My reboot so far

So I'm 57 days in. It has been intense to say the least, but not from a stopping point of few but from and emotional one. I stopped 57 days ago and sure there have been some triggers, some movies with sexy girls in but that is about it, they were very controllable. The idea popped into my head but then I pushed the idea out. I haven't had PIED or any kind of ED in fact I am probably the opposite, sometimes I find it hard not to get erect and I get blue balls a lot. When me and my wife cuddle I often start to go hard. I had problems throughout my teenage years with constant erections at school and trying to hide them. I suppose that is an advantage of not being that well endowed. Probably the only advantage. I started to MO way back nearly 26 years ago, I guess I would have been around 13. There was a lot going around school whether you could or couldn't. I think I tried a few times till I could. I suppose it was a pretty good feeling at the time so continued doing it. But as with all types of sex you keep them secret, and I had kept it secret, for too long. I got married had kids, moved to New Zealand, all the time with my wife being kept in the dark. I suppose I justified it through a number of factors, my main ones being insecure with my body and with my love making abilities. I suppose watching porn does make you feel inferior, I can't do what those guys do, but I wouldn't want to either so I kind of get off on the fantasy of having the balls(so to speak) to do what they do, not really what they look like.
My wife walked in on me watching porn one morning before work, I was not masturbating. And ironically I was watching it to try to increase my prowess in the bedroom, a tip from Ron Jeremy no less. And even more ironic it turns out I was quite good in bed. I have always suffered with a bit of over excitement during sex, not really premature ejaculation but not really lasting long enough to satisfy my wife. I think PMO definitely increased my lasting time. There may have been one time that I can remember when I couldn't actually perform for my wife but I did used to turn her down for sex. She is beautiful, blonde, skinny, leggy, sexy the woman of my dreams and still I turned her down. It absolutely beggars belief why I would do this, I had a woman who wanted me but I didn't give myself to her. I have a lot of justifications running through my head for this but none of them make sense really when I analyse them. She thinks I have an attachment disorder, which I am inclined to agree with. I need to get to the bottom of it all which I am currently doing with my new counsellor. Yes I.m on my third, I think this one will help me reach deeper into myself.
Anyway the intensity has been in the way I have systematically destroyed my wife life. All of it unintentional yet all of it hurting more and more. First I lied then minimised and justified and all the things they tell you not to do, if only I realised on was an addict before his all came to light then I could have saved my wife from a shitload of distress. Also I am shit at empathy and expressing my own feelings. I'm still not fully convinced I am an addict, because I have stopped so easily, so it is really hard for me to go down this path, I do see a lot of similarities between me and some of your journals on here though. I'm on my third attempt at accepting what I am, I am really giving it my all this time, I have hurt my wife too much. We had a major fight last night and almost split up but I can thank my lucky stars she came back, I thought I had completely lost her.
So this is where I am now, if I fail this time she will surely leave. And she is right I will slip back into PMOing again, but then if your single I suppose you are only hurting yourself. Previously I thought to myself I would stop for her, she tells me I should stop for me but really I should stop for both of us, so we can connect and go forward and try to put this behind us. The intensity isn't over but hopefully I can reduce it. It will never fully go away, I realise that but I love her so neither am I.

I think you should dispense with the idea that an "addict" is determined by the sentence, "I can quit any time I like". It goes much deeper than that. Being an addict affects more things than your self-control to stop. It causes you to lie about your behaviour - which crosses into other forms of lying that become very habitual. It changes what you find sexy - you put high intensity fantasy into your life for over 20 years and you are going to change. It changes your ability to be close, feel close, want to be close to your SO. It changes what you even think sex is for - ego trips, domination, prowess, fetishes, as opposed to loving and fun connection with your SO.

These are some big changes that have been made to the architecture of your brain. It doesn't matter whether it was easy to stop or not, you are addicted to it. You did it for that long, it has shaped your brain.

So the task of unraveling a brain that has formed around this is a herculean one.

These are some of the things that need to happen:
- Steadfast commitment to changing one's conscious thoughts (not engaging in P, thinking about it). Staying away from it at all costs.
- Examining one's emotions to see how it became like this, and what damage it has done to your life. (therapy)
- Working on understanding your partner and how to help her through this in whatever way you can. (a lot of talking, especially when your SO is upset and wants to let you know how she feels.)
- Working on replacing your old patterns with a new philosophy, something healthy and healing for your relationship. (reinvesting in your partner, finding ways to make her happy, have fun together, show her you're there for her)
- Finding healthy new ways to occupy your downtime (New hobbies, pursuits, yoga, development courses)

There's more I could say, but I think you get the picture. I felt like I was reading two people in your post - there's an adolescent in there, who talks like a teenager, having blueballs, seeking bedroom tips from Ron Jeremy, not believing you're necessarily an addict, and such. And later, you come across as more sober and conscious of what you've done. I'd advise you to get on the same page with yourself. There's still a fair bit of denial in this for you. 

Don't mess up again! This could be your last chance with your wife. And honestly, if you do mess up again, it's because you don't care enough to keep your her. Please take what I've written as support for what you're trying to do, but with a few home truths. I wish you luck with everything.

Mayer,
I agree with Malando on his suggestions.  If you want to recover,  and you want your wife to heal,  you will have to work very hard.  One of the things I've had to dispense was my attitude.  I will admit I've been working hard on fixing what I've done.  At first,  I think I was doing it just to please her and make a quick fix on the situation so we could move on.  It wasn't working and frustration built on both our parts. 
I have had to remove my pride and any sort of entitlement.  In the past,  when I've worked really hard I feel like I had an entitled attitude about it.  I would feel like I "deserve" to basically have my ass kissed so to speak.  It would come down to this attitude "i've been working extra hard,  so you have no right to bitch at me."  It taken a bit of time but I've made some progress with that attitude.  I don't deserve my wife,  and every minute of every day should be with the appreciation that she chose to still be with me.  I feel like our wives need to actually feel loved before any real healing can occur.

Thanks for your words of wisdom there guys. Me and my wife went out for a meal last night and all seemed quite normal. I was hoping the outing would help with the reconnecting. I think we had a good time on the face of it. She looked a bit out of sorts and some points I asked if she was ok and she said she was. We had our friends kids over today so there were six children causing havoc. That does tend to take your mind off things too. Still rebooting fine, I had a bath today I think she probably thinks I went in there to MO. I didn't just feeling out of sorts lately, I was absolutely exhausted on Thursday then, yesterday I had a huge headache after the meal and today I feel all tense and nervous. I don't know whether I am sick or it is just the reboot kicking it stronger. I still feel in control of it, if nothing else. I don't look forward to the afternoons, this is when the talking and recovery gets in to full swing, hopefully in time I will look forward to them as I heal and so does she.

61 days now. This was not a hard reboot, me and my wife have had sex during this time. Even though I enjoyed it and I was focused on her the whole time it still feels like things aren't quite right. Usually she will go into a depression afterwards. I know sometimes I feel like I am being used as her emotions are all over the place, now though we have virtually no physical contact. We are sleeping in seperate bedrooms. I'm terrible at communicating and terrible at empathy, I don't know why I am like this. I am trying to change, but I am resisting it kind of subconsciously. I think I am scared of change, of becoming someone else.

Mayer said:

61 days now. This was not a hard reboot, me and my wife have had sex during this time. Even though I enjoyed it and I was focused on her the whole time it still feels like things aren't quite right. Usually she will go into a depression afterwards. I know sometimes I feel like I am being used as her emotions are all over the place, now though we have virtually no physical contact. We are sleeping in seperate bedrooms. I'm terrible at communicating and terrible at empathy, I don't know why I am like this. I am trying to change, but I am resisting it kind of subconsciously. I think I am scared of change, of becoming someone else.

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I'm interested in this notion that you are terrible at empathy. When you say that, do you mean you actually tend to feel nothing when your wife shows her pain/emotions/anger? Or are you terrible at showing that you feel something? Or are you sidetracked by feeling self-defensive at the time, but tend to feel something at a later time? How exactly does this express itself?

It seems unlikely to me that you are actually completely devoid of empathy - that would have you in the territory of sociopaths. Does seeing your wife in tears make you feel something? Is your wife's happiness important to you? If your answer to these two questions is yes, you are probably not devoid of empathy. It might be more that you are so unskilled at using the language of empathy, that you can't convey it or react appropriately in situations where it would be enormously helpful to do so. On some level you might be aware of feeling quite out of your depth in the expression of emotions and empathy and therefore you try to steer things away from that arena -  either by being distant and aloof, or by steering away from emotionally challenging conversations in favour of petty arguments about who is right/wrong, being pedantic about who said what and who did what. Is that familiar at all? If so, it speaks to an immaturity in terms of dealing empathetically with people, but not necessarily an absence of empathy.

If you think this might be you, the best thing you can do is get involved in the conversation! Stop running from the emotions of your wife and go towards them. Get in there and feel them with her. Learn to enjoy being an emotional person. It's essential to being a fully realised human being. Hiding from these things is a lifelong struggle that will not let up on you - these emotions are going to get you in the end. If you don't get right with them now, you'll probably be dealing with them later after your marriage has broken down. You might as well join the living and get onboard the empathy train now. Your life will go a whole lot easier for you if you do. No relationship will thrive if you aren't decent at this sort of thing. As long as you actually have feelings - and I'm sure you do - you can build skills at being empathic. It's really about confronting your fears about dealing with people in this way. Once you're over the fears, it will develop that side of your character and your wife will feel a lot closer and more understood by you. Feeling empathy also allows you to feel love in a way that you never have before. There's a lot in this for you.

Have a think about what it is that makes empathy hard for you.

Best wishes,
M.

I think you are absolutely right malando. I am not emotionless and whilst I have some sociopathic tendencies I am not one of those either. I am very guarded of my emotions as my experience tells me I have to be to be protective of myself, especially my own embarrassment. I used to be full of changing emotion much like someone with add. But was back in my early teens, I got bullied and picked on for being like I was, I mean I was extreme, with no control. I needed to get a handle on it for my own sake, but I created this highly self loathing and introverted persona which is going to be very difficult to change from. I am trying though, I need to get to the root of all my problems and I think it goes way back to my early years, I think I have become disconnected from my emotions and also my family and I'm trying hard to reconnect. I think the porn addiction has not helped me in the emotional regard, in fact I know it hasn't but that's just the tip of the iceberg I think also the tipping point of my realisation of my life situation, and I have found it incredibly hard to accept, as my wife's pain will attest. I want to be in touch with my own emotions without changing my personality, I know that it probably impossible and I don't know why I want to hold on to this closed off personality of mine, maybe just because it is who I am.
The empathy does become hard because I have trained myself not to feel, I suppose I have become desensitised to emotion. If I am like this then I can't get hurt. I'm not sure in the short term how I supposed to overcome this, I have tried but I always come across as fake. I feel for my wife and family I definitely do, but to express them and show that I do is something I really have to teach myself again.

Ok, now we're getting somewhere!

There are two points I want to mention here. The first is this notion of becoming a different person because of getting in touch with your emotions. It's actually quite a contradiction. Your emotions are a huge part of your personality. They are acting on your on so many levels - both conscious and unconscious. In fact, the majority is unconscious - so your emotions are affecting who you come across to people even when you are convinced they aren't showing. By getting in touch with your emotions you actually become far more aware of who you are coming across to people - so if that's one of your concerns, you shouldn't worry. Being in touch with your emotions gives you more control over how you react to them. It helps you to know what the warning signs are in many situations and informs you how to proceed. Dealing empathetically with somebody who is trying to express things to you is a perfect example of that. Instead of putting your foot in it all the time, being in touch with emotions can help you to decode what you are seeing in others. There's no such thing as empathy if you can't access your own feelings. It's not like you are going to open the floodgates and become an overemotional gibbering wreck. You will merely be arming yourself with a very powerful lens through which to observe your own behaviour and responses, as well as comprehending and relating to what others are going through. There's no real downside - other than the stoic male stereotypes (touchy-feely, etc) that you might bring to it. We're all equally emotional - the smart ones acknowledge it and work within it...

The second point I wanted to make was about the idea that learning to do this will take an incredible amount of effort. It's tempting to believe that since you've been this way for so long, it will take an enormously long time to change. It actually doesn't have to. For starters, it's really about fear, not about ability. You could describe your emotions if you weren't afraid of them. You have a perfectly fine vocabulary. Emotions don't need to be perfectly and eloquently phrased to be true. They can be expressed in basic ways. It's not a language problem. It's a reluctance problem. If you perceive the reward for doing this to be greater than the cost of not doing it, the choice will become simple and you will learn to do it. You might need guidance in getting past the fear, but once you can do that, it is perfectly possible to learn to exist on a more emotional level. You may as well do it - how is trying to be emotionally shut off working for you? You do realise that being a porn addict is not actually emotionless? It's actually your brain's way of dealing with highly emotional content in your subconscious. The more you push it down, the worse your brain will sabotage your life. It's simply smarter to get engaged with your emotional side and learn to manage it. It has the bonus of helping your relationship with every other person you ever deal with. Not a bad upside there.

From what you've said, I'd say your marriage and your emotional well-being depend on you making this breakthrough, so I really implore you to do it. Start here. Get used to expressing yourself emotionally. Do it as much as you can with your wife. She'll see that you are trying. What you don't want is her thinking is that you can't change, don't want to change. That spells the end for your relationship because it's that closed off aspect that led you to being a porn addict and losing all the intimacy in your marriage.

I really have faith in you that you can do this. Feel free to contact me at any time, here or in PMs. I'd like to help or encourage you if I can.

Best Wishes,
M.

You describe everything so well malando. Thanks. At the moment I am having trouble even identifying what I am feeling. My wife asks me how I feel and I look into myself and I perceive nothing a lot of the time. I think I am feeling something all the time, just describing it and acknowledging which emotion it is very difficult. I feel like a child who is just learning how to deal with different emotions, although I have already been there understood them then locked them away. Now I have forgotten what they all meant. And you are so right about the empathy problem I have, I need my emotions to be able to empathise, my wife might as well talk to a plank of wood for all the help I can give her.
In fact last night we had an argument, and within that I realised how defensive and how much in denial I still am. But through that I feel like I have had a bit of a breakthrough. I have been feeling utterly depressed and anxious all day. I have feeling physically sick and finding it hard to breathe. It has been hard to keep upbeat and motivated at work. But at least I am feeling something. Other times I have been a repressed blank space, it has made me realise to a small extent what I have been putting my wife through. I hope these breakthroughs continue, if my personality does change at all I really don't think I care anymore, in fact I hope I change because I realised last night that I am not in a good place and holding on to that is going to make me more anti social and reclusive and shut down.

65 days in. I had a really tough day today both physically and emotionally. I still feeling glib about myself and my actions, they are constantly in my thoughts and keep running them through my head reliving them. I think my brain is trying to figure a way out, a loophole to continue to justify PMO. There isn't one and any option it comes up with is going to be rejected. My breathing is still heavy but better than yesterday still feeling down but I can continue to function and put on a happy face. I have been doing that for years so I'm pretty good at it.
My reboot hasn't been without sex with my wife, but due to our arguments lately we have been sleeping in seperate bedrooms. So I don't know how long it has been since my last orgasm. I have been getting random erections today. Nothing has been triggering me. Other than thinking of my wife when I was texting her. Just my pants rubbing on my penis has been enough. I have been continually adjusting all day. My brain is lacking dopamine, I can feel it, "just one little jerk" it saying to me. It won't hurt anyone. You are wrong brain it will. It would be the easy way out, right now though I wouldn't need to fantasise or watch anything, just the feeling will do it. I don't want to though, I am considering it challenge, a challenge of my endurance and my will power. I am doing my kegel excercises, I need to stay in control, I will try some meditation too. Hopefully the feelings will ebb away soon, I blame my wife for exuding pheromones at me.

Mayer said:

65 days in. I had a really tough day today both physically and emotionally. I still feeling glib about myself and my actions, they are constantly in my thoughts and keep running them through my head reliving them. I think my brain is trying to figure a way out, a loophole to continue to justify PMO. There isn't one and any option it comes up with is going to be rejected. My breathing is still heavy but better than yesterday still feeling down but I can continue to function and put on a happy face. I have been doing that for years so I'm pretty good at it.
My reboot hasn't been without sex with my wife, but due to our arguments lately we have been sleeping in seperate bedrooms. So I don't know how long it has been since my last orgasm. I have been getting random erections today. Nothing has been triggering me. Other than thinking of my wife when I was texting her. Just my pants rubbing on my penis has been enough. I have been continually adjusting all day. My brain is lacking dopamine, I can feel it, "just one little jerk" it saying to me. It won't hurt anyone. You are wrong brain it will. It would be the easy way out, right now though I wouldn't need to fantasise or watch anything, just the feeling will do it. I don't want to though, I am considering it challenge, a challenge of my endurance and my will power. I am doing my kegel excercises, I need to stay in control, I will try some meditation too. Hopefully the feelings will ebb away soon, I blame my wife for exuding pheromones at me.

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Still feeling glib is not a good sign. It means on some level you remain unconvinced that there is anything wrong with your behaviour aside from how your wife is reacting to it. I think you need to ask yourself some hard questions:

- What was sex like with your wife before your porn use became intensive and regular?
- How close did you used to feel with your wife in the first few years, as opposed to now?
- Would you be happy to accept a sexless marriage, a cohabitation, and just take care of your own sex life?
- Would you be happy to tell your wife to look after her own sexual needs with a computer too?
- Can you connect your level of desire for your wife with your porn use?
- Do you feel that your lack of empathy has increased in the time your porn use has increased?
- Have you ever looked into the realities of the porn industry: the conditions they work under, the health risks, drug use and life expectancy they can look forward to? (google "the realities/hidden truth of the porn industry", it's shocking)
- Would you be prepared to accept that you will never feel close or excited by your wife again?
- Are you prepared to accept that your physical response to sexual stimulus is going to decrease more and more until you are either completely impotent, or need highly extreme/perverse material to get aroused?
- If your wife leaves you and your porn use becomes completely unchecked, how do you imagine your life going?


I could list a whole bunch of other questions here, but that will do. I think you have to concede to the idea that porn has changed your brain and what you value. The justifications you are using for your behaviour are most likely coming more from your addicted mind than from reasoning and your core values. There's a case here for acknowledging that there's a problem here and just going with the program - "fake it till you make it kind of thing". By that I don't mean you should be deceptive with your wife. By all means admit that your brain is struggling to accept/process it - even to find it that wrong. But go along with the program of quitting porn, increasing communication, listening to your wife. Even if you feel disconnected a lot of the time, do it. You have let these skills lapse - if you ever had them to start with. The brain becomes good at what it does the most often. When you're an addict of anything, you're good at that - and doing things that support it. Addicts usually have to lie and disconnect from people or else they'd find it hard to continue their addiction. People who communicate often, and try to empathise and put themselves in the shoes of others, are good at that. They can tap into the feelings of others with little effort because they are highly conversant in that language and their brain is good at finding analogies between their own feelings/experiences and those of others.

So when I say fake it till you make it: just keep trying to communicate, feels, connect, be honest with your wife. It might feel very foreign and disingenuous for a while, but unless you give your brain a chance to change its thought currency over to empathy dollars, it's going to keep trading in sticky, filthy porn addiction dollars.

Some things to ponder in your glib moments...

I think I might have thrown you a curve ball there. I just looked up the meaning of glib and it's not what I thought. I thought it just meant feeling down and depressed and sad, it is quite a sad sounding word. I do heed your words though, you give very sound advice.
My reboot today has been much the same as yesterday, I started off feeling better in the morning but later on the desire to relieve myself has been very strong. My balls are aching my feet are and legs are aching and I'm feeling very edgy. Kind of feels like I have walked up a mountain. I hope this is just the dopamine withdrawals causing this. I assume this fades, anyone else get these symptoms.

Wow, curve ball indeed! I went off on a real tangent based on that one word. Anyway, I hope some of it was still applicable to you.

Those feelings do fade, yes. That's what the reboot is for - to recalibrate your brain to a normal dopamine profile. It doesn't recalibrate without a struggle. In much of my reboot, I didn't actually ban myself from MO. But my conditions were very strict - I didn't use P at all, and I didn't fantasise about anyone but my partner. I also limited my "release" to once a week. Now, keep in mind, depending on how deeply dependant one is on P, this technique might be fraught with danger. It simply WILL NOT WORK for anyone who is not excited by their partner. I was fortunate in that I still was and am very excited by my partner. Our sex life had not vanished, just reduced due to the arrival of our young daughter. I chose to get away from porn because I became concerned that it was starting to change my sexual personality and give me distracting images when I was with my partner. I never had PIED and never had lost my attraction for my partner. As a result, it worked for me to set myself strict rules of only thinking about my partner if I did MO. If anything, it increased my excitement and anticipation for her. Of course, I would always have preferred to be with her, but she was going through a lot of tiredness as a new mother. The emphasis here is that I made the shift from fantasy and porn use, to making my partner the sole focus of my sexual thoughts and interest. Anyone who can't do that should stay away from using MO to manage urges. It will lead to failure - which could end in disaster for any relationship concerned.

What I don't want to do here is advocate this approach to somebody who can't handle it. I suspect you are one of those guys who needs to totally lay off MO - otherwise you are likely to be drawn back into PMO. I say that based on some of your comments that suggest that PMO is still an ever-present temptation. I only disclose this to be totally upfront about myself and not misrepresent myself.

for the last 2 weeks things with me and my wife have been going great really. It was her birthday on Saturday and I tried to make a bit of a fuss of her, I also want to take her out somewhere. Things seem to be getting on the right track, we are communicating and although the questions and information is hard, it is getting easier. We had sex a couple of times too. The first I resisted an O to keep my reboot in place. The second time I didn't because I physically needed release and we were together very intimately and all my focus was on her. I think both times felt much more intimate, loving and connected to me. I think she felt the same maybe not as much as me, but she has been affected much more deeply than me by my actions. I don't expect her to be suddenly ok with everything.
Unfortunately things seem too good at the moment and I know that I am not keeping up my end of the bargain and much as I should. I think like anything really, once you get comfortable you start to relax. I keep thinking to myself I need to pick my game up a bit more and I will, starting today. It's not like I have been completely back to my old self. I have still been reading and we have been talking but I haven't kept up the intensity.
I do feel different, I have no desire to look at porn or porn subs anymore. I still find things triggering though, me and my wife watched a TV show the other night with a sex scene in it. And I didn't find the woman in it particularly attractive but it is still a sex scene all the same. I think the affect would have been more pronounced if I wasn't satisfied sexually only recently. Generally sex can satisfy me for a week or so before I start to feel any physical effects. I think even then I can control myself much better. I actually looked away from some of the sex scene as I thought my wife would be triggered by the fact that I was watching it.
She was triggered very badly yesterday by an advert on the computer of a porn site I used to visit. I felt incredibly bad a ashamed that I have managed to bring my problems into her life, especially as it is much worse for her than me. I tried to comfort her and be there for her and apoligise to her, I actually cried a bit too but I don't think she noticed. I don't want to hurt her but the hurt is still getting to her, the hurt must be all around her everyday. She must feel hurt everytime she sees anybody pretty or a poster of a model or anything really. The world today is so highly sexed up towards men that it must be like a walking nightmare for her. I can't imagine how she copes, I can only be there for her as best I can.

I have reset my counter at 70 days. I didn't PMO like I said in my last post, I had sex with my wife. But I had a huge physical urge as well as emotional one to do that. My wife asked me whether we had sex just because of my urges. No it wasn't just that but that was a big part. Although the urges are there for a reason, I guess most people don't have sex unless they feel the urge to. The reason I reset is because I wasn't in complete control, even though I still completely focused on my wife, I feel like I need to go more days without an O to get the through the symptoms of abstaining. I don't want this to affect my wife sexually in any way and if she wishes to be intimate I'm sure I can be intimate without an O. This will also further my ability to control my urges.

Mayer,
You're doing really well man.  I feel like you're really delving into yourself and finding who you really are.  That's really good to hear.  You can become a better man than your wife even thought you were ( if that makes sense).
One thing that works for me is slowing my thoughts during a heated moment that may turn into an argument.  I think it's human nature really to defend yourself when someone starts talking "heatedly".  At the beginning I wouldnt even let my wife express her pain that I've caused.  I mean it made me feel really bad,  so I would "argue" back so to speak.  All that did was make her feel like I either don't believe her pain,  or that she shouldn't feel it.  So now when she brings something up I feel my mind tense up with my own thoughts,  so I slow them down and force myself to listen to every word she says and force my mental guard to stand down.  I don't know if it totally empathy,  but I'm learning. 

Sounds like your going down the right track too metal22. I have been feeling down all day, I have realised another problem with my ideals that I thought was normal. I see sex as a means to get an orgasm. I thought that was the point, not the only one but the main one. I suppose from an evolutionary point of view that is exactly what it is supposed to do. How would we breed otherwise.... I have missed a lot of the love and connection and intimacy that should be in there too. I think that all comes under my emotional lock down that I have created over the years, hopefully I can break through that, then sex will be a totally different experience for me.

I have been very depressed lately, I thought I was keeping it all locked down until a friend at work told me I had been looking sad the last 2 days. It's amazing how emotions can still show through even when your trying not to feel them. I have spent the last 25 years blocking them, you would think I would be good at it by now. Maybe I am changing, I hope so. I have had enough of who I am right now.

Well 4 days in again, although I didn't really relapse but I did feel bad about the whole situation and started my reboot again. I love my wife so much, she my focal point of my life, without her I am nothing. I can't believe I have hurt her so badly, I told her what she means to me and to her last night and she broke down, but the emotional release was very good. We have been on much better terms today. I bought her a rose bush, purple..ish, her favourite colour, it took me most of the day to plant it, had to dig through clay and stones. The kids came out and helped every now and again. I want to do special things for her as she is special to me, I want to show her that. I would love to shower in gifts but don't have the money to do that. Does anybody have any ideas of what else I can do?

Mayer said:

Well 4 days in again, although I didn't really relapse but I did feel bad about the whole situation and started my reboot again. I love my wife so much, she my focal point of my life, without her I am nothing. I can't believe I have hurt her so badly, I told her what she means to me and to her last night and she broke down, but the emotional release was very good. We have been on much better terms today. I bought her a rose bush, purple..ish, her favourite colour, it took me most of the day to plant it, had to dig through clay and stones. The kids came out and helped every now and again. I want to do special things for her as she is special to me, I want to show her that. I would love to shower in gifts but don't have the money to do that. Does anybody have any ideas of what else I can do?

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I think it's the little things you do that show how you feel. Cook dinner when she's tired. Vacuum the house, send her text messages during the day to let her know you're thinking of her. Ask her if there's anything she'd like done around the house. Leave her a nice note on the bench before you go to work. There's a million things you could do. Don't go overboard though. If you try too hard, the message is lost. But regular expressions of thought and love are good.