It has been over 6 weeks that my wife and I were close, have been kissing or had sex for that matter. I do understand that I hurt her terribly and that she will need some time to recover and to let me close to her again but it is very hard on me since I would consider myself a very sexual active person. It almost took a month for me to be invited back into our bed, and I am grateful for every time I can hold her hand falling asleep or even spooning with her but I would really like to move things a bit more forward. I am MB free for almost a month and I see and felt a lot of positive effects being MB free. At the same time my sexual urges are killing me. I just don't know how to approach her. Somehow I feel like she is not ready yet but I feel like it would be healthy for both of us to try to start a natural health sex life again. I am not quite sure weather I should try to talk to her because I don't want to push her or pressure her into anything. All I am saying is that I am really looking forward to get intimate with my wife, my true love again. I didn't forget how good it felt to share this intimacy with her and to feel being loved by the other person. I just don’t know how to make her believe that I am searching for this kind of meaning in our sex life and not seeing her as an object for my pleasure. I hope she’ll be able to trust me again one day, open up and let me show her my love for her, inside and outside the bed!
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i have p free for about 50 days
i had to mb two weeks ago it was making me nuts
i only thought about my wife when i did it
this weekend we had time together and it was great
i asked her if i could join her in the shower maybe later that day
the day got busy and she did come back to me and said we forgot something
i could she she had things to due some i just let it go
i really wanted to be with her but the time was not right
i the passed i would have been mad but i was calm
sometimes at night when i try to hold her she pushes me away but we talk about it
i do have a high body temp it's summer
we have no ac in the bed room
it's ok she is letting me near her
i feel good i'm still shore that she wants me to go to sa meeting
the ones nesr me our on wenesdays and other the last month everthing are been wrong on those nights
i'm hopen to go tommorrow
i think it would help us back to a new start
and her trust in me will start to come back
as a pa i hve screwed up it's up to me to make things right
with the help of my wife
Wow, this has been an interesting read for me. As a PA, it has been (disturbingly) simple to maintain abstinence for several years, as it has clearly clouded my desire or ability for intercourse. I have to say that while my relationship with my current SO isn't really intimate, it had a few opportunities to be, which I failed on. This was most likely to my altered views and way of thinking, which I really look forward to correcting.
One of the side effects of PA as I have been reading, is erectile dysfunction as well as a lack of interest. After just 3 or 4 days of no P, I actually find myself being turned on by such simple things with my SO. I wouldn't personally pursue anything just yet though. I think the abstinence is really going to be a case-by-case practice for each person or couple. I personally am glad that I'm not pursuing intercourse with her yet, because I honestly worry that I'm going to be no good at it, that I'll be unable to finish, or that I may have images of another while we're together. I don't want that, I want her to be the only one in my mind when we're experiencing that together, and I want her to have the full attention. She deserves that. In my case - a little grace period is going to be a good thing...
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In my relationship I found that if he doesn't have the P he doesn't have anything to do with me. It has been a few weeks without the P because he has been working long hours, but he didn't have anything to do with me when he had the P and now nothing without it.
But I realized he wanted the P and nothing else. Go figure, more confusion for me.
Angel, thank you so much for that reply. You showed me a perspective I hadn't even thought of before: insecurity and worry on the part of the PA. Of course I've been worried that he'd be thinking of them while being with me, but I hadn't imagined that he might be just as worried... and of course, that would in turn make him feel guilty and ashamed. Which would turn him off mentally, and therefore physically. It makes complete sense.
It's things like this that make me realize how focused on myself I've been throughout this. Although I like to think that I consider this a journey and recovery for both of us, it's easy to feel like I'm the victim and he's the bad guy. Sometimes I forget that he's suffering, too.
A very relevant and difficult thread, going right to the core of one of the issues I'm struggling with. I am with the majority here in thinking that abstinence is probably not a good idea when recovering from PA. As PAs we need to re-establish a healthy sex life, involving real people rather than paper and pixels. We need intimacy and physical contact in our healing process, if nothing else just to feel accepted. When free of P and MB, the PA will quickly remember how much better it is to be intimate with the person you love.
But here's the snag - we've hurt our SO deeply. She feels betrayed. We've sent her the message throughout the duration of our addiction that she was unwanted, undesirable, inferior. We have neglected our SO. If she has seen what we were looking at, these images are etched on her brain. They may disgust her or reinforce her feeling of inadequacy. The last thing she'll most likely want to do is to be intimate with us.
And here's potentially a recipe for disaster. As PA with intentions of recovery, you approach your SO. But she rejects you. Given your resolve and newly-found clarity of mind, you may shrug it off. But it happens again and again and again. Quite understandably so. Your SO is hurting. But rejection may reinforce many negative feelings in the PA's head. After all, rejection, low self-esteem, loneliness is what brought many of us where we are today.
OK, so you're determined to avoid P and MB. How long can you last if there is no response from your SO? How long before you slip back into your old ways? Or, just as bad, find new ways to compensate for the lack of intimacy with your SO?
I realise what's above could quite easily be misread as blaming the SO for not playing her part in the recovery process. But I assure you there is no blaming in my thinking. I'm just trying to describe a really tricky situation. Someone said a lose-lose situation. I'm still not prepared to call it that.
Clog.
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Clog you have perfectly described the situation my husband and I are struggling with now. We seem to need opposing things right now to recover and we are finding the balance difficult.
My husband is being patient and I am slowly becoming more receptive so hopefully we will work through this.
I agree with brulant...I recommend reading Farmer's Journal to get a different and involved perspective on this topic. For a lot of pa's it's not just about learning to be intimate with your partner over p, but learning why you are pushed to such sxual lengths to start with...for a lot of PA's, Sxual addiciton is a huge underlying cause and Pa being the effect...anyway...just a sugestion.
Peace and love,
Crys
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time.
I have to admit that I envy the fact that you all have someone who is willing to work on things with you even though it seems tough. Sure, grass is greener and all that, but for those of us who are still stuck with being told we're to blame and this is *all* our issue things we have to figure out how to distance ourselves and protect our mental health.
I wish you all the best of luck in this.
There's no easy solution, eh?!
My abstinence experience -
08-12-2008, 11:37 PM
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