I've been 'in recovery' for almost two years and the goals I have now may well have evolved out of my experience, what I know now in comparison to what I knew then. Looking back I was still naive and idealistic after d day. I think it took six months, by which time there was nothing more to discover and nothing more disclosed. Each discovery was actually harder to take but that's what it took for me to come to terms with the reality of porn addiction and the damage it wrought upon my relationship and myself, as a woman in my own right. So here goes.
1. My first goal was survival, of the very essence of who I am. I had to rediscover my sense of self and my value as a human being worthy of being loved for who I am, and not cast aside for who I am not. My self esteem had fallen through the floor and I even questioned my very identity. The recovery of my self esteem and self confidence was an absolute priority. I've come a long way in that respect, but it's an organic process that needs to be nurtured.
2. To recover (and rediscover) my sexuality. It took a long time for me to realise that the recovery of my sexuality was a separate strand of the recovery process. In my situation I was literally in a sexless relationship. There had been no sexual activity at all for several years. My husband's internet porn addiction had been going on for about 15 years and he was buying porn and visiting strip bars for some years before this, so he was probably on the addiction treadmill for maybe 20 years or more. His sexual abandonment of the relationship had quite devastating consequences on my sexuality. I'd gone from having great sexual pleasure with multiple orgasms on just about every occasion of lovemaking, and experiencing sex as a transcendent, spiritual experience to sexual anorexia, being turned down almost every time I tried to initiate sex and witnessing erectile dysfunction on the rare occasions sex actually happened. I internalised all of this and saw it as confirmation of being sexually unattractive. And I knew he was using porn regularly, so he was obviously interested in jerking off to all that shit. My conclusion? That I was a fucking dog to him and he couldn't even force himself to have sex with me. I lived with that very deep pain of rejection for years and ended up losing any desire for sex. I was asexual and by d day I had body dysmorphia. Again, I've come a long way in that respect but I'm still a bit scared of sex as it requires vulnerability. I'm scared of my own sexual feelings in case they are not reciprocated. Remember, this was how it was for years. I also realised after a long time that my own sexual recovery is something that exists separately from the sexual recovery of my relationship. It's tough but I need to keep it going.
3. To reestablish physical and emotional intimacy. Obviously we're in a much better place now. We make time for intimacy. We know it's vitally important to our relationship. We know we have to make it a priority and keep moving forward. Communication can still be difficult at times but at least we are tackling the tricky and sometimes issues that we would have found it easier to avoid. We need to keep it going.
4. To return to the activities that gave my life meaning and value. It's so easy to let other interests fall by the wayside when so much vital energy is being drained away by stress and negative energies. I was in a very dark place by d day and I couldn't have predicted what a huge thing facing up to my husband's porn addiction would be. I'm a visual artist and I probably went through the biggest creative block I'd experienced. I need to make things. I need to create. If I don't I go stir crazy. Yet I couldn't. I had to make the effort to begin again, to show up every day and just do something. Anything. I can't lose this part of my life. It's the one part of my life that gives me the space to be myself and explore my ideas. I've tried a few times but wasn't able to keep momentum. Keeping it going and showing up every day is an important goal too.
5. To support partners. Because we suffer in silence too often. Because we blame ourselves. Because we're stigmatised. Because we're accused of being uptight about sex (when we're not) or not being exciting or sexy or whatever. Because our culture dictates that it's a woman's role to truss herself up in a push-up bra and six inch heels and buy sex toys and shit, all in the cause of "pleasing our man". Partners need to know that they are not alone. That porn is an addiction, certainly a compulsive sexual behaviour. That porn can and does become more important to an addict than real life sex. That porn creates erectile dysfunction. That the reason why their man is a lousy lover is not because she's not sexy enough or doesn't have the right body shape or cup size, but because porn turns men into lousy lovers. Go online and you'll see plenty of bad "advice" to partners of porn addicts along the lines of "all men watch porn" and "get over it" or accusations of being sexually inhibited or having some sort of old fashioned or even religious morality. Wrong! What's worse is that these attitudes make it even less likely for partners to reach out for support. What matters is what is going on in YOUR relationship, in YOUR life. Not anyone else's. I'm married to a porn addict (thankfully in recovery). I know what that experience feels like. So if a woman reaches out, maybe I can say "I know how you feel. I know what you're going through. I know how this shit drags you down. I know you're worth more than this. I know you deserve better than this. I know it's tough but you can move through this and get to a better place."
There's never a point where you can say "I'm completely recovered now. I'm over it." There's both good and bad to come out of the experience. Every partner will have a different experience but the emotional impact is almost always universal. Every porn addict is different, but many of their stories share common threads. Every couple is unique too. So there's no one right way.
