Feed the Right Wolf

Forgive me. I am new to this. I did not mean to make you angry. Did I make you angry?
Good luck !
I wish you all the best in your relationship.

_________________
I will cease being a slave to my past.

Hi Dpac,

No, you didn't make me angry at all. It wasn't my intention to come across that way, I just wanted to point out that honesty is so incredibly important in this. In recovery if a person isn't 100% honest with himself/herself, they will almost surely fail. It may be possible to have a meaningful relationship without sharing your recovery with your partner. I was only standing by decision that as far as my personal relationship with my girlfriend, I have seen that complete honesty is by far the best way for our relationship to grow.

I am very glad that you've made a decision to do something about your addiction, I fully support you and I am here for you. Don't be offended by what I said previously, I just feel very strongly about this and I felt like you were challenging my belief in honesty. I apologize if I mistook your post and I have no bad feelings toward you.

Your friend,

Absolution.

_________________
Sobriety Date: October 25, 2011
"Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it."
-Rabindranath Tagore

Absolution,

Congratulations on getting back on track with your girlfriend. I just wanted you to know that I agree with you: if you think your behavior was inappropriate, it was. Even if not conscious. In many ways I'm very jealous of where you are -- to have a supportive woman actively involved in your recovery, to be to the point where you are refining your sobriety closer to perfection, rather than just trying to keep a clean streak longer than a few days, and still so active and supportive of the rest of us on the forum. It's inspiring! So thank you for that example.

I suppose what I DID mean was that I believe that all of us will find places in our lives to improve, even after we've been working at it for a long time. Making such a discovery need not be a time for guilt, but perhaps instead humility and gratitude for further opportunity to change, and happiness in anticipation of the good times ahead.

But I didn't exactly say that very well. Or even know if I had really worked all of that through in my head yet. =) In any case, wishing you the best.

-Xe

Xenon,

Thank you. Realizing and admitting that I have issues trusting my girlfriend as well has been a good thing for me, and I've been sharing with her anything related to my sexual issues, even if I don't think of it as "struggling". My goals there are to build trust on both sides of my relationship, and to help me see honesty in black and white terms.

Thanks to all for your support over the past week

Your friend,

Absolution.

_________________
Sobriety Date: October 25, 2011
"Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it."
-Rabindranath Tagore

Hi Absolution, how are you my friend?

I hope that you and FP are continuing on your journey together, forgive me for intruding on your journal but I have only just read what you have both been going through and wanted to show some support. I hope she will return to this site at some point, I am all alone again without her

I have an idea that FP and I are quite similar on how we deal with this addiction. For me knowledge really is power, since finding out about my husbands addiction I have Googled everything I can think of to find out more, that is how I came across this site. The big turning point for me was when (I think it was Nick) posted a link to the BrainOnPorn videos on my thread, I watched them at 3am, by myself on a night I was struggling. By the end of the videos I was smiling, I actually felt happy, strangely excited, at long last I had something tangible I could start to deal with. I couldn't wait for my husband to wake up so that he could watch them, we watched them together and the sense of relief I got from my husband was immense, he was so relieved that at last I had some understanding of what he is dealing with.

I enrolled in the full recovery course that Alex provides, I did this as my husband does not want to go near a computer at the moment, he says it would be like holding an AA meeting in a pub. But I share information, and show him the emails that I receive so together we are learning day by day.

You know how I feel about honesty from my other posts, my husband seems to be doing so incredibly well I just hope he is being honest not only with me but himself. Oh I don't think he is viewing porn, he doesn't have access to computers, or have a phone, but I just wonder if he is inwardly struggling more than he says. This I know, is just my insecurity, as we really are talking about everything, and I mean everything! It is difficult for him to tell me, and difficult for me to hear, yes I still shed a few tears, but at least once I know, I can offer support instead of blame. I see his addiction as a little Gremlin that is constantly by his side and if my hubby is off guard that Gremlin is ready to pounce and overpower him. We may never be able to get rid of the little demon, but hopefully we will be able to bind it in chains and control it instead of it controlling my husband.

Dpac, yes womens self esteem does suffer, we go through a lot of emotions, that is why there are support sites for us as well. If your wife has stated she doen't want to know details, that is her choice, but somehow you have to find a way to rebuild the trust, this seems difficult to me without sharing.

Absolution, you had what you consider a set back, but you are coming through it, you have Miss Absolution by your side, 'TRUST HER'. If she is anything like me (and she seems to be) you will be amazed at how strong she is, things will hurt I can't deny that but you sharing even the most difficult issues will show her that you are being honest.

Work together you will both become so much stronger.

Hugs to you both
Your friend in the UK

Hi MrsAnon,

Nick and I have both plugged the Your Brain on Porn videos, I'm not sure who started it but I'm glad you found it helpful. My girlfriend and I are doing well, she's been very busy (we've been looking at buying a house soon) but I know she still reads posts pretty regularly and will probably pop in to post soon.

About your husband, I understand this is a very tough situation. It must be really hard to trust that he is doing well when trust was so recently shattered. The problem is that you probably know intuitively or at least get a feeling when he is outright lying, but if he isn't being honest with himself that feeling is probably muted or maybe not there at all. I know one thing that helped me is to write out my outer, middle and inner circles described by SAA literature. This gives him a black and white, concrete illustration of what is and isn't acceptable and that will definitely help him be honest with himself. It's a big challenge for many of us to identify when we're rationalizing behavior, but if he is 100% honest with himself while writing out the circles, it will help immensely and I hope give you more peace of mind as well. Here's a brochure on the three circles: http://www.sexaa.org/SAALiterature/English/ThreeCircles/

Your friend,

Absolution.

_________________
Sobriety Date: October 25, 2011
"Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it."
-Rabindranath Tagore

Absolution - I initially saw the link in one of your posts in which you told Jerome aka Mrresurrection about videos on yourbrainonporn.com . I saw those videos and kinda felt relieved after understanding how brain works.
I used to hate myself for indulging in sadomasochistic fantasies but those videos made me realized that its not a part of my character - but a result of my addiction which needed stronger and more intense fantasies to keep itself going.
It really took a huge burden of me.
And for me i m just glad that the videos helped Mrs. Anon as well.

Also Congs Mr. Moderator . Your continued and regular participation as well as support given by you to other addicts is great. I think Alex has made the right decision by trusting you as Moderator.

_________________
Sober since 12th April
Having good thoughts or bad thoughts do not define a person its how he reacts to them is what defines him.

Thanks, Nick

I am grateful to be able to take some of the burden off Alex. With the growth of our forum comes increased spam unfortunately, some even with adult material, and I feel extreme anger when I see a link to porn posted here. Alex has done incredible things with this site but he can't always be here, so hopefully this will help.

Absolution.

_________________
Sobriety Date: October 25, 2011
"Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it."
-Rabindranath Tagore

Hi Absolution,

Sorry I didn't mean to leave you out, when I said Nick had said about the BrainOnPorn videos, I should have referred back to my posts. Don't underestimate how much help you have been to me and also my husband

Great to see you as an acting moderator, there has been a lot of spam recently that has also made me angry, I would love to be able to contact those sites and tell them what I think of them. I don't think they would care, but it would make me feel a lot better lol

Stay strong!
Your friend in the UK

I didn't take that personally, no worries sorry if I seemed like I was saying "I did it first!" Haha the YourBrainOnPorn series was first posted on this site, then on the forum by another member during the early days of the forum.

Spam is always annoying, but it's gotten worse lately. I deleted a link to a porn site today and I know Alex deleted a post with an actual pornographic image yesterday. It made me so angry I was shaking that this stuff is being posted here; I felt very protective, like I had just seen someone try to get my brother or sister to try cocaine... Unfortunately I don't think there's much to be done about it other than staying vigilant. It's important to keep the forum open to anyone seeking help, and obviously these spam posts are being made by a live person so the anti-bot stuff doesn't work.

Dpac posted a negative comment on the post I deleted today, he said something like "you have got to be kidding"... Dpac I hope you were able to ignore this type of garbage on our forum, I hope all of us can. Sadly there is no completely safe place on the internet because there are people who will violate the sanctity of even a recovery forum for the sake of making money... Please stay strong.

Absolution.

_________________
Sobriety Date: October 25, 2011
"Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it."
-Rabindranath Tagore