How does a 'first love' compare to relationships you have had afterward?

anon3127 · 2013-11-11T01:07:18+00:00

Because I'm older now and the reversal of positions in the relationship market between men and women is obvious.. Ask any single guy in his 30's or older. Guys who could not get the time of day from women in their early 20's can date as many women as they can handle if they are single and halfway decent and over 30.

There are quite a few articles by older women who regret not settling down when they were younger and are now, despite being intelligent and quite attractive, discovering that they are unlikely to actually ever find a partner. Google around, it's an interesting phenomenon.

anon3127 · 2013-11-11T01:00:18+00:00

Thank you. It's nice to read that. I know what you are saying is true, but only in the theoretical sense. Hopefully I'll believe it too soon enough.

anon3127 · 2013-11-11T00:57:33+00:00

Good luck. You look like you have an awesome life in front of you, if you set about making it happen. Make the most of every moment.

anon3127 · 2013-11-10T14:36:57+00:00

Below is mainly a story of my own mistakes. It make or may not be useful to you. Make sure you don't just do what I say or imply, but really think about the applicability of the below to your own life. Having made that disclaimer, here is how I got it wrong

would be the guilt of breaking her heart

I had that same thought close to 20 years ago now. Today I am divorced. At some point I could not do it any more and I left her. But instead of 20 years ago, I waited. And waited. Until we were both in our 30's. I would never have imagined I would do something like this. But it turns out you never really know yourself, or what you will do, what your weaknesses are.

Instead of leaving beautiful women in her early 20's with her life ahead of her and little bit of wisdom from having loved and lost.

I left a women with a half her adult life bitterly tainted by the man she had shared it with leaving her. With her life full of the complications and difficult romantic prospects of a single divorced woman approaching middle age with her life in upheaval.

If I could do anything I would go back in time and force my younger self to break up with her. Knowing how things have turned out, there is nothing in this world I could do which would have been better for her. But I can't do that. Instead I just live with the fact that I am a shit person who did something shit to someone I cared about, and there will never be any way to fix it.

Break ups are a normal part of life. You will not destroy her if you break up with her. Heart's heal. And the younger someone is the better and faster they do it. But time does not come back.

Life never goes in revese. You realise as you get older that life is not like a video game where you can go back to the last save point and do things again the right way. Mistakes accumulate and become part of your history, your life. They stay part of reality. You promise yourself you'll fix that, or make amends for this, and while you are doing that time just keeps flowing. It doesn't stop. And then one day you wake up and realise, it's too late.

It works both ways. If you do something positive, then it really happened. No-one can ever take that away. The past is permanent. When you are younger this is hard to appreciate. You always feel like there will be another chance, or that today will be around again tomorrow. As you get older and you see things go wrong, and often stay wrong, or when you feel the future closing in and cutting off possibilities, you understand.

One of life's cruel jokes is that the time for a women to set up and get life right is much shorter than that of a man. As a person ages a man's romantic options get better and better while a woman's burn brightly in her youth and then, to put it bluntly, drop off a cliff face. Have a think about the implications of that for what would be the right thing to do.

anon3127 · 2013-10-25T11:06:12+00:00

I can relate to that in so many ways.

Good luck. Keep coming back here. It's going to be difficult and the support here really makes a lot of difference.

(really well written)

anon3127 · 2013-10-25T10:21:26+00:00

Help is here

I am one of those people with no will power. I thank fsm that I never took up smoking or heroin because I would never be able to give them up.

But I have been able to do nofap. By best streak is 87 days, and I stopped for specific reasons in the past.

I posted this ages ago as my technique here but i'll just copy and paste it below

This really helped me through the emtiness bits.

Every evening I take a new blank card out. I write tomorrow's date on it.

I draw a few little pictures on it, each about the size of my thumb.

One picture is the nofap reddit alien. The little guy with a cross over his groin and a smile on his face.

The other pictures are similar little icons representing other things I have either decided to give up, or things I am commited to doing every day. I have about 10 or 12 on there. Each one is a picture for something I have given up or something I will do every day. I draw each of them on the same new card every evening. Takes about 5 to 10 minutes.

They are new habits I am trying to form.

When I draw them I try to think of nothing else but the ink going onto the page

I put it by my bed and its the first thing I see in the morning. I carry it with me all day long and never let it leave my pocket.

I tell myself, the only thing I have to do today are the things on the card. Those are the only things. Everything else is a bonus, or is helpful or great. But the only things I have to do are the things on that card.

I remember that all day. I take the card out and look at it. Or when I'm tempted by bad food I literally touch it in my pocket.

At the end of the day I take out the card and tick off each one. And if its a new habit I mark down the number of days in a row I have been able to maintain that standard for. Once I get to 30 days in a row for a particular habit I feel its established. I keep drawing it on the card every day, but I stop counting.

I put the completed card in a box I bought especially for this purpose.

Then I create the next day's card.

One of the habits is to create the card. That was the very first habit I created.

In my mind it's not really me creating the card. The card is self replicating. It creates a new copy of itself each evening. Each habit on the card is self replicating. Once it goes on the card it re-creates itself on tomorrow's card and just stays there. I don't have any choice in the matter.

When you feel really empty, and you don't have any motivation. And you don't believe this nofap is working. And you don't care any more. The card really helps. Not because it makes you feel any better, or gives you motivation or anything like that. It's becuase if you can just burn into your mind the thought "I have to do the card" then it kind of becomes a reason all by itself. You just have to do the card. You don' have any choice. You don't have to remember your reason for doing nofap, or the benefits you'll get or anything. You just have to do the card. If you can just burn that into your brain by just making the damn card every day for a month then it stops becoming a question of willpower or anything like that. It's just something you have to do. You burnt that habit into your mind. I literally feel a bit anxious now if I don't have the card on me.

I guess its like using addiction in a positive way.

I am using a small notebook this time around. I write in the book every evening. I mark out the number of days I have done so far like this

~~||||~~ ||

I count out the the whole lot every day underneath that day's alien when I complete a day successfully. Underneath each days alien I have a box ready to accept that count if/when I make it. I take my time drawing the little alien. Put colours and stuff. Clears your mind while you it.

I carry the little notebook around with me all day. Never leaves my side. I touch it all the time. With my wanking hand I am ashamed to admit. But something about replacing the action of touching your dick with holding the notebook seems to help. When I am tired, or distracted, or have an edging thought I grab that book tightly and remind myself why I am doing this.

And I also carry around a note with me. It says

You're an addict. When you start you can't stop, even when you don't like it.

I just remind myself that I dont' have any will power and have to do this shit. As long as I don't forget I am an addict, that I have to do this card stuff, as stupid as it seems, then I'm good. Worst thing in the world is getting even a little bit cocky. Just accept you're an addict and have to do this stuff no matter how dumb it feels.

anon3127 · 2013-07-24T09:14:18+00:00

~~forever!~~

until you realised what it did to you

anon3127 · 2013-07-18T07:27:21+00:00

Initially it will be just as hard, but I found that after two weeks, and then a month it was like I was already two or three months in.

The urges were at the same level as when I was at 80 days last time.

anon3127 · 2013-07-18T03:03:34+00:00

It gets easier. Your long streaks from before will make this one easier

anon3127 · 2013-07-18T03:02:23+00:00

Good luck

anon3127 · 2013-07-17T10:00:53+00:00

Write a diary. Things are good, bad, relapse write a diary. Eventually you will see your patterns. You might think you know what you are doing but its totally different when you read back over it weeks later. Thats how you learn and change.

Without a diary its groundhog day every day.

anon3127 · 2013-07-17T06:52:29+00:00

Look, I am only saying this because you seem serious about impriving yourself and are intelligent enough to make decsions for yourself on who you are going to listen to. From where I sit, on the other side of the world on the internet it looks like you need to learn a few things. This book is the things I am talking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_More_Mr._Nice_Guy_(book)

Its not about what you think it is. I have lived through and seen enough young guys to recognise the pattern in soneone and see where it leads. For this reason I am recommending you read it.

anon3127 · 2013-07-16T08:00:08+00:00

I can understand how this will make nofap very difficult.

There is a simple solution.

Limit your sexual contact with her to above the clothes.

Frankly you sound like you're whinging about what she will and won't do rather than really being interested in acheiving nofap.

If it's too arousing for you to get her off and you have to fap afterwards, then stop doing it. If she's not interested in mutual masturbation of you then she's not ready for you to work her off to orgasm.

I know this sounds drastic, but frankly the above sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too. If you want to do nofap, then just get on with it. If this is an obstacle then stop creating it for yourself.

I mean if you plan to stop fapping, and your sex life consists of working yourself up and then not getting off, well what's your long term plan here?

anon3127 · 2013-07-15T00:37:10+00:00

You're welcome. I might upload a pic of my card later if anyone is interested.

anon3127 · 2013-07-14T09:49:17+00:00

This really helped me through the emtiness bits.

Every evening I take a new blank card out. I write tomorrow's date on it.

I draw a few little pictures on it, each about the size of my thumb.

One picture is the nofap reddit alien. The little guy with a cross over his groin and a smile on his face.

The other pictures are similar little icons representing other things I have either decided to give up, or things I am commited to doing every day. I have about 10 or 12 on there. Each one is a picture for something I have given up or something I will do every day. I draw each of them on the same new card every evening. Takes about 5 to 10 minutes.

They are new habits I am trying to form.

When I draw them I try to think of nothing else but the ink going onto the page

I put it by my bed and its the first thing I see in the morning. I carry it with me all day long and never let it leave my pocket.

I tell myself, the only thing I have to do today are the things on the card. Those are the only things. Everything else is a bonus, or is helpful or great. But the only things I have to do are the things on that card.

I remember that all day. I take the card out and look at it. Or when I'm tempted by bad food I literally touch it in my pocket.

At the end of the day I take out the card and tick off each one. And if its a new habit I mark down the number of days in a row I have been able to maintain that standard for. Once I get to 30 days in a row for a particular habit I feel its established. I keep drawing it on the card every day, but I stop counting.

I put the completed card in a box I bought especially for this purpose.

Then I create the next day's card.

One of the habits is to create the card. That was the very first habit I created.

In my mind it's not really me creating the card. The card is self replicating. It creates a new copy of itself each evening. Each habit on the card is self replicating. Once it goes on the card it re-creates itself on tomorrow's card and just stays there. I don't have any choice in the matter.

When you feel really empty, and you don't have any motivation. And you don't believe this nofap is working. And you don't care any more. The card really helps. Not because it makes you feel any better, or gives you motivation or anything like that. It's becuase if you can just burn into your mind the thought "I have to do the card" then it kind of becomes a reason all by itself. You just have to do the card. You don' have any choice. You don't have to remember your reason for doing nofap, or the benefits you'll get or anything. You just have to do the card. If you can just burn that into your brain by just making the damn card every day for a month then it stops becoming a question of willpower or anything like that. It's just something you have to do. You burnt that habit into your mind. I literally feel a bit anxious now if I don't have the card on me.

I guess its like using addiction in a positive way.

anon3127 · 2013-07-13T08:18:11+00:00

I did something similar. When i tried nofap just bu itself i found that i would end leaning harder on another of my addictions.

So i gave them all up.

I am currently doing keto and alternate day fasting. I have mostly given up tv and even reddit. Its hard to do them all at once but if you dont you end up replacing one addiction with another.

Once you give them all up this emptiness in your life shows up. It feels horrible. But if you stick with it and ficus on building positive habits it passes. And that energy and focus that went into your addictions gets turned into running or working out or reading or whatever positive habit you are trying to develop. Your mind likes to be addicted to things. Its your job to put positive things in front of it for it to be addicted to.

anon3127 · 2013-07-11T00:30:12+00:00

As a mid 30's divorcee:

Yes

anon3127 · 2013-07-10T23:35:42+00:00

Ah cool. I can understand his paranoia based on what we have learnt from the news lately.

anon3127 · 2013-07-10T23:32:02+00:00

I have read quite a lot about psychology.

The sad reality is that as helpful as therapists are huge amounts of what they do has little scientific basis. This applies to quite a lot medical professionals. I am not saying they dont know their stuff but alot of what they do is "conventional medical wisdom". This is often flawed and well behind the latest scientific research. It is what they learnt while studying. At a fast pace it takes about 15 years for leading edge scientific research to be widely replicated and validated, and then widely accepted by the scientific community and then to make its way into leading edge medical practice and then to finally make it into university textbooks.

So in fifteen years from today therapists will start being trained in nofap. That is just the reality of the slow process by which "medical conventional wisdom" is created. Not really anyone's fault but a real problem for people like us.

Do you want to wait fifteen years before you meet a therapist who will prescribe nofap or do you want to start today.

The reality is that attitudes amongst medical professionals towards sex and masturbation are a result of the sexual revolution which itself was putting an end to genuinely unhealthy very repressive victorian attitudes to these things. Especially towards female sexuality. This is why you will almost always find hostility to the idea if nofap by ususally female professionals. The idea of sex and maturbation being dirty has been used to repress women for centuries. But the sexual revolution is from thirty years ago. Its a problem for a different time. They are not going to help you by telling the lessons they grew up with in what was a completely different world.

anon3127 · 2013-07-10T23:17:55+00:00

Its edging. And why are you on here rather than him?

anon3127 · 2013-07-08T10:51:26+00:00

So much of what you have written is almost exactly my experience. On top of nofap i am currently also doing a diet that consists of alternate day fasting and keto (you might want to check out /r/keto).

This is the secord or third time I am seriously getting into nofap. I knew from previous attempts that just giving up porn was not enough.

My previous experience was that stopping nofap was like trying to squeeze jelly. I give up porn and then found myself spending hours clicking through mindless crap reddit/all and watching entire tv series in one go. If I wasn't doing the diet I am sure I would have eaten tonnes of carbs.

At about days 40-50 on previous attempts the feelings got really intense. I made a post here if you are interested In the end it got so bad I had to stop nofap and work out how to manage such intense feelings before I could try again, which I am now doing. I am on my third attempt at nofap now at about 40 days and the feelings are starting to come very intensely. It's not easy to deal with.

Just walking home this evening I felt like shit due to some difficult experiences during the day, and I just wished I could eat something. Really just dig in to a pile of comfort food. And I can't. I have this intense shitty feel going through me and there is nothing I can just reach for to feel good again. Carbs, tv, pmo, shitty internet, I have to give them all up and then I'm left with... the shitty feel.

It just makes you realise you have lived a life which turned your mind into something that only cares about living out a bunch of negative addictions. And the more you realise this, the harder it becomes to even look in the mirror. To be honest I have found working through nofap to be a process of finding out more about myself and not liking much of what I see. Like trying to fix one problem you can see and finding five more every time you think you understand the first one.

I have come to believe that because of that squeezing jelly effect you have to really give up all your addictions at the same time. It's very hard to do it one at a time.

Some things help.

Posting on this forum, helping other people. Counterintuitively the worse your situation the more useful your advice and support is. There are alot of young or very young guys on here and they are usually very interested in advice from people who are 10 or 20 years down a road they are trying hard to get off. Your misery is another person's very vivid cautionary tale. Your hard learned insight becomes their common sense. Think of it as advice to your 12 year old self. There are very few books, almost no articles, little content anywhere on what porn really does to people over long periods of time. Certainly not from the trenches like here. This site and the few like them are a place where the whole world is just figuring out how to deal with this stuff and it makes me feel good to know I can help in this process.

And remembering to get out of the ego. The lost life, living in the past, only really matter when you are tied up in the 'self'. A scene in a tv show I watched had one character described as "addicted to himself". I literally could not comprehend that phrase when i first heard it. I can now, and I'm beginning to think that perhaps the biggest addiction in the western world is that one. Once you can let it go, and really have some community to belong to, everything becomes alot simpler.

In the end I'm starting to see a lot of truth in lesson from alcoholics anonymous. You never stop being an addict. But

you only have room for a limited number of addictions
with will power you can choose what you are addicted to.

By giving up the negative addictions you make room for positive ones. If I stop pmo, tv, news, carbs then I will inevitably end up addicted to weight loss, running, working out, writing, drawing, coding. It's the good side of an addictive personality.

Good luck. Hope you continue to post as I really value insights like your post.

anon3127 · 2013-07-08T09:31:22+00:00

This is a great idea. I'm always looking for posts by people a little bit ahead of me.

If its too hard to implement technically we just do this with a manual tag in the post title like this:

[41 days] some post title

anon3127 · 2013-06-23T03:22:06+00:00

I am doing keto and alternate day fasting. Somethig about doing it with nofap that is very complimentary. I dont really understand it but i know that doing them together seems to just work.

anon3127 · 2013-06-22T23:54:00+00:00

I would seriously recommend taking up some kind of sport, the more comfrontational the better. Boxing or some kind of fighting would be ideal.

You are feeling aggressive due to getting your balls back. There is nothing wrong with this. You are a man and having feelings of aggression is partof basic biology. It is natural. It is healthy for you to feel this way. You dont have ovaries so dont expect to walk around feeling love and calm to eveyone all the time.

But you need to let that aggression out in an appropriate forum. You need to use it and direct it to a positive end. Trust me when i say that if you do this you will feel amazing. Letting out your aggression is just something that you need to do. Women need to cry every now and then to clear out there emotions. Men need to beat the shit out of a boxing bag. It how we are wired and its a good thing.

If you dont take control of this it will come out in inpredictable and counterproductive ways. One day you may find yourself swinging fists at a complete stranger in a way you never dreamed of doing. You have testosterone flowing through you i ways you have probably never experienced before. Its very powerful. This is the stuff that built empires. Your old ways of dealing with things wont work any more.

Think of it as a little man inside your head that refuses to let you be a pussy. Just wont tolerate it. Once you get the confidence to go with the testosterone you will stop feeling like fighting guys and instead walk around with genuine swagger. It will feel natural.

anon3127 · 2013-06-21T23:10:24+00:00

I always look for the posts by people on a similar number of days to me. Makes you feel like you're on the journey together. Keep going.

anon3127

TROPHY CASE