This recovery story was written in response to the following question
Not sure if this is the place to post and my husband might be somewhere on this group, but I don’t know where else to ask. Crying as I write this. He’s had an addiction to porn since he was a teenager and was open about it when we first met and what he was doing about it. But, I was naive and I didn’t understand how it affected his brain chemistry or our relationship. We were both technically virgins when we got married, but I quickly realized there were a lot of expectations he had that I wasn’t comfortable with. Fast forward 8 years of marriage and it’s started to dawn on me that this issue has always been there and it’s the big pink elephant in the room that I don’t even know how to approach. It hurts a lot. I feel like porn is robbing my husband of any kind of emotional resilience, because rather than working through his feelings, he uses porn and masturbation like a drug. What does it look like to have healthy sexuality in our marriage? When he had gone porn free for a few months, I felt like I became the object of his obsession and just a means to an end. Is there a sub reddit just for partners of porn addicts?? What do I do to bring freedom to our relationship? I feel so lost. Thank you for your advice. -a loving wife
Answer by Clonethefragile
As a husband who has dealt with sex addiction/porn addiction I feel like I can give my opinion more so than advice. everyone’s brains work differently so what worked for me might work for him.
Patience and communication is key, porn has a way of setting unrealistic expectations from sex, visually, physically and even scenario arousal. An alternative universe of arousal that any fetish can be viewed. Anything as awesome as it can be can become same old same old and that goes for porn what once had your blood boiling in lust can become boring and uninteresting so you go deeper and deeper until you don’t even know what gets you going anymore.
I had become desensitized to normal sex to wanting to make love to my beautiful wife. why wasn’t my life like the videos where I come home to some wild sex fiesta? It lead me to drinking heavily, loss of physical affection, seeking attention off other women. I was a complete mess, I stopped seeing my wife as my partner and instead a sexual object and I would argue like woe is me my sex life sucks because I’m not coming home to some sex dungeon, complete unrealistic expectations and grip on reality.
Whenever we did have sex I could barely maintain a erection, my head wasn’t in reality “how can I be a stud like in porn” was my concentration, her pleasure my goal and not out of sincere lost in the moment passion but instead some narcissistic intention for gratification.
My wife was aware of my situation and when I stopped this negative habit things started to change dramatically at first for the worst but then for the better. The object for obsession stage came to me and thankfully she didn’t have any of it, I turned my complete arousal need onto her, I needed that lust the temporary feeling of a high in life…like a dog in heat I was on her non stop, got snappy and agitated but shortly it all just went away.
There is no insecurity or expectations anymore, I don’t care what other people are doing with their genitals, I don’t compare my sex life to anything, I don’t compare my manhood to actors. When you find real sincere passion all you think about is that person in the moment and making them feel good without a care in the world.
It takes a lot of self control if your husband wants to make this change he has to want to do it for himself, patience, communication and love is the key, don’t become his computer screen because that just gives him what he thinks he needs until it no longer works and he has to move onto something else.
Flirting really helped me personally, it’s hard to remember at times what hooked us in at the start but I got to a place I was happy with in recovery/my relationship so flirting really game me excitement back into my relationship (nothing too crude to trigger porn fetishes) suggested nude pics or compliments from sex the night before etc really made our time apart in work enjoyable and coming home a little exciting with a natural passion towards my wife.
At the end of the day the choice is his, he has the power to turn his life around for the better, he’s not going to achieve a better future and relationship if he’s pretending to stop but sneaking off to the shower more than usual, he has to be open and honest about how he’s feeling and you have to be honest about how it makes you feel.
Personal pro’s to quitting:
Natural excitement through light physical affection even kissing compared to oral sex to try maintaining an erection for sex. (I’m like a teenager again at 30) he will achieve better erections (health permitting) and better orgasms.
I respect, love and desire my wife as whole, she is not a sexual object to fulfill my perverted fantasies wired by pornography & pleasing her brings me joy compared to how much I can feed my ego.
I’ve started to appreciate myself I no longer feel insecure that I’m not lugging around a 14 inch wiener, I don’t have abs of steel or the stamina of a race horse, I no longer compare myself to an unrealistic standard of acting, don’t over think anything just enjoy the moment.
I have found hidden inspiration with my time…positive, energetic, testosterone fueled, artistic mindset I just generally as a whole feel like a better man and husband.
In conclusion to my ramblings, I wish you luck, I commend you for not giving up on him but honestly once he’s kicked the habit his life will change for the better, as long as their is other women taking his attention off you and his life there will always be something in between your happiness together.
Sex can be mind blowing between 2 people who are there, you just have to be there mentally and physically.
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