The years of porn addiction problems eroded their partner’s trust and made it increasingly difficult for them to open up. Developing intimacy is an important part of rebuilding that trust but how can you do that?

Just like your behavior destroyed your partner’s trust, it also affected your ability to be intimate. Before you can learn to rebuild intimacy with your partner you must learn why you struggle with intimacy in the first place. What is it that makes intimacy so difficult for men who are working through an out-of-control behavior?

1. You had no positive examples of what a healthy relationship looks like.

Even though I know my mom and dad loved each other, they never really demonstrated what a healthy relationship entailed. I watched them fight often. I saw him hit her sometimes. She hit him back, threw glasses, screamed. Neither of them provided an example of what a relationship should look like.

I know the same applies to lots of men in porn addiction counseling and our porn addiction recovery reboot program. Their parents didn’t serve as a good model of a healthy relationship. This might be the case for you, too. If you didn’t have a positive example of what a partnership should look like, you won’t inherently know how to build intimacy.

2. You experienced betrayal or inconsistent behavior from people you looked up to while younger.

When role models are absent or inconsistent during your developmental years it makes it difficult to learn how to build intimacy. You adopt negative views of people who are supposed to be taking care of you. Instead, you learn that depending on people leads to hurt and disappointment. You believe that people will never follow through on what they say they’ll do.

These betrayals and inconsistencies don’t create a strong foundation for building intimacy. Trust is a necessity for intimacy. If you can’t trust the people who are supposed to care for you, how can you possibly trust someone else? And if you can’t trust them, how can you build intimacy with them?

3. You believe that lying is the best way to avoid negative consequences.

There were times during my childhood when my parents punished me unjustly. Sometimes they hit me harder than they should have. Other times they were unnecessarily cruel. I didn’t understand why back then but looking back now it was likely because they were stressed out and exhausted. The last thing they wanted to do was deal with a kid who had made a mistake.

I soon learned to lie as a way to avoid those unfair punishments. It kept me somewhat safer while I was younger but it didn’t stay in my childhood. Unfortunately, that practice stuck with me through adolescence and into adulthood. It was easier to be dishonest and avoid discomfort than it was to tell the truth and deal with whatever the outcome was.

While lying may help you avoid those consequences, it’s not a useful practice to keep up as an adult. Eventually, you need to learn to tell the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. This is especially important if you have any hope of building intimacy with your partner.

4. You experienced abandonment.

Abandonment is a painful feeling to experience as a child. Maybe your parents got divorced and one of them left without looking back. When you were let down by those who were supposed to care for you, it often leads to the narrative that everyone you care about will eventually leave.

If you still carry this belief as an adult it will make it impossible to build intimacy. You’ll always be half-in/half-out because you believe your partner will eventually leave you. You must learn to work through these old feelings of abandonment so you can build an intimate relationship.

5. You survived some form of abuse.

Abuse occurs in all forms, from mental and physical to spiritual and sexual abuse. Being a victim of abuse is never your fault no matter what you were told or how it may feel. Abuse destroys your ability to develop intimacy. It causes deep, lasting damage to the psyche and takes time to overcome. 

Experiencing abuse at the hands of someone who says they love you teaches you to associate abuse with intimacy. This is particularly true if it happened while you were a young child. Learning to identify and remove yourself from people who exhibit abusive behaviors is challenging but necessary if you want to overcome your struggles with intimacy.

How to Build Intimacy

Once you understand why you struggle with intimacy, learning to build intimate connections is the next step. I’ll dive into this topic on another day because it deserves its own post. Building intimate connections with your partner is crucial, but understanding intimacy is also important for building fulfilling relationships in general. Unless you can learn to overcome the stumbling blocks above, as well as any others you may experience, you’ll continue having a difficult time building intimate relationships with others.

The post Porn Addiction Problem: Struggle With Intimacy appeared first on Elevated Recovery.

“I went to a bachelor party for my cousin not too long ago. When I arrived at the place and saw nothing but brand new BMWs, Benzes, Audis, and all these other luxury cars. There were like 50 of these different cars. Meanwhile, I pulled up in my Honda Civic with a different colored door.

“I saw a ton of guys with loads of money walking in and out of the building so I didn’t walk in. I didn’t even make it past the parking lot. I left because I was so filled with feelings of shame, anxiety, and inferiority. Have you guys ever experienced something like this?”

I appreciate these vulnerable posts because they often express something most of us deal with. You might think you’re alone in feeling a certain way but I can almost guarantee you that at least one other brother in the group relates to what you’re going through.

Feeling insecure around other men is a big problem for guys like us. As you may know, I grew up in poverty and my academic performance was terrible. When I was in my twenties and took my first job in door-to-door sales, I realized it would take many years for me to get those nice things our brother talked about in his post. 

Although I couldn’t immediately acquire these nice external resources, I realized that I could maximize my internal resources and my external physique in the meantime. I developed a dedicated gym routine. I started working on my social skills. I was determined to overcome my crippling anxiety. I knew that honing these skills would make a massive difference as I worked to get some of those nicer things I wanted. 

While these things didn’t get me a nice car or a nice apartment, they did keep me from worrying so much about the station wagon I drove around. I felt strong and confident, less concerned about what others thought of me. That confidence played into how I carried myself, how I integrated with others, and how I felt about myself as a whole.

Here’s the thing, brother: yes, it’s great to drive a nice car. It feels awesome to have a huge house, an expensive watch, designer clothing, and luxurious vacations. I won’t deny that those are all enjoyable things.

But here’s the other thing: if you don’t do any internal work and develop some confidence, none of your external circumstances matter. You could roll up in the most expensive Maserati on the planet but if you don’t know how to carry yourself then you’ll still feel insecure. You might be able to cling to your possessions for some time but they’ll eventually give way and you’ll find yourself feeling inferior again.

I truly believe that you should first focus on developing yourself. Work on your personality, your character, the energy you give out, the way you carry yourself, and your physique. When you focus on developing these things to the highest possible level, the result shines much brighter than even the nicest car you could buy.  Eliminating porn addiction problems along the way.

Of course, there’s also nothing wrong with upgrading your vehicle to one that has four doors that match. But developing yourself allows you to carry yourself with confidence regardless of your circumstances, and that is something that no one can take away from you.

The post Porn Addiction Problem: Insecurity Around Other Men appeared first on Elevated Recovery.

Some men were more overt about placing blame while others did it subconsciously and may not have noticed. Either way, these brothers are all wrong. Pornography is NOT the problem. You might think it is. After all, isn’t that why the Porn Reboot program exists in the first place? But it’s not. Pornography is not as powerful as you think it is.

Think about it. Pornography has existed for much longer than you can imagine. Porn came about as soon as men realized they were able to draw on cave walls. We have ancient dick art on the walls of caves that date back hundreds of centuries! You might think porn is the issue but millions of people watch it without responding to it the way we do. While the detrimental effects of porn are another conversation entirely, it still doesn’t have the same effects on others as it does on men with out-of-control sexual behavior.

If you still believe porn is the problem, you’ll keep yourself stuck in the cycle of porn addiction. It probably feels like an endless problem because you’ll see it everywhere if that’s what you’re focused on. Things shown in television programs are increasingly lewd, Hollywood can get away with more suggestive scenes in lower-rated films, and some social media posts are as close to porn as you can get. I’m not denying that temptations exist, brother. I’m fully aware of everything that’s out there. But so long as you continue believing that those temptations are the problem, you’ll continue acting out time and time again.

You’re looking at the wrong problem, brother. 

The problem is not pornography.

The problem is that you are using pornography to medicate.

It’s not the porn that keeps you trapped in the cycle. It’s the emotion that comes up right before you turn back to porn to keep yourself from feeling it. You can’t treat the problem when you still believe it exists outside yourself. The moment you stop treating pornography as the problem and recognize the problem for what it truly is is the moment you begin to reboot. 

Remember that we treat slips as data here at the Porn Reboot program. I’m not interested in porn so much as I’m interested in what led up to it. I don’t mean the conversation with your buddies at the bar either, the one that got your mind racing and led you to relapse the minute you got through your door at home. I’m interested in the in-between: what emotion did that conversation spark and what were you trying to medicate by watching porn and jerking off when you got home?

It’s not the porn, brother. Your buddies at the bar can go home and leave PornHub running on their TV without a second thought, but not you. And not me, either. We aren’t like those guys, but why? If it were the porn itself, your buddies wouldn’t be able to control themselves with porn on the TV in the living room. So why can’t we?

It’s the emotions we’re using porn to medicate.

You must recognize that the problem lies within yourself, not on PornHub or YouPorn or Instagram, or Hollywood movies. It’s not the women at the gym or women at work or women anywhere. 

It’s you. 

That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, though. It doesn’t mean you’re evil or pathetic or weak-willed. It simply means that you don’t respond to porn the way that other people do. But it also means that it’s your responsibility to find a way through. And it’s relieving to know that I’m the problem, not the porn because that means I am also the solution.

The same applies to you, brother. If you are the problem then you are also the solution. Your freedom from out-of-control sexual behavior doesn’t sit with any of the porn sites or social media or what women choose to wear. Your freedom from out-of-control behavior is within your power. It’s up to you to recognize that truth, take responsibility for it, and get into action.

It’s also relieving to know that you aren’t alone. You may feel like the only person in the world struggling with this problem, but if you were then the Porn Reboot program wouldn’t exist. We wouldn’t have pages of blog posts, hundreds of YouTube videos, and millions of podcast downloads. The problem affects thousands more men than you, brother, and all it takes is a quick look in our free Facebook group to realize you are not alone.

I invite you to take responsibility for the real problem and to join us on the path to freedom from out-of-control behavior with porn, sex, and masturbation. Once you accept that you’re the problem and recognize that you’re also the solution, you can only go up from there. Join us, brother, and find the freedom you’ve been searching for. It’s right here; all you have to do is join in.

The post Pornography is NOT the Problem appeared first on Elevated Recovery.

The majority of my writing deals with men who are addicted to pornography or have out-of-control sexual behavior. At the same time, I know some women read these posts because they’re concerned about their husbands or long-term partners.

If you’re a woman in this situation, today I want to write to you. If you’re one of the brothers in the Porn Reboot system, though, this post will be helpful for you, too. You may learn a thing or two you never considered before.

I know women read this blog, watch our YouTube channel, and listen to our podcasts because these women reach out to me. They feel devastated, defeated, and betrayed when they discover their boyfriend or husband is addicted to porn. Their sense of certainty in the relationship feels shaken and shattered.

At the same time, these women also insist their partner is a good man and most other things about the relationship are fantastic. 

Does this sound like you?

Signs of a Porn Problem

When you care for someone it’s natural to justify their behavior, even if you don’t necessarily agree with it. But it’s that justification that keeps you in a dysfunctional cycle and gets you hurt over and over again. Porn addiction symptoms, just like any other addiction, affects not only the porn addict but everyone else in his life.

Here’s the thing – no matter how great of a man your partner is, he’s still struggling with an addiction. And that addiction is destroying you, it’s destroying him, and it’s destroying your relationship together. 

How can you determine whether pornography has become a problem for your husband?

Lack of Sex

How often do you and your partner have sex? If sex in your relationship has lost its quality or disappeared completely, there’s a problem. You may feel a lack of connection with him during sex or maybe he doesn’t feel present at all.

Your first instinct might be to look at yourself. Women often blame themselves for their partner’s lack of attention. They think they’re not attractive enough, they’re not adventurous enough, or they’re enthusiastic enough. The list goes on and on. In reality, he may have a problem with porn which has nothing to do with you at all.

Spends a Lot of Time Online

Do you notice that your partner spends a lot of time online? Men who struggle with pornography addiction often isolate themselves and spend a lot of time at the computer. When you go to bed he stays in his office or another room of the house browsing online.

Again, you might think it’s something you’ve done. You worry he’s upset or mad at you. He won’t come to bed when you do and it even becomes habitual over time. Eventually, it probably feels like he’s choosing the internet over you. But it’s difficult to pull away from the computer when you’ve got a problem with pornography.

Increasingly Judgmental

Watching a lot of pornography skews a man’s view of women. It portrays women in negative circumstances and removes all empathy from the sexual experience. Guys who are addicted to pornography tend to objectify their partners and become very critical about various aspects of their partner’s life. 

For example, he might say negative things about your physique, your lifestyle, or other things he never gave any attention to before. His criticism leaves you feeling hurt, overlooked, and uncared for. No matter what you do, though, you’ll never be able to overcome these criticisms; they’re the result of a much bigger problem that has nothing to do with you.

Develops New Sexual Interests

As a man’s pornography addiction progresses, he starts watching different types of pornography. This tends to translate into the way he wants to have intercourse with you. Maybe he’s suddenly become rougher in bed or introduced the idea of new sexual acts he’s never seemed interested in before.

These interests could be things you aren’t comfortable with or even have no interest in participating in. Some men pressure their partners to participate while others withdraw to their online world where they can fulfill their newfound fantasies.

Becomes More Private or Secretive

Once men realize their problem has progressed they start making attempts to cover their tracks. He doesn’t want you to see his browser history, his text messages, or other things on his phone. Your partner puts a password on his device or refuses to leave it around you. You notice inconsistencies in the stories he tells you.

If you point out these shifts in his behavior, though, he becomes irritated and refuses to talk. He’s overly defensive when you express your concerns and might insist that you’re overreacting or making a big deal out of nothing.

Increasingly Detached and Cold

Over time you probably noticed that your partner is a lot more distant than he used to be. The connection feels like it isn’t there anymore. It’s difficult to recognize, though, because he won’t acknowledge it or he’ll blame something else for his being emotionally unavailable.

When you reach out to him and ask what’s going on, he’ll flip it on you and accuse you of being needy, overly emotional, or something along these lines. Don’t allow him to make you question yourself, though; you know who your partner is and you know when something’s wrong.

The Endless Cycle

Porn addiction tends to follow a familiar cycle for most men and their partners. First, you find out that he’s keeping secrets from you about his porn use. When you confront him, though, he reacts by blaming either you or something else. He’s defensive, angry, and sees something else as the cause of the problem rather than taking responsibility.

What happens next is usually one of two things. He’ll either apologize for his behavior and tell you he wants to quit, or he shuts down and refuses to communicate. You can work with the first reaction but there’s nothing you can do about the second. Men who shut down typically try to manipulate you afterward, too, either by keeping you around or pushing you away.

After the confrontation, he may try to reel it back in for some time. Your relationship seems to return to normal again. He’s in what we refer to as the “dormant stage” of his addiction style. He might even quit for some time which gets him reengaged with you and the relationship. It feels like things are turning around and you’re on the way back to a good place.

But then he relapses. He watches porn or acts out on his behavior again. Then everything goes back to square one and the cycle starts over.

Does This Sound Like Your Partner?

I’m going to assume that women still reading right now answered yes to at least a few of the behaviors above. If you notice these behaviors in your partner, he likely has a problem with pornography or another compulsive sexual behavior. So what do you do next?

There’s good news and bad news.

The bad news is you cannot make anyone “just stop” or “overcome” their addiction. You also run the risk of trying to help him and failing over and over again. I see women doing this regularly and all that happens is your relationship becomes an unhealthy, codependent mess. You are not your man’s mother. Controlling his behavior is not your responsibility. 

The good news is that nothing is wrong with you. The problem lies with your partner, not you. His pornography addiction is not a result of the way you look, of something you did, or of any other excuse your mind comes up with. It is his problem that he needs to work out for himself.

What Can You Do?

I’ve watched couples go through this cycle dozens of times. It leaves women like you feeling emotionally exhausted, traumatized, and devastated by the repeated betrayals. If this sounds familiar to you, there may still be hope for your partner. Sit down with your partner and try to identify the cycle with him. Bring his behaviors to light and discuss how this cycle is destroying your relationship.

More importantly, though, it’s time to focus on yourself. You might have spent the last few months or even years invested in his porn addiction cycle. It’s worn you down over time and you’re still left with nothing to show. So you need to shift your focus to yourself and begin building your self-esteem and confidence back up.

Again, it’s ultimately up to your partner to change his behavior. No amount of pressure from you will force him to change. You don’t need to be his accountability partner, you don’t need to treat him like a child, and you don’t need to police him. 

Instead, spend more time with your friends, join some classes, and read uplifting material that you enjoy. Try to remove stress from your life and strengthen yourself along the way. If you reach a point where the pain is too much, reach out to a professional. You can even reach out to us. While we don’t work with partners yet, we can connect you with a great therapist or group.

Once you shift your focus to yourself, your partner’s behavior becomes secondary. As you strengthen your mind, you put yourself in a position to better determine how to move forward. It’s not your responsibility to save your partner and if he refuses to make a change, it might be time for you to move forward without him.

The post Does Your Husband Have a Porn Problem? appeared first on Elevated Recovery.