I lost my wife due to porn just dont look at it dont even think about it

You're not alone - similar age here, married for a similar amount of time, also 2 kids. Have watched porn most days for 20-25 years, maybe longer?

My wife has caught me multiple times over the years, the first time was back before we were even engaged. So it has been a long struggle for us. Definitely feelings of betrayal and disappointment.

It will be important to find something to fill the time with. It's something I've struggled with in the past as well. This time around I am making more significant changes to my daily routine (about 2 weeks in, sticking to them). I've also found someone to be an accountability partner for me; someone who shares my values and who I am not afraid to be open & honest with.

And one of the things I've added to my morning routine is journaling. Especially in the first week or so, it was really helpful to solidify, clarify, organize my thoughts. The act of writing them down helped to bring some clarity - labeling the lies and negative self-talk to help put them in their place; reinforcing and taking more comfort in the things I knew to be true.

Keep at it - and have forgiveness and grace with yourself if you stumble again - it is not an easy thing to move beyond! Be open and honest with your wife, as difficult as it is. It is what I am trying to do a better job of now.

My wife threatened divorce, made me write a contract, took my phone, but most importantly threatened to take away the kids. I woke up this morning "needing relief" and reached for the laptop, to obviously watch porn and take care of my issue. I stopped myself though and didn't open the laptop, I instead tried to just motivate myself and found myself unable to work. I got back on here and found that 2 people had replied with words of encouragement. I would really like to know how to find an accountability partner, if someone could tell me how that works, I'd be grateful.

I'm going to try the journaling, but I wanted to wait a week into moving in the right direction before I started. I've been honest with my wife since "the incident" 3 days ago. But it's not just the porn, it's the masturbation as well. While both of us agree that masturbation is healthy, I might go at it maybe 3+ times a day, with toys on occasion (which is one of the huge issues for my wife). So, I threw away the toys, and committed to stop watching porn. I don't know if I can stop masturbating completely, but I can limit it to once or less per day.

I think the whole COVID-19 thing made my problems really come out into the open, being at home, having more time, etc. Before, my days were filled and I had little time for "play time," but I don't slack on my duties as a father, I love and take care of my kids more than ever. However, my problems can eventually evolve into affecting the entire family, so I need to get the strength to fix my problems now, hopefully never relapse, and be the good husband I know I am.

I would step away from the computer as much as you can.
Then start reading books. the bible, books on recovery, book on addiction.
start learning why you look at porn.
you show talk to your wife and tell her you are going to do a 90 day challenge nofap.
keeping a journal is a great tool
also find other married men, and seek their help.

Thank you guys, Lee202, pseudonym, and MemphisWH for the words of encouragement. After reading some other posts I'm going to read the book Breaking the Cycle: Free Yourself From Sex Addiction, Porn Obsession, and Shame. My wife is aware of everything, she first wanted me to just get out of the house and file for divorce, but somehow we decided on making a contract with each other that includes me getting help. Some information on an accountability partner would be appreciated. Thank you.

Join SA group. You and you wife need to both have support for this. I am losing my wife now because i did not get help sooner.

I will write more in the morning - you mentioned a few things in your responses that are worth following up on. But I wanted to send quick note of congratulations!! You were able to catch yourself and take corrective action in the moment... that's not easy! Find encouragement in that victory... and keep finding new ones - and remember avoiding temptation, avoiding the patterns of behavior that lead to problems, is as much a victory as resisting temptation. And where you want to be in the long run... make it as easy on yourself as possible!

@up84recov -

> "I think the whole COVID-19 thing made my problems really come out into the open, being at home, having more time, etc. Before, my days were filled and I had little time for "play time," but I don't slack on my duties as a father, I love and take care of my kids more than ever. However, my problems can eventually evolve into affecting the entire family, so I need to get the strength to fix my problems now, hopefully never relapse, and be the good husband I know I am."

This very much hits home for me -- I had the same feelings before the latest incident where my behavior was exposed to my wife as well. I thought that I was doing a great job as a father; getting them out of bed in the morning, helping out as much as I could in the evening; putting them both to bed at night; while working a full time job in between.

After I "got clean", I found myself having way more energy to spend time with my family. That's not quite the right word for it - it's more like I found myself wanting to be surrounded by them more. In hindsight it was obvious, that getting this huge lie, this huge burden of carrying this big secret around with me, getting that off of my shoulders would make me want to be less isolated.

My wife noticed the change right away too. And she asked me if it was just me being different because of guilt that I felt. But it wasn't. And she shared with me that she felt like lately she's felt like a single parent. Before this incident, I would have taken offense to that - I was doing so much to help! How could her expectations be higher?? It's unreasonable! But seeing things more clearly, as I am now, I can see where she is coming from.

I'm just sharing that experience of mine, to reinforce what you said. Your problems will eventually evolve into affecting the entire family. And they may have already, in small ways you may not be able to see. For me, it's actually been a huge source of encouragement, seeing some unexpected positive change through this.

> "I'm going to try the journaling, but I wanted to wait a week into moving in the right direction before I started. I've been honest with my wife since "the incident" 3 days ago."

I would encourage you to start now. The emotion and thoughts you are having right now are strong.. write it down now. Capture the rawest emotions that you have - remind yourself later of the pain you're feeling now, because it will fade and you will be tempted to repeat your past mistakes. Use the 100% certainty you have right now in knowing what you want & are working towards, to write it down, so you can read it later. Use it as a weapon when the battle gets harder.

> "But it's not just the porn, it's the masturbation as well. While both of us agree that masturbation is healthy, I might go at it maybe 3+ times a day, with toys on occasion (which is one of the huge issues for my wife). So, I threw away the toys, and committed to stop watching porn. I don't know if I can stop masturbating completely, but I can limit it to once or less per day."

This is something I am working through as well. I've tried and failed to stop using porn in the past. But I've never tried to stop or really even change my habits around masturbation, and that's been a gateway to slipping again, for me. Masturbation & porn (or at least visual stimulus) are so tightly coupled for me, that's why it's been such a powerful gateway back into porn I think. So I'm trying to change that behavior this time around too, and like you, not sure what a "healthy" approach is.

@pseudonym -
Thank you so much for addressing and relating to so much of what I'm going through right now. I have not watched porn now for 3 whole days straight. I have also quit chewing tobacco (doing both at the same time is downright horrible, I've only managed to go 1 whole day now without the tobacco. I closed my bank account and put all of my money in the joint account, and had my wife hide my cash so I won't sneak a can.

I'm keeping busy, doing yard work (but in AZ its like 6000 degrees outside here), but I've dropped like 5 lbs in 3 days, so that's good. Working with my son on his school work, playing with my daughter, and suggesting that we watch movies at night as a family.

Last night, we went to bed all at the same time, 9:30. I couldn't sleep for about 2 hours after that, then woke up at 6 am this morning, ate breakfast, took my vitamins, and went to work outside. I just finished the front yard and came in to write about my progress. I think I will start journaling, but I've never been much of a writer on expressing my emotions. I'm gonna try though.

For now, I'm channeling my energy toward organizing and cleaning the house, working out with my buddy (who I am able to talk to about these problems as well), spending more time on constructive things with the kids, and changing habits that could lead to relapse. I will not take my phone into the bathroom with me, I found some old self-help books that I enjoyed before that I put in the bathroom now. My phone is only on my person if I am outside the house. Otherwise it stays on the kitchen counter. My laptop is now at the kitchen table and I unplugged my office desktop and unhooked the cables to give me pause if I get the urge to use it. If I masturbate, I will only do it in the bathroom, without porn obviously, and not more than once every 2 days, is my current small goal. I have been unable to find my Bible, but I'm cleaning the house, so I'm sure I'll find it.

Pseudonym, you said, "Masturbation & porn (or at least visual stimulus) are so tightly coupled for me, that's why it's been such a powerful gateway back into porn I think." You are so on the money with this one, that visual stimulus I think promotes the urge to masturbate, and the urge to masturbate promotes you to seek that visual stimulus. At least that's how it feels for me.

@up84recov - you made me smile this morning - so many similarities to what we are going through!

As part of this I also quit drinking. Not because drinking is at all related to my struggle with porn, but because I wanted to make a change that was very visible to my wife, that she knew would be somewhat difficult for me, just to show her my commitment. The big changes are going to be in ways she can't see.. I wanted to give her something more tangible as well. So no more drinking until she says so. So I think your giving up tobacco is probably really helpful, even if that's not the reason you're doing it.

All of the safeguards you put in place around your phone and computers sound really smart too.

And it's great that you have a buddy you can be open with. I finally found that this time around too. And it's really helpful. Talking about it in the open somehow makes the problem seem so much smaller.. just like being here, and being reminded that there are people who have beaten this, or learned to manage it.

If they can do it, why can't I?

I've found that keeping with my plan, especially with my devices makes it easier to not look at porn. I mean yeah, I get the urge to watch porn every time I go to masturbate, but at the same time, I refrain from masturbating as much as well, still, at only once per day.

I haven't watched any porn since I started this group. I also found an empty journal in my office that I started writing in yesterday. Journaling has never worked out for me in the past so I'm hoping to keep up with it this time.

@pseudonym -
We do seem to have some similarities in our problem. I know that I'm new here and I really don't have any answers. But I can talk about my experiences I am going through and what I'm doing to combat my problems. I will say that giving up tobacco is really REALLY hard. And I think that because of its difficulty, it makes not watching porn a bit easier. Unfortunately, I find myself digging in the pantry and fridge pretty often. However, its the porn that's destroying my marriage and that is what makes it so much of a bigger priority.

I'm not much of a drinker myself, I would say to just detox your body to start with not drinking if the drinking isn't problem and just a choice. I used to go to the bar pretty regularly on the weekends when I was younger, but I know that when I worked out every day, I didn't drink, because I knew it would hurt my gains. Maybe try exercising regularly and the urge to drink will go away. Unfortunately, the more you work out the higher your sex drive is also, so the porn will be harder to refrain from. Find something that works for you. For me, it's limiting my devices, and it's working so far.

I am going to beat this. I have no other choice.

@up84recov - I'm new here as well, don't have any answers either, can only share what I'm going through and my own experience.. I'm only about 2 weeks clean. Like you said - I look at it as not having another choice as well.

Just in the sense that, I refuse to put my wife through this again, and I don't even want this to be a part of my life or my character in the first place either. It's not like I'm making some sacrifice on her behalf - I'm trying to remove garbage from my life, and replace it with something better! We both want the same thing here! It helps to know there are others going through the same thing, and there are others who have beaten this.

Funny you mention exercise, I've started exercising for basically the first time in my life about 6 months ago. I used to be super active when I was young (all through high school & college). I never "worked out" or made it a point to "exercise", because I loved to swim and play basketball. That was my recreation and it kept me in great shape. That's fallen away over the last 20 years, so it feels really good to have taken up some physical activity again.

Giving up the drinking hasn't been too hard honestly. Which I am glad about. It was definitely more of a social thing, and I really enjoy the taste of good beer (IPAs), so I miss having a glass of beer at the end of the day. But I'm not craving it at all. It helps that I think it has helped to show my wife I'm serious.

The thing that is working for me is refocusing my mind and sticking to a schedule. I had fallen into a pretty steady routine of looking at porn and masturbating in the early morning before my wife was up. Now that time is set aside to check in here; read a chapter of a book that will help me (currently Every Mans Battle); and spend a little time reading the Bible (something I've basically never done with any regularity as an adult, but always "wanted to" or felt like I should).

So even though I am alone, and at the computer for part of the time, I'm focusing my mind on other things, and I haven't yet felt a strong urge to go back. But I think I will be ready to combat it when it does happen (I'm sure it will).

So, here's my daily update. I'm doing well not watching any porn. Phone still stays on the kitchen counter, laptop on the kitchen table. I spend a lot of time playing with my baby daughter, cleaning house, cooking, and teaching my son his schoolwork. In my free time I'm still working out, playing a computer game, and watching TV.

My wife can see that I'm working very hard at controlling and overcoming my addiction and our relationship has gained a small piece of normalcy, even if it is just in small interactions and conversations.

I found myself staring at my laptops desktop screen today for longer than normal, like I was there to do something, then I opened my browser, and with my cursor in the search bar, I put my fingers on the keys... I paused. My mind went through all of my normal porn searches that I type in. But I didn't type. I opened my e-mail, checked my bitcoin, and opened dailystrength. I think I'm at the point where my automatic interactions with my laptop are now pauses where I think about what I'm going to do. I feel like if I can keep this up for just a month, I will be able to remove porn from my internal urges. The only problem is that when I do masturbate, I search my brain for my favorites by memory... Definitely not as good as the real thing.

I recently had a very kinky dream involving my wife, which was waaay out of my wheelhouse (not the wife part, but the actual things that happened were not of my usual interests). Not sure where it came from. Anyways that's all for now.

Hi recently joined yesterday to this group aswell and i didnt know where to start but reading your conversation @up84 and pseud the similiarties i have to you both. I also never saw it as a problem and not realise the consuqunces to it.

Its been like a giant wake up call to me but today i woke up feeling helpless and unmovitavted not knowing what to do or where to start but reading this conversation has helped and hopefully put me on the right track to fixing things

I can relate to all of this. I have been watching porn for over 20 years. My wife is fed up and is ready to leave. I never really saw it as a problem. I saw it more as a coping mechanism for stress or anxiety at work. I would watch pron on my phone. At times I won't even masterbate, just get the mental high of watching it.
My wife caught me yet again via the search history. I did not realize the consequences. I guess I am selfish. I am hoping to change that. Saw the ad for Dailystrength.