Still addicted to...

I'm afraid that's the wishful thinking of an addict. You say you think you're addicted to sex but you hope sex will cure your PMO addiction? My husband thought he'd beat his PMO habit before he married me. He didn't tell me for five years of marriage. Our marriage was nearly destroyed. Does your girlfriend know? If you think sex with her will help cure you, tell her what she's getting into before you move in.

 

Yes... our addiction is confusing and makes no logical sense. Our addiction only make sense when we look at it from an emotional point of view.

The seeds of our addiction start when we are first exposed to porn. At first we watch it and it's interesting, exciting, and we're curious. But our brains learn that porn and orgasms make us feel good. Soon we start using porn and sex to medicate our negative emotions. Our brain deceives us into thinking if a little porn/sex is good then a lot of porn/sex is even better.

So we mistakenly think that having a steady source of sex is going to make us happy. Usually we are just medicating negative emotions. Addicts look for physical solutions to an emotional problem. When real life sex fails to satisfy that emotional need then it often makes us even more unhappy. But the illogical part is that instead of seeking emotional satisfaction elsewhere, addicts turn deeper into their addiction. This often involves turning to porn more often and binging. Or escalating into more intense forms of porn and sex. People who act out in chatrooms, flirting with coworkers, have affairs, seek out escorts or prostitutes have escalated because less intense forms of sex and porn just don't provide enough satisfaction anymore.

Moving in with your girlfriend before you get a handle on this addiction is a recipe for disaster. Addiction causes us to withdraw and isolate ourselves. Your secrets will kill the intimacy between the two of you. Things go downhill from there. You will not feel emotionally satisfied and she will be confused about the emotional distance that will develop between the two of you.

Here's a link to a list of symptoms that will help you identify if you are truly addicted: http://using.com/pornography-addiction . Also substitute the word SEX for any of the symptoms.

 

Yes on every word, but especially this. And the moving in part.

 

I'm sorry to hear about your relapse and your struggles lately.

I noticed this:

My husband and I thought his addiction was a past thing too. For the last seven years he has only had a handful of relapses, looking at P. But then, a month ago, he came to me after finding NoFap and told me he still had p flashbacks and that he realized it still had a hold on him. He wasn't looking at p but he was MOing with p related fantasies in his head. All that is over now. We are currently doing a hard mode reboot, no intentional Os for either of us (I'm doing it for him, but I'm learning a lot about myself too) and he hasn't Oed for 28 days. What we have learned is that pretty much everything we've struggled with in our marriage, our lack of connection, his difficulty in having meaningful conversation with me, letting me in his head, so to speak, and the lack of nonsexual touch: it's ALL connected to his p addiction. He has numbed himself emotionally due to his p use and isn't able to identify or speak about his own emotions or handle my emotions.

The last month has been amazing and helped us so much. We've been doing FANOS and 30 minutes of cuddling daily and our marriage is no longer on the brink of divorce.

Red flags go up for me when I read this. I still think you are deluding yourself to think that you will never look at porn again, especially if you are hanging your hope on your girlfriend and the move in. You admit you have started MOing again, from there you could very will slide back into a full relapse, whether you live with her or not. Please stay honest with her about this and get control of it before it gets totally out of control.

 

Not a "past thing." "Move-in" won't fix anything. Only "fix" is to accept and appreciate the power of the temptations and urges and learn how to avoid them and not let them overwhelm you. Part of that is getting your relationship in order, which requires more time trying to understand and be understood by our SO. If you've gone clean for a long while before, you know you can do it again. But this time, make it more mindful. Keep track of how it's affecting you and those around you. It's a wild ride!