Reddit reviews What Can I Do About Me?

Listen I am the partner of 22 years to a porn addict. I wouldn't wish this Hellish life on my worst enemy.

There is a hugo huge difference between a casual user and a on-line digital sexaholic. It's the difference between going to the bar and having a glass of wine, and a dead drunk black-out alcoholic. You have gotten yourself involved with a straight up hard core addict. He is just as addicted as if he were shooting meth several times a day, that's how hard it is to quit and become sober.

​His mating instinct is so fucked up, his ability to maintain emotional monogamy is non-existent. He is addicted to the constant novelty of new lust-able images at the click of a mouse, so much so that a live face to face willing partner can never ever compete. The ability of being able to hold his erection in a state of constant readiness is nothing a normal sexual encounter can mimic. The ejaculation happening at the exact moment his brain is flooded with dopamine is unmatched in his pleasure centers. For the addict, there is nothing in this world like it.

I have no doubt he is a wonderful person. Loving, kind, attentive, fun to be around..just about all sexaholics I know are. I should know, I fell in love with one myself. I ignored all the signs, I had no clue porn addiction even existed all those years ago. Had I known then what I know now, I would have run like Mother Fucking Hell in the opposite direction. I wasted my youth, beauty ...the prime sexual years of my life on a man who couldn't even see me as anything more then an object. Shit sexaholics don't see any female as anything more then objects, it's the nature of the disease.

Sexaholism is best described as a progressive intimacy disorder characterized by compulsive sexual thoughts and acts. Like all addictions, its negative impact on the addict and on family members increases as the disorder progresses. Over time, one usually has to intensify the addictive behavior to achieve the same results

Often, people with sex addiction aren’t very good about providing emotional and intimacy investment in their partners. They try and normalize their lack of physical and emotional availability in order to avoid the blatant reality that their addiction is driven by a chronic inability to cultivate authentic attachment to others. Living through the trauma of repeated infidelity poses risks to your emotional and physical health, and being gaslit by someone with sex addiction can result in a PTSD-like trauma.

Until my psychologist asked me how I was dealing with the reverberations of trauma. I retorted, “what trauma… that was his problem…” but just as those words escaped my mouth I began to realize the ways in which I’d been impacted by my ex-husband’s addiction. It took nearly five years of personal therapeutic work for me to learn new scripts of intimacy in partnership, scripts that were centered on mutual love, unconditional positive regard, and authentic community:

He will not ever be able to get sober until he hits his personal rock bottom. Usually that about the time his dick hits erectile dysfunction and he can't get it up any more. You see, they masturbate so much, they expand the blood vessels and the blood pools rather then inflates. You stick around long enough, you'll get to enjoy that perk.

People here who are warning you of the ups and downs are not just saying that. Right now he is all good intentions, but he is white knuckling it. The withdrawals are massive and his willpower is not going to last. He is powerless over lust. There is not one damn thing you can do in this whole wide world to help him. There is almost a 110 percent chance he is going to relapse and relapse hard. You may or may not know. It won't matter how understanding and supportive you are, or are not. This addiction is totally not about you.

We say it is cancer of the brain. As such, you need to attack it as if it is life threatening. With all the help you can get. I am going to give you links towards that end. Maybe he will look at them and choose to use them. Know that you cannot make him, this has to be his journey, using his gas.

There is a link to S-anon for you. Check it out and find a meeting. Without that 12 step group I wouldn't be in my relationship and sane.

If you want to explore a real life situation from a man's point of view, check out these You Tube video's from Terry Crews, there are several of them, They helped me decide to stay with my partner and work thru our problems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4krRkO4sHc

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If you decide to stay and work on your relationship, I have several suggestions.

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First try to see a CSAT counsler, a specialist in addiction therapy, for both the addict and the partner of the addict. Having someone explain the intricacies of the disease, how it effects the brain, and what it takes to beat it is they only way to understand what you both are faced with. https://www.sexhelp.com/am-i-a-sex-addict/

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A recovery treatment center: http://www.lifestarnetwork.com/

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There are SAA meetings for your partner if they wants to quit or control their habit https://saa-recovery.org/Meetings/UnitedStates/

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On-line here is a recovery worksheet for your partner: https://www.smartrecovery.org/smart-recovery-toolbox/ On-line program for the SA: https://www.drglover.com/tpi-university/sons-of-ulysses.html

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Here is a good article about 12 step programs, it talks about AA and drug programs, but sexaholism is right there with them: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/08/24/to-ben-affleck-and-other-addicts-heres-my-message-to-from-one-alcoholic-to-another.html

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There are S-Anon meetings for the partners or family members of addicts, very helpful in getting you over your self doubt. http://www.sanon.org/find-a-meeting/s-anon-meeting-locations-united-states/ OR SLAA https://slaafws.org/

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Also do a little reading, get the book Out of the Shadows, by Patrick Carnes. It will give you a real life view of what a sexaholic faces on the road to recovery. Another good book: https://www.amazon.com/What-Can-Do-About-Me-ebook/dp/B00AVBERGG

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If you want to block XXX sites from your computer Here is a simple way to do so: https://cleanbrowsing.org/for-adults Or this is considered the best: K9 Web Protection: http://www1.k9webprotection.com

Blocking porn on your computer:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pornfree/comments/9ueez4/a_comprehensive_guide_to_blocking_porn_on_your/

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Here is an app for your partners phone: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androidapp.watchme

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Here is a good resource for learning about stopping this in in your life. https://www.reddit.com/r/pornfree/comments/2mfxyi/concrete_tips_for_staying_away_from_porn/

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Here is a reddit sub for addicts r/pornfree Podcasts: https://recoveredman.com/category/pfr/ Magazine for addicts: The Fix https://www.thefix.com/search/site/porn?page=11 Porn Reboot: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbqaPKeiNW6R6LECHwQkRug Hypnosis for porn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmpwZf5Rono

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So when I read that you wanted to fix this, the first thought was to recommend this book to you about betrayal trauma and the authors story. I think you will get al ot out of it. My wife read it and it really helped us. My heart goes out to you and I hope your husband can find the help he needs or wants. Good luck.

https://www.amazon.com/What-Can-Do-About-Me-ebook/dp/B00AVBERGG