2 weeks and counting

Today is my 2 weeks anniversary of my reboot.  It feels amazing to be on this journey.
So for a little back story.  I'm sure my story is similar to many guys.  I started at an early age ( 10-11 I think) with womens undies ads and such.  Once the internet came about things changed though.  As a late teen,  I think I would spend a few hours per day on PMOing.  It quickly turned into ED, which until very recently I never attributed to looking at P.  Anyway,  I met the most amazing woman and totally fell in love.  We married,  loved each other alot,  had kids and shared many life experiences together.  The problem was I was a hidden PA the entire time.  I wasnt PMOing as much,  but I still was.  Our entire marriage I've struggled with ED and PE.  She accepted me with those problems and was supportive.  She has never had anything against P and didn't have any problem with me doing M,  but as far as she knew I wasn't doing much of either because I was lying to her.  So on D day we were having an intimate moment that I was just plain not working.  Like zippy.  She was felt upset and for the umpteenth time said I need to go to the doctor to get checked out.  I gave in,  actually committing myself in my head to go.  So I started doing research on my ED and lo and behold I realized there was a direct correlation to PMOing and ED.  I feel stupid now about not realizing it sooner but I realized P was screwing up my life.  I erased my crap and said enough.  Another huge mistake was I thought I'll do this myself.  I wanted to save her the embarrassment that her husband was a PA and I wanted to save myself from the confrontation and have to admit my shame to her.  Basically I was a chicken.  I did really well that week,  feeling empowered about myself.  Then the second D-day occurred when she came across some leftover "paraphernalia" that I had forgotten about.  It looked really really bad.  She thought I had cheated on her,  and I finally admitted my lie.  We have been married over a decade and she had no idea I was a PA.  I think she feels like a fool but in truth I had gotten pretty good at hiding it.
Needless to say it completely devastated her.  I mean completely.  We've been through some pretty hard times but this was something that destroyed her.  She felt ( and still feels) like she was married to a man that she didn't actually know and was cheating on her the entire time with P.  I agree.  I felt like a terrible person.  I was full of shame,  disgrace,  sadness and other depressing emotions.  I had turned a beautiful,  extremely intelligent,  charismatic,  supportive woman into a sad person full of self doubt and feeling small and ugly.  Both of our hearts felt broken;  hers for marrying a man who wasn't actually acting like much of one,  and mine for doing what I did to her.
Something I feel is very important to share is that if you have a wife,  husband or other SO getting over the PO is for both of you.  It was easier for me to come up with a plan for myself ( like I'll do this and that and I will get better) but meanwhile she was hurting badly.  Be supportive, loving and helpful.  Having a man that's a recovering PA is something that's hard to handle.  It's not like she can go to her friends and talk about it.  You're the only one they can talk to,  and frankly I'd bet they feel like they hardly know you.  Its isolating,  scary,  and depressing.  There's no doubt rebooting is extremely hard,  but don't forget about your partner who is standing by your side through this.  Be the man they wanted you to be.  Accept responsibility for what you did,  treat them with the love they deserve,  and build them back up.  This experience can make you stronger as a couple.
But also believe in yourself.  You can do this!  You're better than this.  You'll be 10 times the man P free. 
Frankly I actually have no idea what I'll be like when I get over my PA and am fully rebooted.  Basically my entire sexual life I've been a slave to P.  I have sooooo much shame,  embarrassment and low self esteem tied to my ED that I don't even know what I'll be like without it.  I'm ecstatic at the idea of being a real lover to her,  fully present with our experiences together. 
Anyway,  I'll be sharing my progress with any who want to read. 

Im nearly there too! Just a couple more days and I will hit the 2 week checkpoint as well. Woohoo!  Great job guys, well done, you're doing it for the right reasons. 

Today is the 30 day mark for me!  I'm happy to report that I'm home alone, its later in the evening and I am on RN and not fapping to some P site. 

metal22 said:

Today is the 30 day mark for me!  I'm happy to report that I'm home alone, its later in the evening and I am on RN and not fapping to some P site. 

Click to expand...

30 days - that's some nice work. Congrats!

Good job man, and well said in your intro post!

Thanks guys for the encouragement.
So this is week 5 of no PMO.  It feels good to get another week under my belt.  I had really no tempatations this week.  Part of it was due to me having strep throat,  which was the most sick I've felt in quite some time.  Needless to say that it also was a libido killer. 
I still haven't had any sexual dreams nor MW.  I'm starting to worry that I might be in this one for the long haul  and my recovery might take a long time.  My lack of temptations feels weird too.  So many guys struggle so much with that.  And I'm home alone currently ( SO is working out) on the computer I used to FAP to,  and I'm totally like Meh to the thought of cruising at all.
Well,  bottom line is I'll continue that path of rebooting,  and just try to be patient with my mind and body.  I know worrying doesn't help anything.  Just need to keep believing in myself and all the facts of the reboot.

Well done mate, you are doing great. I wish I had the same strong will power as you, and hopefuly I will in time.

So I am at day 69 for PMO.  The no porn still hasnt been a huge struggle for me.  I'm not sure really why it hasn't,  but I am deep in the relatization that my porn issue is a symptom of deeper problems.  Porn or not,  honesty has been a struggle for me.  Plus I shy away from confrontation.  Annnnd I stuggle with being self absorbed ( thinking alot about my issues not so much others).  Unfortunately I find it as a 1-2-3 punch.  My SOs recovery as well as mine has been damaged by my lack of integrity and honesty.  I haven't lied about porn since I started this recovery,  but I have told other lies ( some about sexual stuff and some about other random stuff).  I come clean about them,  but it still damages her trust in me.  Part of the issue was I didn't want to make her mad or upset with me.  It seems to be a character trait from when I was a kid as I feel I've done that with people I'm really close with for as long as I can remember.  Couple that with my lack of communication and big problems occur.  I'm trying to focus on my issues and deal with them head on but it's hard,  exhausting and stressful.  Plus life still trucks on full speed so trying to fit all that in is almost overwhelming to me. 
On the plus side on the days I've felt good and less stressed my PIED is gotten better.  It seems to be working more or less.  I can't say its at 100% hardness like when I'm taking Viagra,  but 80-90% is a by far vast improvement.
My heart goes out to my SO.  I know she's hurting,  but I'm not sure how I can support her recovery as well.

So today is day 76.  I'm getting really close now,  but I also know that the journey is far from over.  I've basically come to the realization that day 90 is just a number,  and that I will continue to need to do the same stuff I have been doing.
I've really working on helping my SO heal from this ordeal.  Its a hard thing to face.  Every part of me wants to run away,  to pretend all is well,  but all that does is slowly kill our relationship.  Facing the "music" is something I've always fought,  but its time for me to grow up and deal with it.  I've almost destroyed my family and my life,  and its up to me to rebuild it.

So I made it over 90 days!  Woohoo! ;D
Been super busy so it's hard to post but it's nice to make it the 90 days!

Congratulations man!!!! You're doing great dude, keep up the hard work.

Congrats for the hardest part man, very inspiring !  ;D


Fight is not over, but i believe the hardest should be behind...


Good job and best of luck for whatevers next !

Metal22,

Congratulations on your progress.

Our stories overlap in so many ways. Mine is here: http://legacy.rebootnation.org/index.php?topic=10511.msg111937#new

Telling my bride what I've been up to all these years was the hardest thing I've ever done. And the best. There are no more secrets between us anymore. That has helped me immensely.

Keep focused on what you want to accomplish.

Thanks guys for all your support.  I really do appreciate it. 
I wish I could say things were all solved.  The road to self improvement sure is a bumpy one.  I still have PIED,  which is disappointing,  but I'm not super surprised.  Considering the amount of time I've had it I feel it would be delusional to think it would be over like that.
I've been doing better about the honesty thing.  When I get up in the morning with a cup of coffee I think about being honest.  Even just a daily reminder seems to help when the "moment" happens where there's the decision for truth or a lie.  Also I'm getting over my emotion and worry about pleasing the other person.  Its just a dumb way of thinking and rather childish and ultimately damaging.
Something I'm really prioritizing now is also pleasing the my SO.  She's put up with about 15 years worth of my internal crap coming up around sex and leaving continually unsatisfied.  It's not that I'm trying to race to get done first,  but when things don't work correctly (like most of the time) I get all flustered and things are "over". 
I've committed to reinvesting in my partners healing,  and one of the things I need to focus on is satisfaction in the bedroom.  She's been tormented by thoughts of inferiority from my P habit,  plus my PIED,  amongst other things.  She needs to feel happy and satisfied with me sexually if she is to get over all the baggage my PA brought on.  So I'm committing to her satisfaction when we have a moment,  whether things work for me or not.  I think it will be healing for both of us.

I've been struggling with some emotions.
I am the one who's the liar and  the cheat,  yet my suffering isnt the same.  But where she has pain I have regret.  Its the constant feeling that through my own actions I've caused this.  I feel like I regret it every hour of every day.  I wish I had never started looking at porn,  I wish I had told my SO that I had a problem (even before I knew about PIED) and I wish after all this time when I had found out I had PIED I would have told her immediately.  I wish after D-day I had been supportive to her pain.
It seems like there are alot of us guys with SOs that do what I've done.  When D day happens we are quick to find a "recovery" for ourselves.  We deeply focus on what we need.  We tend to ignore our partners.  We avoid their pain,  not knowing what to do or say.  I've done all of that.  I can't tell if it's me just being self-absorbed,  or if it's more of just how us guys tend to act.  I've never been one that people have come to me for emotional support.  My SO has no choice,  all her friends dont get it.  I'm really her only flesh and blood support,  and I'm the one who did the damage. 
I've pondered a few times if this is how people feel who do really bad things and have to face the people in the courtroom they hurt.  Like they are deeply regretful,  with no real explanation as to how or why they could do what they did.

It's tough man, I know. Just listen to her side, try and understand why she feels that way as best you can, and remember that "why." That is what you learn from, her pain will eventually fade, but that "why" is the lesson you learn to keep from putting her through it again in the future. It's really hard, I still struggle with asking the right questions to really draw out of my wife the underlying reason of what about my behavior elicits whatever emotion she feels from her. She may not have the words to really describe it, so if she says "I don't know, but this is how I feel" then just accept it and learn what you can.

It's the same thing as our SOs asking us why we watched porn in the first place, "I don't know," is probably what most of us would say. Hopefully now we've come to a point where we understand our initial motivation to watch porn a little better, even though the answer is probably just boobs or something, at least we have an answer. And thanks to the work of Gabe and many other we have answers as to why we couldn't immediately just stop.

All of this, I guess, is to say that yes, we have cause our wives immense pain. And yes it is our fault, and yes we need to feel remorse over the pain we've caused. But, we need not wallow in self-pity or agony over it for long. Accept it, and get on with building her back up. Be there for her now, listen to her, show empathy when she communicates her pain. Do little things that let her know you're thinking about her. Step up the communication to her, open your life up to show that you have no more secrets, and she'll hopefully start to see the changes in you and become more hopefully for the future than angry about the past, most of the time. There will be moments, but hopefully the further away you get from d day, the further apart those moments get. If you can, find a good marriage counselor to ask questions you may not think of.

It's truly the most unbelievable place to be in. Not five minutes ago I told my wife, "I don't think I'm remorseful. I don't think that's the right word. Like, if I drank and then drove and killed someone, I would be remorseful. If I had an affair, I would be remorseful. But this was a daily part of my life for 20
Years. I am sorry I became addicted, yes. But I don't know how to put the feeling into words. Is it guilt? Is it relief? Is it anger? I think that's a big factor in how you feel. You don't know how you feel - and you're trying to empathize with how she might feel. It does seem an impossibly cyclical problem. But you're clean. And I'm clean. And so many others are breaking free from this. That's what I have to focus on today.

Lol I've lost track how many days "free" i've been.  The importance of the reboot has kindof faded a bit for me.  I hope that's not a bad thing...
I'm working on self improvement.  Over the weekend my SO brought up how I'm a closed thinker.  I lack creativity and progressive thinking frequently and it limits our business.  At first I was taken back by it,  but I kept digesting it.  She had a good point.  I've been clinging to things ( even ideas) because mainly of fear,  and when I continue to peel it back I think maybe abandonment?  What ever the originally caused it I want to fix it.  I think it's been holding me back from actual free thinking and freedom.
Also we discussed about friends.  We both feel saddened by some of our friends reactions to my PA.  They just don't understand.  I relate it to if I were an alcoholic,  but never drank around my friends,  never got in trouble with the law etc.  If I were to tell them I'm an alcoholic they'd not only be surprised,  but they may only sort of believe me.  They might actually react similar to how they did when they found out I was a PA.  Just projecting their own opinions of things onto me and my SO.  But if I had like 2 DUIs and had many drunken incidents around them, they'd support me.  I mean for everyone I know that found out,  it was out of left field for sure.  I had never talked about it,  mentioned it or even gotten "caught" by any of them.  Maybe that's people reaction to something that they haven't given thought.
For me now,  I would hope if any friend told me he/she had an addiction I would believe them.  And I think it would come from my own experience lending wisdom to their situation.

Hey Metal22, thanks for sharing your stories. There are a lot of similarities I see in our respective paths, especially the trying to find what the root cause of our fear is. PMO is probably a symptom of something deeper, maybe a sense of control we always want to maintain because we fear something (for me I think it's being alone). I could always find "compainionship" through P, and I felt I wasn't hurting anyone, so why not?

Truth couldn't be any farther. I've damaged my SO significantly. I honestly believe if we didn't have kids and she had her own job, she would've left a long time ago. The guilt rides heavy on me, yet somehow I still manage to be selfish and want situations to cater to me. Your journal reminded me that I need to be mindful of my SO and her path, it's not all about me. If I just stop being selfish for a second and extend a hand to her, it will probably help both of us. I've told her directly that Im afraid of showing my vulnerabilities to her, but I'm trying to work on it. I'm trying to lower the value of "sex" and increase the amount of "intimacy". That is hard due to my wiring of constantly available PMO, but I think I can do it. Your journey is inspiring, I look forward to hearing more of your success. It won't be all sunshine and rainbows, but have faith you're headed in the right direction.

Virus,
Thanks for reading.  I feel like there are alot of us guys on here around the same position.  We are past or nearly past the 90 day reboot,  we're less concerned about our dicks and more concerned about our spouses.  I've noticed the majority periodically post on the partners section as we have partially graduated past the tense relapse stage.  Our own self focus has at least somewhat faded away,  and we see the pieces of a torn relationship.  We are presented with an opportunity to rise to the occasion,  which we find difficult since we have wired our brains for the opposite. 
We had an emotional last few days.  My SO had been feeling raw,  close to the beginning of d-day.  She knows I have made small improvements,  but they aren't enough.  One of the things I hadn't realized I had done was fully admit all that I had done.  I mean she was like " you did this and that" and I was like "yes I did" but I hadn't really gone farther than that.  During my PMO times I used FB to a large degree.  I would look at pics of her friends,  make a minds eye picture in my head and fantasize.  It was like I was cheating on her without the other person knowing.  In my skewed sense of morality somehow I justified it as "better" than really exploring the dark side of P.  I never once questioned the fact I had been a P abuser for like over 10 years and I needed serious crap for that dopamine hit. 
This has been the hardest pill to swallow for my SO.  I basically ruined her friendships bc now when she seems them she just thinks of me wanking it to their picture.  And since they are real people,  she gets to feel like a spouse that has been cheated on feels,  but can't do anything about it.  Plus she gets to feel like all with all her friends,  since I had no regard for anything.  In addition,  she now has to compromise her integrity by not telling her friends that her husband MO'ed to them in a devious way. 
We had talked seriously about moving.  She has been feeling like she is desperate to not feel this pain so deeply and constantly.  I agreed.  We had a heart to heart convo though and I had to ask her to stay here in this community.  We both feel God called us here,  and also to the biz we have.  Leaving and quitting the biz would be an easier escape.  But I knew the further pain that would be caused by staying,  and still had to ask her to do it.  I felt absolutely terrible.  I caused all this pain for her and our family,  and I was asking them to continue to endure.
I have promised myself to work harder on supporting her.  The only thing I can do is stand in what I've done,  claim it,  and be man enough to clean it up.