I'm a Sex Addict and it ruined my life
I (34M) got broken up with by my girlfriend (36F) of almost 3 years, and it all has to do with my sex and porn addiction. I'll spare all the details, but our relationship was filled with love, we were in the process of moving in together and we were prepared to have a family and spend life together.
Throughout our relationship there was a lot of strife over being monogamous or non-monogamous. When we met, I was firmly in the ENM camp, and she was somewhere between having explored and had experiences of her own. So she was questioning you could say. As we got to know each other and fell in love, she eventually came to the conclusion she needed and wanted monogamy.
There was a brief period where I tried to be monogamous with her, but I could not give up the idea of losing the possibility of all the connections and experiences that ENM would bring me and us. I told her I couldn't do it, and essentially ultimatum'd her into trying to be ENM. Sometimes she seemed into it, but mostly she was not and it brought her a lot of pain of not being enough for me, and it didn't agree with the sanctity she had for her body and sexuality.
Eventually, the pain was too much for her. She told me she needed to be monogamous, and since I had told her I can't she was breaking up with me. She needed to heal from all the pain I had caused her. I had made her feel little.
This sent me into such an emotional state at the idea of losing her, and I began to think about why I wanted this and why I put her through this. At the end of the day, it's because I have been consuming so much porn and inundating myself with sexual imagery and fantasy. We did not practice ENM for most of our relationship. We were mostly monogamous in practice and it was beautiful and rich and filled with love. All the ENM relationships I had in the past were void of this love, they were unfulfilling and didn't lead to what I really want in life. But I wanted sex. I wanted novelty. But those things always wore off, and I felt empty.
Throughout our relationship I hid the amount of porn I consumed. I was probably consuming 1 - 2 hours of porn a day. A lot of it was just in moments when I found myself bored, frustrated, or similar I would turn to all the different websites one turns to in order to feel alive. I even spent money on these things, probably $300-$400. I was so ashamed of it all, but I hid it from her and everyone else in my life. All these disgusting things I was doing to get my rocks off and feel alive. A lot of my pursuit of ENM was for that similar reason, and hoping I could have the connections that I didn't have in my life, because for the most part I was very lonely and bad about keeping up with friends and making strong bonds of friendship. There's so much more I could go into about my habits and what I was hiding from her, but I think you get the idea.
This past week is when she told me she had to break up, and today was the day we finally broke up officially after a lot of talking. I told her about my addiction and how I felt terrible doing these things, and how much I wanted to stay with her while I got right with myself. I had made excuses for myself, but they influenced the way I thought and behaved in our relationship. I hid things, and there were moments when she left the house and I was happy because I could finally have a session with porn. We had such a fulfilling sex life, and sometimes I withheld or wasn't in the mood because of what I had been doing throughout the day.
I feel terrible for having caused her so much pain, and that I have lost out on the love of my life. I've committed to bettering myself. I've reached out to the local SAA group. I've deleted accounts, cleaned stuff off my phone, thrown triggering things away. I want to get better, if not for her for myself. But I feel terrible. This has been such an issue in my life, influencing how I behaved, who I was, and how I spent my time and mental energy. I have always felt a bit like a creep, and it has made interacting with people hard. I'm terribly sad right now, but I'm hopeful. I just want her back more than anything, but I know I need to get better and in the end that will help me live a life I want. But for now, my porn and sex addiction caught up with me, and I'm only now facing it head on.