56 year old married fellow

[dave]

Thought this forum needed a start.
I have been P and M free for 96 days today.
Although I am 'clean' I still have considerable struggles - In 12 step terminology I have quit but my sobriety / recovery is quite thin yet.
I have used P cupulsively over past 5 or 6 years. It never escalated much but it sure became a nasty daily habit that I can't live with any more. My wife confronted me about my stash and that got me out of denial
I appreciate talking to older forum members. Sometimes I worry that my being a relatively happily married and having a sex life may be a bit of a burden to young guys just starting out. It's not that I am any better, just that my journey is different.
Despite the fact that my wife and I have sex I almost always want more - it is a physical thing that I can resist but it is a burden. I had hoped these urges would have lessened by now. I don't pressure - her just endure.
My wife and I are having struggles. We love each other and are committed for the long haul but I am still quite emotionally unstable. I have meltdown where I cry and she has a block about this. My tears keep her away. A PA who shares too many emotions - now there is a twist I haven't read too often
She has initiated contact with a counsellor who was a great help years back when my P habit was hidden and quite limited.

So that's a little about me.

[Ksmith]

I am a 43yr old may who has been married for a while with a p/m problem for 30 yrs. I told my wife once and got no support from her in recovery.

My advice to you is to look to unravel your addiction causes and how it helps you cope with life. My p/m addiction has been as frequent as a dozen times a day and spent many years struggling to make a week of sobriety. Marriage did not cure the problem. In fact I preferred p/m to wife. I was unable to really make any progress with my problem until I started to unravel my problems through the help of a talk I heard on the subject (see link below) which is so good it has become my text book for recovery. I have discovered through this talk as I try to follow it that recovery is so much more than just measuring days of sobriety. Good luck and I hope you will watch the talk!

Kyle

http://byubwmv.byu.edu/edweek/2005/RReid05.wmv

[Daniel]

Figured I'd make it official as far as being in TTF and averaging older than most and younger than some... 40.

TTF has been an excellent tool. The comraderie is amazing, very edifying. I have never experienced anything like it.

I am just realizing that the struggles are very different (and were for me too) when you're a teenager vs. twenty-something vs. recently married vs. been-married-awhile.

None of the stages are easy in dealing with, trying to keep sexually pure...

But it seems if you choose (like I did) to let the feelings/thoughts/actions around PA ride without kicking them out, to not take the war seriously, then the consequences of failure will grow to towering heights.

See you guys around TTF...

Daniel