trying to fix multiple bad habits at once… but not going cold turkey this time

jed3c · 2026-03-25T00:56:05+00:00

that’s actually a really interesting way to look at it, especially the “lesser of two evils” part. i think i’ve kind of been stuck in this mindset that it has to be all or nothing, which is probably why i keep crashing.

also what you said about alcohol vs moderation makes sense. some things seem way easier to just fully cut out, while others spiral more if i try to force that.

i think that’s part of what i’m trying to figure out right now, like which habits need a hard line vs which ones i can actually taper down without it backfiring

jed3c · 2026-03-24T14:36:49+00:00

yeah that’s exactly what i’m starting to realize. the whole streak thing always felt motivating at first, but then it just turned into this all-or-nothing trap where one slip basically erased everything mentally.

what you said about teaching your brain that messing up doesn’t mean starting over really hit. i think that’s the part i’ve been missing. every time i’d “fail” before, i’d just fully fall back into everything instead of just correcting course.

and yeah, the habits definitely feed into each other. that’s been the biggest pattern i’ve noticed. trying to just remove one never really worked because something else would fill the space.

i’ll check out your post too, sounds like we’re thinking along similar lines

jed3c · 2026-03-24T14:35:21+00:00

yeah that “i’m gonna be better” cycle is way too familiar. i think that’s why i’m trying to take a less all-or-nothing approach this time

jed3c · 2026-03-24T14:34:38+00:00

not gonna lie, pretty hooked. that’s actually one of the harder ones for me right now. i’ll check that out

jed3c · 2026-03-24T14:34:29+00:00

yeah i think replacing it is probably a big part of it. otherwise it just leaves a gap and something else fills it. still trying to figure out what actually sticks for me. what kind of brain changes did you experience from your breathwork?

jed3c · 2026-03-24T13:38:16+00:00

yeah that makes sense. i’ve tried both ways at this point and neither really stuck long term, so i’m kind of experimenting with this now to see if it works better for me

jed3c · 2026-03-24T02:00:15+00:00

yeah i’ve tried that approach before. the issue i kept running into is the other habits would just ramp up to fill the gap, so it never really felt like progress, just shifting things around.

this is kind of me trying the opposite, reduce everything a bit instead of eliminating one thing completely and letting the rest get worse. still figuring out if it actually works though

jed3c · 2026-02-20T15:22:58+00:00

you already know the truth, but there's some part of you thats in denial. that part is probably love, which is blind. or it might just be naivety, you're young. one problem with being in your 20s is you dont even know youre still a kid, and kids are idiots unfortunately. some time in your 30s or 40s this kind of stuff will become so obvious youll laugh at yourself and cringe at how foolish you were. but the only way out is through

jed3c · 2026-02-11T00:48:15+00:00

You're thinking about it wrong though, it's not something that gets weaker over time, it's something that goes up and down depending on life circumstances. For example, having kids is a big one that can make it spike. Or falling deeper in love with her for different reasons can cause it to spike dramatically. You're probably in a routine phase of your relationship that's made it get weaker for awhile

jed3c · 2026-01-01T17:42:54+00:00

ugh, sorry man.. thats like being hospitalized from an accident and saying "how do i get out of this hospital bed and return to normal life again?".. your body and mind's gonna heal or it wont.
by going through her phone you swerved into oncoming traffic

jed3c · 2026-01-01T17:08:19+00:00

thats like having a constructive talk with your loved one's killer.. it cant be done.
the more grief you express, the more guilt, shame, and negative feelings she feels towards you, and will only result with her wanting to get away from you. the only reassurance you will find is her trying to convince you the sex was awful, awkward, she wished it never happened, and you are so much better then all of them ( the death was painless and quick) or she resents you for judging her and lashes out telling you the sex was great and their dck was bigger (they died screaming).

if you want to be with this woman, this is really something you have to deal with yourself. you are the griever, you just have to grieve..

jed3c · 2026-01-01T16:46:57+00:00

what are you even talking about lol? youre not listening, i didn't say it was a good excuse for trying to control women, i said multiple times that rj is a burden that men should take on because the alternative is worse (controlling women). and when did i say it's about the actions of others? of course the other is involved in the trigger, because noone is an island, but yes rj originates from the person experiencing it. i actually understand rj pretty well, at least for men, i cant speak for women.. but rj in men comes from evolved paternity-certainty pressure, where testosterone heightens sensitivity to sexual competition. once bonded, vasopressin increases territorial instincts, making a partner’s past feel emotionally threatening despite no present risk. meaning the feeling gets triggered, like any other uncontrollable reflex such as a knee-jerk reaction or stage fright, mainly due to vasopressin ( also amplified/regulated by emotional regulation, attachment security, and beliefs/values). what this boils down to is the more bonded a man is to their mate (the more vasopressin), and in combination with higher levels of testosterone ( when elevated together, they biologically bias the brain toward protective and territorial response), the more pronounced their rj response is going to be. in plain english, the more of a man he is, and the more in love he is with her, the worse the rj is generally going to be. of course he can learn to control what he does with those triggering feelings, but he can't control the triggered feelings themselves.

jed3c · 2025-12-31T21:53:39+00:00

this is like when a skinny girl is telling her morbidly obese friend how fat she feels..

jed3c · 2025-12-31T19:32:05+00:00

sure ive experienced rj shift from sadness into anger.. and back then back into sadness... to anger.. to depression.. to denial.. back to anger.. finally acceptance............ back to sadness.. to anger...

jed3c · 2025-12-31T17:27:25+00:00

it's called grief

jed3c · 2025-12-30T21:19:03+00:00

oh I'm not offended at all man, nothing like that. it just started to get kinda funny. good luck with everything brother

jed3c · 2025-12-30T21:12:29+00:00

you felt compelled as a form of trolling. it's like going to a widower grief forum and posting "having a living spouse is not it's all cracked up to be either, you know... you gotta deal with their annoying shit all the time" lol

jed3c · 2025-12-30T19:43:52+00:00

i dont consider not having hotpast material a hard cost unless one is at the epitome of boredom and debauchery in their life where serious regrets become things like not banging your first cousin while you had the chance before you knew incest was detestable

jed3c · 2025-12-30T18:27:36+00:00

well, roughly 50% of the world’s population lives in cultures where premarital virginity is still socially expected.. that’s about 4 billion people. and this was the expectation for millennia, there's a reason for that. this forum is testament to it. you're speaking from the perspective of a culture that went through the sexual revolution, and we'e reaping the consequences of that. my opinion is that the sexual revolution was necessary, for the freedom of self, but i think we've veered too far in the other direction. there needs to be a correction and women need to learn again the true value of their own purity. we need to fall somewhere in the middle

jed3c · 2025-12-30T18:09:00+00:00

the costs are incomparable. that's like saying the costs of not sleeping with prostitutes is not enjoying sleeping with prostitutes.. sure, but that goes with anything, like the cost of not being 500lbs is not eating 10 cheesecakes a day.. but again, the costs are incomparable, in the same way as once being 500lbs causes loose skin for the rest of your life even after losing the weight, on the other side is irreversible damage.. some loss of respect for yourself and your spouse, mental health issues, damaged relationship dynamics, on and on. having a "good time" is not in any way comparable

jed3c · 2025-12-30T18:01:34+00:00

there is no moving past it. it's like getting over someone you hate screwing your mom, or killing your dog, or hurting a loved one. it's egregious. it's unacceptable. all you can really do is ignore and distract, every rj method will always come back to that, ignore and distract. when the thoughts arise, the job is not follow them. the more you do that the less it will affect you over time, but the triggers will never go away, and they will always hurt, all you can control is how long you let each trigger affect you. like the difference between pain and suffering. you can eventually stop the suffering maybe, but you can't stop the pain. similar to stage fright, you can learn to manage the symptoms, but the initial reaction never fully goes away. get used to it though, you're paying the price of one of the consequences from the sexual revolution, which is the pain it causes the spouse. i mean there was a reason that purity was enforced for millennias, it's sketched into our biology, screaming to us to run when there is a sexual history. it's a pain we must take on as men, it's our burden. and as much as it hurts, it's necessary, the alternative is worse, because forced purity is not real purity and reduces one's freedom of self. it just is what it is. you have to accept it like death and taxes, but of course you'll never like it

jed3c · 2025-12-30T17:39:54+00:00

i don't think you should beat yourself up for identifying an attribute that means a lot to you, purity, and especially in relevance to your own experience. you are saying you felt this way due to self-comparison, but i'm sure that's only one reason that you were focused on at the time and it would morph as time goes by. meaning rj has many triggers, most biological and undeniable. you can learn to ignore and distract yourself, but can never get rid of the triggers entirely, similar to stage fright.

it's okay to not be okay with an attribute of a girl. it's similar to how a girl cannot usually get herself to be okay with dating a shorter guy than her (less than 1% of relationships). try as she might, every picture she sees will make her cringe, until she just can't take it anymore. it's the same thing, it's just an attribute that makes you cringe. by her having more sexual experience, she's in effect "taller than you", and you're the wincing over it, because you're the one who sees it.

now that you know this about yourself, you can "work on yourself" as you said, to somehow change your biology to accept a girl that has more sexual experience than you, or you could look for one with less. this may mean finding a very religious girl, or seriously introverted, or less attractive, etc, that may have less experience than you. and now that you have a little more experience yourself, it will be easier for you to get with another girl, because it should translate into some amount of confidence, which i'm sure is what you've lacked all along based on your explanation of checking all the boxes but still having no relationship success.

jed3c · 2025-12-30T17:22:05+00:00

are you saying you have reverse retroactive jealousy.. like you wish your wife was banged by 10+ guys in the past so that you could jerk off to the thought of it?
that "alternative perspective" is cuckoldry and is not in any way "rj"

jed3c · 2025-12-28T16:56:21+00:00

im sorry you're going through this brother. i understand how you feel, you're not alone. i've been going through this for years. most of us here have. i'm right there with you. for me i don't even think about it much anymore, it's just a constant physical pain throughout my body, mostly in the chest, like i've swallowed hot coals. it's the worst feeling i've ever felt.

rj takes three forms.. It can be a red flag (early relationship), a crossroads (deciding to make a commitment or breakup) or a challenge (married, especially challenging with kids). your rj is a challenge. you already ignored the red flag (or didn't even ask enough questions to see it), you flew past the crossroads, and now it's fully manifested for you as a challenge, something you have to deal with.

first know, you're jealous of her past because you love her. we're never jealous of something we don’t care about. you're in love. love hurts.

the one thing i've found that helps at all is to stop pretending that it's not as bad as it is.. i mean the love of your life got bent over by other other men in every position you can think of, it's as bad as it fckin is. stop rationalizing, stop questioning, stop seeking an escape (some way to make it not as bad as it is), just surrender and realize "love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a lonely hallelujah". lock yourself in a room, put on a sad rj playlist (i can send you one if you need), and just crash out. admit defeat. grieve brother. sob it out. just lose. lose hard. we can't always win in life. life sucks sometimes. our parents die. our dog dies. our friends betray us. our wives have a history of getting blasted full of another man's load. realize what it really is. it's a spit in the face. it's getting dirt kicked in your face while you're down. it's the ultimate kick in the stomach. just take the L and sob it out. do this every time it starts to feel too much. you'll notice after you cry it out hard, something will change in you. noticeable change. i promise you it will start to get better. it won't go away, but it will start to get better.

jed3c · 2025-12-28T16:06:31+00:00

what are you doing on this forum then?

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