In my case I would say they were more intense for her. I made it to day number 45 of my 90 day challenge before she and I made love again. Several points to make here: first, I was instructed by my counselor to not initiate sex with her until she asked me to. It started with giving her a back rub, and one thing led to another, and, well, you get the picture. Second, make sure that you keep eye contact for as much of the act itself as it possible, especially at the end. This is important to rewire your brain with your partner in mind rather than porn. Lastly, be prepared for your partner to second guess themself. They may, afterwards, feel unsure about how vulnerable they've now become, and will need patience, understanding, and reassurance about your recovery.

I always looked at my wife differently from women in pornography, even when I was using pornography. I had a lot of compartmentalizing going on, but she always had her own compartment as the "real one."

I never liked to fantasize about women I knew well in real life -- I always felt like doing so cheapened my real friendships with those women and was disrespectful to them. (I was right on both counts, but what I wasn't seeing then was that it was disrespectful to fantasize about a woman whether I knew her in real life or not, and disrespectful to my wife.) Anyway, this meant that my wife was the only "real" woman I was having sex with -- the porn women were just kind of props for stimulation.

Now that I'm not using pornography, I feel like I just have more to give and no guilt to carry around when we make love. I can feel good about making love to her because I know that I am being a good husband the rest of the time, if that makes sense. Of course I have more sexual energy too, as I haven't expended it on other activities over the course of the week. Sometimes when I was using pornography I would run out of steam and have to imagine pornographic images just to finish. I NEVER have to do that now.

It is also different because I don't see sex the way I used to. Even though I saw my wife as distinct from the "porn women," I still tended to compare real sex to porn sex. Now it's more about just being with my wife. I pay attention to her signals and just let the moment carry itself instead of trying to push everything in a certain direction. I don't have an agenda.

I have learned that addiction and compartmentalization go hand-in-hand (do they ever!). Is this a common area of compartmentalization during acting out--wife=real sex/"love", acting out (porn, hookups, etc)=area of "relief'/"excitement"?

The longer I stay away from my addiction and acting out to the more attracted to my wife I've become.