Telling my (soon to be) girlfriend

You only have 1 choice because sooner or later things will turn bad in many ways. She will feel that she is not attractive enough and bla bla bla. Only 1 choice..

Three things cannot be long hidden, the sun, the moon and the truth.

 

Hello Jonathan!

It is never easy to open about something that takes place in one of your most private areas in life! I did it twice with my both partners I had while PMO recovery and both times it was very uncomfortable. Nevertheless, I would always do it again because it feels like a huge burdon is taken from your shoulders when being able to open up. I started to experience ED in the early stage of my first relationship. The girl was quite open-minded - watching porn by herself from time to time - and took it quite well at the beginning. Nevertheless, having some anxiety and personal issues herself, over the time it became a huge issue for both of us. She started to feel personaly responsible and hurt by my ED because she felt like I did not adore her and find her attractive. Of course that was not true! Sadly, back then I hadn't realized the severity of my addiction and that all the problems were so tightly connected with it. Therefore, besides trying to quit porn and failing misserabely I did not to do how to be able to fight my ED. I faced issues until the end of the relationship and even though my addiction wasn't the cause for the end of the relationship it for sure had a huge negative impact on it.

In my second relationship I decided to be straight forward with my new girlfriend. We were talking to each other for a few months and after seeing each other a few times I opened up with her in a long talk. At that point we did not share intimicy but I did want to give her the "hop out" option. Going into a relationship with an addicted person can be though, exhausting, frustrating and hurtful sometimes. I really liked her and I could not imagine to hide this big fact about me. I knew that sooner or later some of the issues would show and could become a problem for her too. Surprisingly, even though she never has watch a porn, she was quite understanding and asked me several questions. How would that affect our relationship, what are my issues exactly, and so on. She is really supportive and not pressuring that helped me a lot so far. Whenever I tell her that I made this progress or will take certain actions to better recover, she is so happy for me too. I have had several very successful runs since being with her and I also changed my mind and goals quite a lot. What is important for me is that I show her that I make steps actively torwards my recovery, like telling her that I am spending lots of time in a porn recovery forum, buying and readying books or go to therapy to make further progress. What I don't do is making her my accountability partner. I think the pressure of addiction should not become also her pressure. If I fail, I fail and take resposibility for that but it doesn't mean that we failed because her support she always gives me leave their marks in my mind and help me to recover. Secondly, she is not responsible for my recovery. I, only I am, as much as I am the only person that is responsible for my happiness.

I think one thing that has been a huge support in my current relationship is the fact that my girlfriend is not interested in the details of my addiction. We all have seen quite disturbing things over the years, that we all felt discusted about afterwards. Your partner should not be faced with the same horrible pictures in their minds as you are. It could lead them to start to see you in other eyes, but also I see it not quite fair why they should be dealing with something that I should deal alone. When I get asked "what did you watch", I usually answer "Everything, everything you can imagine. Sometimes also things I wish I would not have seen.". If there are follow up questions I say that "I do not feel comfortable to talk about it just with my therapist or other addicts" - which is true. When I have a fallback I do not immediatley tell her but when she asks me I am honest to her. In general we have an agreement that she always can ask me anything but I also have the right to not answer some question if they are not comfortable. After opening up do not lie anymore because it will make you seem to be unreliable.

I think you should keep these points in mind:

• People who love and care for you will accept you with your issues.
• Telling the truth will be releaving.
• Skipping the details of your addiction like preferences in porn or what you have seen should not be the topic.
• Do not make your partner your accountability partner.
• Show your partner that you take active steps towards recovery (go to therapy, be active in this forum, ...)
• Do not lie to your partner anymore - it will make you unreliable.
• Make clear to them that you are responsible to face your problems yourself!
• Do not promises that you cannot hold (like: "I will never do that again!" instead say "I will try my best to get better!")
• Make youself no promises you cannot hold (then you also will not lie to your partner by accident).

 

PIED is real. the other guy is either lucky enough not to have it or hes just a troll.

Just change your girlfriend according to your "specs" its not someone with a sane mind would say.

Again PIED is real and im a patient as well. If u have time just go visit ybop website and find the main reason why guys are rebooting.

PS. If u have been in this forum for some time its not hard to identify ignorant ppl or troll. Our fellow nofappers handle them with self experience based on recorded facts.

 

And the forum managers or whoever deleted my post for calling him out as a troll, go figure.
Yes, it is real, as we all know.

 

Man seriously?? PIED is rhe most common thing that young people suffer for looking porn

 

I am happy that I could help you a little bit! I am sure you gonna do great! Good luck!

I wrote a summary of a book that helped me quite much during my recovery, maybe there you can find some more information or arguments!
https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/summary-junkies-like-us-by-kurosch-yazdi.280446/

 

Hey bro, I know it's a scary thing to do but if she cares about you it will be good and you won't regret telling her. I had to tell my girlfriend of 1 year not too long ago about my pied and PMO struggles and she was very supportive and helped me a lot, and in the end I think it has strengthened my relationship rather than hurt it. I know it's daunting, but it needs to be addressed and it will make a big difference for you emotionally and in your relationship. You got this man you can do it.

 

As others have said, although it will be difficult, it's best to be open especially early on.

Also, I don't know what your religious beliefs are, but regardless of that, it may actually be healthy to intentionally refrain from sex until your PIED is taken care of. If you try to have sex and then can't perform, it could hurt your self-esteem really badly and make things worse. On top of that, your partner may also not fully understand that your PIED is not her fault, and may attribute the problem to being unattractive to you. So maybe you could go to her, explain your struggle (knowing that she might not want any part of it) and also explain the effect it has had on your body. As with most cases of being vulnerable, it leaves you just that--open to be hurt. But it's better to address it now than later. That's just part of being a responsible human.

 

So, did you ask her out ?

 

Hi All,

I am 31 year old male,recently had a arranged marriage.I had been doing the sin of Prone masturbation all my life without realizing its sabotaging my future so badly.Never had sex in my life so was enjoying it everyday until age 29 when I realized its not the way masturbation is meant to be done.I abstained from Prone for a week and then tried using my hands but ultimately had to use death grip. I was so happy that I could masturbate conventionally until I realized I am doing no good to penis by death grip when I got married in Jan 2020.
I tried having sex with my partner but may be it was performance anxiety added with numbness in penis that I couldn't maintain an erection at all when I tried to go inside her.I was also numb when she tried to suck me and couldn't feel a thing(even though I had a erection when she sucked).I was getting constant erections otherwise when we were having oral sex.I just made a excuse that its because of performance anxiety and death grip and she was understanding and told me to cure myself. We live in separate countries as she is waiting for visa for coming to country where I live.
I again relapsed during Feb-june 2020 and did death grip all that time.
Now I am going back to my country and visiting my wife in November and have started doing the massaging thing after abstaining for a week.My doubt is should I go completely nofap or try conventional style to nopt scre up this time and cure it.Its the matter of life and death for me now.
Planning to never fap again in my life if I am successful with my wife this time.Any tips will be greatly appreciated.

 

I am so happy for you brother!

I know what you mean! It also took me a while to get over my ED issues. Nevertheless, these things were very helpful in my recovery when I started to understand them:

• By masturbation and watching porn we train our brain to think that it is normal to have sex in a stiff crampy position while sitting. Also, having a hard grip and probably not using any liquid while masturbation will have bad effects. Our brain needs to forget this behavior and get used to the real thing again! Often you can read posts in this forum where people describe that they lose their erection when laying on their back and so on. I had experienced the same and only could keep my erection in special positions. This was due to my brain was not used to the feeling nor the position.
• Practicing Slow Sex. Taking it slow in bed and regaining a healthy relationship with my sexuality helped tremendously in the progress. Over the timespan over several months I gained slowly more and more intimaticy with my new girlfriend (thanks to her). This really help rewire the wrong image in my head about sex. Usually I would get right into it - as I learned from porn and other girls. It took me quite some time to understand what a wrong picture I had about sex in the first place even though I always respectful and cared about women.
• Secondly, I think it is important to understand that having sex does not need to be picture perfect like in hollywood movies. You can take a break while doing it or stop if you don't want to without the need to take it personal. You can laugh and joke while doing it and there should be no preasure for orgasm. The most important is to enjoy the time with each other and to bond with your significant other.

From the things you describe it seems you are on the right path already and you will reach your goal soon. Remember what sex should be about fun. For you and for her without any pressure nor judgement.

 

Boy, this one hits home for me pretty hard. I think it really depends on the girl and how you think she will respond. If you're going to tell her, you have to be absolutely certain that she will support your efforts to quit. In my experience, I have been open about it and it's had various negative effects.

Some girls will tell you it's okay while you're having the discussion and then never bring it up again and let it bother them on the inside until they can't take it anymore. Although she never said as much, I'm afraid that's what my most recent ex dumped me for, even though we never did anything more than kiss anyway. Revealing something so personal and deep like that so early can make you come across as clingy and some girls just aren't comfortable talking about stuff like that until you've been together several months, maybe even a year or more.

Others will tell you that it's okay with them as long as you've quit by the time you officially become intimate or married but that's a very slippery slope. In my case, this was at a point where I knew using porn was wrong but I didn't make any serious efforts to quit either and the "free pass" my girlfriend gave me at the time did not help my problem at all. We only had sex once but frequently did foreplay stuff so we could "have sex" without being married and it always ended so disappointingly. I could get hard for her but she was never able to get me to finish on her own. I always had to by hand. It was so embarrassing and, more than once, it brought her to tears because she couldn't get me to climax the same way I could for her, like she was doing something wrong or that she wasn't attractive. When you really love someone, stuff like that wrecks you, man.

Basically, my advice is use your judgment but try to lean towards caution. Get to know her outside of that first, build up her trust and love while you're working on improving yourself by staying clean. I'm under the impression that it's far easier to say "Hey, I used to struggle with porn but I fought it and won" a few weeks or months into a relationship instead of "Hey, I currently struggle with porn and I haven't fully quit yet" as soon as you start dating. Bringing that up before they know you very well is inviting them to look at you like you're some crazy sexual deviant and all you care about in a relationship is sex.

If you're serious about quitting and you're serious about her, waiting won't hurt. If you're together long enough, it will come up organically and naturally and won't be as awkward or emotional, especially once you manage to beat your addiction.

EDIT: Just caught up on the posts. Glad it worked out for you! I wish you the best in your new relationship!