Try Again

[Medium]

Hi everyone,

I've been here before. Away and back again. I think this is my 3rd attempt to steer my life away from pornography. I'm quite curious to analyse what it is that allowed me to lapse this last time. I haven't thought hard about that yet, but I'm sure that I will over the next few weeks.

I had a lovely Christmas and my beautiful wife bought me a new wireless router as our old one was somewhat flaky. I have used this opportunity to configure the parental controls on the device and even though I know the password I'm hoping that this will be enough to prevent me from wasting hours every night looking at pictures or videos on the internet.

My resolve is still weak now, and I know that I will need resolve in order to pull me through all of this.

One of my biggest doubts that I had before and still have today is that all this wasted time that I have spent has always been in private. It hasn't necessarily impacted on my family's well being. I think that the biggest impact that it has must be on my state of mind, my loose thought process.

Right now today, I'm not sure if I can stop my mind from wandering, from thinking lecherous thoughts. I'm not yet sure whether that is my target (although it was a goal previously). I think my main goal for now is that I want to spend less time wasted on something that has no output (or at least nothing I could proudly show any one else!!) and instead to be able to devote more time to constructive past times (music, self education, reading).

So starting today I will no longer browse pornographic sites at home. I hope my parental filter is enough. I am putting myself in danger in 2 places.
1. I haven't shared this with my wife (in fact I haven't discussed this with her at all). This will make it hard to share my happiness in my success with her. I hope I can share my successes with anyone who reads these posts.
2. My filter is configured by me and not by anyone else in the family. I haven't had a filter before, and I don't know whether something external will make any difference or how my deviant side will try to find it's way around this, but I guess we'll see. Or rather I will, but if things start getting bad I'm sure I won't feel like sharing that until I come back round to my senses again. . .

Oh well, Day 1. Here we go. I'm going to tidy my little office here and maybe see if I can get around to starting to put a song together.

[Medium]

Well here I am at Day 3. I didn't post yesterday as I spent some time getting down an idea for a song. It was hard and it won't mean much unless I continue to work on it and flesh it out into something more, but it did feel good to be able to work on an idea with the knowledge that I wasn't about to break off the process half way through in order to browse the internet as soon as "the coast was clear".

I installed K9 yesterday and my new wireless router is giving me no end of problems (not too happy with netgear right now), and I have tried to clean up the computer environment at home as much as possible but I realised today that I still have some images on my iphone (I am pretty surprised at myself that I used an iphone for this), but I haven't yet removed them. The reason why I haven't removed them is that I still haven't completely committed to this yet. I'm pretty sure I will commit to this, but the temptation to look at those images is so strong.

It's such a strange thing, this attraction to pornography. The ease with which you can have something (at least within your mind) that you would never get in reality (and probably wouldn't even want in many cases). I guess a lack of self confidence, and a lack of feeling in control of a lot of my own life must be what makes something like that seem so attractive, and that does sound like a fairly weak (and pathetic - if I can be a bit harsh on myself) thing.

But then I'm not confident that I will ever be in control of my life. I'm not sure that I ever have been or that I have what it takes to be in control of my own life. Is everyone else in control of their lives?

As kids we certainly have no control, and if you follow a western middle class upbringing, then you follow a pretty rigid pattern of lifestyle; school, uni, job, marriage, mid life crisis etc. I've always taken a pretty hands off approach with my life and let life take me where it will.

And all in all it's been a pretty good ride. I've got a very supportive and kind wife, an unfulfilling but well paid job, a nice house, and some great kids. Even though all the time in the back of my head there's a little voice nagging away at me telling me that I'm letting things slip by and that I'm too weak.

As the kids grow up, I really don't want to be a dad who spends hours of his free time every day browsing for porn on the internet.

So here am I at browsing time of the evening and trying to decide what to do. Spend more time here, go back to the music or play on my new Band Hero Christmas present. I think that sounds like a pretty good option.

Good night all. Hope you and me all make it through another day.

[FoolishMind]

Hi Medium, and Im sorry youve had a tough time up to now in your last attempts, but at the same time, I have no doubt that you have learned lots and lots from previous experiences and thus setting up filters etc, is a most definatley a positive step.

The only thing I can add, (and with the upmost respect) is Dont be so defeatist.

If you read back through your last 2 posts in this journal, count how many times youve said hope, wish, ifs, 'dont want to be', 'not confident', 'im weak', 'pretty sure' and 'not sure' to list a few! Does that sound like a man who is on a mission? or does it sound like a man, who is expecting to fall?

You are a very intelligent man, who should be very proud of his wife and his little miracles i.e. children! You have been through huge challenges in your life, and they have required focus and determination to get through them. Support has always been a bonus!

You have the power to do this, but you need to be confident that you can. Confidence comes from knowledge and the "just knowing" of your abilities.

Prepare for ALL eventualities where temptation will hit, and you will have the confidence in hand to know that temptation can not get to close to you.

In your closing statement

Hope you and me all make it through another day.

I will throw this back at ya, and say:

Thank you, and I will make it from this day and every day thereafter, and I am confident that being the man that you are, you will too!

Wishing you a very positive new year

FM

[Medium]

Hi foolishmind
thank you very much for your support. You are absolutely right (I'm sure you often are). I had written a reply before but not posted. And then I have set about spending very little private time in front of the computer. The temptations to browse and mb are less this way. However I realise that whilst I can expect things to be tough one of the hardest things for me with this is that I realise that is not really about my desire to view P. This is all about my relationship with my wife. My inability to be completely open with her and my desire to have secrets. Maybe it's my way of refusing to grow up. I found the same thing last time where in order to move forwards what is required is to address my relationship with her and not simply keep my mind away from lewd thoughts. It's the scale of this undertaking that daunts me. I know this is very wrong and disrespectful to her and I must deal with this but I'm scared of telling her a chunk of stuff that she may not want to know.

[Medium]

I'm here on my way home from a night out on my own. I hope I can learn to enjoy my freedom a bit more than this because right now I'm really scared that my mind will wander about me here in town. I feel like I want to shut my eyes and be home right now. I'm going to browse this site like crazy to keep my focus.

[Medium]

It worked! Made it home safe and sound to the wife and family. Kept my thoughts to myself. Thank you TTF! I think I may try to start meditation to give myself some focus. I don't know quite how to go about this, but I'm assuming it means waking up early in the morning before the kids to have some quiet time. If I try it at night I'll end up asleep! Then learning to not lie will be the next thing for me.

[Medium]

26 days today - and last night I had a strong desire to browse. Yesterday I also configured opendns on my home router. I like the fact that this shuts down my iPhone when I'm at home but I'm not sure yet how much this will slow down my bandwidth. I already have a slow connection.

Last night it wasn't images that I wanted so much as the comfort of an old habit. It felt like a hole missing. I know that it is more like a tumour than a hole but that's what it felt like.

P isn't an old friend and I don't plan on going back there but I still haven't opened up to my wife. I still have secrets. I need to feel happy with myself and confident in my ability to love and support her. And I do a lot of the time.

Note to self. Must remember what this means as a father. Right now I'm defining who I want to stop being but over time I hope this can change to a feeling of pride about who I am rather than who I am not.

[FoolishMind]

So 27 days today Medium! Thats really good and I feel for you man, because I really hear your struggles.

I also applaude your decision to utilise OpenDNS which is a very good if used correctly.

Theres not a lot I can tell you Medium that you don't already know. But if I could suggest anything, it would be to re read your journal. A lot of us post day in day out, and it is drilled in to us not to look back and purely focus ahead, but what we are documenting in our journals is our journey. And sometimes we dont realise how far weve come, without looking back and realising, gosh look at where I was x months ago.

I remember reading many posts from you, where you were very down, and very depressed, but I also read posts of yours where you mood was like you were on top of the world and its these moments that you need to recall and savour. Draw your strength and knowledge from your experiences, and it really does help you in times of sudden strong urges. Keeping it fresh in your mind, if temptation hits, you only have to think back a few posts, and recall how crap you felt the last time you had a P binge. So dont let yourself struggle in this journey, Dive in head first into doing everything and anything to educating yourself about this addiction and learning about yourself, and for sure you will come out stronger, happier, and ultimatley P free.

My thoughts are with you.

FM

[Medium]

Well I have passed one month now and I am quite pleased to be here. I would be totally stoked as they say here in oz save that the elephant is still here in the room. I have still not sat down with my wife to tell her the long list of lies and infidelities that I have inflicted on her over the past 10 years of our marriage. This will hurt her a lot but I know that it is the best way for us to continue our relationship.

I did re-read my previous postings from 2 years ago and I was quite surprised to see how long I have avoided being honest with my wife and myself. Still I know it's not too late but I don't know how much it will hurt her.

Over the past few days I have had days when I've been quite pleased at how my mind has been able to not dwell on lustful thoughts. The thoughts still arise more than they should. I know I'm not over this thing. I had a moment when I sat down in front of my computer last night when my mind just went "right well now you can look at some P". It was just like an urge that I would have had to smoke a cigarette after I gave that up 10 years ago. I haven't smoked a cigarette since then and I know that I am no longer addicted to cigarettes. I am an ex-smoker. I hope to reach this here as well.

[Medium]

Well it's been about a week since I posted here. Feels like longer. I have been spending an awful lot of time here though. Just reading, reading, reading. I'm looking for validation of my thoughts and I must need that a lot! It's sad to see how hard a struggle this is for everyone. I know it's also edifying that so many continue to come back after they fall.

I should post more often so that I don't forget my battles and my small victories.

I recently let my mind slip whilst thinking about what to explain to my wife. I was enjoying memories maybe over the course of a day. I know this was dangerous and the start of a pattern that you can see so often over time here. I need to plan how to deal with these thoughts going forward and not just hope that they won't occur much because they will.

When I next find myself reminiscing like regardless of what my intentions are I will make an effort to simple "move on" in my mind. This is what I constantly tell myself these days, "move on".

Recently I am thinking once again that maybe I don't share everything with my wife. I would like to discuss my use of p with her and some of my infidelitites. But discussing sexual ambiguity I'm not sure is fair on her. That just seems like too big an ask. I'm sure some people could deal with it but I think of this as the hardest pill to swallow.

And if I'm only going to be half honest with her then perhaps that is better than nothing but it still doesn't get me all the way there.