First time hearing about P addiction

Hey partners.

I was thinking about how p addiction appears to someone who hasn't experienced it firsthand, so I thought I would pose the question in here. I reckon a lot of you probably heard about it as part of your partners disclosure, which probably impacts the response, but I was curious about your general reaction to the concept of p addiction.

- Did you think it was more like, let's say, a more benign addiction like internet/game/social media addiction or even like smoking?
- How long did it take until you were absolutely convinced from the first time you heard about it?
- What made you convinced about the severity of the addiction?
- Do any of you still have any doubt about a part of p addiction?

I knew of my partner?s porn use for many years so it wasn?t a ?disclosure? situation. Many years before d day I realised that his porn use was affecting our sexual relationship and I knew that his interest in porn was getting beyond what I thought was ?normal?.  What I mean by that was that it was more like an obsession. Porn addiction wasn?t a known phenomenon at that time because internet access was a new thing and not everyone was online then. It was still the dial up modem and before the tube sites, but even so it was already a ritual and an obsession for him. My concern at the time was that it was starting to interfere with other aspects of our relationship but he would not stop.

My big regret at this time was not seeking help from a psychosexual therapist which I KNEW was the way to go, but I didn?t do anything. I thought we could deal with it ourselves but we obviously couldn?t.

His porn addiction progressed and the problems in our relationship weren?t addressed either. I didn?t yet know it was an addiction nor did I realise it was progressive.

Eventually emotional intimacy suffered too and I became unhappy and depressed when I realised I?d lost him. I reached the point where I couldn?t really take the feeling of isolation which is a very weird feeling in a marriage, especially when there is still closeness in other areas. Meanwhile his porn use was making him miserable. The acting out cycle. He felt stuck. When I told him how I felt he was ready to quit. So he did. But we still didn?t know what porn addiction was until I read an article online. I printed it off and he read it. He got it straight away. The info was from YourBrainOnPorn.com. It was finally all making sense, to him, to me.

I am primarily concerned about the damage his porn behaviour has created in our relationship ? loss of emotional and physical intimacy, erectile dysfunction, an ongoing patter of deception ? none of this is good for a relationship. Then there are the effects on us as individuals, particularly myself as a partner, whereas he was caught up in a cycle of shame and self loathing.

I can?t say how it compares with other addictions. I can only speak from experience. The fundamental issue is the effect it has on the relationship. It involves a betrayal of the relationship because of the deception and the amount of emotional and sexual energy diverted into its pursuit. I don?t see it as the same as infidelity but I do see it more on the spectrum of sexual addiction which doesn?t always involve being sexual with another real life person ? it could be strippers, or webcams, chat rooms, etc ? and sometimes porn addicts progress to other sexually compulsive behaviours. So I see porn addiction at one end of the spectrum of sex addiction.

I acknowledge that some addictions can create big problems in relationships ? alcohol, gambling, drugs for example ? but I don?t think it does me any good to think about what?s worse or anything like that. I know marriages that have failed because of gambling addiction and I know marriages that have failed because of porn and sex addiction. I don?t know of any that have failed because of smoking. The issue is always how the behaviour affects the relationship, regardless of the ?what?.

I?m also aware that some people dispute whether porn is an addiction or not but I don?t think that matters. It produces addictive-like reactions in the brain but ?porn addiction? is a relatively recent problem in society and research takes years. Again, whether it?s an addiction, a compulsion or a bad habit isn?t it the issue. It?s how this repetitive/compulsive/addiction-like behaviour affects the relationship and the individuals in that relationship.

I hope this helps. My partner didn?t disclose a porn addiction. It was a problem behaviour in the relationship for years. The information about porn addiction we learned after the behaviour had stopped made sense to us. 

That is an interesting question. For me, I was in shock. I don't think I really took in any information. I had just found another women's underwear under our desk in our bedroom and my husband of 12 years was telling me that he had used them to masturbate with while looking at porn. He started telling me that he had a porn addiction and that he had not had sex with anyone else. Nothing made sense. To be honest, I felt like it didn't matter whether he had sex with someone else or not, it was the lying that hurt. So it's hard to separate my thoughts on porn addiction from my hurt and shock. I feel like the entire situation would have been completely different if he has come to me and told me rather than me finding out like that.

I feel like I understood that it is an addiction right away and knew it was serious. I know this is going to sound heartless but when I first heard and was holding those panties I just felt sick. I thought he was a horrible pervert and I wanted to leave. In my mind, I envisioned him just masturbating all the time and for the first few weeks anytime I looked at him all I could see was him sitting in front of a screen with his pants around his ankles and those damn panties. It was a completely true shock.

It took probably about a week or two before I could really process the realization of the addiction separate from my shock. Coming here helps me a lot. After a lot of reading, I have a better understanding of addiction in general. I think I was pretty judgemental about addicts before this experience, not just porn but all addicts. This experience has given me a deeper understanding of what an addict experiences and just how much of a struggle it is.

I hope that answers your question. If you ever have any other questions or want clarification on anything I am happy to answer anything I can.

First time I heard about P as an addiction was well after it had destroyed a marriage and caused severe trauma and financial ruin. I was in my 20s and not very smart about these things, I knew he was in a sense addicted to P but he had a lot of other issues too (narcissist, drug addiction, being an asshole) so it got lost in the chaos of emotional abuse, gaslighting and infidelity.

My real introduction to it was actually YBOP website. My current hubs had been growing more and more distant, rude, etc, and I knew he used porn to tune out etc., It was when I realized there was a connection between all of his other issues and P, dopamine cycles etc., that I discovered he was also lying to me about his use. I confronted him and we've been dealing with it for the last two years.

Since then I've had no doubt. Watching the cycle come around and around I've seen how it works and its not much different than typical addiction cycles.  I've watched as he's "detoxed" down from the constant "click and search" cycles as well and its a real thing.

Good questions, thanks for asking!