Hello all,
I've read some of your accounts and find them helpful.
I had a long history with porn starting as a 15-year-old, when I was introduced to porn by an older man who was grooming me. At the time of my first sexual encounter with him, I was a virgin and really had no idea what was going on. I kind of enjoyed it but was also ashamed. I did not tell my parents until my mid-30s that this had happened.
I think the encounter really spun me off on a life path as a sex addict. During my first marriage, which was an "open relationship", I had anon sex with many men, aggressively pursued all kinds of porn even back in the day when it was quite challenging to download. Porn opened my eyes to a world of sexual possibilities and I experimented with pretty much every practice imaginable, short of illegal stuff. My wife was GGG to some level but the pressure I put on her around aggressive sex practices was definitely part of our marital problems.
When the first marriage ended, I stopped the anon sex with men but continued to look at porn daily. My porn use continued throughout my second marriage, which is now ending. The relational issues that broke my second marriage were not entirely sex related, but I think that my consumption of porn on a daily basis did not help me in relating to my wife.
I am now in my mid-50s, separated, headed into divorce #2. A couple months ago, my psychiatrist suggested that I look into some of the porn-addiction sites, including "Your brain on porn". The information there really resonated with me. I finally understood this to be an addiction and that to break this time-wasting and damaging cycle, I would need to re-train my brain.
I am now a couple months out from quitting porn. Surprisingly, given the information I consumed from YBOP, it was not terribly difficult for me to stay away. I didn't have much in the way of porn stashes or accounts, but I deleted the ones that I had, and so far so good.
Honestly, I was so fucking bored with porn.
I am curious as I emerge from my second divorce and consider whether to try partnering again, or to simply remain single, whether removing this addiction from my life will change my relational life. For now, I am grateful for the time I have gotten back! I used to surf porn as part of my web-idling (looking at news sites, social media, porn, shopping, back to news, back to porn, etc.). These web-idling sessions are now much shorter in duration and I am using the recovered time for productive things.
I shudder to add up all the time that I wasted looking at porn. Here's a rough calculation:
20 minutes per day x 365 days x 35 years = about 550 8-hour workdays! And that's a conservative estimate. It could be double that.
Best,
Unitary
I've read some of your accounts and find them helpful.
I had a long history with porn starting as a 15-year-old, when I was introduced to porn by an older man who was grooming me. At the time of my first sexual encounter with him, I was a virgin and really had no idea what was going on. I kind of enjoyed it but was also ashamed. I did not tell my parents until my mid-30s that this had happened.
I think the encounter really spun me off on a life path as a sex addict. During my first marriage, which was an "open relationship", I had anon sex with many men, aggressively pursued all kinds of porn even back in the day when it was quite challenging to download. Porn opened my eyes to a world of sexual possibilities and I experimented with pretty much every practice imaginable, short of illegal stuff. My wife was GGG to some level but the pressure I put on her around aggressive sex practices was definitely part of our marital problems.
When the first marriage ended, I stopped the anon sex with men but continued to look at porn daily. My porn use continued throughout my second marriage, which is now ending. The relational issues that broke my second marriage were not entirely sex related, but I think that my consumption of porn on a daily basis did not help me in relating to my wife.
I am now in my mid-50s, separated, headed into divorce #2. A couple months ago, my psychiatrist suggested that I look into some of the porn-addiction sites, including "Your brain on porn". The information there really resonated with me. I finally understood this to be an addiction and that to break this time-wasting and damaging cycle, I would need to re-train my brain.
I am now a couple months out from quitting porn. Surprisingly, given the information I consumed from YBOP, it was not terribly difficult for me to stay away. I didn't have much in the way of porn stashes or accounts, but I deleted the ones that I had, and so far so good.
Honestly, I was so fucking bored with porn.
I am curious as I emerge from my second divorce and consider whether to try partnering again, or to simply remain single, whether removing this addiction from my life will change my relational life. For now, I am grateful for the time I have gotten back! I used to surf porn as part of my web-idling (looking at news sites, social media, porn, shopping, back to news, back to porn, etc.). These web-idling sessions are now much shorter in duration and I am using the recovered time for productive things.
I shudder to add up all the time that I wasted looking at porn. Here's a rough calculation:
20 minutes per day x 365 days x 35 years = about 550 8-hour workdays! And that's a conservative estimate. It could be double that.
Best,
Unitary
