Reboot Questions

Hello,

I posted this in the porn addiction forum but thought I’d post here since I am the partner of a porn addict. My husband is struggling with compulsive porn use and porn-induced ED and is trying to reboot. During his reboot, is it advised that he refrain from masturbating? I ask because he has been masturbating every so often to fantasies of porn (scenes he holds onto) and I’m concerned this fixation is still hitting his dopamine center and slowing down his healing process. I thought if he masturbated and fantasized about me that would be healthier, but I’m not even sure about that.

And finally, is it OK for us to be engaged sexually with one another during his reboot? Because of his addiction we rarely have sex, but we want to rekindle our intimacy and sex life and I’m wondering how that fits in with the reboot.

I want to ensure full recovery and support him through this and I don’t want vestiges of his addiction to stifle his progress.

Thanks for your advice!
 

Flesh

Member
Hi, so I think you will have different answers in here, mines :
During his reboot, is it advised that he refrain from masturbating?
I’m concerned this fixation is still hitting his dopamine center and slowing down his healing process.
Yes logic would say that if he still give in to that content, weither is it visual or fantasy. You could argue that this is not visual stimuli so what's the connection ? Well I think you just give in to the same impulses with the same answers, that's the problem.

From personnal experience, I went into a reboot of 52 days hardmode (no masturbation orgasm, no sex, no visual stimuli at all) and then I stopped coz I really felt that I successfully disconnected orgasm with porn and I was only fighting biology at that point which made my life miserable but since that was initially to get away from the mecanic of porn on my brain, it was the most efficient way imo. Now I've MO twice in the last 7 days (just connecting with my own body and sensations and that was the best) and holy, I just feel so relieved, I did not "relapse" in the way that I went back to porn, I didn't have any "chaser effect" either, I have no desire of porn at all (I mean I see it like a candy that's just bad for my health and I don't give in, and it doesn't not recquiere willpower really, just a thought).

The reason I'm telling you that is to make the point that, for a period I think it will make things just work at all to not fap by himself. I would just have sex with my wife and abstain from any kind of solo pleasure (which, again imo, is the intimately linked pattern of action with porn, u gotta learn to your body to detach from that specific practice to "heal" and get only sex with the wife)

Finally, about hardmode or softmode, I have no idea. I would guess hardmode is more efficient since biologically u don't get to have any kind of high rush of dopamine which force the brain to be content with a lower baseline, but since the real motherf*cker here is porn + sex has all these other hormons (contrary to mo or pmo where u get only dopamine), so i'm not sure.

Eventually would it make it longer to keep having sex ? maybe. But would it make it easier and more doable to fight only porn and not porn+biology ? That's for sure too. But since u're there, I would really argue against his solo MO really aswell.

Sorry if I repet myself, I don't have much time to make it a readable thing
 

Gracie

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
With my husband, I did not think the reruns in his head were going to be helpful. So any sex had to be with us side by side. Even masturbation. Any intercourse we had was eyes open for both of us. He needs to retire to you. And this works!
 
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