[LOST]

I don’t really know where to start but here we go …..
I spend the last 2 days reading a lot of all your stories and I just wanted to thank you! It opened my eyes! There is no way back now….
Here is my story that I see more clearly now:
I was looking at porn for a long time. I never thought about it being wired or not normal. As a teenager I guess it is sort of a normal progress of growing up and I think back than I didn’t have a problem. It was never a big part of my life; just something that popped up every now and then.
The years went by, I am getting older and I buy my first computer and my first modem. All very exciting, endless possibilities! Then a friend shows me some of his ‘little’ porn collection he downloaded from the internet and told me where to find all this free porn.
I guess this is when everything went out of control. The internet gave me the possibility to watch porn whenever I wanted, for free and in private. Still, I never considered this being a big problem since I knew everybody was doing it.
The years went by, I got married and was leading what I thought was a happy life. I continued watching porn, sometimes for hours, to a point where when my wife went on business trips I was looking forward to a whole night of porn browsing and an early start back at the computer in the morning.
I started thinking that maybe I should try to put a stop to all this, that maybe this is the reason my ‘real’ sex life was getting less and less frequent and exciting, that maybe this is the reason my wife is complaining about that distance that she feels between us, that maybe it is not as normal as I made myself believe it is.
So I stopped for a few days, sometimes even for a week or longer and things were looking brighter. But then the desire was getting stronger and I was falling back to the old patterns, thinking this is just normal, it is a normal male thing to watch porn, even that it would help and improve my relationship. Total denial!
This goes on for years until 3 weeks ago I have another of those realizations and decide to quite watching porn and make everything better for my marriage. A few days without porn, my wife and I are having sex daily, I do little things for her to show my love; our life is great! I come home one night after having a few beers in a bar and start opening up to her that from now on everything will be better, I am going to change a few things, etc. She tells me that she noticed that I haven’t been this happy in a long time and asks me what is it that I did change and want to change? So, I open up and confess to her that I like to watch porn and that I might have a small problem with it but no big deal: It’s all over now anyway!
This was when I basically destroyed her life!
I never thought that my ‘little hobby’ would have such a devastating effect on her! Her whole world went upside down and so did mine. The last 3 weeks were the most painful weeks of my entire life. I didn’t understand the big deal. The days after my confession I tried to play it down, tried to crawl back into my hole and pretend ignorance. I talked to a few of my friends and they all told me she is overreacting, everybody watches porn, no big deal! Basically I wanted to go back to my life of denial and ignorance; but there was no way back anymore!
I am starting to realize what I’ve done to her and especially to MYSELF! It is a very dark and painful journey I am taking right now. Slowly I am admitting to the truth and it hurts.
It is a hard thing to admit you are a Porn Addict! And what it has done to you! And I am just at the beginning. But at least admitting to it lifted a big weight of my shoulders. I can’t really say I feel better now, I don’t, I feel lost, I don’t like the person I see in the mirror, I know there is more to me than this PA, but it is just painful to have found this someone deep inside of you!
I have to thank my wife! She was the one that send me a link to this site. And through all your stories I was able to reach deep down and start to admit to my addiction. Later that night we sat down and talked and for the first time in 3 weeks there was something else then just mistrust, hate and sadness in her eyes! I know that she wants to stand by my side and I can’t thank her enough for this!!!!
I know there is a long way to go but now I know I don’t have to go there alone.
I hope that writing this all down and becoming part of this community will help me not to forget. I hope that this is one step in the right direction to come clean with myself and to a more fulfilling, happy and porn free life.