There probably aren’t many guys here on nofap over 50, the recent poll showed almost none, but here I am and I am glad to be here. If you don’t want to read this whole long post, I’ll just say that avoiding PMO for 90 days has been great for our marriage.
I’m glad I told my wife, and the journey has been well worth it.
Background: I’m over 50, married 25+ years to a great woman. We both earn a decent living, we’re in good health, we have loving parents, and our families get along. So I think we’ve been lucky in all the important ways.
But my use of porn has been a problem. Like most, I started looking at porn as a teenager. Back then it was either catalogs or pictures (pretty tame), at most it was Playboys or Penthouses (pretty tame too), and not all that easy to get. You had to go to a store and I was always uneasy about buying one from the clerk, especially if the clerk was a woman. Still, I got into the habit of jerking off, and at times I would realize that fapping to porn (or the fantasy of other women) was maybe negatively affecting our sex life and our marriage. And this was even before kids (once we had kids, we had sex less often as before, but I won’t get into that cycle).
Other than first night jitters, however, I never really had ED or PE issues with my wife (or with the women I was with before her).
Then the internet came to our house and I discovered free, unlimited, anonymous online porn. Who needed Penthouse? Who cared if my wife was tired? I could look at whoever, doing whatever, for free. Again, at times I would think that the porn was affecting our sex life, and would try to cut out the PMO, but never could for very long. I would even tell my wife what I was trying to do, but I don’t think she understood exactly why I thought it was a problem (perhaps because I wasn’t fully explaining it to her).
Last year I realized that my porn use had many of the hallmarks of an addiction: I couldn’t or wouldn’t stop it for any period of time if it was available, I would think constantly about my next fix, I was spending money and lots of time on it, I got into harder porn, and I was changing my behavior in order to set up situations where I could look at porn. This worried me. It also worried me that I couldn’t stay hard very long with my wife, and I didn’t like what our sex life was turning into: I’d get aroused not by her, but pretty much only if she was wearing provocative clothing (which of course was the type of clothing worn by my favorite porn “amateurs”, etc.).
I went cold turkey for 17 days (longest I’d been free of PMO for years) but I had a flatline, didn’t know what that was, and jerked off because for all I could see, going without porn only destroyed my sex drive! Then (while looking for new porn after the relapse) I came across Your Brain On Porn and this subreddit. What a revelation it was! I learned about PIED, the death grip, the PMO cycle, and what I thought were only my issues were things shared by lots of other guys.
Telling my wife: We have a good marriage, but even so, it wasn’t easy for me to level with my wife and tell her exactly what was going on. I told her what I’d learned about PMO, and she wasn’t insulted or threatened, instead she was thrilled to help. She said that she thought something was going on over the last few years, but that the pieces didn’t fall into place until I explained the PMO problem in detail (but I didn’t take her on a “tour” of the porn I’d used, and she didn’t want to go there either). Telling her was absolutely the right thing to do for us. Her support has been tremendous and I feel like a huge weight has been lifted. But I don’t know how it would be for anyone else.
Benefits: The biggest benefit has been to our marriage. Rather than hiding my habit, hiding my purchases of porn, and hiding my sexual energy from her, it’s now in the open and that is freeing. I don’t have to worry about her (or anyone) finding my browsing history, or porn stashes, etc. I am a better husband — I do more housework, share tasks with her, do more things with her (rather than figuring out a way to get my porn fix). It’s great because she appreciates it and reciprocates. And as far as our sex life goes, I had been on hard mode, but on Valentine’s Day we decided to give it a go, and that weekend we had sex and it was a huge improvement — I was able to get hard and stay hard in her for much longer than I’d done in years. And it was with her there naked, not in some porn type outfit. Also, at times our cuddling has even been more intense, almost like it was when we first got to know each other (which I really really liked). I am seeing her beauty now, rather than thinking of her in comparison to a porn woman on the internet. My wife is out of town but she comes back later this weekend and I am horny and ready to end the hard mode.
The time I used to waste fapping and looking at porn is now available to do other things. I got a book called “The Slight Edge”, and while it has its hokey parts, it has some really good stuff in it about making small improvements every day (that add up over time). I don’t think I would have read the book (or started implementing it) unless I had come here. So many have said that nofap and noporn is about improving yourself, not just avoiding porn or fapping, and they’re right. I am eating better, exercising more, spending more time with my wife (and we have fun together). I have lost 20 pounds over the last three months, and that feels great.
Tips: Know about the flatline, and don’t be scared, you just have to wait it out. I’ve had several flatline periods, and in some ways, they are easy, because sexual temptation goes out the window. I will probably have more flatline periods in the future and I now know to be patient.
You’ve got to stay away from any triggers. You cannot just “take a peek”. For me, porn is the bigger enemy, but I also have to avoid fapping because the two are completely intertwined for me.
Have a plan that you will use if you start going toward the line. Calmly tell your dopamine seeking brain that you are not going there. You can wait out the urges.
Exercise is good. Do it! Find other ways to improve your life, and do them.
If you think your girlfriend or wife would be supportive, you can take the risk (and it is a risk) of leveling with her about PMO, show her the Ted Talk and YBOP, and explain that your porn use is not a reflection on their attractiveness.
Destroy your porn stash. This was huge for me. Before, I would destroy some of the porn, but I’d always keep some of the favorites “just in case”. This time I destroyed all that I could find (I found more after I started my streak and I destroyed that too). As one person put it, that is the difference between “I will try” and “I will do”.
Work in Progress: The 90 day period is of course only a start. I’ve been fapping for so long, and looking at porn so long, that I can’t expect that my work is over. It may never be. I still have urges to look at porn. I don’t think of porn anywhere near as much, but I do, and the images are still in my mind — I just try to direct my attention elsewhere. Although I am improving, I still fantasize about other women, and while some would say that’s OK, it’s all a matter of degrees, and I need to continue my focus on my wife, not on fantasizing on whether I can bang the cute woman at the bank. Where does the fantasy get me anyway?
Thank you: Many men who post here have gone through so much more than I have. It’s been inspirational — at the beginning, I read these accounts and I thought “if they can do it as young men with no girlfriend and a huge sex drive while trying to find their place in the world, then I certainly can do it with my kind wife and years of experience and my lower testosterone levels”. Many times I have wanted to look at porn, but I’ve logged on here instead, and it’s been so helpful. I am so grateful to Alexander who started this subreddit, and all the members who have made this subreddit a source of support. And thanks for reading to the end of this long post, good luck on your journey.
LINK – Married and over 50, PMO problem, told my wife: My 90 Day Report
by nofap490
ANOTHER POST
Huge 92 day benefit — great sex and no PIED!
Before nofap I had PIED — that was a big reason I started nofap on December 15 and I have mainly been on hard mode since then. Around 60 days my wife and I had sex a few times (Valentine’s Day and all that)…
and my performance was improved, but I wasn’t where I wanted to be mentally and physically, so I went back to hard mode. For me, 60 days hard mode wasn’t enough.
I am glad I was patient about this (and that my wife also was patient and supportive). Last night we had the house to ourselves, showered, went to bed early, and just had the best sex we’ve had in years. No PIED — I was able to get hard and stay hard in her, no PE, I was able to relax and enjoy her. She had a great time as well, I don’t need to go into the details, but we were really connected. It was like the old days, and we’ve been married over 25 years.
What was really cool is that I wasn’t using any mental tricks to stay hard, such as fantasizing about a porn actress or another woman while we were fucking. I didn’t have to. I was connected to her. And she didn’t have to tart herself up with makeup and special clothing to excite me. It was just her (don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against my wife making herself ever hotter by wearing something sexy, but before nofap that was necessary in order for me to get excited).
This opens up a whole new world of fun and intimacy (which I think had withered during our marriage in large part due to porn), and we are both so happy and pumped about it!
TL;DR: If you have PIED, be patient, let your brain re-wire out of the old PMO patterns. Maybe it will take 30 days, maybe 90, maybe 150. Who knows? But if 90 days without PMO works for a 50+ old guy who has been looking at porn for decades, it could work for you too!
by nofap490
AT 200 DAYS
200 Days – It’s Well Worth It!
I decided to do nofap for 90 days (hence “nofap490”), kind of thinking that everything would change around the 90th day. And after going hardmode for most of the 90 days, on the 92nd day it’s true that I did have the best sex in years with my wife.
But you know what? The changes don’t occur magically all on one particular day — it’s a gradual thing, day by day. It’s part of making small improvements in your life each day. It’s what happens because you aren’t wasting an hour or two each day looking at porn and jerking off. It’s what happens because the time and energy that went into PMO get channeled into better things — your relationships, work, exercise, diet. It’s what happens when you go to sleep with your wife and when you get up earlier in the day to enjoy the morning (instead of being strung out by staying up too late looking at porn).
It isn’t a continuous upward path. Some days are better than others. I still get urges to look at porn (however, I now know how to redirect the thoughts, and the urges are not as frequent or as strong). I have made the mistake of looking at porn a couple of times during this streak — I got out of it soon enough, but it’s a bad idea to look at porn (or anything like porn) and the images and porn thoughts stuck with me for a while. I have been through more than one flatline during this streak — and I am not some kind of sex god now that over 90 days have passed — sometimes it’s great, but sometimes I can’t get it up, or don’t last as long as I want. That’s just the way it is for a guy in his 50s. And life is what it is — and there are always going to be challenges and areas for improvement.
One thing is clear to me: stopping the PMO cycle is one of the best things I’ve ever done. It’s been a catalyst to improve other aspects of my life. My marriage is stronger, and life is better in so many ways.
TL;DR — stick with the program of nofap and no porn. Don’t be discouraged by bumps along the way. Keep at it, day by day. It is well worth it!
UPDATE
Should you tell your wife? Here’s my experience.
I know my badge shows that I have only a 3 day streak (I looked at porn briefly earlier this week, stupid of course, see my post about the “chaser effect”). However, I actually have a couple of 100+ day noporn streaks under my belt, and I haven’t PMO’d or fapped to orgasm since December 15, 2013. Stopping my PMO habit for the last 9 months has been a huge step forward for me.
The Question: Some of us fighting the PMO habit are married. I fall into that camp — I have been married 25+ years to a great woman. Anyway, the question often comes up — did you tell your wife? The short answer is that I did, and that it was a good choice for me and for her.
Background: Other than first night jitters, I never used to have ED or PE issues with my wife (or with the women I was with before her). Then the internet came to our house and I discovered free, unlimited, anonymous online porn. Who needed Penthouse? Who cared if my wife was tired? I could look at whoever, doing whatever, for free. Again, at times I would think that the porn was affecting our sex life, and would try to cut out the PMO, but never could for very long. I would even tell my wife what I was trying to do, but I don’t think she understood exactly why I thought it was a problem (perhaps because I wasn’t fully explaining it to her).
Last year I realized that my porn use had many of the hallmarks of an addiction: I couldn’t or wouldn’t stop it for any period of time if it was available, I would think constantly about my next fix, I was spending money and lots of time on it, I got into harder porn, and I was changing my behavior in order to set up situations where I could look at porn. This worried me. It also worried me that I couldn’t stay hard very long with my wife, and I didn’t like what our sex life was turning into: I’d get aroused not by her, but pretty much only if she was wearing provocative clothing (which of course was the type of clothing worn by my favorite porn “amateurs”, etc.).
I went cold turkey for 17 days (longest I’d been free of PMO for years) but I had a flatline, didn’t know what that was, and jerked off because for all I could see, going without porn only destroyed my sex drive! Then (while looking for new porn after the relapse) I came across Your Brain On Porn and this subreddit. What a revelation it was! I learned about PIED, the death grip, the PMO cycle, and what I thought were only my issues were things shared by lots of other guys.
Telling my wife: We have a good marriage, but even so, it wasn’t easy for me to level with my wife and tell her exactly what was going on. I told her what I’d learned about PMO, and she wasn’t insulted or threatened, instead she was thrilled to help. She said that she thought something was going on over the last few years, but that the pieces didn’t fall into place until I explained the PMO problem in detail (but I didn’t take her on a “tour” of the porn I’d used, and she didn’t want to go there either). Telling her was absolutely the right thing to do for us.
Her support has been tremendous and I feel like a huge weight has been lifted. I think being straight with my wife has been the way to go, absolutely. But of course I cannot predict how it would be for anyone else.
Results: Our marriage is stronger than ever. Rather than hiding my habit, hiding my purchases of porn, and hiding my sexual energy from her, it’s now in the open and that is freeing. I don’t have to worry about her (or anyone) finding my browsing history, or porn stashes, etc. I am a better husband — I do more housework, share tasks with her, do more things with her (rather than figuring out a way to get my porn fix). It’s great because she appreciates it and reciprocates. Our sex life is the best it’s been in many, many years. And there have been many other benefits.
TL/DR So should you tell your wife? I don’t know how it would work for others. But I have talked with my wife about nofap and noporn and my efforts to cut out the PMO habit, and doing this with her help and support has been great for our marriage.
More detail here (expanded version of some of my post): http://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/20i1vi/married_and_over_50_pmo_problem_told_my_wife_my/
And here: http://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/20q3w7/huge_92_day_benefit_great_sex_and_no_pied/
And here: http://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/21ywxs/close_call_on_day_104_with_a_happy_ending/
And here: http://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/29qo10/200_days_its_well_worth_it/
Edit: grammar, etc.
UPDATE 2 – One year — Yeah!
Until December 15, 2013, I spent way too much time over a period of 40 years (!) jerking off to porn. It’s now been a whole year with no PMO, and lots of good things have come from ditching the PMO habit and replacing it with better habits.
I now have a better marriage, a better sex life, more energy in general, and more focus. I spend far less time fantasizing about sex with porn actresses or other women, and far more time having sex with my wife.
I no longer have to hide my browsing history or my porn stash, which feels great. I no longer try to arrange my day to be able to get my PMO fix. I feel good physically, I am eating better and I’ve lost over 20 pounds since the beginning of 2014.
None of this happened simply because I merely stopped jerking off to porn — that’s not enough by itself — what has been key is to stop the PMO cycle and to use the time and energy (that I used to throw away jerking off to porn) on better things for me and my family.
While this has been a hugely positive journey over the last year, I have to be realistic. I still procrastinate too much. I still have urges to PMO. And I am not some kind of amazing stud in bed now — I’m in my 50s and sometimes I don’t get it up or don’t last as long as I want to. But the improvement is huge, and my wife loves the change as much as I do.
Stopping the fapping habit in itself hasn’t been that difficult; staying away from porn has been harder. The biggest challenge ahead for me, I think, is to completely stop looking at sexually interesting stuff on the web. I don’t cruise porn sites any more. I don’t seek out bikini pictures. I usually stay away from sites with pictures of actresses in tight, attractive outfits. But sometimes I have looked at sites like American Apparel and have told myself that it’s OK, that I’m “just shopping for something sexy for my wife”. While that’s not PMO, I still call BS on that. I mean, let’s get real, I get a charge from that, and even if I don’t MO to it, it still is a little shot of dopamine that I should instead get from real sex with my real wife, and my goal this coming year is to cut the artificial sexual stimulation (even if not usually considered “porn”) out of my life 100%.
TL;DR This year has shown me that I can break the PMO habit, and if a guy in his 50s can do it after using porn and jerking off for decades, then others can do it too. It really helps to have this subreddit available; r/nofap has been a huge help to me, and I’m so grateful for the help and encouragement from so many of you.
This milestone sneaked up on me. Such a difference from the first 30 days! During the first month I checked my badge every day and wondered whether I could make it a whole month. I think those first 30 days were the most difficult.
Now it’s been 500 days since I decided to break the PMO habit. Yes, I still do get urges to PMO from time to time, and yes, I think I always will have to stay vigilant. But I know how to re-direct the urges, and jerking off to porn no longer is part of my daily life.
So, fellow fapstronauts, I encourage you to stick with the program: replace PMO with better things like exercise and other activities, do that consistently, one day at a time, and don’t listen to the voice that urges you to “just have a peek”. The benefits are worth it, and before long, the path will become second nature.
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