Hey everyone,
I am a new member here and am beginning my journey to reboot myself. I just turned 42 years old on the 21st and I've been watching porn on and off since I was 12. But it never got serious until about 10-12 years ago. I realized I had a problem in 2016 when my marriage fell apart and my wife left me for one of my best friends. Her and I used to have a very healthy sexual relationship but I began having real problems about a year before it ended.
After that fell apart,I had a five year relationship with another woman. We also had a fairly healthy sexual relationship but her drive was high and I couldn't keep up with her so she became regularly promiscuous. I knew about it but turned the other cheek. I felt so inadequate that I turned to porn again. I regularly used porn because it was easier for me to just go there than it was for me to feel like I was not enough in bed. She was very understanding of the more often than not "limp noodle". And never gave up trying new things for me but I couldn't kick the porn.
The relationship eventually ended and I spent most of 2021 single. And watching porn regularly. At least 3x a week. But most of the time the sessions were long and drawn out and sometimes I would watch and orgasm more than once in a day.
In December of 2021, I met another woman and we hit it off better than I've ever hit it off with anyone in my life. I fell head over heels in love with her and fast too. Early on I tried to stop watching porn because I wanted very badly to please her. But by this point the ED was so bad it barely worked at all at least half the time. She became visibly frustrated with it and vocalized it many times throughout our relationship. I never left her unsatisfied but the one thing she wanted was the one thing I couldn't give her every time. I'd say I was successful 50% of the time getting hard enough to have sex and 3-4 times I got hard enough to have really good sex.
In February of this year my oldest son was killed in a car accident and this woman stood by my side through all of it. She was my rock and probably saved my life. She told me she loved me at that point and I felt like I finally had everything I ever wanted. I just couldn't stop with the porn... By April/May, the sex was so difficult that she gave up on it completely. By August we were on the rocks and we broke up in September, me with an engagement ring in my dresser drawer at the time. Now we don't even talk and she has moved on.
I am so broken right now from losing her that I've felt suicidal at times. I know I have a problem and I want to beat it. I feel so much shame and guilt and it hurts me to know that I had this perfect woman and I couldn't keep her because I couldn't perform. I don't ever want to go through this again.
Porn has destroyed my life and I realize now that I have let it happen. It's no one's fault but my own. It's given me a false image of not only women but myself as I now feel like I don't "measure up". Honestly, I'm a bit above average when fully erect 6 1/2, but limp it's embarassingly small. I guess I'm a grower not a shower. Problem is, it doesn't grow anymore. I couldn't tell you the last time I got a random hard on or woke up with morning wood.
My experience with porn has been very vanilla. Never got into anything seriously extreme. It's just that I've been doing this regularly since probably 2010 and it's been bad to where I noticed a decline in 2015. Am I too far gone to fix this? Will I ever get back to feeling like I can have a healthy sexual relationship with a significant other again? How can I feel confident when I know I can't perform? Right now, I'm nearly two weeks in without PMO, although I almost slipped up last night. I turned on a few videos and started but eventually stopped and called an old friend who came over and tried to "help me out". It worked but barely.
I know I'm an addict and I want desperately to stop. I admit I have a problem but where do I go from here? Is there still hope for me?
I am a new member here and am beginning my journey to reboot myself. I just turned 42 years old on the 21st and I've been watching porn on and off since I was 12. But it never got serious until about 10-12 years ago. I realized I had a problem in 2016 when my marriage fell apart and my wife left me for one of my best friends. Her and I used to have a very healthy sexual relationship but I began having real problems about a year before it ended.
After that fell apart,I had a five year relationship with another woman. We also had a fairly healthy sexual relationship but her drive was high and I couldn't keep up with her so she became regularly promiscuous. I knew about it but turned the other cheek. I felt so inadequate that I turned to porn again. I regularly used porn because it was easier for me to just go there than it was for me to feel like I was not enough in bed. She was very understanding of the more often than not "limp noodle". And never gave up trying new things for me but I couldn't kick the porn.
The relationship eventually ended and I spent most of 2021 single. And watching porn regularly. At least 3x a week. But most of the time the sessions were long and drawn out and sometimes I would watch and orgasm more than once in a day.
In December of 2021, I met another woman and we hit it off better than I've ever hit it off with anyone in my life. I fell head over heels in love with her and fast too. Early on I tried to stop watching porn because I wanted very badly to please her. But by this point the ED was so bad it barely worked at all at least half the time. She became visibly frustrated with it and vocalized it many times throughout our relationship. I never left her unsatisfied but the one thing she wanted was the one thing I couldn't give her every time. I'd say I was successful 50% of the time getting hard enough to have sex and 3-4 times I got hard enough to have really good sex.
In February of this year my oldest son was killed in a car accident and this woman stood by my side through all of it. She was my rock and probably saved my life. She told me she loved me at that point and I felt like I finally had everything I ever wanted. I just couldn't stop with the porn... By April/May, the sex was so difficult that she gave up on it completely. By August we were on the rocks and we broke up in September, me with an engagement ring in my dresser drawer at the time. Now we don't even talk and she has moved on.
I am so broken right now from losing her that I've felt suicidal at times. I know I have a problem and I want to beat it. I feel so much shame and guilt and it hurts me to know that I had this perfect woman and I couldn't keep her because I couldn't perform. I don't ever want to go through this again.
Porn has destroyed my life and I realize now that I have let it happen. It's no one's fault but my own. It's given me a false image of not only women but myself as I now feel like I don't "measure up". Honestly, I'm a bit above average when fully erect 6 1/2, but limp it's embarassingly small. I guess I'm a grower not a shower. Problem is, it doesn't grow anymore. I couldn't tell you the last time I got a random hard on or woke up with morning wood.
My experience with porn has been very vanilla. Never got into anything seriously extreme. It's just that I've been doing this regularly since probably 2010 and it's been bad to where I noticed a decline in 2015. Am I too far gone to fix this? Will I ever get back to feeling like I can have a healthy sexual relationship with a significant other again? How can I feel confident when I know I can't perform? Right now, I'm nearly two weeks in without PMO, although I almost slipped up last night. I turned on a few videos and started but eventually stopped and called an old friend who came over and tried to "help me out". It worked but barely.
I know I'm an addict and I want desperately to stop. I admit I have a problem but where do I go from here? Is there still hope for me?