So I’m going on 4 weeks porn/fap free. Two nights ago my wife and I started fooling around in bed for the first time since I began NoFap (and for the first time in several weeks before that) and I had to share something about the experience with this community. First, I cannot remember a time in my 7 1/2 year marriage when my wife and I got intimate where I wasn’t bringing thoughts about porn or other women into the bed with me.
I felt terrible about it, but it was important to me to reach climax, both to keep my wife convinced that there was nothing wrong with her, and also because we were trying to have kids and pregnancy doesn’t happen without the man planting the seed, so to speak.
Anyway, two nights ago when my wife and I got frisky, I made my first, real, genuine effort to focus only on HER and not allow any other women/images to enter into my mind. I also made sure to maintain eye contact with her the entire time (previously I had always closed my eyes since – and this sounds truly twisted I know – seeing my wife was a distraction from trying to playback the porn fantasies in my mind during sex).
The result of actually looking into my wife’s eyes the entire time and making a real effort to emotionally connect with her was one of the most amazing sexual experiences we’ve ever had! For the first time in my LIFE I felt emotionally connected to her during sex (the first time I’ve felt this with ANY woman while being intimate). During those moments, it actually felt like I was looking at her the same way I did back when we first started dating – like someone beautiful and otherworldly and transcendent and out-of-my-league who was allowing me into her own private space, created just for the two of us.
On top of this, it actually PHYSICALLY felt different than any other experience I had had in the past (whether alone or with a partner). I don’t know how much of the sensation was due to my not fapping for almost 4 weeks or maybe it was a fluke or something, but the actual feeling was more intense and hot – like, physically hot temperature-wise.
I guess we’re going to have to try it again to know if this sensation was a fluke or not, but we’re taking things slow anyway since my recovery is the important thing and once things are properly reset we have all the time in the world to make up for lost intimacy from earlier in our marriage.
All that to say, the benefits of NoFap are REAL and sometimes feel magical (figuratively and literally). And if there are any other recovering couples out there, I would love to know if you’ve had any similar experiences to my own.
LINK – Surprising and magical experience with my wife
by dcprime
ORGINAL STORY
New to the NoFap group: My story.
Hey guys. I’m 38 and married and have gone from daily fapping to no fapping for about 3 weeks now. After my wife and I had many difficult conversations about this issue, we started seeing a sex counsellor who gave us some proper information and ultimately led to me connecting with this group.
It took 7 years of marriage with constant sex problems (little interest in actual sex on my part, ED issues, difficulty getting pregnant, etc.) before we realized just how seriously porn affects healthy relationships. Single guys: porn doesn’t only affect your ability to get a girlfriend, but it will seriously screw (pun intended) with your ability to have true intimacy with your wife (or serious girlfriend).
Now my amazing wife and I are taking on this issue as a team, and despite how difficult it is for her, she has been such an amazing support to me. We’ve gone from spending our evenings “doing our own thing” separately to spending 1-2 hours every night just talking – sometimes about this issue, sometimes about life in general. But I’ve seen the emotional intimacy grow in just a few weeks of being in recovery.
I know it’s a long road ahead, but the rewards of having a great marriage and of connecting more deeply with my 3-year-old son are so worth it. I’m happy that I’m developing the skills now to be able to help my son when he starts dealing the issue of online porn later in life. How incredible will it be to say to him “I used to struggle with this, but I overcame it, and your mom and I have this great marriage because we got through this together.”
UPDATE
Relapse after 31 days – Lessons Learned
Well guys, I made it exactly one month (longest NoFap in many MANY years) and then relapsed yesterday night. I had felt it building for a while, and when I found myself alone for several hours last night, I ended up browsing through a large repository of online softcore stuff until I finally orgasmed. Here are my thoughts and feelings on the entire experience while it’s still fresh:
Signs of slipping: I had actually felt myself slipping for several days, perhaps even a week before the actual relapse. My vigilance in keeping my thoughts on track had become lax.
- I was casting lingering glances at magazine covers in grocery stores, and searching through crowds for attractive women to notice (even though seeing them was not fulfilling).
- I was allowing my mind to “test” me – I found myself thinking “Hey, you haven’t had an erection in a long time… maybe you should just play some scenarios in your head and see if the apparatus is still functional…” Because of this, I felt myself starting up old habits of indulging fantasies that were not productive for my NoFapping.
- I started looking at material online that was not porn, but was still not a good idea for someone trying to NoFap. I watched some YouTube videos with pretty girls talking about relationships. I found myself searching for non-porn material that nonetheless had attractive women so that I could feel like I was not messing up, while still indulging that part of my brain that was craving online arousal.
Sliding down this slippery slope into relapse cemented the concept in my head that you cannot open the door to online arousal even a crack – you need to keep your eyes and your brain pure and remember that this is about building real relationships (and real arousal) with real people.
Post Relapse Insights: 1. Porn is shallow and hollow. I’m a married man (my wife has been consistently helping me through the recovery process) and when I told my wife that I had messed up, she was heartbroken. Seeing her like that was brutal. I saw in stark contrast just how deep and rich and beautiful my relationship with her is compared to the shallowness of online porn. Why did I ever think that watching stuff online could compare with true intimacy?
- Porn is not satisfying. For the most part, the people you see in porn movies look and act fake. It’s so much easier to see it when you can contrast it with a real, intimate relationship. I realized that even when looking for porn, I was trying to find examples of people looking like they really do love each other, and it’s glaringly obvious (when your eyes are truly open) that this is not what’s being put on the screen.
- Sometimes the old porn lifestyle seems “golden” and “beautiful” in hindsight (when you’re being tempted to relapse). It’s not. After relapsing, you see it for what it truly is: Childish and manipulative and fake and heavy with the weight of its contrast to real love. It feels like slavery and bondage. You feel like you’re eating desert at the time, but the taste turns out to be not what you’re really craving, and afterwards it sits in your stomach and makes you feel sick. I’ll be holding on to the memory of this experience to help prevent relapses when my mind starts lying to me again.
- Porn ruins the rest of your day. It turns what might have been an amazing day into something heavy with frustration, disappointment, and depression. My wife was in such a great mood until I confessed to her and her face fell. Suddenly the amazing evening I could have shared with her turned into a night of shame and heartbreak. I never want to have another night like that again. I don’t want to feel like I need to hide from myself because I’m too ashamed to live in my own head.
- The old images and ways of thinking come crowding back for attention. Suddenly, as I was trying to get to sleep yesterday night, random porn images started leaping into my brain again – seemingly out of nowhere. This was an experience that had not happened since starting NoFap a month ago, and it scared me. Suddenly women were objects in my mind again instead of people. I don’t want to fall back into that way of thinking. I need to see people as people, and I need to stay on that path of healing.
So here I am resetting my badge and looking forward in the hope that my relapse experiences are behind me. Stay strong, brothers, and I hope that my experiences can help keep you on track too.
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