Addiction straining relationships
This might be frustrating for people to read and I just want to start off by saying I know I’m a hypocrite. I’m very anti-porn when it comes to relationships, I think it ruins the sex intimacy/frequency and is disrespectful to get off to another persons body especially one that looks nothing like your partner, and especially when you and your partner have your own videos. I’ve ended relationships after finding out they watched it because I felt disrespected and ugly. I used to view it as a form of cheating, I don’t know if I do anymore, probably because that would have to come with calling myself a cheater.
I have struggled with sex addiction and porn addiction as a 20 year old female. Primarily when I’m single. My ex boyfriend had slip ups where I’d find him watching either soft core stuff on social media or actually visiting the sites, and I’d in turn start a porn addiction of my own because finding out made it hard for me to be intimate with him. I have a very high sex drive and am free use, I do it sick, tired, injured, let them do it when I’m asleep, so it would hurt to know he was actively choosing that over sex with me. When I’d get those porn addictions, I’d feel awful after it because I was doing the same thing that caused me harm and something he also had a boundary against. He never found out about it. The relationship ended a month after finding out (again) he was watching porn when I thought we were doing better. Started up a new porn addiction for me until the end of the month, when I had a trip, and feeling so ugly from his inability to quit for our relationship, I stepped out and cheated on him. I confessed and left because I knew I was terrible for that.
Fast forward to my current relationship, we both set the “no porn at all” boundary early on, months ago. Our sex life used to be so great and frequent, and then started dying down and here I am trying to convince myself for the second time that it’s just what happens when you live with your partner. A bit over a month ago, there was a week I would randomly wake up in the night. One day I woke up and realized he was up but pretending to be asleep, and that rose some red flags because before me, he had an instance of cheating on a girl. What I did find in his phone was half naked instagram girls shaking their ass and titties. I’m not flat, but it doesn’t feel great to see your partner watching someone who looks different at all. I know there’s a lot of men on this sub, just imagine your partner was withholding sex and watching tall, ripped, brad pitt faced, 8 inch dick dudes jerk off..not exactly you right? Anyway, after a couple days break I returned and have been trying to put it behind me and I think I have forgiven him, especially since it was the first instance in our relationship of anything like that.
I’m addicted to porn again now. It’s not everyday, maybe 4/5 days of the week but it is 3+ times a day. It’s not retaliation at all. It’s not just guys that don’t look like him, it’s girls, trans women, trans men, kinks that we never did. I feel awful, but watching the videos of me and him don’t bring me excitement anymore. When he kisses me, it’s rarely that tingly feeling down there. I feel so tingly when I watch porn. I still do love having sex with him but that’s because I love sex and the feeling of it rather than being horny for him, I’m horny for release. I know it’s partly the porn addiction partly feeling hurt by him thats causing it. Even after sex I watch porn because he just doesn’t make me cum like he used to. When he promised to never do it again, I sorta believed it, I don’t know if there’s other stuff I haven’t seen him do, plus the statistic of like 90% of men watching porn feels depressing like I might as well watch porn too and not feel bad about it since he probably is. A week and a half ago I told him I was getting urges to watch it. He felt hurt since it is his boundary too, and told me to just leave if that’s what I wanted because if he finds out he’ll be leaving. I feel awful having it as a secret, but don’t know what to do, because he might be doing it as well and I don’t want to be made out to be the villain if he is too, especially since it got kickstarting by seeing him watch that stuff. I do love him, and if he is being truthful about not watching it of course I want to stop, in the meantime our sex life still isnt where I want it to be and I know that’s selfish but again, I feel like a sex addict as well. I want sex everyday, he doesn’t or we’re just busy. I just feel so guilty but also confused if I should even feel guilty cuz he might be doing it as well. I know I’ll wind down with it in a few weeks but if I find him watching that stuff again, my porn addiction will just kick back up again. I don’t even know if I want to tell him because what if he wasn’t watching it and starts up, then it’s both of us hiding that from each other because we don’t wanna hurt each other…