Well and Truly in the Grip

I've been addicted since 16.  I've been in a relationship with the woman I want to spend my life with for over 4 years.  She's known since the beginning.

I often sneak off while she's in the house and use p.  I've had a particularly long streak of frequent use, and I know it's making me miserable and a large part of why we have no sex life.

I'm here to start a journal and kick the habit.

Wish me luck.

Hi!
Where would you usually sneak off to to have a fap? How many times a week or day?
Have you ever been caught doing this?
What about other symptoms like anxiety, restlessness, brainfog, floppy cock, etc.

Hi, Promise.

Welcome and good luck.

EW

Day 1 - Had an average day at work, came home and just felt awful.  Craving and miserable.

Fappy - recently I've been sneaking off often.  Most days once or twice.  I've been caught a fair few times and it upsets my girlfriend.  I don't think it does well for her self esteem.  Symptoms include feeling miserable and in a rut, with a lack of motivation or drive to do anything. I don't tend to get ED or anything, but I avoid sex because p is so much easier.

OK then, yeah those symptoms sound like PMO addiction. Feeling generally listless and no motivaton to do anything is common. Its good that you havnt started to get any ED symptoms, but if you continue it could well lead to that so best stop it in its tracks now!

Hey there big love for taking big steps in a better, happier and healthier you. Hope the battle is going your way still.
If your partner aware of you joining this community? Have you spoke about the fact that this is ADDICTION you are battling?
You say you think you being caught sneaking off to use P affects her self esteem. Really in all honesty you KNOW it does. There is no way it wouldn't. I am not saying this to try and bring you shame but as someone who has struggled with honesty for all my adult life around my addiction I can safely say you need to be 100% honest with yourself and her.
Some will say you don't need to give every detail but that is down to you.

Don't keep your partner in the dark let her in. She can be your light.

Good luck.

Hi Promise,

Welcome to the forum. I can exactly relate to what you say about lack of motivation to do anything. I was (and still am) struggling with this. I didn't have ED as well but I was preferring P to sex. Porn is a hyper-stimuli and hijacks our brain. When the brain experiences such a supernormal stimuli, it is obvious that the other natural things that were supposed to bring us joy (including sex) become boring. This is the reason why we don't feel motivated to do anything.
Anyways, it is great that you have decided to stop this habit. You will experience quite bit of withdrawals symptoms but they will fade away as you progress.

Thank you for your replies everyone.  They are encouraging and I know I need it.  It's been going okay until today.  I've had a few slips here and there, but tonight I had a relapse.  It has been over 3 weeks since I used, so it's a vast improvement on the nearly every day that I was looking before.

I have felt a lot happier recently.  It's no coincidence that I've become happier while looking at less porn. It's time to build on the progress I've made and not allow a chaser to undo it all.

Another thing I want to work on is masturbating less.  I'm addicted to the feeling even without porn, and I know part of working on my sex life and my happiness is cutting down.

Dont worry too much about the relapse, it happens and chances are it will happen again before you get a full grip on things (not a grip on your cock!)
You went thre weeks before so thats great! What was the trigger this time?