Hello all, I've recently joined the forum here and decided to create this thread to help document my journey regarding giving up porn and getting my sex life with my wife back. I'm 48 and been married almost 25 yrs. I won't go into my background other than to say that over time I've realized I use porn to MO rather than have sex. And, this has become a problem as I've developed PIED and can't perform. I made this decision based on my most recent failure before Christmas. Like many others here, I never thought my failure was related to porn and PMO, subscribing it to anxiety and/or alcohol. After the last failure, and after making sure equipment worked the next morning, I found the YBOP site and realized that I had developed PIED. It all made sense. After that, starting the next day, Friday 12/17 I have been porn-free. I found this forum and after reading several journals and success stories decided to start my own journey. As of today, I'm 19 days P free. I have MO'ed a couple times, and really not tracking that other than tangentially. Sometimes it's just M without any porn or desire to O. But, even the desire to do that has been waning, so I'm hopeful. Also, did have successful sex with wife the day after Christmas, just needed a little help to get it back I don't really have too much desire for P, but sometimes the urge/temptation to take a peak has come around. Anyways, I look forward to sharing this journey with others who understand what I'm going through.
Welcome aboard, it sounds like you are off to a good start. It can be helpful to understand what situations (or triggers) make you more likely to look at porn and have a plan on how to deal them when they come around.
Thanks for the welcomes @positivef and @Mad Dog I have been reading other journals and that's what's got me thinking about recognizing triggers/urges (usually boredom, stress, and anxiety) and how to move past them. So far I feel I've been doing well by just getting up and walking around the block or doing something else. I'll be putting some thoughts in here as I go, so we'll see what direction this goes. So far so good this morning.
Another day without P, and now without MO after last Sat morning. Although I'm not really tracking MO, I'm keeping how much of it I do in mind. Goal is to abstain as much as possible, except sex with wife.
Another day without PMO, although the urge/temptation this morning was the strongest it's been. Woke up with morning wood about 5am or so but fell back to sleep. Pretty sure I had some erotic dreams that might explain it, but don't really remember.
Welcome to the forum... Though I am not the best example of my advice... Keep sharing and following others on their journey, it will really help you climb out of the pmo hole.
Thanks, appreciate it. I do plan on keeping this going until I can consistently have this kicked. I'm following a few others, just haven't responded to their journals yet, but that will come as I get more comfortable sharing. No PMO. Did attempt to have sex with wife last night, a bit of a shit show really. Only got about 40-50% hard, enough to penetrate then immediately O'd. Woke up about 5:30 with 100% erection. Although it went down, the wife was awake so decided to cuddle a bit. That turned into round 2 where it got better, but still PE. So, I've decided I need to go at least 30 days without MO to see if that helps. I may also go to doctor and see about ED meds, but still debating that. I've hired a coach for my lifting and hopefully that will take my mind off thinking about no PMO for a while, because I'll overthink about that instead. Also, going to work on getting my golf game back by going to the driving range every so often. I've also been thinking I need to reign in my drinking habit. I would not consider myself an alcoholic by any means (had no trouble not drinking last night), but I do regularly have 2-4 drinks almost every night. Going to work on decreasing that to 1-2 for a start with 1-2 nights of no drinking. I don't think alcohol has as much of an effect on ED, but want to eliminate that chance as much as I can, not to mention losing a little weight. Anyways, enough for today. Debating resetting the counter to reflect the 30 day no PMO challenge.
After some introspection about Friday night/morning, I think part of it was too much planning and thinking about the whole thing. I do plan on keeping off P (which surprisingly has not been too difficult so far) and limiting MO as much as possible (would like to go 30 days, but this seems the more difficult part for me, even though it's not nearly as often without P). By happenstance, we ended up having a good conversation about all this and she's willing to work with me on getting everything back on track and working like it did before. She's going through meno right now so her hormones have been a bit wonky. My libido has definitely been up and down during this time, and I'm not really sure if that's a part of the issue right now.
Another day without P. I did MO yesterday, but no fantasy and used lubricant. I don't really feel bad about it, but I also know I gave in where I should have had more willpower.
I'd give yourself a good long run without PMO before resorting to medication. Without PMO erections get stronger and stronger. Keep having sex with the wife and your equipment will become (literally) solid in a relatively short time. I'm over 60 and don't use meds. I'm not against them, but at 48 you are nowhere near needing that kind of crutch. You're doing great!
Thanks!! I've come to the same conclusion for now. I still need to get to the doctor (need to find one, really) just for normal getting older stuff, but will keep that off the table for the time being. I'm almost 30 days no P and will definitely be continuing no MO (unless with the wife) for a good while. I really want to see where this goes at this point. A few things I've noticed about myself so far: 1) My mood swings have greatly improved. My wife used to have to tiptoe around me sometimes because I would go off for no real reason. 2) I don't seem to get nearly as annoyed at trivial little things as I used to. Don't get me wrong, I still do it's just that I don't react as strongly to it and don't let it linger. 3) It feels/looks like I've gained a little size/fullness when flaccid. I've read stories about other guys reporting this and didn't really believe them, but now I do to a degree. 4) I seem to be getting morning/nocturnal wood more often now. In the recent past it seemed like it went away unless I had involuntarily stopped PMO due to circumstances. There's probably some others that I'm not thinking of at the moment but those have been noticeable. A couple of notes regarding discussing this with the wife last Sunday night. First, she was aware that I used PMO but not to the level that I had gotten to. She credited my ED to changes in hormones and getting older, not to mention the beer, but after I explained PIED and the brain chemistry involved, she came to the same conclusion I had regarding my issues and will be working me to get things better. Second, it went way better than I could have imagined even to the point that she asked why I had not brought it up before. I didn't really have an answer other than I didn't attribute my issues to P before recently either. Anyways, that's it for now.
You're doing really well ! You will ,succeed but heres a cautionary note,-- pmo dosent give up that easy get ready but you can win the day just keep doing what you have been doing
Thanks, appreciate the warning. No PM so far. Had sex Sat morning and it was pretty good. PE and EQ is still a problem, only about 70-80% or so (how do you really judge these things??LOL) but seems to be getting better. I realize this is only 30 days or so, but for some reason I thought this would get better more quickly. Like they say, everyone is different, I guess. I did have strong urges yesterday (chaser effect), and some this morning just not as strong, to PMO or just "take a peak," but have been able to push past them, so far. This process has been interesting. I'm ready for the next 30 days, I hope.
Another day with no PM. However, the urge to M has been strong lately and I'm not really sure why. Going to keep battling by staying busy and such. Keep fighting those urges folks!!
Another day PM free. I'm most likely going to reset my tracker for PM. Woke up this morning and the strong urges the last few days were all but completely gone (don't think that's a flatline, but idk). Also ended up having 2 nocturnal erections, one at 3am when I woke up needing to pee then couldn't go back to sleep, and a second around 5:15'ish. I also had some really strange semi-sex dreams. I don't usually wake up that much overnight, especially not lately, so I'll chalk it up to an anomaly. Thought I would give a bit of background that I have been thinking about regarding this journey. Hindsight is 20/20. I feel like I should have recognized warning signs over the years. Like many of you, I didn't start MO until mid to late teens (don't really remember the exact age) but it was to magazines/still pics until around early 2000's when I would/could get video tapes then CD's. Sex was never really an issue with my wife. I always felt like I finished too quickly so looked at ways to extend it. PMO was usually the cure, so I engaged just not that often. However, when high speed internet came around it became much easier to engage in PMO more often. I basically ended up with DE as in taking much longer than normal to finish, but I always did. Until the early 2010's when I sometimes didn't, then would fake it. Our sex life started slowing down during this time also because she did not like the effects of being on BC and I began having trouble maintaining an erection when putting on a condom. We didn't have kids and at this point did not want to get pregnant. Around 2015/16 our sex life basically crawled to a halt, with sex only happening 1-2 times a year. So, I turned to PMO to get me through. I increasingly became more interested in PMO than sex with the wife. Although I didn't really understand why at the time, I do now. The problem intensified when we would try and I couldn't maintain an erection. I mostly would blame alcohol, stress, getting older, etc. Basically, anything except the porn. I could always get it up to that. Finally, last July or so when we tried and I couldn't do it, after making sure it worked with PMO, I looked into whether the alcohol was causing it and came across many articles about it. Nothing related to P, though. Then, after a repeat performance issue last Dec (only 1 lighter beer long before bed) I came to the conclusion that alcohol really wasn't the cause. I finally looked into whether P could be the issue and found YBOP. It was an interesting few days after that as I was totally amazed and enthralled that P could be the problem. I read the articles and such and it fit me to a tee except advancing to truly disgusting P. I had gotten into some extreme stuff, but not the really disgusting or illegal, IMHO. I still go through some of the tips and articles from time to time as I'm still trying to figure some things out regarding these urges. I was also super interested in the legal battle YBOP and other folks had with a couple of the pro-P side. Anyways, there's more of my background. It aligns mostly with many people here and stories I've read.
Another couple of days PMO free. Not too many temptations or urges lately either which is helping. I read on another journal regarding newfound excitement in chasing the wife, and I've definitely been feeling that. And, I think she likes it too.
Thanks for sharing more of your background. It's awesome that your wife is involved and supportive of this change you're making. It will add a different perspective then many others like me can offer. My wife is not directly involved involved in my PMO recovery, but indirectly by loving me and extending grace and forgiving me as she has a vague awareness of it but doesn't want to know anything other than that I'm improving myself. It's exciting to hear of the physical and mental changes you're already experiencing. For me, PMO is the most obvious symptom of my bad coping mechanisms and unhealthy character traits, and it's rewarding to peel back layers and expose other things that I was blinded to or numbed by PMO
Thanks @realness. No problem, it just took a while to be okay with myself for sharing. I realized as I've been going through this and reading other stories that I've been dealing with this longer than I initially thought. It actually is pretty awesome and I'm happy I was finally able to tell her. I'm really wanting to reignite our sex life, and so far that seems to be happening (albeit with some PE for now which will hopefully resolve itself). It's been interesting realizing that the whole PMO thing was causing, to some degree, some of the issues I was feeling/having. I also think PMO was one of the coping mechanisms I used to deal with shit going on in my life. I've decided that I'm going to keep my counter where it's at. Another day no PMO. Back to work as I have something due by this afternoon.
Broke my streak today. It was weird, though. Had sex this morning, about 70% hard and came within about 10 sec but stayed relatively hard enough for about a minute or so afterwards. Then, I wanted to experiment with PMO to see if got 100%. I debated it with myself, but ultimately broke down even though I could've easily just said no and not done it. I don't think this was a serious chaser effect, but maybe it was. I had had previous times after sex that I more seriously wanted to do it but willed myself not to. Today, it was almost more of a matter to see how if I could get fully erect with P, and I did (not so much as whether I really wanted to watch P). So, reset the counter. However, this time I'm planning on no M or O for at least 30 days. I'll talk to the wife about this, but I don't think it should be too much of an issue. Edit to add: I think I'm getting frustrated with this taking some time and potentially trying to force everything a bit too much. I need to try and relax a bit more and focus on my wife more than myself. I'll take any advice related to this.
