Working at it, but not quite understanding.

[FightingForUs]

I don’t know how long this post is going to be, but I’m hoping to get some support and insight.

To preface, my boyfriend and I have been dating for about 4 months and we both care about each other very much. He’s been very open with me about his problem, and I’ve been trying to be so understanding, but it’s not getting much easier for me as we continue our relationship.

5-6 years ago I was dating a guy who I lived with, and we never had a good sex life. I think we had sex two-three times in the 4 months we dated, which was never enough for me, and although I voiced that to him, he had always had an excuse as to why we didn’t do it. After I had come home from work one day, he was sitting on the couch just watching porn, like it was a casual movie. Of course I was confused and hurt and questioned him, and he said it wasn’t a big deal and I was being dramatic. Then, he wouldn’t let me shower with him anymore and kept locking the door, and I found the door unlocked once when he was in the bathroom, so I opened it and he was sitting on the toilet masturbating with the shower running. He promised me he wouldn’t do it again, but low and behold I woke up next to him a different night masturbating right next to me in our bed. This whole relationship made me hate porn and wonder what it did for him that I couldn’t do - he never tried to have sex with me, he never touched me, and it was always the porn that he went to. I grew very insecure about myself and my body, and of course we broke up in the end.

Since then, I have developed a passive feeling about porn, I neither hate it nor love it. And I had grown out of my insecurities and have been very confident with myself, I’ve had multiple partners/relationships since and have never had an issue. Now, though, I find myself in a tough spot. My current partner has been open since the beginning of our relationship about what he thinks is PIED. He explained it to me and I began doing research to understand, and I believe it’s both PIED and sexual anxiety. I’ve been open about my support and understanding, and he says he is doing his part and not masturbating or watching porn as best he can because he recognizes the issue and wants to fix it so we can have a healthy sex life. He’s been pretty good about it the past couple of weeks, so I’m so proud of him for that and hope he keeps trucking! Here is the problem I’m running into:

My brain keeps taking me back to 5-6 years ago, when my ex put me in such an uncomfortable situation and made me hate myself. I find myself wondering if I’m good enough for my current partner, does he masturbate to my photos? Is it even healthy for him to masturbate to my photos? If he’s not, how can he not just STOP watching porn?

I’m struggling because the logic side of my brain KNOWS it’s not that easy and that it takes time - especially after reading many posts here and other information on the web. But the emotional side of me can’t escape feeling like I’m being shut out sexually, and blaming myself for it. He continuously provides me with reassurance and I am so grateful for him doing so. I am always supportive and trying to help him, but I feel a bit needy and selfish when I get his reassurance, because he is the one really struggling here. I just need some advice.

How do I get out of my emotions and stop making all of our conversations about this, and listen to more of the logic side of things and just KNOW we can get through this with both of us working together? I know I want to be with him and he wants to be with me. I just don’t know how to navigate this without continuing to fall into the same place I was mentally 5-6 years ago..

I hope this all made sense, and I’m happy to take advice and clear up any confusion or questions. Please help!

 

[fran001]

Well look I have PIED and I’m in a relationship as well you don’t know how many times I have had to make my girl believe she is no the problem. And that’s the reality, girls are never the problem…don’t be mad about you, believe me when I am saying that PIED is one of the most difficult things that a man can experience for 2 main reasons (well in my case) 1. I am making my girl insecure 2. I have the constant feeling that she could get tired of me because I can please her as she would like. But sadly the last one is not in our hands, you don’t know how much we are crazy about you girls is just simply our brain that has been broken due to porn. But you don’t know how much your help is useful for us. I am sure your boy loves you and loves your body just be patience let him recover all the things that he lost due to all that trash that he watched on internet. And finally I recommend you to advice him about not fapping with your naked pictures, I am not saying that you don’t have to send him more photos just make sure he only look at it and don’t fantasize or fap with it. Just stop thinking it’s your body or something it’s just his mind that has been damaged.

 

[therealthing]

Well look I have PIED and I’m in a relationship as well you don’t know how many times I have had to make my girl believe she is no the problem. And that’s the reality, girls are never the problem…don’t be mad about you, believe me when I am saying that PIED is one of the most difficult things that a man can experience for 2 main reasons (well in my case) 1. I am making my girl insecure 2. I have the constant feeling that she could get tired of me because I can please her as she would like. But sadly the last one is not in our hands, you don’t know how much we are crazy about you girls is just simply our brain that has been broken due to porn. But you don’t know how much your help is useful for us. I am sure your boy loves you and loves your body just be patience let him recover all the things that he lost due to all that trash that he watched on internet. And finally I recommend you to advice him about not fapping with your naked pictures, I am not saying that you don’t have to send him more photos just make sure he only look at it and don’t fantasize or fap with it. Just stop thinking it’s your body or something it’s just his mind that has been damaged.

This was helpful.

 

[FightingForUs]

Well look I have PIED and I’m in a relationship as well you don’t know how many times I have had to make my girl believe she is no the problem. And that’s the reality, girls are never the problem…don’t be mad about you, believe me when I am saying that PIED is one of the most difficult things that a man can experience for 2 main reasons (well in my case) 1. I am making my girl insecure 2. I have the constant feeling that she could get tired of me because I can please her as she would like. But sadly the last one is not in our hands, you don’t know how much we are crazy about you girls is just simply our brain that has been broken due to porn. But you don’t know how much your help is useful for us. I am sure your boy loves you and loves your body just be patience let him recover all the things that he lost due to all that trash that he watched on internet. And finally I recommend you to advice him about not fapping with your naked pictures, I am not saying that you don’t have to send him more photos just make sure he only look at it and don’t fantasize or fap with it. Just stop thinking it’s your body or something it’s just his mind that has been damaged.

This was helpful - thank you for your insight, it’s pretty comforting. I posted this last week, and on Monday it will be 3 weeks since he has masturbated. We’ve had sex a couple times since then, and he seemed to keep it up for the most part, though still did not orgasm. This is expected, of course, but I’m hoping we can get to a point where he can enjoy his time with me during sex as much as I do.
He has admitted to me that he’s almost broken a couple of times and watched porn/masturbated, the only reason he didn’t being that his phone wasn’t near him (while showering.) This is a bit discouraging, only because I hope that he has more self control and maybe thinks of me when he has that urge- not thinks of me to get off, but thinks of me in the way like “hey, I want a health sex life with this girl. She wouldn’t want me doing this and breaking progress. I am doing this for her.” type of thoughts. He has had some mood swings, which is also a side effect of withdrawals, but we handle it fairly well. I do hang up the phone with him and wonder every time if he is going to break, especially if he is especially frustrated or can’t sleep - he hasn’t, as far as he’s told me and we are very open and honest with each other, so I believe him. I would hate for him to do it and then we are back at square one.. I know relapses happen, but at the same time, it’s very discouraging if it were to happen, like maybe this will never end…
Do you have any insight on any of this at all?

 

[fran001]

This was helpful - thank you for your insight, it’s pretty comforting. I posted this last week, and on Monday it will be 3 weeks since he has masturbated. We’ve had sex a couple times since then, and he seemed to keep it up for the most part, though still did not orgasm. This is expected, of course, but I’m hoping we can get to a point where he can enjoy his time with me during sex as much as I do.
He has admitted to me that he’s almost broken a couple of times and watched porn/masturbated, the only reason he didn’t being that his phone wasn’t near him (while showering.) This is a bit discouraging, only because I hope that he has more self control and maybe thinks of me when he has that urge- not thinks of me to get off, but thinks of me in the way like “hey, I want a health sex life with this girl. She wouldn’t want me doing this and breaking progress. I am doing this for her.” type of thoughts. He has had some mood swings, which is also a side effect of withdrawals, but we handle it fairly well. I do hang up the phone with him and wonder every time if he is going to break, especially if he is especially frustrated or can’t sleep - he hasn’t, as far as he’s told me and we are very open and honest with each other, so I believe him. I would hate for him to do it and then we are back at square one.. I know relapses happen, but at the same time, it’s very discouraging if it were to happen, like maybe this will never end…
Do you have any insight on any of this at all?

This was helpful - thank you for your insight, it’s pretty comforting. I posted this last week, and on Monday it will be 3 weeks since he has masturbated. We’ve had sex a couple times since then, and he seemed to keep it up for the most part, though still did not orgasm. This is expected, of course, but I’m hoping we can get to a point where he can enjoy his time with me during sex as much as I do.
He has admitted to me that he’s almost broken a couple of times and watched porn/masturbated, the only reason he didn’t being that his phone wasn’t near him (while showering.) This is a bit discouraging, only because I hope that he has more self control and maybe thinks of me when he has that urge- not thinks of me to get off, but thinks of me in the way like “hey, I want a health sex life with this girl. She wouldn’t want me doing this and breaking progress. I am doing this for her.” type of thoughts. He has had some mood swings, which is also a side effect of withdrawals, but we handle it fairly well. I do hang up the phone with him and wonder every time if he is going to break, especially if he is especially frustrated or can’t sleep - he hasn’t, as far as he’s told me and we are very open and honest with each other, so I believe him. I would hate for him to do it and then we are back at square one.. I know relapses happen, but at the same time, it’s very discouraging if it were to happen, like maybe this will never end…
Do you have any insight on any of this at all?

Well look, maybe you checked my profile to see my posts or something but if you don’t let me explain you a little bit before I told you what have worked for me and my girl that’s a little bit similar to your case. Well to do this quickly, my posts were about that I wasn’t able to orgasm with my girl’s pussy, and I wasn’t able to maintain my erection while I was having sex with her I wrote those posts a couple weeks before I tried to have sex with my girl again (in that time we didn’t tried that frequently because we were in vacations from college and she went to her parent’s house in a town that is far from my city so we didn’t have sex like in two months) buuuuut after I wrote those posts like a week after, I started to have morning woods like every day, I was so amazed and well nowadays this week has been the best week of my life because we could have successful sex 3 days in this week and I was able to do 3 things: 1. Cumming just with her pussy and not with her mouth or hand or other thing. 2. I got hard (not a 100% hard but I could get like a 87% hard) and my erection didn’t went down while I was inside her so I also put a condom on, something that I wasn’t able in the last months. 3. I had real hard sex with her just as we like (the most important thing). But well what is the point of this story and why I think it’s related with your problem? Well in those 2 months I were talking about in which I didn’t have sex with my girl. The first days of those two months I discovered something called “the death grip syndrome” (A problem in which a man is not able to feel her girl’s pussy tight due her gorilla grip with masturbation) So I realized that it was happening to me because I didn’t feel the pussy of my girlfriend tight as my grip was and that was also the reason why I couldn’t maintain my erection. So what I am saying with this? Masturbation can also be the problem and is something that we men cannot understand. Ok but, returning to my story after I discovered the death grip syndrome I was so happy that I finally got a reason apart from PIED that my dick wasn’t working so I send a message to my girl talking her about the death grip syndrome. In my mind I thought that she would get happy that we discovered a new reason and there was a cure for it but what I was not expecting was that my girl reacted so angry to my message asked me if I was still masturbating (And yeah I was still masturbating before I discovered death grip syndrome because I thought that just porn was the problem, not masturbation) so my girl got so furious and she told me that she was getting tired of it, and that I am not realizing how important is sex in a relationship she told me that when she was returning to my city she doesn’t want to have sex with me and I started to cry because I thought I was losing her due to my stupid addiction, she went to sleep angry and the next day she didn’t answered my messages I cried all the morning until she send me a message again apologizing for her reaction and she told me that her intention was to make me understand that good sex is needed in a relationship and she promised me that she will stay so she will do but a little scare maybe was needed to make me understand. And it did, after that I understand that if I was not changing she will leave even if she told me that she was not she will probably do, and I hated how it felt to lost mi girl just because my stupid porn and masturbation problem, so I could say it worked like a “shock therapy” I guess haha but since there my commitment with stop masturbating and watching porn has been stronger than ever and as I told you I am recovering…So my advice for you could be a little bit toxic in my opinion…but I recommend you to do the same, get angry, make him think that he is losing you and maybe his commitment will be better. Because maybe the problem that he is relapsing is because you are being too patient with him and not putting any pressure on his shoulders. I’m sorry for your boyfriend maybe he will get sad but when he realizes that he could lose you just because his problem he might stop…Sorry if my idea is too stupid and you think it could damage your relationship but it is what it has worked for me and you don’t know how grateful I’m feeling with my girlfriend for saving me. Just make him remember masturbation has the same % of the problem that porn has. Make him stop.