Rewiring in relationship or marriage

ruuddejong

Active Member
I am now almost 2 months into my reboot and I am starting to have questions if/when this will ever result in me having normal libido and desire to have sex with my wife. If you haven't read my thread or one of my other threads about feeling numb towards wife, the problem is that, I have no desire to have sex with my wife at all. When I force myself to get naked and just do it, I can do it, though not 100%.

And after doing lots of reading, it was kind of clear that porn was the reason so I quit porn with the hope that normal libido will come back.

Last night, my wife asked can we have sex? And I immediately felt no desire at all and told her I was tired and cut it off before it even started. Then this question came to my mind:

Two months into my reboot, should I make myself have sex with my wife even when I don't really have any libido or desire (which is always the case) to rewire my brain or should I just continue my reboot and wait for it to come naturally (will it?) and then focus on rewiring?
 

Gracie

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Try Kareeza.  My husband and I talked and came up with an interval of time to engage in being naked together.  I needed  physical touch.  We agreed on every other night.  We kissed cuddled did Kareeza.  Mostly no sex.  We had full body hugs morning and night in bed.  Slept nude.  Kissed hello and good bye, everytime we went somewhere with out the other, work, store, errands, every time.  That was what tuned us in to each other.
 

ruuddejong

Active Member
Gracie said:
Try Kareeza.  My husband and I talked and came up with an interval of time to engage in being naked together.  I needed  physical touch.  We agreed on every other night.  We kissed cuddled did Kareeza.  Mostly no sex.  We had full body hugs morning and night in bed.  Slept nude.  Kissed hello and good bye, everytime we went somewhere with out the other, work, store, errands, every time.  That was what tuned us in to each other.

Thanks Gracie. I appreciate your response. That?s a good suggestion. We already sleep nude and hug and kiss before sleep, before work, after work etc. But it?s an a few seconds event, not like what you?re suggesting. So I?ll do some reading about Kareeza and see if we can try it.

I?m still interested in hearing from the successful rebooters about my question but I guess the successful rebooters have little reason to come back and contribute, which makes it challenging to get some good feedback sometimes.
 

Gracie

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Well I guess in a roundabout way it is a successful rebooter.  My husband rebooted. Been clean 7 years.  And what i wrote is what we did.  Maybe pretend my name is Fred and I am talking about my wife and I.
 

ruuddejong

Active Member
Gracie said:
Well I guess in a roundabout way it is a successful rebooter.  My husband rebooted. Been clean 7 years.  And what i wrote is what we did.  Maybe pretend my name is Fred and I am talking about my wife and I.

Sorry if I was misunderstood - I did take a note of your advice and even did some reading about it already. What I meant was it would be good to know how things changed for other people who did not do anything extra such as Kareeza or Tantra etc. I do appreciate your suggestion and I did not discard it because you are a partner, on the contrary, it is one of the most valuable posts for me.
 

Allinya83

Member
Hey Ruuddejong,
I'm curious if you have told your wife about your pmo problems?  If not, I recommend it.  I told my wife and am on 140 days right now and my longest streak before this was 25 days(after trying for about a year and a half). 
I am very lucky to have an understanding wife who listened and joined me in the battle.
Its scary and difficult to tell the truth, but helped our sex life tremendously.  Now my wife knows she gets ALL of my sexual attention. *You can always sugarcoat the problem to gauge her reaction, but the truth heals in the end.
Best of luck to you and your wife!
 
F

Finw?

Guest
Hello Ruuddejong. I had no libido from months 1 to 3, and very low libido until month 7 or so.

Two months into my reboot, should I make myself have sex with my wife even when I don't really have any libido or desire (which is always the case) to rewire my brain or should I just continue my reboot and wait for it to come naturally (will it?) and then focus on rewiring?

I would say you should continue to have sex with your wife if you are able to perform. I actually started a relationship early into my reboot and began having sex while still in flatline. I was very attracted to her emotionally but actually felt no pleasure when I first saw her naked and no attraction to her body. However I continued to have sex with her out of a desire to give her pleasure. This slowly restored my libido and reconditioned my sexuality to be more interpersonal and less self-centered, which is the opposite of porn conditioning, wherein you experience arousal entirely alone and stuck in your head.

So yes, of course you should continue to have sex with your wife. Not only is it necessary for rewiring, but it would be profoundly cruel and self-centered to 'cut her off' like that.

 

ruuddejong

Active Member
Thanks Allinya83 and Finwe. I did not tell my wife, because she had her own issues (unrelated to me or our relationship) and I couldn't burden her with this but I do understand that it would be much better if I told her. If I cannot stay on course (2 plus months so far so good), then I will consider telling her but I am hoping it won't come to that.

And thanks for the suggest re sex, I am able to perform, just no desire at all, so I will start doing it as much as I can.

 

ruuddejong

Active Member
ruuddejong said:
And thanks for the suggest re sex, I am able to perform, just no desire at all, so I will start doing it as much as I can.

I was wrong. I just do not want to do it at all. I avoid it like a plague whenever she wants to do it. What the f is wrong with me?
 

WoundedSparrow

Active Member
The length of your addiction will likely determine the length of your recovery. Your lack of libido is due to both your brain's starvation from porn as well as the inherent disconnect between real and simulated sex that exists due to porn addiction's rewiring of the brain. It could take a while, but always remember: Every problem caused by porn will disappear in its absence.
 

ruuddejong

Active Member
WoundedSparrow said:
The length of your addiction will likely determine the length of your recovery. Your lack of libido is due to both your brain's starvation from porn as well as the inherent disconnect between real and simulated sex that exists due to porn addiction's rewiring of the brain. It could take a while, but always remember: Every problem caused by porn will disappear in its absence.

Thanks. It is also unclear to me how I can differentiate normal libido from a porn craving but I guess I will just know it when it happens.
 
The question of whether "normal" desire will return in the absence of porn is a good one. There is no "scientific" evidence out there on the subject that I know of. In fact, the general addiction science literature is silent on whether or not the brain's ability to process reward can ever be restored to "baseline," after a person becomes an addict. There are a lot of hopeful anecdotes shared on the YBOP website, so that's a start, anyway. I doubt if I'll ever want sex the way I want porn, unless I starve myself for a long enough period of time. That's the thing about porn (and drugs): they strengthen our capacity for 'wanting,' but not necessarily 'liking' of certain rewards. Personally, I feel similarly to you w respect to the prospect of sex w my gf. I could take it or leave it. Generally speaking, I take it because it allows me the opportunity to relieve the sexual urges I feel. But thinking about the prospect of watching porn makes my hands shake and my palms sweat -- legitimate craving. All of this is to say, I get it, and I wish I could report that it gets better. I think once you become an addict, you just have to learn to coexist with this addiction energy, if you wish to be sober.
 
F

Finw?

Guest
neuroaddict said:
The question of whether "normal" desire will return in the absence of porn is a good one. There is no "scientific" evidence out there on the subject that I know of. In fact, the general addiction science literature is silent on whether or not the brain's ability to process reward can ever be restored to "baseline," after a person becomes an addict.

My sex drive is crazy after rebooting. I can literally get turned on to extreme levels just from hearing her voice or looking at her eyes. I don't ever remember feeling nearly this aroused before, not even as a teenager.

It's different, too. I don't know how to describe I experience sex and arousal totally differently than before. It's a bit more immersive, kind of meditative, like I want to soak up every feeling and sensation. So basically I never regained my old sex drive but I got a new one that's bigger and better.
 

ruuddejong

Active Member
Finw? said:
neuroaddict said:
The question of whether "normal" desire will return in the absence of porn is a good one. There is no "scientific" evidence out there on the subject that I know of. In fact, the general addiction science literature is silent on whether or not the brain's ability to process reward can ever be restored to "baseline," after a person becomes an addict.

My sex drive is crazy after rebooting. I can literally get turned on to extreme levels just from hearing her voice or looking at her eyes. I don't ever remember feeling nearly this aroused before, not even as a teenager.

It's different, too. I don't know how to describe I experience sex and arousal totally differently than before. It's a bit more immersive, kind of meditative, like I want to soak up every feeling and sensation. So basically I never regained my old sex drive but I got a new one that's bigger and better.

This is quite encouraging, you mentioned you had almost no libido until month 3 and then low libido until month 7, so when did you get this crazy drive?
 

ruuddejong

Active Member
neuroaddict said:
The question of whether "normal" desire will return in the absence of porn is a good one. There is no "scientific" evidence out there on the subject that I know of. In fact, the general addiction science literature is silent on whether or not the brain's ability to process reward can ever be restored to "baseline," after a person becomes an addict. There are a lot of hopeful anecdotes shared on the YBOP website, so that's a start, anyway. I doubt if I'll ever want sex the way I want porn, unless I starve myself for a long enough period of time. That's the thing about porn (and drugs): they strengthen our capacity for 'wanting,' but not necessarily 'liking' of certain rewards. Personally, I feel similarly to you w respect to the prospect of sex w my gf. I could take it or leave it. Generally speaking, I take it because it allows me the opportunity to relieve the sexual urges I feel. But thinking about the prospect of watching porn makes my hands shake and my palms sweat -- legitimate craving. All of this is to say, I get it, and I wish I could report that it gets better. I think once you become an addict, you just have to learn to coexist with this addiction energy, if you wish to be sober.

Well to be honest, I do not expect it to be as strong as the cravings for porn. I would settle with "get turned on by my wife when we start kissing or when we want to have sex" once in a few days. I might be in deep flatline, maybe that is the reason among others, but it has been almost a month since our last sex and I still have zero desire to do it with my wife. And the annoying part is, I know I could easily do it with someone else (thus not sure if it is flatline or not), due to novelty of a new person.
 
F

Finw?

Guest
ruuddejong said:
This is quite encouraging, you mentioned you had almost no libido until month 3 and then low libido until month 7, so when did you get this crazy drive?

It wasn't really linear, I went in and out of flatline for a long time. It was like this from around day ~80, with sometimes feeling libido but most of the time nothing. It became consistently strong at around month 7/8 and continued getting stronger until at least 1 year.. You say you're at day 74, so I wouldn't worry yet. I hadn't even started to regain my libido at that point. I would feel nauseous at the thought of sex. It takes a little time to create the new pathways in the brain but with persistence it will happen.

I also contribute this to quitting masturbation as much as quitting porn. My penis was almost completely numb from daily depth grip for a long time, and after rebooting it's super sensitive. Masturbating is a big waste of sexual energy, so I would recommend giving it up completely.

 

ruuddejong

Active Member
Finw? said:
ruuddejong said:
This is quite encouraging, you mentioned you had almost no libido until month 3 and then low libido until month 7, so when did you get this crazy drive?

It wasn't really linear, I went in and out of flatline for a long time. It was like this from around day ~80, with sometimes feeling libido but most of the time nothing. It became consistently strong at around month 7/8 and continued getting stronger until at least 1 year.. You say you're at day 74, so I wouldn't worry yet. I hadn't even started to regain my libido at that point. I would feel nauseous at the thought of sex. It takes a little time to create the new pathways in the brain but with persistence it will happen.

I also contribute this to quitting masturbation as much as quitting porn. My penis was almost completely numb from daily depth grip for a long time, and after rebooting it's super sensitive. Masturbating is a big waste of sexual energy, so I would recommend giving it up completely.

Thanks a lot, this is very helpful. And yeah I do not plan go back to P or M at any point, especially if I have my libido back, I would not waste it on anything other than my wife.

I know everyone is different but I would be very happy if I have a similar path to libido as yours.
 

jhvoltz

New Member
Keeping the addiction secret from your loved one will reduce your chances to be free from porn/masturbation...!

To open up is awfull,but it brings healing.

You cannot have a double life and have a healthy marriage.
 
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