Becoming the man I always knew I could be.
My journey began just over six months ago when I confessed to my wife that I was looking at porn. I didn’t understand that I was addicted at first or the havoc it had wreaked on my mind and body. Over five to six years, I escalated from PMO occasionally when my wife wasn’t home to watching everyday and experiencing PIED. I kept lying to myself that I didn’t have much of a problem. I wanted to stop but was never able. Finally one day, I was looking into my wife’s eyes when picked up my phone and asked why it was set to private browsing mode. I couldn’t lie anymore, I told her.
Recovering from porn addiction
This would become the most difficult journey I have ever been on. I stopped that day and haven’t been back to PMO since. I have posted more about this earlier in my journey in the Porn Addiction section forum https://forum.rebootnation.org/index.php?threads/21463/. I’ve been through withdrawal, PIED, brain fog, anxiety, intense fear. I nearly lost my marriage over the last six months. I had urges and dreams trying to take me back to porn. Destroying my life, all for a relationship with a screen. I wasn’t present for my wife or family for years. I wasn’t going to let that happen anymore.
InitiallyI thought the real battle was going to be just not looking at porn anymore. I was wrong, I had to change. I had to face it and admit what I had done, and understand why. I’ve been going to therapy, journaling, meditating, getting out with friends more. Facing my demons from what I used to think was a perfect childhood. Quitting porn became an easy decision when I saw and started to understand the pain I had caused my wife and family.
Discovering my why
What I learned is that porn is a symptom of another issue. While I was addicted to porn, I had to discover the ‘Why’, and really understand and explore my reasons. I had low self-worth, and always had an underlying sadness in my life. Through therapy, podcasts, and books, I discovered I had a sexually dysfunctional childhood. My father faced an addiction himself. My parents nearly divorced over my childhood because my dad’s problem would persist for over 30 years. I never knew, but it did affect me. I read the book ‘When He’s Married to Mom’ and discovered I had enmeshment and dependency on my family system. This led me to pressing my parents and discovering their past, and start to uncover how it had affected me. And how this shaped me to have an addiction to porn and an unhealthy relationship with sex.
I feel happy again
I still have a long journey ahead of me, but have finally after six months started to feel happy again, not feel like my marriage is over, and feel like I am becoming the man I always knew I could be. There’s still healing to be done in my relationship, but my wife and I aren’t fighting and arguing anymore, I’m not withdrawn from my life anymore, I have been able to help her and hold her up when she is down again. I am regaining everything I was throwing away
Fear, shame and anxiety are gone. I’ve recovered from PIED. My erections are normal again, sex is normal again, my emotions are getting better and more in check. I have become less needy, and more independent.
I will likely post again, but I wanted to start sharing my story, and that there is hope, and things can be better, especially without porn. that this has been a rough journey of quitting porn and rebuilding, but it can be done, I had help from my wife, therapists, close friends, but I am becoming a new man. Everyone else out there can too.
LINK – Six months – finally feeling like a new man
By – TurningAway
For more recovery stories see this page: Rebooting Accounts.
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