(Sorry if this posts as a partial post, for some reason when I try to post 3/4 of it gets deleted? )
Thank you for your responses ?? It is nice to have someone, anyone to talk to about this all.
Yes, trusting is definitely the tricky part. SO never volunteered info about anything, I had to figure it out myself when I noticed the ED/DE. When I realized, 1 month into reboot, that he still had porn type social media groups he was following (had to push the 'leave group' button myself) that put a dent in my trust as well. Would he still have those groups on if I hadn't noticed?
I can understand the suggestion to have him show me his phone and I agree that could be helpful, but I just really don't want to be his babysitter. He's a grown man and if he can't be accountable to himself (especially now that he knows the consequences) then I don't see how he could be to me. Plus, it really messes with our chemistry when I feel like I have to keep tabs on him, like I'm his mom. I have kids already, don't need another, just need him to be an adult. Now if he was to offer that info to me on his own, as a gesture of trust, that would be different. Communication is something that we are working on. My SO is a quiet person not really a talker...but he's getting better.
As far as his pied issues reappearing, I think you are right about O's/sex although we've been trying to keep it to 1 every 10 days(usually turns into 2 or 3 over 2 days then another 10 day break). I think he really could use hard mode so I will back off for awhile. I've had some strange experiences when fooling around with him lately, where he will start acting really 'doped up', that's the only way I can think to describe it, like he's drugged up. 80% of his interactions stop and he will just lay there like he's in a trance while at that point I'm doing most of the work and feeling very weird about the whole thing. It's like he's asleep but he's not. I could understand if I was going down on him why he'd be just laying there enjoying himself but we've been right in the middle of making out and then it's like a 'switch' gets flipped I guess and he goes into 'receiving' mode instead of us having a mutual interaction. This experience is completely new to me and I don't know what to make of it. I know that the pied symptoms are worse when he's like this. Nothing happening downstairs even though there really, really should be.
Does this mean he's still hyper-sensitive to dopamine and still getting 'high' off it? Can those dopamine receptors still 'reset' without doing hardmode?