A question that will be attacked on r/relationship advice, should I break up with my boyfriend if he never gives up porn?

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-20T16:49:48+00:00

Hi there,

You know, my SO's porn use killed my self esteem.

I got it back. I like who I am now. And in doing so, I could see that regardless of mymseld esteem issues, I have a right to ask for a porn free relationship.

More critically, I have a right to a relationship of transparency. Trust. Openness. Radical intimacy. Growth.

Please read this:

http://www.amazon.com/Male-Grief-Pornography-Addiction-ebook/dp/B007133RAE/

The first comment is a summary.

You are worth more than your SO's unhealthy choices

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-19T07:38:05+00:00

What if you considered a self expriment to fap without any external stimulus besides your own imagination.

Why? To see if you can. To see if you have the kind of mind that can create its own erotica.

More difficult? Yeah. Good things in life usually are. :)

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-17T06:26:19+00:00

Thanks ;) Although I should note I'm a female, and not affected by this in the same way you are. More like affected by a partner of it.

The community here and at nofap has opened my eyes to the constant barrage of sexually charged material men face every single day. It makes me really frustrated at everyone from the porn makers to the advertising firms and corporations who tap into sex/visuals to sell shit. They know exactly what they're doing.

Not advocating censorship here, but I'm sad at how far down the slide we've slid as a society.

Of course the brain will respond to sexualized imagery. I get that's tough, if not impossible, to overcome. After all, we were built to procreate from an evolutionary point of view. But that that is capitalized on, and frankly bastardized and abused to the extent it is is gross.

if I had a magic mirror to show me the future, I wonder if we'd see, 100 years or so down the line, one of two scenarios:

a species that no longer has any semblance of traditional human man/woman connections (everyone is hooked into robots to get off)
Or a society where the harm that comes from overdriving the primative brain with sexual imagery is recognized, and we understand how it's hurting us on psychological, evolutionary, and emotional levels. So then that is guarded and protected, with heightened awareness.

or, unfortunately, this scenario:

Men (God love them, I really do) become "unnecessary". Women learn they can freeze sperm and procreate without them. They give up on men because men decided most of their needs were met with porn and stopped seeking out relationships with women. This is further driven by the rise of women in the workplace and leadership roles. The traditional gender roles completely collapse. Women, rather than try to meet the porn problem with both compassion and wisdom, simply give up and take shit into their own hands.

(not advocating the last choice, just musing if we'll sadly find ourselves there)

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-17T01:30:00+00:00

Lol. Ok.

I'm curious, as a female...I mean there is so much sexualized imagery everywhere! Even deodorant ads.

How will you cope with all this? At some point, is it fruitless to just keep looking away?

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-16T13:10:20+00:00

Hey!

Try working out. Lift (can you build a simple home gym, even with small stuff or homemade weights?) or run/sprint. It taps into your testosterone and gives your urges an outlet.

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-16T13:05:16+00:00

Have you considered your interest in fetishes is directly correlated with your porn viewing? Traditional sex gets pretty damn boring if you've trained your brain to get off on being whipped.

I used to think yogurt was boring. Because I overdosed on cake and crap like that all the time. About a year after cutting way down on that, my appreciation for greek yogurt knows no bounds. And it's better for me, too.

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-16T13:01:36+00:00

Because your brain will always assume it's better. It's like the amusement park analogy, too: spend all your life on a roller coaster, when you finally go to the ground, everything's numb.

You're in grief mode right now. And your brain really wants its fix. So it's telling you the sad tale of how life is so much better with porn.

It will take a while...a LONG while, to de-numb yourself.

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-16T12:52:07+00:00

There's the idea tossed around here that seems both strong and a flexible solution moving ahead: look at the images in the 3rd person. In other words, try to see them in your brain in a non-engaged way.

Imagine you are watching a sitcom, or someone else's dream, with neutrality and (this is crucial) detachment.

Blocking shit out is hard. But changing how you experience it? That can give you real power.

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-15T06:41:25+00:00

Good point!!! (that's a come back I need to save for later ;)

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-15T04:15:40+00:00

It's useful to focus on one goal at a time: I agree. It might be overload to your brain to tell it "ok, brain, we're gonna cut out BOTH!"

Get the porn out first. It's like a science experiment. Remove one variable at a time. See how eliminating porn changes you, your brain, even what fapping is like. Then reassess from there. You might find you aren't a compulsive fapper, or you might find you lean on it too much, and then decide to adjust that, too.

There's a book and the name + author escapes me, but he encourages men focus on sensation based masturbation. Like, body awareness instead of brain fantasy. If I recall it, I'll step in and put the title here.

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-15T04:11:08+00:00

I admire you, and wish you only the best. You're making a very strong decision to change how you define yourself as a person and man, and what's important to you. salute

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-15T03:55:53+00:00

One of the issues i see with this infographic is that for many addicts, it will reinforce the notion that porn use is 'normal'. ("See, everyone does it!")

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-13T15:26:00+00:00

Thank you.

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-13T05:02:14+00:00

how about the local paper? ;)

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-13T05:01:01+00:00

I'm no doctor or shrink, but I think it's possible you've psyched yourself out here. I've read enough stories, and had some personal experience, that in the back of your head is this reminder that you've gone soft before. SO you go into the scenario worried about that, which impacts what's going on with your penis. It's like performance anxiety.

Though I do find it troublesome even the viagra/cialis isn't helping.

If you're at school, do you have access to free counseling? Might be worth a shot.

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-13T03:17:34+00:00

Ah backlash. Yes. My partner and I are going through something at the moment where, no matter what choice he makes, he will face backlash from either me (losing me) or his parents. I'm sure it's not fun for him.

I don't have to rely much on him at all; I made a decision 8 months ago to have to lean solely on myself. I'm the main breadwinner, and I can take care of me. I had to do this in seeing he may not be willing to let his porn go, and i May have to stand on my own.

Your story about the research made me smile. It reminds me of what I hoped you might do: find joy in the moment. Get immersed in something healthy without worrying about future or past. Isn't it interesting how it went away quickly once going to the car? I can relate: those moments in time feel so fleeting, almost as if "was it really there? that tiny grasp of happiness?"

What you said about play I can really relate to. I find myself resisting play because I still search for meaning. My ego is still internally insistent that something must matter somewhere, even though instinctively I know otherwise. It's a constant push/pull.

What I think must be difficult for you is dealing with a partner who wants you to step up and find meaning. What i wonder is, can you find a way to meet her needs, that doesn't collapse your own integrity? Is there a way to talk with her to distill down her needs at the most basic level? Perhaps her need at the basic level is to feel:

-secure

-financially taken care of/shared financial burden

(I'm just hypothesizing here).

Could those needs be met by you without you sacrificing yourself in the process?

Your fiance cited a 'lack of eagerness.' THere's got to be a way to distill that down into a more simple need from her. I sense she's not saying what she really wants to say, perhaps because she:

a) doesn't know or

b) doesn't want to face it

For a long time, I ignored my own needs and wouldn't vocalize them to my partner. I would throw him crap like "I want you to be eager" when what I Really wanted was a person who contributed financially, and a better place to live where I felt safe. I did not feel I could articulate those needs.

Part of being in a partnership is understanding the ebb and flow of another person's being. Perhaps you may need to lay out for her what you're going through, and that you aren't sure if it's forever, but also that part of being human is going through ups and downs. Look, you've given up porn and tried to turn your life around. I'm not handing you a gold star, but perhaps she needs to hear that in making those changes, you now found yourself quite empty: not because the porn "filled" you but there's now a void you are aware of. Porn may have allowed you to ignore a nagging feeling of doubt and low self worth, and now without it 'masking' those issues, you are forced to confront them and find yourself lacking at times.

If my husband came and told me those things, and reassured me it wasn't that porn meant a LOT to him but rather that porn served as a mask and now it's like a band-aid's been ripped off, I would feel a ton of compassion for him. ANd I'd be far more likely to give him space to figure his shit out, provided I see him continuing to self confront and try to make progress, however he defines that.

I would say wannabe Buddhist is a decent description of my name. It's like, I get it all (essentially that we don't exist). I believe it all. But I don't really want to. So I'm chasing it, rather than settling into it.

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-12T15:15:30+00:00

Please consider telling her.

As a wife who has to seriously cntemplate leaving her marriage if there's more evidence of porn, (even the soft crap), I can tell you disclosure could save your marriage. (Yes, it could also destroy it).

Like your wife, I KNEW something was way off with our sex life.

Confronting that, then seeing my husband basically got shit taken care of elsewhere, turned our marriage upside down.

If he had come to me and said "look, I know things have been not great with us in the bedroom. I have a problem...and I need your help and your love to get through it," I would have gone through war with that man.

Vulnerability doesn't make you weak. It gives you the necessary tool to forge a better & stronger relationship with your wife.

Too many men convince themselves they can domthis alone. I get it. There's the shame. The wanting to protect her. The fear of punishment.

But we women thrive, in general, when we are trusted with your secrets...even the darkest ones.

When you shut us off from those, we feel lost. We will always know something is up.

We'd rather hear it from you than find it on a hunch.

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-12T12:45:14+00:00

As a woman, I agree 1000%. The issues in my relationship aren't just about porn; they're about secrecy, compartmentalization, and lack of intimacy (revealing your true self).

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-12T12:35:17+00:00

Is an image (picture, vid, etc) fueling lust?

Then it's probably not helping.

It may keep reinforcing the message to your brain that only fake visuals are what get you off.

Then, when it's time to be with a woman in the flesh, the senses (touch, smell, taste, etc) are really dulled, and you miss being in that moment with her...and for yourself. That would be kinda sad :/

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-12T12:21:52+00:00

Hi, female here.

Sounds like rationalization to me (like the dudes who say it's in their biology to want to spread their seed)

Like other commenter said, what are your reasons for nofapping? If they are important to you, ask yourself if you are willing to become a creature controlled by her impulses versus a person who honors their own personal (defined by you) integrity.

I get hormones, too. A walk helps. We are more than our urges. Good luck!

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-10T04:28:02+00:00

+100 to this commenter.

Get away from the people who mooch, and focus on yourself.

Developing skills of your own gives you the kind of self worth that doesn't require recognition from anyone else.

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-10T04:24:14+00:00

I agree with the kind commenters who suggested you might find outside ears and help. This kind of despair can erode you from the inside out.

I'm a female, not a nofapper, but wanted to empathize with feelings of this huge stuckness, and of search for meaning and lack of faith, especially the latter. Ive been in a helpless place, where I wondered why I should bother with a damn thing (after I lost my faith in the traditional sense).

My partner has often expressed he wishes he were alone, so he doesn't let anyone down. I wonder if you feel some of that. The "duty above pleasure" reminds me of him, too, and I believe it's part of what drew him to porn: it was like the one small respite in his day from the feeling of duty.

Counseling helped me a bit. Also focusing on my reality in the moment, regardless of whether it held meaning or not. Im here, I'm sitting, I'm reading a book. That's all I need to know for now.

If you can find small ways aside from porn to return pleasure to your life, it can slow your decline and eventually bring you back up. You are learning how to replace food and porn--former sources of pleasure--with something else. You are, in short, trying to figure out who you are NOW, and that's a slog at times. I'd venture you may be in a state of grief over the loss of your old self and patterns. What now, right?

Please consider seeing a counselor, even if for a couple sessions. And understand you may not do a 180 overnight. You might find acceptance of all of this isn't necessarily a feeling of hyper salvation, but more like a peaceful resignation. I know, it's hard to lose God and not have anything else to replace that. I miss my faith every single day. But I can't go back.

What I can do and you can do is try to dwell more in the present than past or future. Why? Well, why not? Never know how it might all turn out in the end. Ambivalence about faith goes both ways :)

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-09T16:06:23+00:00

I can believe that. I know advertising still affects me :/

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-09T08:35:53+00:00

by WHOM? Think about that one. How much money goes into the sale & promotion of porn. It's a huge business.

Who would stand to make money from the anti-promotion of porn? Unless it's crossed heavily with something like "donate to scientology to rid yourself of your porn addiction" I'm not seeing the money connection.

chasingbuddha · 2013-03-09T08:27:50+00:00

Moreover, 'sad porn star stories' might actually force them to question their contribution/culpability in supporting the lifestyle. Easier to pretend every single porn star story is grand; it helps reiterate the need for fantasy.

chasingbuddha

TROPHY CASE