my real sex drive and the real implications of it.

 

Sex have very different implication for men and women. I recommend the amazing books "for men only" and "for women only" on this matter. They're life-sharing and eye-opening. I'm not being condescending here, I'm stating a fact that my wife and I have discovered while reading them.

If that's sad and depressing for your to imagine that, you have an glimpse of how I feel for more than 11 years. The thought of it kills me slowly. But the lack of sex is so painful that I began this questioning despite myself. Understand this : we have a very fulfilling relationship, we are moving forward in our lives, professionally, humanly, regarding to a better tomorrow and more respect of our environment, we have great recreational time, great friends and beautiful project for the future. Yet... Yet I'm feeling deeply unhappy, and I'm not sure it's 100% the fault of the PMO addiction. I want it to be, but "if" (!!!), if it turns out to be untrue, then I would have to seriously consider leaving her, despite my love for her, because I simply refuse to stay in a relationship that makes and keeps me unhappy and unfulfilled.

It's a very difficult question.

At first I tried to rationalized it the way you do. It allowed me to hold on the first 9 years out of 12, but now this rationalization has slowly eroded away.
Only fear, guilt and questions remains.

 

You should rock the casbah bro.

 

Thanks man !

 

I've tried the full PMO hard-mode, but I was too on edge, too aggressive, too tensed up. And my wife didn't want to stop sex altogether, including the "O" part. So, lately I decided I'm gonna continue trying to abstain from P and M, but allow myself to O only with her.

The sexologist is amazing, she made me understand that the sex "need" that I feel is not sex related, actually. Sex (and especially PMO) in just the go-to solution to get rid of the tension. By learning to better manager what creates inner tension and what releases it, I made a chart of the different things that can do one or the other. Very, very interesting !

She also advised us to try to have sex with no penetration of any kind in any part of the body. We did that last night and it was amazing. She was able to fully relax and her body didn't feel "assaulted" so she was able to have a lot of orgasms. With that kind of experience I know I can hold on for many days with this memory at heart.

 

Thank you, I understand what you meant, now. And I think the sexologist in onto something, as you can see on my previous answer to LostCloud, by advising us to try to have sex with no penetration whatsoever. We've tried it and it was really really great. I was able to appreciate her fully and to be much more present with her.

 

You're absolutely right ! And rightly so, because, as the sexologist made me realize (but it has yet to fully sink in) : my sex "needs" are not related to sex at all. Sex, and especially PMO, have been my go-to way to deal with the everyday tension. She made me draw a chart of the different things that build up tension inside me and the different things (besides sex and PMO) that helps me getting rid of inner tension. It has been a real eye-opener. Truly. Now I trying to live more and more by this chart, helping myself relieving tension when I feel a small amount of tension, trying to manage it and not allowing it to build up to a PMO-using point of no return.

Again, you're completely right. Thanks to your answer I can see a bit more clearly what part of my messages are addiction-driven (well, it's almost all of it, truthfully). I'm allowing my addiction to speak through me, and the amazing help I get from this forum help me see things more like the way they really are, without with addiction filter on everything. So thank you, again !

I think I started contemplating leaving her because I was unable to get rid of PMO, so I began to resent her, unconsciously at first, for (unintentionally) creating tension within me and failing to help me get rid of it. It's my problem and mine alone. I have to heal myself. I want to learn to be able to take good care of me and manage my emotions and inner tensions.

I don't *want* to leave her. I dread two big things : one, that I won't be able to heal myself, two, that I will still be unhappy after successfully healing myself.

Wow, now that I've written it, it's clearly just frightening thoughts, from an addiction that doesn't want to leave my brain.

I certainly doesn't want to force her in any way, and sticking around is the only reasonable thing to do, because despite what I may feel, I haven't exhausted all the options and I'm willing to be active in my healing, with the help of the sexologist and the members of this incredible forum.

I'm not sure I'm understanding correctly (english is not my native tongue) : to whom will she form a closer bond with, in this scenario ?

Well, you put your finger on it : the addiction-part of my brain believes that sex is the relationship.
Wow.
It continuously wants me to believe that lie.
Thank you for making me realize that !

I want to become able to focus only on all the good sides of my relationship. I'm clearly sick. My brain needs healing and I'm not always able to think straight.
Managing my inner tensions is a start, and a good one, and discussing my addiction-driven thoughts here make me realize what they really are and helps me getting better.
Thank you so much !

 

There's usually a reason why we're addicted to something, especially when it comes to p. Most often than not it's to numb any physical or mental pain you feel, and growing up I know all too well about abusing it.

I use PMO to rid my anxious, unwanted feelings, thoughts and stress. In the end it always backfires as it makes you more agitated and numbs your emotions in the long run, so when you quit it makes you feel like you were better before you quit. It's hard to differentiate the feelings of actual sexual need vs your brains greed, but a way to test is to ask yourself is the wanting of sex brought on by stressors of any sort? Why at that moment do you want to have sex? Is it just legitimately from being passionate and loving her, or is there some alterior motive driving you toward that response?

For me I have to break down why I want sex, it sounds daft but after a while I was able to see a pattern of using sex solely for the purpose of releasing tension, and not purely out of love for my partner. It was more of an automatic impulse if you will, I get stressed, the need for sex or release goes up. You see when you cut p out there's no more dopamine rushes, so it tries to get you to do the next best thing, sex. While normally that's fine the problem lies within the fact that your brain is merely tricking you into sex for its benefit and not yours, you just have to learn the difference between real and addictive impulses.

Well, you to be precise. For instance, the longer you stay and form a stronger relationship with someone, the tighter that bond will be down the road. So if you decide to leave her in say five years time, that'll be like 17 years you've been together full of memories and experiences you made together. She would not only be gutted at how long she spent with someone she thought loved her, but also the pain and sorrow of losing a partner after almost 20 years.

If my partner left me for some reason I would no joke, be devastated and unable to cope in life without him, there's literally nobody else I'd rather spend my life with. We've been together through all the rubbish times and are coming out stronger thanks to not just NoFap, but me realising that I needed to change or I'd eventually lose him because of myself.

I'm not saying you completely have to transform yourself but if you love her like you say you do, try your hardest and best to overcome not only your PMO issues, but your internal struggles as well.

I still have issues regarding sex, and I'm glad my partner has no issues waiting while I sort out my addictive cravings. I have to not only abstain from PMO, but personally sex as well, as I realised when I would get randy I would end up using him as a stand in for P since my brain wants dopamine.

And I want to stress that I wasn't trying to be an arsehole with my posts, I just don't want to see anybody get hurt as these addictions put so much pain and stress on a relationship. I think the only thing you can do is grow through healing, and try to not only better yourself as a person but also truly find yourself in the progress you make.

Porn has told everybody "this is who you are", warped our perception of normal vs extreme, and robbed us of our lives and personality in the process. It's hard to undue thinking and behaviours that were created while pmoing, bloody hell I'm still having extreme difficulty even with those days behind me but what matters most is progress and the willingness to change. Change is difficult but I'm sure if I'm able to change myself, so can you, just don't give up mate and whatever happens will definitely be for the best.

I'm glad you have somebody like a sexologist (I've never actually heard about them before now) helping you out as it's tough figuring out stuff by yourself, at least it sounds like she knows what she's doing.