26 with PIED, married with child, and I?m afraid that this will ruin my marriage

D?Wayne

Member
I?m 26 years old and have been battling ED for the last 6 or 7 years. I?ve been watching porn since I was like 11. It really became a habit when I was 16. I just remember the moment I hit 20 years old that the only way for me to maintain an erection was if I kept jerking off and the moment I stop I lose my erection effective immediately. I?ve been able to have sex but I literally have to force erections that are probably about 60% at best. I got married about a year ago and my wife and I just had a daughter. We do have sex but I?m semi erect and she noticed it today. She was going down on me and she stopped because she said I wasn?t hard. Made me feel really insecure. It?s like when I have sex I can?t even enjoy it yet I?m addicted to it. I feel the need for sexual pleasure even though I can be virtually dead downstairs. I can?t remember the last time I had a morning wood. I?m addicted to porn. I?ve tried rebooting before and made it to 2 months without PMO and that was years ago maybe like 3 or 4. I really need help and advice. I feel like my marriage and my sex kids is at risk and I need to save it, I have to. I want to open up with my wife but I?m afraid to. I really need your help guys
 

Redfire03

Active Member
Hey man. I am in your shoes, coming from someone who is going through it. Hear me out, you need to tell her. My wife left me because i lied about it. Its not worth the pain.for either more so with kids involved.  I know...... best thing is acknowledge you have a problem and stop
Suck it up and tell her what you have been doing or you will regret it like i do. I wish i had the chance to do something sooner. There is still hope for you..
Stop masturbation stop porn
Work on her she needs you now. If you dont fix this she will go find else where man. So please tell her.  I dont want you do suffer like i have. Man up bro.
 
Hi, I can relate to you in terms of PIED. We are the same age. When I started to quit porn 3 years ago I had no PIED. I developed it in these past years when I was trying to quit with no success. I have seen myself develop it on my very own eyes being completely aware of the cause. This addiction is very hard to beat but the good thing is that we are 100% sure what is the cause of our ED problem. And the second good thing is that it can be healed by quitting P. So you know what to do. Quit now, start a journal here and yes, tell your wife. It is helpful to have someone in real life who knows and can support you. Moreover, I think that it is just fair to be honest with a person you are sharing your life with.
 

malando

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
It's funny, there have been countless guys on the forum who said they were going to fix the problem without telling their wife/partner. To date, I really don't recall one single case of successful recovery that was done in secrecy. I think the advantage of being honest is twofold:

First, she gets to feel sane again because it is very confusing not knowing what has happened and not understanding the change in her husband's/partner's interest and capabilities. She deserves that honesty.

Second, by telling her the truth, assuming she doesn't leave immediately (which they very rarely do), the pressure on you is greater to quit. You must succeed or you know your relationship won't make it through. I think this level of incentive is necessary, because without it, it's too safe - there isn't enough at stake on a daily level. You must succeed or lose your relationship. If you don't tell her, you can string the problem out a lot longer. But the longer you don't quit, the worse the problem gets and the more the relationship is damaged anyway.

In short, tell her. I think people who refuse to tell are basically cowards. They may tell themselves that it's to protect their wife/partner, but it's really for themselves.
 
It?s a difficult conversation. But I told my wife. And I told her why I?m doing it. I may not have a full out PIED problem. But I have had difficulties on some occasions in the last five years or so. And I do have only partial erections quite often... Honnestly I wasn?t aware PIED existed and I just shrugged it off as performance anxiety and stress related. Also I?m pretty sure I have undiagnosed ADD. And even before the years of porn damage, I?ve always been very easily distracted... yep even from Sex. Hell sometimes an overly squeeky bed was enough to turn me off. So that being said it was a lot easier pointing the finger at all sorts of other things as to why the quality of my erections have been falling. However, I totally understand what is happening to me, and I am no longer ashamed to admit it.

There is no shame in this. You need to tell her what is happening. You need to be honnest. I am just at the beggining of this process. 8 Days today. But she is extremely happy I am doing it, and she is very supportive.

 

aquarius25

Respected Member
As a wife, I have to say the lying is way worse than the actual thing they are lying about. I had to discover my husbands porn addiction and it defiantly made everything waaaaayyy worse. I also think that you build up a lot of shame when its still a secret. When you come clean you step into transparency and can finally come out of the shame. Communicate. She obviously loves you. Make a plan together for how you can support her and she can support you. Make goals for your marriage, sex aside. What do you want your family and marriage to look like, feel like, and be like in 2yrs, 10 yrs, and 20 yrs. Then together make a plan for how to get there. If you are both working towards something better then you won't have time for this porn crap. Build intimacy and remove sex from the table for a while. Then there won't be the pressure and you guys can rebuild trust into your marriage. There are couples who do try to have sex during the reboot time (we did). I really think it makes everything more difficult especially when PIED is involved. My husband suffered PIED for over a decade off and on. The chaser effect is real. His biggest urges were after we had sex or even tried to have sex. Give it 90 days to get some distance from porn. Focus on communicating with your wife and getting healthy.

I am glad you found this site and are working on building a better life. You won't regret it!
 

aquarius25

Respected Member
I would say my husband is physically cured. He does have issues from time to time but I believe that is due to exhaustion. He will work 16+ hr days for a few weeks sometimes and gets very little sleep. I think any man in that predicament would probably be less than enthusiastic about being intimate in those circumstances. After good sleep he is good as new, lol.

One this I will also mention is this, he experienced PIED off and on for about 2 decades. When he had quit porn he assumed that at 90 days he would be back in action. About a year later he was still having problems and that was when I started to realize that performance anxiety is actually worse than the PIED itself. Looking back I think about half of his PIED symptoms were probably due the the PA. He had built up all this pressure in his head on how he thought he needed to preform and frankly nobody can live up to that hype. Sex isn't like in the movies and most certainly not like a porn. That is not real life. I think porn actually alters your reality and view of what sex is actually supposed to be. When he didn't live up to that or even just thinking about all of it right before we had sex would be enough to kill any erection. We had to work for a long time at just being together. If sex happens great, if not that's ok too! Sex is a byproduct of a healthy relationship not something that defines a healthy relationship. Once he stop putting that pressure on himself everything was so much better and frankly a lot more fun.
 
aquarius25 said:
I would say my husband is physically cured. He does have issues from time to time but I believe that is due to exhaustion. He will work 16+ hr days for a few weeks sometimes and gets very little sleep. I think any man in that predicament would probably be less than enthusiastic about being intimate in those circumstances. After good sleep he is good as new, lol.

One this I will also mention is this, he experienced PIED off and on for about 2 decades. When he had quit porn he assumed that at 90 days he would be back in action. About a year later he was still having problems and that was when I started to realize that performance anxiety is actually worse than the PIED itself. Looking back I think about half of his PIED symptoms were probably due the the PA. He had built up all this pressure in his head on how he thought he needed to preform and frankly nobody can live up to that hype. Sex isn't like in the movies and most certainly not like a porn. That is not real life. I think porn actually alters your reality and view of what sex is actually supposed to be. When he didn't live up to that or even just thinking about all of it right before we had sex would be enough to kill any erection. We had to work for a long time at just being together. If sex happens great, if not that's ok too! Sex is a byproduct of a healthy relationship not something that defines a healthy relationship. Once he stop putting that pressure on himself everything was so much better and frankly a lot more fun.

AMEN.

There is so much intuitive wisdom in that. Extremely well worded as well.

I can relate to a lot of this as well. Binging on P over long periods re-inforces comfort in isolation and witdrawing from people. As an introvert by nature, I admit before all else P binging makes trying to be intimate with someone a very shy akward and uncomfortable situation. I?m not even refferring to sex or sensuality, I mean just having somebody in ?my bubble? ... ?my space? ... it just doesn?t feel right.

How can anything ?work? right if your anxious!?!?

It?s so very VERY true. Performance Anxiety is a very serious part of all this as well. IMHO.
 

aquarius25

Respected Member
I think that is one of the many things that rebooting completely does, it allows you time to just get comfortable with you and (if you are in a relationship) with  your partner too. It forces you to have conversations and open up. Gives you time to soul search and if you are wise you will use that time to really soul search and learn who you and your partner are together. Then when you re start a physical relationship it is only reinforcing what you have already established. We put too much emphasis on sex being the definition of the relationship when in reality it is only one small part of the relationship. The foundation much be in the communication and interactions together, the life you create. The amount of that time that is spend in the bedroom is really only a fraction of the life you spend together so why allow that to occupy the majority of your determined worth in the relationship?  Focus on honoring each other, building each other up, and learning how to encourage each other to reaching goals together. There really isn't any time for porn when you are living in a true transparent and authentic relationship, you are too busy living!
 
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