Hi, akpal2!
I know it may all seem so complex, when to have sex- if to have sex- what constitutes (for you) a reset or not...
Just be clear as to your own goals, and do whatever you can to break this habit.
Zaraki is right about the pushing our salvation further down the road with every peek. This doesn't necessarily mean that we've undone all progress, but it does mean simply that our habit patterns are strengthened with every little bit of reaction to them. We want to disrupt, weaken, abstain, ignore and dismiss our urges when they come- no matter how strong.
Sex with our wives, in my opinion, is something that we should never have to exclude from our rewiring. Our rewiring and rebooting should be always toward real-world sex whenever possible. My situation is a little different than many, but not uncommon, and that is- I can actually neglect my wife sexually for long periods of time, even during a reboot. I know in the midst of my addiction, it would be the nonexistent women on the screen I preferred. But, I try to have sex with my wife at least 1x a week... Sex is designed to create deeper and deeper emotional connections to our partner, and unfortunately, we've been doing that with a computer screen, or an iPhone+, and not our wives.
Recovery in general, and our reboot is not always black-and-white. It's not always linear, but the question is, and you actually touch on it above, is can we come back into control? It's the All-or-Nothing approach we want to be careful with, as it implies that we're not successful. Now, with my own reboot I have an 'All-or-Nothing' approach, it would seem, but I know that if I have to reset my streak, it only 'looks like' I'm starting from 0, but really, I've been more and more seriously trying to stop since June, and before that, for years.
You have to know your threshold, what constitutes a reset for you? I know that for me, p-subs (non-nudity) and edging will eventually lead to p and m/o which are a reset. So, that kind of serves as a buffer. However, playing around with that (as I've known myself to do) will undermine a serious attempt at recovery.
I know it may all seem so complex, when to have sex- if to have sex- what constitutes (for you) a reset or not...
Just be clear as to your own goals, and do whatever you can to break this habit.
Zaraki is right about the pushing our salvation further down the road with every peek. This doesn't necessarily mean that we've undone all progress, but it does mean simply that our habit patterns are strengthened with every little bit of reaction to them. We want to disrupt, weaken, abstain, ignore and dismiss our urges when they come- no matter how strong.
Sex with our wives, in my opinion, is something that we should never have to exclude from our rewiring. Our rewiring and rebooting should be always toward real-world sex whenever possible. My situation is a little different than many, but not uncommon, and that is- I can actually neglect my wife sexually for long periods of time, even during a reboot. I know in the midst of my addiction, it would be the nonexistent women on the screen I preferred. But, I try to have sex with my wife at least 1x a week... Sex is designed to create deeper and deeper emotional connections to our partner, and unfortunately, we've been doing that with a computer screen, or an iPhone+, and not our wives.
Recovery in general, and our reboot is not always black-and-white. It's not always linear, but the question is, and you actually touch on it above, is can we come back into control? It's the All-or-Nothing approach we want to be careful with, as it implies that we're not successful. Now, with my own reboot I have an 'All-or-Nothing' approach, it would seem, but I know that if I have to reset my streak, it only 'looks like' I'm starting from 0, but really, I've been more and more seriously trying to stop since June, and before that, for years.
You have to know your threshold, what constitutes a reset for you? I know that for me, p-subs (non-nudity) and edging will eventually lead to p and m/o which are a reset. So, that kind of serves as a buffer. However, playing around with that (as I've known myself to do) will undermine a serious attempt at recovery.