THANK YOU SOOO MUCH for your incredibly gracious and supportive post overall! and no words for how much I especially needed to hear your confidence in my ability to beat the demons of my addiction. I woke up today feeling like crap and your post was incredibly reassuring and a great wake up call as well! One day at a time my friend.
I’m really sorry to hear about your divorce, @path-forward. I hope that you are able to find greater peace and happiness as things settle down in your life over the next few months. Hang in there!
path-forward, very sorry to hear about your situation. I know you've given it much thought for quite some time, and that a decision like this is super difficult. I'm glad you are both wanting to remain on good terms through this. Wishing you the best.
Thanks everyone for their very kind and support messages. Truly means a lot to me! I am hoping we will be able to stay good friends, as we both are desiring that. Today is approaching 2 days clean. While it took me a full year to completely understand and accept it, I now know both peeking and PMO/MO need to be out of my life. I am very resolved to stay vigilant given my deeply pained emotional state and have this be the beginning of a very long and completely clean hard mode streak.
I'm sorry to hear that you are going through this trial. However, you have often spoken about how your wife is amazing, considers your needs, and is patient...what happened to that person? Why aren't you fighting to save your marriage? Look at the above message you wrote. After talking about your marriage tanking you write about trying to stay clean using hard-mode. For me there is a serious disconnect. There is almost a banality to it all. It's like, "yeah, the marriage is over, but now back to staying clean!" Huh?
Sir Saville. Thanks so much for coming back from your "break from the forum" to respond here. Means a lot to me! Hope you are doing well. And as always - I really appreciate your directness and candor. And yes - I do think my wife is a great person and I will always love her. But there is A LOT about our respective beliefs, life style, desired interests, and overall relationship dynamics, that I have not discussed. And out of respect for my wife - I wont go into them here. But we both finally acknowledged we were on a long term path to have a very toxic ending to our relationship and are being pro-active to try to preserve a long term friendship. And for the record, most of our family and friends understand the dichotomy between our strong feelings for each other and our desire to divorce to preserve that special friendship. Though you picked up a good point! In that - I admit in retrospect, that in a way - I am using my focus on staying clean - as a way to redirect my emotions away from the pain of my pending divorce. Thanks again for your caring and thoughtful feedback! Truly appreciated!
“I now know both peeking and PMO/MO need to be out of my life. I am very resolved to stay vigilant ” Remember the cartoon line “knowing is half the battle”. Day 3 and onwards.
thanks man. Means a lot. I’ve missed your direct and candid perspectives. Always keeps people honest in their feelings and emotions.
Very much grieving my failed marriage and it hurts even more knowing my wife feels the same. But I know in my heart it is the right decision for both of us. Life can be painfully hard sometimes, but I know from past experiences - that both of us will be OK and will find ways to be happy and satisfied with our lives. On a positive note - I woke up with morning wood today for the first time in a while - which felt encouraging. I am on day 5 of a renewed focus to work as hard on stopping peeking at P, as I am on not PMO or MO. I no longer want to act like its sometimes OK to peek or deceive myself in other ways about my addiction. I also need to accept that there will be pain in my complete abstinence. I can no longer use PMO as a form of self-medication. I want to look in the mirror and be proud of who I am. I hike fairly tough terrain sometimes and there are periods where I ask myself why I am doing this? And I remind myself of the amazing feeling both at the summit and when I finish the hike. My journey to beat my Porn Addiction needs to have the same mentality. I can no longer allow it to control my thoughts and life.
This is a superb post, it's very honest in its reflections on life. I also loved the positive note about the Morning glory. As Autumn is looming and plants are dropping it's nice the glory is coming back. I also want to say, you proved something I've long reflected on, that of how important words are with that mention of morning glory. That paragraph I'd say in a very metaphoric way works as a pivot from the somber tone of the previous to the growing optimism of the following ones. With regards to the grieving, I totally feel you PF, it's never easy letting go, and questions of the heart is as close as it gets for any of us men. Grieve all you need. All I can say is 'failed' although it's common to here in these situations sounds too fatalistic. When we change other relationships such as friendships/family we might say we 'outgrew' them, or we 'moved on'. I think maybe the same could apply here. You being the guy that won her heart clearly shows you are a success, there are so many men/women, we do well to have captivated the attention of one. And marriage alike even convos with our best friend is never smooth sailing, even the best friend, will not feel like the best always. There's a reason we have MPH/KPH, time and distance are inextricably connected as the adage time heals goes. The emotions don't go just by abstinence, just like a tap doesn't stop dripping completely, you just get stronger. You build tolerance, to build enough conviction that however bad it is, porn is a false connection and will never ameliorate the pain. I heard something recently: 'Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.' Wishing you strength 1MLA
@1MoreLookAway thank you so much for your incredibly gracious, candid and thoughtful post. You also shared a lot and it was overall very much appreciated. You are doing some great work! You express yourself very well. You should consider starting your own thread, as I think you will find maintaining your own journal will provide further discipline and foundation in your fight against this awful addition. Thanks again for all your support my friend. It means a lot to me.
Staying Clean including no peeking at P. Kind of feel a bit in a flat line - though grieving my divorce may be a factor. I am very focused on having this clean streak be my longest. I know how good I felt after 100 days clean of BOTH no PMO and no peeking at P last year. And I know I now need to have control of my addiction to feel healthy and happy with myself. Not having a big urges rn which is a huge help.
