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Two Futures- My Continuing Battle with IT

Discussion in 'Rebooting in a Relationship' started by Browns4life, Nov 22, 2019.

  1. TLDR - I have two futures lying in front of me, one as a PMO addict and one as well adjusted man married to an amazing women. I choose the second.

    I am starting a new journal here because I have read many of your journals and since @GID2020 is my wife, and I am rebooting I thought I might get a better perspective in this Forum than just the plan old rebooting forum.

    Ok now that is out of the way, if you would like to read about my past and how I got to NF, go and read my introduction post here. To read my journal of the past 40+ days and what I mean when I refer to “IT”, go here. In short, I have been addicted to porn for over 30 years. Had an overbearing Catholic mother, had some very bad experiences with sex and sex education. Started off as mags, eventually videos and jpegs, and finally to streaming unlimited high speed internet porn. I am divorced, my first marriage failing badly. I am remarried to @GID2020 who is the most amazing woman ever. She is my Why for everything I do, and I couldn’t do this without her love and support.

    My wife sent me a video of one of my favorite personalities Dr. Jordan Peterson where he talked about how to give up porn the easy way. He said you shouldn’t look at it as “giving up porn”, that you should think of it as working on a flaw because you want a better life for yourself. His reccomendation, and you can see the video here, was to write about two futures. One where you are free from the chains of porn addiction, and one where you are not. I think this is an amazing exercise. Having just read the book Vivid Vision, I understand the practice and see it as something to use on days when I feel like I can’t do this anymore. I have been experiencing that lately. I am going to divide it into two posts so that I don’t hit the limit. I love feedback so please please let me know what you think.
     
    GID2020 likes this.
  2. My Future as a Porn Addict.
    On October 6th 2019, as my wife sat in tears, I was cold and calculating. I will tell her, again, that I will be quitting porn. I won’t ever do it again, I will swear, and I might even quit for a week or so, but I know I will be back. I always come back. I can’t stop coming back. I continue down this path for the next 3 years. Every now and then we fight about it, or about something else stupid, but IT is always at the base of the argument. @GID2020 and I grow further and further apart. She knows I have been using P and she is at the point she doesn’t care anymore, about the P, about our marriage, about me. I have withdrawn further and further into IT. As @GID2020 pulls further away, the addiction pulls me closer into its cold, uncaring grasp.

    I am having a hard time caring about life. I have been fired from two jobs in the last three years. My kids and their events don’t interest me anymore, in fact not much interests me these days. Even when I am physically present at work, a sporting event, or dinner, or with the few friends I have remaining, I am not there mentally, emotionally. Nothing really matters at this point, because I know when whatever event I am it is over, IT will be waiting for me when I get back and I will be blissfully accepted back. I won’t need to feel the pain and sadness of the day anymore.

    Its Oct 6, 2022, It’s our engagement anniversary and I completely forgot. @GID2020 approaches me, she looks exhausted, haggard. She was always so radiant and youthful, what has happened to her? My first thought is “now what???” I am tired of fighting about IT, I don’t care anymore. I am not going to quit, I can’t ever quit. She says “I can’t do this anymore,” she breaks down and sobs. I am outraged! How can she give up on me like this?? Why is this happening to me. In my fog I am blind on how P has destroyed her from the inside out. “Do what??!” I ask incredulously, even though I know what is coming. She glares at me through her sobs and throws her hands into the air. “All of this, everything is wrong. Who are you?? What happened to you??? I trusted you, I told you everything and you promised that you would never hurt me. Everything is wrong! I want you out! We are done!”

    I stumble backwards, the words I dreaded to hear, but yet strangely expected someday, came at me like a freight train. I begin to cry, I feebly tell her the same lie that I have said again and again. She isn’t buying it this time. My life with the most amazing woman I have ever known is over. I look down at the floor, defeated, destroyed. “What am I going to do?” I ask myself. In the back corner of my mind, I hear a whisper, that cold, uncaring voice that talks to me almost constantly now: “Come back to me, come back and float, I will make it all better.”

    Wow, that was hard to write. :(
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2019
    Lilla_My, Re:Born and ANewFocus like this.
  3. My Future without IT
    Oct 6th, 2019 will go down as the second most influential day of my life. The first being that warm summer evening I met @GID2020. You see, its been 3 years since that fateful October night. That was the night I told @GID2020, truthfully for the first time, that I was done with porn forever. It was rough year afterwards. Giving up porn and destroying IT was the hardest thing I have ever been through, and that includes my first marriage (rimshot). Looking back, it’s amazing the hold that those pixels and IT had over me. My entire life was in one big fog at that point. I was losing interest in my kids and their events, my career was going down the toilet as I floated from one bad job to another. Worst of all I was flushing away, my life, my love, @GID2020.

    Things are so different now. First off I feel completely present EVERYWHERE. I remember the first time I got contacts. I didn’t realize how bad my vision was. When I put in the contacts I could see individual blades of grass, colors looked more alive than they ever had before. That is how I feel today. My life is in focus, I can see things so clearly that I wonder how I ever lived life before this. I exercise everyday, I am at my goal weight, and I practice meditation every morning.

    My career has skyrocketed! Because I have finally been able to focus for longer than 20 minutes on a task, I build the system that changes the way my entire company works. I am promoted first to VP then to SVP of Product and I now oversee the development of the entire company’s portfolio of software. We are about to be aquired and because of my contributions, my stock options are going to make me quite wealthy. In addition that real estate investing side business I was working on takes off and I am well on my way to amassing the wealth I need for financial freedom. I am now working on putting together that community redevelopment project I had dreamed about for a long time. In addition I restarted that novel I was writing and gave up on so long ago.

    Most importantly, my relationship with @GID2020 has gone to heights I never thought possible. We are completely transparent with each other. The honesty is amazingly refreshing. We go on walks together, travel, and can just talk about everything for hours at a time. We really just enjoy each other’s company so much more now. I won’t even go into the love making, lets just say its transcendent!

    All of this from that one fateful October evening in 2019.
     
    lowland, Re:Born and GID2020 like this.
  4. Sante364

    Sante364 Fapstronaut

    This is good stuff!
     
    ANewFocus, Browns4life and GID2020 like this.
  5. @Sante364 Thanks! It really was a VERY cathartic exercise.
     
    GID2020 likes this.
  6. Sante364

    Sante364 Fapstronaut

    I quit one day after you - Oct 7, a Monday.

    Although a few years older, superficially at least, similar paths.

    I'll be reading your stuff.
     
    GID2020 likes this.
  7. It's amazing to me how frequently I see the same paths in other's stories. I think it just goes to show how insidious and pervasive this problem is. How many other men and women are out there living that first future not understanding what is wrong with them and why they can't quit? It's a sobering question.
     
    GID2020 likes this.
  8. Sante364

    Sante364 Fapstronaut

    I th
    I have the same exact thoughts. The more I read, I realize a) this is an epidemic, and b) I'm not alone.

    For years...maybe decades, I always thought my consumption level was unique. As soon as I read about PIED, everything made sense. I joined here and stopped, and began the healing. Some days are easier than others, but it all makes sense. And it's so good to know that we're all going through this together in some way. It does make the journey somewhat easier.

    :)
     
    Browns4life likes this.
  9. Its amazing how listening to an award winning psychologist and doing the excercises they prescribe can be so cathartic. I have been having so much anxiety lately that its been physically affecting me. I have been having heart palpitations, stomach cramps, and headaches. After doing the two futures exercise yesterday, I feel SO much better. I have been reading both over and over and I think I will make that a daily habit. I mentioned in my first post that I finished the book called Vivid Vision. In the book you are supposed to write a future, without limitation, in which you are doing or getting everything you desire. You are supposed to describe the emotions, the feelings, of what your life will be like. When you complete the vision, you are then supposed to make small steps toward acheiving that vision. That's how I am going treat this vision. I might even sit down and expand on it.

    So after a pretty dark week, I am going to approach this week with a new optimism. I know the future I want and I won't let IT stand in my way.
     
    GID2020, quitter1906 and Sante364 like this.
  10. Sante364

    Sante364 Fapstronaut

    Right there with you, dude.
     
    Browns4life likes this.
  11. quitter1906

    quitter1906 Fapstronaut

    I really like the 2 futures idea. I’m gonna try and write mine soon. Thanks for sharing yours....
     
    ANewFocus and GID2020 like this.
  12. The emotional roller coaster of recovery never ceases to amaze me. Friday and most of the day on Saturday I was feeling pretty good. We were busy so that always helps. My wife and I went out to dinner on Saturday night and again had our "no phone" rule. So we just sit and talk and look at each other. We work on being present in the moment and just enjoying each other's company. Its always a wonderful experience. It's been so nice rediscovering her and our love.

    When we got home, we got to talking about my family, and the roller coaster dropped out from under me and I hit a low. My family has always been a source of contention and I feel really crappy about them. You can read a little bit about them in this post: My Sex Education. I feel really crappy about them because outside of my mom and dad they really haven't been very nice to @GID2020. :( So thinking about them and hearing @GID2020 talk about them, and thinking about the holidays just sent me spiraling down. I begin to go into negative self talk and its hard to pull me out. I feel like I am a "bad" person for everything I've done to @GID2020, for everything I have done to myself, for all of the things I've missed out on. Basically I let IT out and run wild in my brain. Luckily @GID2020 is so amazing and after a few hours she was able to pull me down.

    Today was a rough day because its the 1 year anniversary that I lost my father. :( I miss him so much. He was the light of my family (stealing that from @GID2020) and its just sad to see my family now without him. Other than that though it was a pretty good day. I spent most of it with @GID2020, we had some amazing love making sessions, and my Browns won! :D

    Tonight I had an amazing meditation. I know you are supposed to control your emotions while meditating, but I actually teared up it hit me so hard. The title of the meditation was "Unbroken". If you have never used the app Calm, there is a speaker that walks you through the meditation and then there is a reflection at the end. The reflection was about how we are always trying to fix ourselves. I need to lose weight, I need to fix my hair, my nose, my clothes, my diet etc. If we are always looking to fix something about ourselves, the message we are sending ourselves is that we are broken. The correct attitude is not to fix the broken, but rediscover the unbroken. That is powerful advice for addicts like us. I am sure that at one point we were unbroken, we can remember that youthful exuberance which we faced the world head on. THAT should be our goal, to rediscover that feeling, not to fix what is broken.
     
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  13. GID2020

    GID2020 Fapstronaut

    That was hard to read! I think because it's accurate and that is scary! (Except for the part about me looking haggard.. that's not happening. :p Lol. ) But fortunately I know you've chosen the second future you wrote out. I hope you get a chance to expand on it the way you want to.

    50 days today!! You're doing great! I'm SO proud of you. :)
     
    ANewFocus and Browns4life like this.
  14. Appreciated reading your story.
     
    ANewFocus and Browns4life like this.
  15. Thank you, baby! It's been a road so far and it's not going to get easier. I know I can do it with you though!
     
    GID2020 likes this.
  16. Its been a minute since I wrote. The holiday week was good and busy. Basketball season has started and we have 3 boys that play, all in different leagues because of age, so time is becoming VERY precious. I wanted to write today because I had a bit of a breakdown this morning. IT decided it wanted to come out to play and I spiraled down with him. Luckily my wife is always there to talk me down and it didn't result in a reset. It reminded me of a story I heard in one of my meditations. I know most of you have probably heard of it, but I think its SO relevant to what we are all going through:

    My whole life I feel like I have been feeding the first wolf. I have not ALLOWED myself to feel happy. I have allowed the trauma that has happened in my life to dictate my self image. I have a hard time accepting compliments, I seem to sabotage myself whenever I get a bit of success, I have a hard time looking in the mirror and seeing anything but a selfish creep who looked at porn for so long. If I am honest though, I know that is not how people see me. People trust me, sometimes too much. That outside perception even makes me feel worse about myself because I feel like I could never live up to those expectations. So I literally sabotage myself, to further my own self image as a failure. That's how insidious IT is. I used porn addiction for a long time to keep something to myself that I could use to say I was bad. When I would get a complement or accolade at work or from someone I love, I would downplay it and actually say to myself: "Sure you say I am good now, you should see what I do when no one is around."

    I have sabotaged a lot in my life. When I had good relationship in high school with a girl who is nice and fun, I broke it off because I was scared that we would have sex (if you read back through my history, I explain where that fear comes from) and get closer. I got into a good college, into the honors program, made AMAZING friends, but instead of success, I stopped going to class, I stopped studying and ended up with a 1.9 GPA losing my scholarship and getting removed from the honors program. When I realized that my relationship with my first wife (well before she was my first wife) was doomend and not making me happy, I put the gas pedal down and married her. When I start having some success in fitness or health, I cheat on my diet or make excuses why I can't exercise. I started to have a little success with a business I have been working on, but made stupid decisions that I know better than to make that quashed that success. When I start getting my budget back under control, I find something I need to buy and blow a bunch of money. When I meet the girl of my dreams, I am paranoid about her, I start rifling through diaries and emails looking for things that might be wrong because I cannot believe she really loves me. I finally get over all of that, marry her, I become more and more involved in porn almost destroying that relationship.

    I need to figure out why I do this to myself. Why is it so important for me to feel bad about myself, to the point that I sabotage my own success? I have fed that first wolf for so long in my life, that I am afraid to stop, I am afraid of what it will do when I stop feeding it. How do I feed the second wolf without the first biting my hand off?
     
    Psalm27:1my light likes this.
  17. Wow
     
  18. Again, been a bit since I have posted. Things have been a roller coaster as can be expected. I posted this in the Porn Addiction forum, but thought it might garner more discussion here:

    I was thinking this morning about porn addiction in American society and why it is so prevalent. In a recent study (Daspe, Vaillancourt-Morel, Lussier, Sabourin, and Ferron 2018) found that in out of 1000 couples in a relationship over a year, 98% of the men and 73% of the women reported porn use in the last 6 months! That is a huge number! I began thinking about it and I have a three prong theory. The first two prongs are pretty well known, but thinking about the third is where I think the crux of the problem lies.

    Availability
    This is the most well known reason we have a problem. Porn is NOT new, from ancient wood carvings, to paintings, to the earliest motion pictures, sexual imagery has been part of our society. Never before though has that imagery been so accessible by everyone and at a younger and younger age. 9/10 boys and 6/10 girls will be exposed to internet pornography before the age of 18, half of boys before the age of 13! (link) Getting exposed this young is often their first sexual experience, all of this because we have the power in our hands and privately in our rooms to find and use pornography. When I was a kid, I had to have a magazine and hide that physical object somewhere my mother, who was so anal she ironed underwear, wouldn't find it. Now kids just use incognito mode on their browser and we as parents are non the wiser.

    Supernormal Stimuli
    If you haven't watched the great video "Your Brain On Porn" yet please take the hour and do that TODAY. It has helped me and my wife understand the addiction and why its so powerful. One of the main concepts of YBoP is the idea of Supernormal Stimuli. As humans we are the first species on our planet (that we know of) to take our natural world and make artificial structures, food, etc. Something like chocolate cake doesn't exist in nature, but contains concentrated amounts of fat and sugar that our bodies crave. This makes chocolate cake VERY addictive and desirable. In YBoP they talk about a certain beetle that views amber colored beer bottles as a large mate, they try to copulate with the bottle because of the supernormal stimulus the bottle supplies.

    Porn is much the same way. We see men and women with exaggerated and often fake parts, in extreme situations, doing extreme things. The sexual reward center of our brain lights up like Christmas tree and we want to mate with the images, just like the beetle and the bottle.


    How we are raised vs How we are advertised to
    This is what came to me this morning. The 2015 Centers for Disease Control research update shows that 6 in 10 of teenagers have never had sex. That shows an increase of 28% since 1991. So the numbers of teens having sex has gone down. Most would think this is a good thing, but I think we are missing a core problem to this: Instead of REAL sexual relationships after puberty, teens are turning to the artificial supernormal stimuli for their sexual urges. Think about it, 150 years ago, it was not uncommon, especially in rural areas to be married by the time you were 15 or 16. Now 60% of those teens have not had sex by the time they are 20. These are human beings who are sexually awakened, having urges, and are being TAUGHT and ENCOURAGED, to avoid those urges. Those urges and desires don't just go away. As you can see from the stats above your boy has a 90% shot of seeing supernormal stimulus that can satisfy all of his urges. It's no wonder porn usage and addiction is skyrocketing among teens. A recent study jointly commissioned by Covenant Eyes, Josh McDowell Ministry, and the Barna Group found that 50 percent of teenagers and approximately 75 percent of young adults come across pornography at least monthly. In addition, there is a constant barrage of sexual imagery coming from advertising that just fans the flames of sexual thinking. So their brains, which are wired for sexual activity by the time they are in High School, are being told by society that they should not be doing what they are wired to do until they are well into their 20s. Is it any wonder porn use and addiction are skyrocketing?

    So am I saying we should encourage our teens to have lots of sex? No of course not, but we should not be teaching abstinence as an absolute. Instead we should be talking to our kids candidly (but age appropriately) about sex, BEFORE puberty. We should be talking about morality and responsibility in sexual relationships. We should be talking to them about pornography usage and its dangers. We should be encouraging them to have REAL experiences with REAL people. We should be constantly monitoring and controlling their phone and internet usage
     
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  19. Well I guess I am on kind of a once a week cadence. I want to journal more, but time is always an issue. My new job (more on that later) is picking up so I am not getting home until after 6 every night. Then its dinner, clean up, homework, walking the dog which leaves literally 45 minutes to be with @GID2020. Because of this I have kind of fallen off my meditation and reading habit which I really miss and want to get going again.

    The new job is really awesome. I think I finally have a good place to work, while its stressful, its a good kind of stress as we are a growth company. We hired 27 new people this year and plan to hire 50 more next year. We are doubling our revenue almost every year! We just had our Holiday Party on Friday and I was talking to the co-founder who I interviewed with along with the CEO. He told me that I "annihilated" the competition in the interview and that the decision wasn't even close! That was really nice to hear. I knew I did well, but I figured there had to be others as well. Overall I think this could be a good place for me to rebuild my career.

    I have still been having urges to look at stuff lately. This used to bother me a lot and send me into a tangle with IT. Now it just feels like a part of life going forward. I know how to handle them, and I know how to get rid of them and so far have not reset or relapsed. I have been having issues with sleep lately however, which is newer. I have never been the greatest sleeper, I am a very light sleeper and normally wake up to the smallest noises etc. Good thing for me @GID2020 sleeps really soundly and doesn't move around much. I just keep waking up, like 4-5 times a night and I am not waking up feeling rested. I am worried about that a bit because not sleeping used to be a trigger. I would wake up and PMO, sometimes for more than an hour, to "help me sleep". It was just a rationalization and nothing ever proved to help. So this is my biggest challenge I am facing right now. I am really tired and trying not to use that as a rationalization to PMO. I hope this is just a temporary setback.
     
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  20. GID2020

    GID2020 Fapstronaut

    70 days!!! Pretty awesome, love! ♥️I hope you're proud of that!

    I'm sorry about your sleep. I'm sure we can fix it. I want you to make sure you get in your meditation since you enjoy it so much. I'll put a reminder on my phone for you too. Also, we should be mindful of when we eat last as that could be something that keeps you up too.

    I still get urges to eat sugar. You know how addicted I was to that! Lol. I'm glad to see that your urges are not bothering you as much as they used to. Bad habits are hard to break!

    I love you, always. See you soon.
     

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