Greetings all
I've been reading articles from yourbrainonporn.com and similar sites for a while now, but have never tried to partake in any serious change. until now
I'm a 30 year old male from the UK in a long-term relationship with my lovely girlfriend and hoping to give up porn and masturbation for good. The main reason for being sober is because I can count on one hand the times I have successfully made love to her and managed to reach climax. Every other time I have had to finish myself off, which you can imagine how bad this makes my poor girlfriend feel, and how guilty it makes me feel. I sometimes feel dead downstairs,
I feel guilty as its taken me over four years to admit to the problem and try to seek help, I felt cowardly and the only reason I reacted now is because I admitted to my girlfriend last sunday night that I masturbated, she felt so disgusted and dissapointed that she actually left the bedroom and spent the night without me, and the next day threatened to leave me for good.
We have arguments from tiem to time and every time they're usually really bad ones, it may be my fault for reacting the wrong way or saying the wrong thing, or my girlfriends fault for being over sensitive and taking things way too seriously sometimes, so we may need counselling outside of the problem of sex as well.
To make matters a bit more complicated, my girlfriend was unfortunately abused sexually as a child by a now deceased family member, which you can imagine has left a large impact on her life and has affected our relationship as well. She has faced her fear and is a much better person for it now and does remarkably well considering what happened in her past, and wants nothing but a loving passionate relationship with me.
I managed to pluck up the courage to go to the doctor a few weeks ago and tell him whats going on, I had a blood test which came back with no concerns so its apparently not a health problem, and am now trying to go to either relationship counselling or sex-therapy - whichever is best suited for us to try and fix the problem I have.
I have tried to stop on my own in the past but without great success. My longest record was about 28 days, which was around 3 years ago and before I knew about this site or others like it. The primary reason for me quitting was to make love to my girlfriend, and I remember it was successful, but took immense willpower to achieve. Since then I have tried to fit my relationship around my pornographic use, but sex in a loving relationship doesn't work that way it seems; it feels like i'm completely switched off during sex, and although I can maintain an erection I can't seem to climax normally without masturbation.
I was a virgin of 25 years before meeting my current girlfriend and had/have some issues with self esteen and suffered from light depression in the past. I used to store a lot of porn on my computer and masturbate on average about once a day, it doesn't seem much, but now and again I would binge on it, doing it up to 3-5 times a day- I believe you don't have to drink every day to be alcoholic, and I think its the same for masturbation. I still rely on it as my primary way to release, I found it a great way to help me sleep. I've been told that masturbation is supposed to be a healthy part of adult life, so why stop it? thats why I remained skeptical of sites like this.
I cut down on porn and masturbation after meeting my current girlfriend, but couldn't quit. we are both really busy, often working til late in the night leaving little room for romance. What romantic time we spend together nowdays usually ends up with one or both of us lieing in bed feeling disappointed and sad at ourselves, and also rejected. She's still hurting now, but she can at least sleep in the same bed as me still which is something at least!
but at the moment neither of us have the desire to try to make love for fear of rejection and dissapointment.
I've began reading the articles on here, keeping a journal, and writing down my thoughts and emotions of the day into it, I think it helps to get my thoughts out of my head and on to the screen, which is one of the main reasons I am typing this now. I still need to think of what to put into my sexual recovery plan, and practice the breathing exercises and control my 'reptile' brain.
My biggest fear at the moment is relapsing back into my old skeptical self; "Its not that bad what I do, everyone does it, if I do it now i'll get it out of my system for a while"... its true you can lose control of your actions in just a few mouse clicks, and its very frightening the power of your subconscious brain has over your rational thought. The last thing I ever wanted to do is hurt her, and I ended up doing just that.
One more concern of mine, without giving too much personal information away, part of my career involves life drawing, and study of anatomy, and although I always look at life models as a professional its hard not to feel natural impulsions. Any advice on this? I'm not going to give up something I love to do, as its an integral part of myself as well as my career. Just a thought...
Installed Procon latte on my computer, but it does get in the way a lot, it even blocks this website from time to time! I know the password for it, but just having it on my computer is at least a bit of a deterrant at least.
Reading through some other guy's posts here and reading Alex's course has motivated me to change. Its been 4 days of sobriety for me, hopefully more to come, I feel stronger than before now and I believe in myself. wish me luck!
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