Another story - probably the same as everyone else

Jlied

Active Member
Thanks @Ezel - blessings upon you too, my friend. This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do, and weirdly it’s the sort of thing I thought I would fail at. I didn’t think I had a backbone but I do have one. You guys helped me get it. I owe you so much.

And @Jlied ……once again my metaphorical crutch appears at the exact second I needed it. Anytime you want to come and visit you’re so very welcome. It’s lovely here if you like grey skies and light drizzle. Going to play golf tomorrow. Golf isn’t a game/sport. It’s a lesson in humility. It will do me good to get some more of that. Mediocre is m middle name when it comes to golf.

How did I get on to golf? Crazy Brits. Don’t you love ‘em?
Golf you said? I’m in, I love golf, golf doesn’t love me, but I love golf. Perhaps my need to love something that doesn’t love me back has swapped porn for golf! I’ll be on the next flight out, I’m going to predict your score, if your playing 9 holes I’ll say a 48, if your playing 18 holes it jumps up to a 103. harsh I know, but if your anything like me you value getting more strokes per round of golf than less. At least more strokes makes your round cheaper per swing.

BTW this time of year where I live we don’t see the sun from about November until April. Every once in a while when a weather front passes through we may see blue skies for a day or two but then it’s right back to grey skies. I’m
 

GBS

Respected Member
330 days.

@Jlied - I will let you know how I get on. Playing a difficult course with slope rating of 131. Playing 18 holes. Solo. What time does your flight land?

Ok day yesterday but had one of those slight panic attacks where I simply think: I am doing fine, in fact I am being nearly perfect. I look ok because I have lost weight, my conscience is clear, we do stuff together, she tells me she loves me……but I can’t touch her arse nor bring up the question of why. So it suddenly feels futile. I snapped out of it thinking in the end if she can’t cope with moving on she will have to say it out loud, and then at least there’s an admission it isn’t 100% my fault.

Medium strong urge to MO yesterday but I resisted. A tiny part of me wondered why I resisted, after all this punishment can only be endured so long. I wonder what her reaction will be when I get to a year sober. We shall see because I can see that milestone creeping in to view.
 

Jlied

Active Member
Flight landed 30 minutes ago, I’ve been sitting here waiting for my hackney carriage to show up and Jeeves to pop out and open my door. I like solo golf, I can be alone with my thoughts and give myself a proper cursing when I inevitably hit a bad shot.

great to hear you snapped out of self pity, it’s never a productive approach to dealing with life and I think breeds entitlement. But man is it so easy to fall into, believe me, I have my doctorates degree in it.

you resisted rubbing one out because you didn’t want to work backwards. You’ve made great strides and you didn’t want to change that. If your goal is to eventually do without it then the only way is to not do it. Good on you, as for the one year mark, I don’t think you need to bring it up to her, I’m sure she has D day well engrained in her mind and knows already that year mark is quickly approaching. Just continue on as the porn free man/husband/father you are now. No sense in bringing up an anniversary one would soon rather forget. Just my two cents.
 

GBS

Respected Member
Actually very helpful @Jlied . Self pity - tricky. Someone at SAA a week ago said we should have zero tolerance for self pity. Yeah, sure mate. No problem. I’ll just make myself into a robot, that should do the trick. I didn’t say that, but thought it.

And you’re right….knocking one out yesterday would just make me feel worse today. I am thrilled I resisted. It makes further resistance easier as well. Going full monk mode until the one year anniversary. Which I won’t mark with a ticker tape parade, but will probably still mention it. We get little (quite shit) plastic coins at 3 months, 6 months, 9 months at SAA and whilst I am not a huge fan, oddly I kept mine on my dresser as a reminder. I told my wife and she was genuinely pleased for me….who knew? So I get a metal one at the one year mark and I will show that to her and not rub it in her face. Just act normal….what a good mantra that is.

Right….now where are you…..I have been wandering around Heathrow for an hour…..🤷
 

Jlied

Active Member
Right….now where are you…..I have been wandering around Heathrow for an hour…..🤷
Oh crap, I’m at Gatwick….I knew those ticket prices were too good to be true. If you see Rick sheils out there filming another gold episode tell him I said hello (I like his YouTube videos).

I suppose I was wrong in the advice I gave about sounding the alarm on the one year anniversary, you know her best and as such you’ll know the best way to preceded
 
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Nico

Active Member
I don't get the feeling this is going to affect your recovery, but if it feels like it might may I suggest writing down all the rewards it has given you - I know you're not getting what you hoped for but I know from your journals that there are plenty of rewards on a personal you celebrate and it can be easy to lose sight of those. Like gratitude lists which I find totally change my state, this might help with the low mood around it? So much respect for you and your journey.
 

GBS

Respected Member
Thanks @Nico . I knew the second I posted that it had somewhat invited your kind response. A gratitude list is something I should do. Today actually I feel immense as a man. Truly masculine and decent and ready for everything and anything. I heard someone saying something a bit sarcastic about my musical direction (I am a choral expert/choir trainer) and a year ago I would have reacted differently. I shrugged it off as that person’s slightly sad attitude. That, right there, is one for my gratitude list.

Thanks again, mate.
 

Blondie

Respected Member
Sorry to hear this @GBS. I can't imagine how that would feel, and to be honest, since I don't have that particular problem in my relationship, I often don't know what to write on your thread, feeling I would be faking my empathy with something I don't understand or have experienced fully. However, I can imagine how self pity feels, and the stupid thoughts that might run through your head to assuage them, thus, congrats on seeing through the fog and self pity to what's really important here: you're a new man.

I completely concur with @Nico, now's the time to look at all the positives in your recovery, as I've seen you've done in your last post. It's funny, as I go along in this journey, many of the reasons I started this, have faded into the background, while other reasons have become more and more important to me. But when you think about it, this makes sense, because when you've been stuck knee deep in this nonsense for years on end, it's becoming more evident to me, that we really can't see the forest for the trees. Obviously you wanting intimacy from your wife is utterly normal and is a biological need, however, there are other things you've discovered that are truly amazing, and should be celebrated as a new man.

To my hero! 🍻

Best
 

Gracie

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Do you and Mrs share the same counselor? How long have you been in counseling? Is there no talk of a joint session so the two of you could communicate with guidance? I would think this is warranted after the tremendous passage of time.
 

GBS

Respected Member
Thanks @Blondie - your empathy is clear as day. I bet I do actually make it almost deliberately hard to comment on my situation - no one can resolve it except my wife. She either will or she won’t. That could be the last word on the matter , but it won’t be because I am a human being and need the support. Everything you, and the many other kind correspondents on here, say is read with relish. I have swings of emotion and you always keep me grounded. There’s no point me building the case for the defence because all that does slide into self pity. Ultimately this is a reboot exercise. It has, thus far, been successful and life changing. I grip onto that sometimes and other times I do need to grip, I just live. Today I am just living. If my wife is suffering and I think she has been this last couple of weeks, I need to empathise with her but stay calm in the process.

And thanks also @Gracie - simple answers to your questions: we have different counsellors and have been in therapy since last March. There have been discussions over the last three months about whether and when we might do couples counselling. The answer so far has been that she’s not ready yet. It was last discussed between me and my therapist around Christmas time, and she said she thought my wife was still some time away from being ready. Admittedly that was from what I told her about how my wife seems. My therapist stresses to me that the speed of my wife’s recovery is far from abnormal. From the discussions on here it seems like comparison could be invidious. We’re all different and have different back stories and histories - so I shall bring this subject up again, very carefully, and we shall see. I fear I will get a straight no.

Meanwhile I am at 333 days sober - nice number. 32 days from the one year mark. Also no MO for a couple of weeks- going hard core monk mode until the year’s up at the least. I love the torture because it makes me feel even more masculine, and that’s what I am now.
 

GBS

Respected Member
Hmmm…..interesting @Androg ….short answer is no I haven’t tried foot massage. Her resistance to almost anything/everything even slightly sensual has been near total repulsion so there’s risk attached to that. She set boundaries back last March and I haven’t crossed them once. I have been through the terror of frustration and panic about this, and I used to think (back in June or so) that she had completely lost her desire for me. In that direction lies a form of madness and staring into the abyss, so I have quelled that by just hanging on to the notion that she wouldn’t ask and need me to be totally accountable if she didn’t want me back in a physical sense.

So it’s a gamble suggesting something. If she says no, I fear all I have done is send her further back. That’s the sort of coward I have become.
 

Beautiful1973

Active Member
Hey Geebs,
I like what @Androg is suggesting, you know I have made several suggestions over the last few months, but I understand your fear to offer some affection and intimacy towards her, as you want to respect her boundary.
You could go and buy a nice foot product, there's a million different ones on the market, especially if you know the type of fragrances she likes....or doesn't. Bring it home, say to her, I would really love to make some time this evening to give you a relaxing foot massage, say nothing else, no other explanation, no expectation......and wait.....see what her reaction is. If she gives you a flat out no, starts a rant, or gets nasty......you just say OK, and accept this is NOT on you......you offering to do something nurturing for her, is not disrespecting her boundary, you walking away when she declined is respecting her boundary.......then you go off to the bedroom and massage your own feet.
 

GBS

Respected Member
334 days free from the pornography beast. You will ne’er see me again you revolting emasculating freak. Freedom is mine.

Not Much to say today as have been at a friend’s mother’s funeral. Highly charged, highly emotional. I had a drink afterwards. So, not that 3 glasses of red renders me useless, I will leave it there.
 

GBS

Respected Member
335 days.

There are days when my libido is flagging, and other days when it’s sky high. I did read, somewhat depressingly, that libido will over time drop if you don’t have sex. So there you go…….that’s the abyss. I am not getting into the darkness areas here. Just saying that I do get these days where I think “am I actually in flatline again?”. It’s obviously a brain related flag. I used to get tiny feelings of arousal and that would be enough to watch porn. These tiny moments are easily stifled now and the rebooted GBS brain thinks nothing of them. But the GBS brain sometimes seems completely confused. How am I not horny 24/7 if I haven’t MO’d in two weeks or so, and had no sex in a year? The answer is because I trained my brain for many years to do something I liked. It was selfish (at best) and the worst of habits.

Rebooting the brain is serious business.

Have a good day without, folks.
 

Jlied

Active Member
I did read, somewhat depressingly, that libido will over time drop if you don’t have sex. So there you go
I think as a man this is a hard one to deal with. I think so much of our “being a man” is tied to our libido and how much we either have or want to have sex. I have thought about this off and on about how i desire sex less often than I did even 4 months ago. I know age plays a role but I think I’ve conditioned myself to just want it less. It’s not that I don’t want it, but I just feel like it’s less important than it used to be. And for me it’s a catch 22 im relieved I don’t have to always fight the temptation to have sex or “get off” but there is also a small part of me that feels like my masculinity is taking a hit as well. The things I keep coming back to is my wife is happier, there is stability at home, I’m not getting resentful towards her for the reduction in sex, and we don’t really fight that much anymore. So I know for my mental well being this is a much better arrangement…….but again, the mental side of being less manly is something a hard hurdle to leap.
 

Blondie

Respected Member
Those are good points @Jlied. I concur that having a libido is what us men often think of as "manly" and if it's low in that area, well, then we think it's "less manly". I don't have a problem with this concept completely, because in a biological sense, it's true. Because for the most part, if we're healthy, we should have a healthy sex drive (no matter how old we are), and if porn has stolen that from us (which it has), then porn really is a sin, not only against women but against us men as well. However, the tricky part is, how do we even know what is normal for us? I know for myself, I still feel completely in the dark about this matter, though I have seen flashes of light here and there. Last month during Christmas break, my lady was out sick for most of it, and we hardly had sex, maybe once I think. Thus, I too didn't feel very horny during this time and was mostly okay with that. But, was this a flatline? Or since she wasn't in the mood maybe I wasn't in the mood? Who knows. I do think our sex drives should be like the seasons though, coming and going like the waves of the sea. It's been on recently for her and I because she's feeling great again, and thus, we did it once five days ago, and now we've done it three times since then. Furthermore, I do believe if it's not being "used" it does go away, at least temporarily, but as soon as you use it again, then the tide comes back in and the bunnies are back on the beach again.

I think we should redefine what it means to be "masculine" in this area.

1. A healthy masculine libido is a libido that functions with no PIED in the moment of sex, whenever that time my be.
2. A healthy masculine libido is a libido that is able to be controlled, with no exceptions at all times.
3. A healthy masculine libido is a libido that thinks long-term about our happiness, not only for ourselves, but for our loved ones as well.
4. A healthy masculine libido is a libido that doesn't only think about itself, but about the other partner as well, about their feelings, desires, and wants.
5. Most importantly, a healthy masculine libido only seeks pleasure in the unity and oneness of the feminine, and not in the selfishness of individualized duality.

I still have a ways to go in this department, but I'm very happy with how things are looking. Here's to more success to us all! 🍻🍻
 
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