"I gave up porn to save my marriage."

By: Compulsion Solutions for YourTango.

She was disgusted. I was ashamed. But I got the help I needed and now it’s all good.

Like many men, I thought I was keeping my pornography sexual addiction a dirty little secret.

But no matter how clever I thought I was, my wife started picking up on signs: how I seemed checked out in our relationship, how I frequently had trouble “finishing” during sex, and how we had become like roommates despite being married for many years.

I didn’t think of myself as a sex addict, and I definitely didn’t think I needed pornography addiction help. But when my wife discovered that I was looking at a lot of porn, and had been doing so through years of our relationship, my marriage was at the edge of a cliff — and about to be shoved to its death.

Her disgust and my shame.

The truth is that my wife was totally disgusted that I was using porn — and with me. I felt the shame of her disgust as well as the shame of being unable to stop my behaviour. Backed into a corner, I reluctantly realised that I had a major life choice to make: porn or my marriage.

If it’s not already obvious, the truth is that when porn invades a marriage — not unlike a terrorist intent on blowing up the relationship — there’s a major disruption, diversion, and disconnect, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The only solution is porn addiction therapy.

I wouldn’t trust me either.

As soon as my wife learned the truth about my porn use, the trust that we had built up over years and years was gone, instantly, like — to use this metaphor again — a terrorist detonating a suicide vest in the middle of a crowded market.

Yes. It was that bad. And porn is kind of like a terrorist just waiting to destroy your relationship.

Facing up to the devastation you caused.

Although I’d of course heard the word “betrayal,” until I was confronted by a tormented and heartbroken wife, I never really truly understood the emotions associated with that word. Being a sex addict isn’t the same as being a drug addict or alcoholic. The sense of betrayal is much more personal.

Your wife will feel she’s competing with countless women who are beautiful, sexy, and willing. She’ll question whether she’s attractive enough, if it was her fault that her husband strayed to porn use and became addicted to sex.

Simply put: When your wife discovers you’re spending hours looking at other naked woman, she’s devastatingly betrayed. Even though it has absolutely nothing at all to do with your wife’s attractiveness, your actions can shatter your wife’s self-esteem as well as her trust in you.

That’s exactly what happened with me.

After more than a little bit of me begging and pleading, my wife agreed to give our relationship another month — as long as I agreed to get porn addiction treatment.

I started seeing therapist in my area but quickly realised that I needed a specialist. After all, the sad truth was that I’d been dealing with my porn use since I was — believe it or not — 10.

Porn woman vs. real woman.

After searching and trying other alternatives for pornography addiction help, I found George Collins, who had written a best-selling book and also had an online video course specifically directed at porn addiction therapy. George has been there and knows what he’s talking about.

When my wife saw me making changes, not just with porn but in how I was relating to her, she gave me more marital “probation time.”

As I kept working on my porn addiction recovery, our relationship improved to the point where my wife told me that she felt our marriage was becoming better than it had been — ever! I was learning not only to quit porn use, but how to truly have a close and intimate connection with a real woman.

Death of the porn terrorist.

The closest relationship any addict has is with his addiction. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for other relationships.

Porn, in particular, kind of rewires your brain to buy into the fantasy. It’s not about real people, real life or real emotions. When I was “using,” my wife didn’t really have a lover because I was unable to achieve true intimacy. That explains why she felt so unfulfilled during sex and in our relationship in general.

I won’t BS you. It took a lot of work and a lot of time to “kill” the porn terrorist inside me, though less time than I used to spend watching porn. I not only stopped using porn, I changed my entire existence so that I was no longer destroying my life and my marriage.

So, in a real sense, learning how to stop porn addiction and porn addiction therapy saved my life.

This post originally appeared on YourTango.

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