HE'S BACK! I've finally stopped. Now to hold on. My story to recovery

[Andrew1973]

Great to read Shade - I love the fact that you are investing in yourself as well as simply just trying to 'beat the beast'. I believe it's a very sensible and holistic strategy. Hopefully the meditation will help calm your mind as well and improve your sleep. Whilst I usually do my meditation in the morning after exercise, I sometimes just sit in silence before bed to calm my mind and find that helps. Enjoy the weekend and take care.

 

[ShadeTrenicin]

Hey UKGuy,

As always thanks for your interest and support it really helps.


Today is day 11, sadly our cat has died. Its a really sad thing and me and the wife are going to bury her now. I noticed that I've been able to express my emotions much better when compared to still being full in the PMO... So even in a mourning proces I've notice improvement.

Thanks guys

 

[KittyHawk]

Hi ShadeTrenicin,

I have a similar experience. While hooked on PMO, I was emotionally distant. I realize that now, since I spent a lot of time cuddling with my wife last 2 days. At this point, it was almost non-sexual as I am still too numbed from PMO to get excited by the prospect of real sex But we are getting there!

Keep going!

 

[Orbiter]

Hi Shade,

Condolences on the loss of your pet cat. Cats are such wonderful companions and it's always sad to have to lay one to rest. The emotional distance that seems to come with the territory of PMO addiction (or any addiction for that matter) seems to slowly erode all of our relationships over time, friends, partners, family all alike. I'm glad and happy for you that you were able to be emotionally available and present for your wife.

If there's one thing i've learnt in life, it is how difficult it is to find a true partner in life, someone who you can work together with to build a future together. It maybe a case of the grass being greener on the other side, but I think you're both very lucky people to have that.

 

[Andrew1973]

Assuming you live to an average age Shade, you?ve got more of your adult life left to live than you have already used. How great therefore that your eyes have been opened now in time to make the most of it. Like you say, don?t dwell on what you can?t change. Just what you have influence over (like the stoics taught us too).
Best wishes to your wife for a speedy recovery.

 

[ShadeTrenicin]

Hey Guys,


First of all, thanks for the lovely replies about the cat! It's really appreciated!

So, two nights ago the wife and I had a very long and deep conversation about sex and what the current status is. My wife is still concerned about my earlier behaviours in bed and that sometimes I would do weird new things (like kissing differently all of a sudden). She once thought I was cheating on her (apparently one off the telltale signs of having an affair is doing new things in bed with the wife one would normally do with the other lover) but, this has never been the case. My 'cheating' actions all took place on the internet with other woman on MSN at first and later random webcam chat sites. 

Still, the thing was that I never listened to her or never did what she asked. Not because I'm an asshole, but because............

And this is the part that frustrates me. I do not have a clear answer for this. I know in the past my mind would wander, which means that when I was focusing on her so to speak that my mind was not fully committed to it. But there was something else. I know that I've always approached sex in a clinical robotic way. Goal oriented, without passion and feeling. It was a mechanical act, like I've learned to do so on the internet. I had the ability to engage in sexual actions on the internet and if i wanted something else, with a click of a button i could skip to another person..

Recently I've done some meditations about it, on focusing what kind of a person I was like during the act of my addiction... And frankly it scared me. It felt forceful, my face literally frowned and my muscles clenched.. The frustration immediately took a hold of me; it felt so goddamn unnatural.
And this was also the way I approached intimacy with my wife; frustrated and tense. I almost wouldn't let her touch me, I wanted the lead, there was no connection between us.
Frankly it was horrible.

As you can imagine, i can fully understand why she doesn't want intimacy with me yet. She expressed that she feels that there is a small part inside of me that hasn't been adressed yet; the part of why the fuck i would suddenly kiss differently, do things she didn't want or why i wouldn't do what she liked. She once told me that it felt as if i was punishing her for something.

So currently I'm at a loss on what to do. I feel that the tenseness and the frustration have gone and before we put a stopped in the sex, we had a short but good run of nice intimate sex.. But there is a lot of history between us. 15 years of distant sex with a frustrated partner. I can't blame her for feeling this way, in fact i wonder how she lasted this long. She put a lot of effort into making it better.

But we now know where it came from, the next thing is to figure this out..


Thanks for reading guys

 

[Andrew1973]

I think this is progress Shade. Much better to address this issue openly, together and in a caring manner than to 'paper over the cracks' (An English saying which refers to putting wallpaper on a cracked wall rather than repairing the wall first). The very fact that you are prepared to engage in this dialogue with your wife in an unhurried, unselfish way - a way that puts her needs first / equal to yours, is correcting the past behaviours and demonstrating that you have changed. I say two things:
1) keep on talking together - don't rush, explore, be honest. Will getting some outside help such as a counsellor help or not?
2) don't become impatient if it takes time - I know if I was in your situation, that would become a trigger for me - after a period of time I would be thinking about 'my rights' (This is why I always relapsed after some kind of disagreement with my wife). Be strong.
Also - I am sure that your wife is having a tough time at the moment with the Covid recovery and the cat passing away. Time is a great healer, and I am sure if you are patient and loving and attentive, things will not only heal, but perhaps be even better than they ever were before together.
Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[metal22]

ShadeTrenicin,
There are 2 podcasts that I've been listening to for the last week and have gotten a lot from.  One is called The Betrayed The Addicted and the Expert.  The other is Sex within Marriage.  I have found them on Itunes,  though I'd imagine there are different avenues to find them.  They have both opened doors in my thinking that have allowed my to start to process my own thoughts and emotions that get stuck.

 

[ShadeTrenicin]

@UKGuy, thanks for the advice, much appreciated. Again thanks for all the time and effort you put into reading, thinking and posting about my process!

@Metal22, thanks for the tip! I will definately look them up!

 

[KittyHawk]

Hi ShadeTrenicin,

regarding the issues you are describing. As the others pointed out, remain open and communicative. But also don't overanalyze this. I firmly believe, that this will sort out on it's own as your reboot progresses.

I encountered some weird feelings in my past reboots. For example when I lasted about 2 weeks without PMO, I started to be horny and wanted to have a sex with my wife. She wasn't in the mood for whatever reason and when nothing happened I was so angry. I didn't act angry towards her but internally I was furious. It usually led to a relapse soon after. Beware of a similar mental trap. Real people aren't like P. You can't get off whenever and wherever you want.

I hope this helps,
KittyHawk

 

[Andrew1973]

How are you doing Shade? I can see you posted elsewhere this morning, and trust you're all good and making the most of the weekend? Have a good one.

 

[ShadeTrenicin]

Thanks KittyHawk, for the advice.

Over analyzing is something that we used to do, On the other hand i dont want to under analyze things as well. My wife does has a point and I will have to adress it. It definately has something to do with rebooting, but I think it would be lazy and careless of me to fully write it off to my addiction. I have to approach this from other angles as well because I feel that the addiction enhanced / warped other parts of my personality. So with the addiction slowly subsiding, these traits might still be there, so to be sure i want to adress them.

@UKGuy, Thanks for checking up on me!


It has been a couple of days indeed, I've been back to work and been focused on that and yesterday the forum was down again  .The company i work at is not doing to well at the moment and theres talks of 20% cutbacks... Even though we are financially more than stable, it still is kind of a stressor.

I'm not doing to great at the moment, but it's all in my head. My day was pretty shitty up to an hour ago. Grumpy and unhappy with everything in a way a teenager can be. But i know it's in my head. There is something inside of me that makes me feel unsatisfied for no reason and i have to unearth whatever that is. But the stresses of salary cuts, our cat dying and worrying about my wife's health (she's fine, no worries) has taken its toll i guess

Fortunately, however disgruntled i was acting, i did not feel like that towards my wife. I knew that the feeling came from a problem inside and was actually proned to seek her comfort and affection. This is a huge U-turn from how i approached these feelings before. Back in the day i would let feelings like that take over my entire mental state and day and nothing would be free from my self inflicted emotional wrath. So, I am happy that i recognized the origin of the feelings and seek out the comfort of my wife. This shows me that the past 5 months of rebooting and working on myself have payed off a lot. And the moment i recognized that progress, my mood was gone.

I've also been thinking about how to raise kids and the wife and I talked about this during our walk. The thoughts were triggered by a short series of posts in Joepanic's thread, on the effect of P on children and how to approach this.


In hindsight this was actually a pretty good day because it has taught me a lot of things, the main things being;
a; i am very much capable of recognizing a bad mood and act accordingly
b; i have grown tremendously in dealing with bad moods

Urge wise I'm doing okay, this is day 18 so that is also going well. The moment I am typing the 18 days i recognize that around day 13-20 i usually have a hard time emotion wise after a relapse. So its very likely that there was a P induced influence as well. The last few days i have had a lot of urge to search for soft triggers so to speak.. A little voice that says its ok to look up that actress. Stuff like that. This is also an indication that something is up.

It is time for some self help and personal growth! I feel like a good cry tonight.

Anyway, that's it for now, I'm off to the other threads to read up since I've not been here a couple of days. I'm wondering how all of you are doing!


Post edit: Reading tip; If im feeling down I always love reading Haemin Sunim. Theres a book called Things you can only see if you slow down, how to be calm in a busy world. Reading this book is like being covered with a big blanket of unconditional love

 

[Andrew1973]

Thanks for the book recommendation Shade - I will add it to my list.
It's really good that you had the right perspective at the end of the say - realising that it was in fact a pretty good day as you had grown.
There's a great book which if you haven't read, I'd recommend it - it's called Stop Thinking Start Living by Richard Carlson. In it it talks about moods being like a pendulum on a clock - constantly oscillating from side to side. This was a great realisation to me - just like in the 6 point PMO plan - if you realise that those moods are ALWAYS temporary, and that you don't even have to think your way out of them, solve anything etc etc. Soon the pendulum will be on the other side. It was so empowering for me. The book articulates it much better than I do, but hopefully you get the picture.
Be strong with the triggers my friend. I am with you (and also challenged myself due to arousing dreams last night). It's time just to realise that they will pass, and that that will represent more growth for us on our journey. Good luck (and with the company situation also). Have a good day.

 

[ShadeTrenicin]

Thanks for the book recommendation UKGuy, I'll try to find it (the main Dutch online bookstore does not have it, but we have amazon  since recently, so ill look for it there!).

Just was talking with the wife again and we were discussing out personal growth. I also outed that the last couple of days have been hard for me and that I had trouble finding my peace and just be. I was restless so to speak. The accompanying feelings i have with that are of course triggers. Huge ones.. I used to link the triggers to boredom, but i know now that it wasn't boredom, but restlessness due to emotions i have not addressed.
During the talk we also talked about a black page in our relationship. It was about 3 years ago.......

At that time I was finishing evening school (bachelors in Mechanical Engineering), working full time and rebuilding the complete 1st floor of our house..
There was a lot of stress, because my employer was not so cooperative with my education anymore (which they were in the beginning) and so I had to do my thesis at home (funny because one of the recommendations from my thesis ended up saving the company 200k a year)

You can imagine that working 40 hours + writing a thesis + remodeling a house was quite a lot to handle and i was practically depressed and really not a great person to be around. It nearly destroyed our relationship.

But, in our talk, my wife asked that if the whole problem of my negative personality at that time could be linked due to the fact that I wasn't able to indulge in my addiction. Because i was busy all of the time and had no alone time.. DAMN, she was 100% on point. The fact that she asked this is because i said that i notice that i become grumpy during periods of my reboot (usually 3-8 days and 13-20 days after the last indulgence). And she was right, my stress relieve/coping mechanism was porn of course. This was an amazing eyeopener for us and it has also helped us to close that period of our lives...

Anyway, that is what I wanted to share with you all today.


Thanks for reading guys (and girls perhaps? Anyone is welcome)

 

[Orbiter]

Hey Shade,

Sorry to hear of the stressors you've been facing going back to work. I can relate strongly as my work has been experiencing some significant financial hardships despite being an essential service. Since March our job security has been very uncertain and though i'm doing ok at the moment, who knows what the next few months may bring. As scary as it is, I feel it's good to be working and knowing there is some money coming in during times like this. Focusing on the job itself and accepting that I can't control what happens beyond that has been of some comfort and given me something to ultimately be thankful for as there are others doing it much harder. I wish you the best of luck with this all the same.

Though I am probably the last person who should be making observations on relationships or marriages it's sounds like, as difficult as it is, these conversations with your wife have been both productive in addressing some issues that have affected your lives for a long time as well as opened up some constructive communication to healing for both of you. There is a lot to reflect on and a lot of harsh realities we all have to face, but I feel if we can deal with them unselfishly, with humility and a genuine desire to grow, only good things can come from it.

We're all rooting for you. Keep up the great work.

 

[mr.slurps]

Hiya Shade,  I just found your journal (thanks UK). 
Since I've some chores (food shopping for 1) I'm not going to provide any words of wisdom today. (I tried charging my wife for them, it didn't work out too well. Now she's an ex.)

 

[ShadeTrenicin]

Hey Orbiter,

Thanks for dropping by! The stressors at work aren't really bad, it's just that i can find work in general quite a challenge sometimes due to my concentration problem. I've stopped taking ritalin which improves my mood and creativity but the downside is that i have to re-learn to find motivation and put it into action, it takes quite some energy. But hey, i'll live! I've got a great job in which i've got 80% freedom and an amazing team of collegues! I'm workig from home 50% of the time now, and i only work 36 hours a week so it's not that work is the stressor but the challenge of ADHD!

So my mood is still going up and down and the past weeks i've noticed a drop in motivation and energy. For all sorts of things. I also have a lack of focus in general in life. This is currently mainly due to the fact that the company i work at is financially unsure, even with the government support.. And the 20% cutbacks are also demotivating. The whole team is currently unsure and demotivated. The financial cutbacks on itself are not a problem for us. But the insecurity for the future are!

So i don't know where I'm at this moment.

Luckily i do have this forum and posting in other threads is something i like to do!

Based on what i've written above i've decided that i want to set some more concrete goals for myself!

I will call it Shades 90 day plan to be a porn free, healthier goal oriented person: the goals are:

1. Reach 90 days PMO free. Then reevalutate and set next challenge period
2. Lose 3 kg in that period! (I should exercise more) the quality of my diet is well above average since the wife and I are very focussed on rating all the nutrients we need. BUT, I do have an enourmous sweet tooth and can endulge myself in snack nights So i need to cut into snacks as well
3. Make a list of chores / things to fix in the house for the coming 90 days

Cheers guys!

 

[ShadeTrenicin]

Something just popped up in my mind weirdly as I was posting on some other threads and it's mainly because of what Joepanic mentioned in his thread.
At the moment i'm really happy with the activity on this forum and it makes me feel bonded to you guys even though i have no idea who you are outside of your addictions.
What Joe mentioned is something similar with the added notion that once a guy feels that he's beaten porn he tends to leave the forum. And that struck me with a sort of sadness.
I would hate to see any of you leave at this moment, but that feeling is purely based on my feeling of melancholia because any of you leaving this forum means he's beaten P addiction (or is at least capable of going at it alone).

Anyway, I wanted to share that with you guys!


So, i'm feeling good today and good about myself for coming up with the 90 day plan. I do feel like i need to make it a bit more concrete and elaborate.

 

[Andrew1973]

Hi Shade,
I have been reflecting about this too.
My father in law is an alcoholic. He last had a drink over 25 years ago, but he still attends his weekly meetings as if he didn't, he knows (or fears) what would happen. It's therefore become a way of life for him, and as a consequence he has developed some wonderful friendships and become something of a mentor for others who are not yet as advanced on their journey.
I was wondering the other day (On Joe's thread I think), what happens to the guys that leave here? How many of them stay clean vs relapse? I don't know the answer of course, but what I do know is that even if they have become 100% healed, by leaving they are passing up an opportunity to continue to help others, to become mentors, an inspiration - and that is something that I think they would benefit from as much as the people they are helping. I'm not judging at all, but why wouldn't you want to lend a hand to a brother in need? It makes you feel good, especially when you are appreciated. It perhaps it makes the pain you went through all the more worthwhile because you are able to use the learnings and experience to help many more people (and their partners/kids etc) avoid that suffering. At the same time...it also keeps you clean. I don't believe that 90 days is sufficient to 'reboot an go' like some kind of hard drive erasure. This is an ongoing process and engaging in it on a long term basis is central to one's continued recovery and sobriety. This for me, has been the missing piece of my jigsaw after years of trying to tweak my own plan - I would be foolish and complacent to think I could do without it. At the same time, we have to guard against apathy, the joy of finding others to share with starting to diminish, the sense that the forum has done its job (for us) and there are other things to move onto. That fatigue is natural in any activity or venture, and I think being aware of it in ourselves (almost like being aware of triggers) is the best way to ensure long term engagement within the community, and as a consequence more likely positive outcomes for all. I'm not planning on going anywhere yet, and look forward to celebrating your 90 days together!! Cheers my friend.

 

[blueicetea10]

I've also thought about the people who stop posting on this forum. No doubt the graveyard of long abandoned accounts, swearing ultimate abstinence and then fading into inactivity vastly outweigh the accounts still active. I wonder if that tally measures more the number of recovered individuals or those who lost their way. It makes me grateful that I'm still here because even though I'm posting about the issues I'm having, I'm still on the path to recovery. We're all on this path together and I enjoyed reading your message about sticking around to help others who are suffering as we heal and become stronger. Perhaps one day face to face conversations about this issue will become mainstream and we can talk to our family and friends, brothers, sons and buddies about this issue. Regardless I'm glad to have this community to share with and support each other, and your post has changed the way I think about recovery, so thanks.

Best wishes all, I hope you have a great day