It’s been two months since I last fapped, which is probably the longest I’ve done since since I was a teenager. My wife and I will celebrate our 10th anniversary this year and staying away from PMO has improved our relationship, emotionally and sexually, significantly. I’m enjoying sex more than I’ve ever done before.
I’m not as self-conscious anymore. I don’t feel guilt about, well, not being faithful to my wife (because that’s honestly how I see it – fapping to pictures of women who aren’t my wife counts as a mild form of infidelity to me). I’m not scared of whether I can keep it up and, if I can’t, what she’ll think. I feel deep gratitude for having a wife that is actually turned on by me. I don’t take that for granted. She tells me how much she loves me more often now and more spontaneously. It’s like she can tell there’s something different, although I haven’t told her (since I’d prefer not to broach the topic at all – don’t know if that’s a good idea or not). Who am I kidding? Women know.
But something occurred to me this morning. My wife is having her period, so she feels sore and bloated and really doesn’t like her body at the moment. So for me, sex is pretty much off the table. In the past, that might have been an occasion for fapping. But I’ve found that not fapping forces me to respect my wife and her body. I have to be patient with her body and set aside my own needs and desires. Most likely, I won’t experience any sexual pleasure over the next couple of days, solely because my wife doesn’t feel up for it. Which kind of sucks, yeah, but it’s also great. Because being forced to respect my wife’s body like that means learning to respect my wife as she is. As I feel my sexuality emerging from a kind of self-centeredness or narcissism as I get used to not fapping, I feel myself becoming better at loving my wife. Sexually and all that, yeah, but more fundamentally, in terms of who I am as a person and how I live my life. More of who I am is getting shaped around who she is, which is the point of love and marriage I think.
I always knew that fapping was disrespectful towards my wife. But having given up fapping, I’m experiencing that newfound or re-found or expanded respect in new and surprising way.
So happy I finally managed to stop!
I’m 33 . I had ccasional ED, yeah. I could be in better shape, so that might have played a part. My ED is gone, though, and the only thing that has changed is not fapping. So I credit not fapping for rewiring my brain and for clearing up my shame and self-consciousness.
I think the main symptom, though, was feeling like shit. Like less than the man I could be. Like I was failing my wife. I hated hiding part of myself from her. Hiding the shame also meant I had a really difficult time sharing myself fully sexually. I was tired of having my fear of intimacy and my insecurity control me. I have no reason to believe that my wife loves me – why am I afraid that she might not? I came to a point where I was able to simply acknowledge that that’s how part of me feels, but it’s not a feeling that fits reality. So I let it be and move on.
Another thing that motivates me is my daughter. How can I defend regularly indulging in something I never want for her to find in a man when she grows up? How can I defend contributing to a world that will treat her as nothing more than a body? If I want for her to live in a better world, I need to be the change. Obviously, that’s not something I’ll ever share with her, but for me it’s an issue of integrity. I can’t masturbate to porn and not feel like I’m making the world worse, not just in general, but for her specifically.
One more thing that actually played a part is working with drug and alcohol addicts. I counsel them on how to make a change in their lives, yet I impulsively indulge in something I clearly think makes my life worse. I draw some of my motivation from my clients. If they can do it, so can I.
LINK – Not fapping is teaching me respect for my wife’s body
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