Apologies for the total "nerdy" title for this journal, however that's who I am, and I need to start owning up to who I am.
A little background about myself. As stated, I'm a total geek, which likely contributed to my problem with pornography going as far as it did before I rebooted. I'm 42 years old, a white male, and work in the technology industry. I'm married to my high-school sweetheart, and have been for 24 years. Yes, for those doing the math, we were married _very_ young. We have 4 wonderful children, 2 still at home, 1 married, and 1 out at college. I don't want to make this initial entry a life story, but will add quite a bit of detail to explain how I got to where I am today. Suffice it to say, I've had an amazingly blessed life, and almost lost it all as a result of my pornography addiction.
My first pornography experience, that I can remember, was when I was in the fifth or sixth grade, a boy at school brought in a playboy centerfold foldout from the magazine. I was instantly hooked, and proceeded to sneak into the classroom at some point (Maybe recess?) to steal the centerfold from his desk. Thus began my off and on addiction to pornography. I never had easy access to pornography from that time, until my late teenage years, but would collect swimsuit issues of Sports Illustrated, and any other material that I could.
As I hit my teenage years, and the Internet began to become more accessible, I began to collect digital pornography material. Given my technical skills, I found ways to get access to material, without the need to ever spend any money. I would burn CDs of videos, and galleries of images, and had amassed a small collection by the time my wife and I had reached somewhere around year 5, maybe a little sooner. At that time, my wife first found my collection of CDs, while I was gone at work, and perused my apparently not very well hidden material. This discovery nearly ended our relatively new marriage. We "talked" out the issues, and agreed to work it out, as I worked to control my pornography addiction.
For the next ~15-17 years (Timelines shady in my mind), I think I was pretty good about limiting my pornography addiction. I honestly don't remember a significant use of pornography, but am sure that I was randomly looking at pornography in small doses here and there. Throughout this time, I most definitely was masturbating, but not often through the use of pornography. My wife and I have always had a good sex life, but in my mind I think I justified masturbation as a result of not getting enough sex with my wife. This was not the case, just my mind's rationalization mechanism to cope with the issue.
About 10-11 years ago, I began to take photos of my wife in a boudoir type fashion. My wife is beautiful, but has always had a little bit of self-esteem issues, so these sessions were a way for her to see how much I really loved her body. She never _loved_ me taking the photos, but I think she did it out of love for me, knowing that I really wanted them, and she wanted to make me happy. At some point during those years, a good buddy of mine, and his wife, who was best friends with my wife, convinced them to take lingerie only pictures together for us. During these years, we were able to get the girls to have many photo shoots together, all in lingerie, and now I had a collection of photos of my wife, and a collection of photos of my wife with her best friend. I would use this content, as well as general internet available pornography to masturbate often during this time as well.
Maybe 5 years ago, not exactly sure how many, my wife began to suspect I was having unhealthy attractions to her friend, and asked that I delete the photos of them together. As proof that she was wrong, I "deleted" all the photos of them together, while she watched. Given the geek that I am, I proceeded to recover them from backups I had, and then kept them in a secure vault that no one but me could access. I didn't masturbate to them very often, but the thought of losing all that material killed me, so I made sure that I had them backed up all the time.
About 3 years ago, I began sharing nude pictures of my wife with the same buddy whose wife we had the photo shoots with. Shortly after I began trading pictures with my buddy, my need for the next thrill kicked in, and I began reaching out to folks I found on various Subreddits that were sharing pictures of their wives, to see if they'd be willing to trade pictures. Over the next few years, the trading increased and intensified my need more more pictures of my wife, which she was always reluctant to take, but wanted to please me. As a result, I had amassed probably 50-60 GB of pictures and videos of my wife, which I would randomly share.
About a month ago, the need for the next thrill kicked in, and I began to look for women looking for other women on Reddit, to see if they'd like to see pictures of my wife. They were a lot harder to find, thank goodness, as my issue probably would have spiraled much further than it did. About 1-2 weeks ago I began to ask women if they'd like to have conversations, anonymously, which I found on Reddit as well. Again, luckily, this was even harder to find, and I only had one platonic conversation with a girl, that was actually pretty boring.
6 days ago my wife and I were laying in bed, and she says something to the effect "If you had a problem, you'd tell me right?". My mind went into overload at this point, backtracking my use of applications, picture backups, etc., and tried to figure a way out of the conversation. It turns out, I hadn't logged out of my Reddit account on my phone, and she had seen a bunch of the Reddit messages that I sent out to various people, looking for wife trades, conversations, etc. This was the worst day of my life. Each day since, as been very close to the worst day of my wife.
I am 6 days clean, have told my parents, have met with my ecclesiastical leader, and have a meeting with an addiction recovery counselor tomorrow. My marriage is a bit unstable right now, my wife wrestling with the betrayal, lies, and general hurt that I have caused her constantly. I've lied so much to her, that her ability to come back from this, with any sense of trust, is in jeopardy right now. My goal of this journal, is to help ensure my recovery process, and perhaps help someone else avoid my potential fate.
Day 6:
-I have not used porn today
-I am grateful for the forgiveness and love of my children.
A little background about myself. As stated, I'm a total geek, which likely contributed to my problem with pornography going as far as it did before I rebooted. I'm 42 years old, a white male, and work in the technology industry. I'm married to my high-school sweetheart, and have been for 24 years. Yes, for those doing the math, we were married _very_ young. We have 4 wonderful children, 2 still at home, 1 married, and 1 out at college. I don't want to make this initial entry a life story, but will add quite a bit of detail to explain how I got to where I am today. Suffice it to say, I've had an amazingly blessed life, and almost lost it all as a result of my pornography addiction.
My first pornography experience, that I can remember, was when I was in the fifth or sixth grade, a boy at school brought in a playboy centerfold foldout from the magazine. I was instantly hooked, and proceeded to sneak into the classroom at some point (Maybe recess?) to steal the centerfold from his desk. Thus began my off and on addiction to pornography. I never had easy access to pornography from that time, until my late teenage years, but would collect swimsuit issues of Sports Illustrated, and any other material that I could.
As I hit my teenage years, and the Internet began to become more accessible, I began to collect digital pornography material. Given my technical skills, I found ways to get access to material, without the need to ever spend any money. I would burn CDs of videos, and galleries of images, and had amassed a small collection by the time my wife and I had reached somewhere around year 5, maybe a little sooner. At that time, my wife first found my collection of CDs, while I was gone at work, and perused my apparently not very well hidden material. This discovery nearly ended our relatively new marriage. We "talked" out the issues, and agreed to work it out, as I worked to control my pornography addiction.
For the next ~15-17 years (Timelines shady in my mind), I think I was pretty good about limiting my pornography addiction. I honestly don't remember a significant use of pornography, but am sure that I was randomly looking at pornography in small doses here and there. Throughout this time, I most definitely was masturbating, but not often through the use of pornography. My wife and I have always had a good sex life, but in my mind I think I justified masturbation as a result of not getting enough sex with my wife. This was not the case, just my mind's rationalization mechanism to cope with the issue.
About 10-11 years ago, I began to take photos of my wife in a boudoir type fashion. My wife is beautiful, but has always had a little bit of self-esteem issues, so these sessions were a way for her to see how much I really loved her body. She never _loved_ me taking the photos, but I think she did it out of love for me, knowing that I really wanted them, and she wanted to make me happy. At some point during those years, a good buddy of mine, and his wife, who was best friends with my wife, convinced them to take lingerie only pictures together for us. During these years, we were able to get the girls to have many photo shoots together, all in lingerie, and now I had a collection of photos of my wife, and a collection of photos of my wife with her best friend. I would use this content, as well as general internet available pornography to masturbate often during this time as well.
Maybe 5 years ago, not exactly sure how many, my wife began to suspect I was having unhealthy attractions to her friend, and asked that I delete the photos of them together. As proof that she was wrong, I "deleted" all the photos of them together, while she watched. Given the geek that I am, I proceeded to recover them from backups I had, and then kept them in a secure vault that no one but me could access. I didn't masturbate to them very often, but the thought of losing all that material killed me, so I made sure that I had them backed up all the time.
About 3 years ago, I began sharing nude pictures of my wife with the same buddy whose wife we had the photo shoots with. Shortly after I began trading pictures with my buddy, my need for the next thrill kicked in, and I began reaching out to folks I found on various Subreddits that were sharing pictures of their wives, to see if they'd be willing to trade pictures. Over the next few years, the trading increased and intensified my need more more pictures of my wife, which she was always reluctant to take, but wanted to please me. As a result, I had amassed probably 50-60 GB of pictures and videos of my wife, which I would randomly share.
About a month ago, the need for the next thrill kicked in, and I began to look for women looking for other women on Reddit, to see if they'd like to see pictures of my wife. They were a lot harder to find, thank goodness, as my issue probably would have spiraled much further than it did. About 1-2 weeks ago I began to ask women if they'd like to have conversations, anonymously, which I found on Reddit as well. Again, luckily, this was even harder to find, and I only had one platonic conversation with a girl, that was actually pretty boring.
6 days ago my wife and I were laying in bed, and she says something to the effect "If you had a problem, you'd tell me right?". My mind went into overload at this point, backtracking my use of applications, picture backups, etc., and tried to figure a way out of the conversation. It turns out, I hadn't logged out of my Reddit account on my phone, and she had seen a bunch of the Reddit messages that I sent out to various people, looking for wife trades, conversations, etc. This was the worst day of my life. Each day since, as been very close to the worst day of my wife.
I am 6 days clean, have told my parents, have met with my ecclesiastical leader, and have a meeting with an addiction recovery counselor tomorrow. My marriage is a bit unstable right now, my wife wrestling with the betrayal, lies, and general hurt that I have caused her constantly. I've lied so much to her, that her ability to come back from this, with any sense of trust, is in jeopardy right now. My goal of this journal, is to help ensure my recovery process, and perhaps help someone else avoid my potential fate.
Day 6:
-I have not used porn today
-I am grateful for the forgiveness and love of my children.