Noah
Member
I'm here because I've hit rock bottom with my porn addiction. My wife discovered my OnlyFans account and is devastated. This isn't the first time we've been down this road. Before we were married, she discovered me masturbating to photos of people I know, including her friends, on Facebook. She forgave me, and we got married. I have opened my laptop a couple times in front of her to find a porn video staring her in the face. Each time, she felt betrayed and angry, but she allowed me to convince her I wouldn't do it again, and she forgave me.
Meanwhile, I kept doing it. I looked at porn several times a day, rarely actually masturbating more than once a day, but nonetheless rewiring my brain. It left me unable to achieve an erection for my wife, although I could get rock hard to porn virtually anytime. Early in our marriage, she wanted to have sex a lot, and I would frequently turn her down because the anxiety of being unable to perform was so stressful. This left her sad and confused. It did major damage to her self-esteem and ultimately our marriage. My addiction to porn and our inability to connect physically led to all kinds of problems in our marriage. I was ashamed, and I frequently took it out on her. I raged and verbally abused her. Again and again, she forgave me. I have been a miserable SOB for most of our marriage - depressed, angry, irritable - and she continues to have hope that I can change.
Now that I have come to accept my addiction, I realize that this all started long ago. I was sexually abused my father as a toddler. This led to my being both afraid of intimacy and hyper-sexual, a combination that lends itself perfectly to porn addiction. I was raised by my mother, who honestly had no idea about how to deal with a young man's burgeoning sexuality. She allowed me to rent R-rated movies filled with nudity. I borrowed her Victoria's Secret Catalogs, cut out the photos that turned me on the most, and posted them up on my walls. This was when I was 10 years old. When I was 14, she allowed my uncle to give me a subscription to Playboy. Looking back, she was clearly insecure about raising a boy and justified these choices by thinking that she was encouraging my manliness.
If the porn addiction started early, so did my erectile dysfunction. The first time I got close to losing my virginity I couldn't maintain an erection. I was 16. I was far too embarrassed to talk to the girl afterwards, and she was devastated, thinking that she had done something wrong. That wasn't the first time my inability to perform, and my shame about it, hurt the women I cared about.
Over the years, I had a few girlfriends, and I got through sex by running through fantasies in my head during intercourse. Rarely was I ever present or in the moment. I would occasionally be unable to stay hard with them, but it never happened often enough that I had to answer for my porn addiction. Regardless, those relationships ended, probably in part because I never was able to emotionally or physically connect with them in the first place.
But with my wife, it is different. I don't want it to end. She has stuck through through a lot of abuse, and I want to honor her by becoming a fully functioning sexual person, a better husband, and a good person. That's why I'm here. I've known all along that my porn addiction was hurting her, but this latest incident with my OnlyFans account, which hurt her more because it felt like I was having a relationship with the "models" I followed, has made it all clear to me.
I still have a lot to learn about all this. But I know that I don't want to watch porn anymore, and I want to be responsible for my own actions, instead of blaming it on my father or anyone else. I feel like this is my last chance to be happy, and I plan to make the most of it.
Meanwhile, I kept doing it. I looked at porn several times a day, rarely actually masturbating more than once a day, but nonetheless rewiring my brain. It left me unable to achieve an erection for my wife, although I could get rock hard to porn virtually anytime. Early in our marriage, she wanted to have sex a lot, and I would frequently turn her down because the anxiety of being unable to perform was so stressful. This left her sad and confused. It did major damage to her self-esteem and ultimately our marriage. My addiction to porn and our inability to connect physically led to all kinds of problems in our marriage. I was ashamed, and I frequently took it out on her. I raged and verbally abused her. Again and again, she forgave me. I have been a miserable SOB for most of our marriage - depressed, angry, irritable - and she continues to have hope that I can change.
Now that I have come to accept my addiction, I realize that this all started long ago. I was sexually abused my father as a toddler. This led to my being both afraid of intimacy and hyper-sexual, a combination that lends itself perfectly to porn addiction. I was raised by my mother, who honestly had no idea about how to deal with a young man's burgeoning sexuality. She allowed me to rent R-rated movies filled with nudity. I borrowed her Victoria's Secret Catalogs, cut out the photos that turned me on the most, and posted them up on my walls. This was when I was 10 years old. When I was 14, she allowed my uncle to give me a subscription to Playboy. Looking back, she was clearly insecure about raising a boy and justified these choices by thinking that she was encouraging my manliness.
If the porn addiction started early, so did my erectile dysfunction. The first time I got close to losing my virginity I couldn't maintain an erection. I was 16. I was far too embarrassed to talk to the girl afterwards, and she was devastated, thinking that she had done something wrong. That wasn't the first time my inability to perform, and my shame about it, hurt the women I cared about.
Over the years, I had a few girlfriends, and I got through sex by running through fantasies in my head during intercourse. Rarely was I ever present or in the moment. I would occasionally be unable to stay hard with them, but it never happened often enough that I had to answer for my porn addiction. Regardless, those relationships ended, probably in part because I never was able to emotionally or physically connect with them in the first place.
But with my wife, it is different. I don't want it to end. She has stuck through through a lot of abuse, and I want to honor her by becoming a fully functioning sexual person, a better husband, and a good person. That's why I'm here. I've known all along that my porn addiction was hurting her, but this latest incident with my OnlyFans account, which hurt her more because it felt like I was having a relationship with the "models" I followed, has made it all clear to me.
I still have a lot to learn about all this. But I know that I don't want to watch porn anymore, and I want to be responsible for my own actions, instead of blaming it on my father or anyone else. I feel like this is my last chance to be happy, and I plan to make the most of it.
