Partner has relapsed- Porn Addiction

[Eevee]

Hi, I didn't really know where to turn to or reach out for support, but I'm hoping I can get some advice from here.

My partner and I have been together for nearly 6 years and got married 3 weeks ago. For about 2-3 years I've known that my partner is actually addicted to porn, and it wasn't until the end of last year that he came to the realisation too. He has finally started getting professional help and had even made it 3 months with watching or viewing anything. I was so incredibly proud of him, and I could tell that our relationship was growing healthy and stronger because of it. 

However, a few days ago I realised be started acting really distant. He has had allot of stress recently due to work, study and outside family pressure. I tried to push past it, but looking back, I probably could have done more to have seen what was really happening and I could have helped. Last night we started to become intimate, and for the first time in our whole relationship, my partner was struggling to perform. We obviously stopped cause it was clear something was wrong. I still found this a little strange.  I had to pry over and over before he finally told me the truth. 4 days earlier he had watched porn, and now he had been watching for the past 4 days. Pretty heavily too. I was so upset and angry. I felt disgusted and wanted to yell. However, I didn't. I've done some research over the past few months and understand that's its in times like this that he needs my support to get through. So I pushed all my feeling aside, and we stayed up all night talking about what happened, why he relapsed and what we can now do to help him. By the way he was acting this morning, I can tell he is trying his best to be positive. However, I'm really struggling. I don't want to turn to him for support cause I don't want to burden him when he is already going through so much. To make matters worse, I have a history of self-harm and suicide, and this whole situation has triggered those feeling of not being enough and feeling like I'm not worthy. I don't know how I'm suppose to be reacting to his relapse and I don't know what to do with my emotions. I want to help him through this journey, and I feel like I've got no one to support me. But I don't know if that sounds selfish of not. I guess I'm just looking for advice on how I should look after myself during this time and what I can do to cope? Any advice would be helpful, or even if people have gone through something similar that would help. I think it is punching a little harder too cause it's his first relapse. 

Thanks.

[therising]

Hi Eevee

First, congrats on this new part of your journey together, married life. Definitely a joyful yet challenging path. Marriage definitely grows us in so many ways. You both sound like you care so deeply about each other, given all the work you're putting into evolving yourselves and the relationship.

While I've been married almost 22 years myself, in hindsight I never fully considered the words I said to my husband on our wedding day, which included 'In sickness and in health'. I never fully considered the mental health side of things. Can certainly take a lot of work at times, especially when we're sensitive in our nature. When I say 'sensitive', what I'm referring to is the ability to sense easily and deeply. Btw, don't ever let anyone lead you to believe sensitivity is a weakness. On the contrary, it's an ability that requires a heck of a lot of hard work in the way of mastery. For example, if you can feel some sense of selfishness (feeling the need to serve yourself), the most important things to ask are 'Do I need to be selfish to some degree with this challenge? Do I need to serve myself in certain ways as I develop myself through this challenge? How do I need to serve myself in ways that are going to make this challenge easier for me and my partner?'. Learning to sense selfishness in productive ways is definitely a skill worth developing.

With sensing, I've found the problem can involve gaining a more accurate sense. For example, if you're sensing betrayal (based on a broken agreement), it can be important to dig deeper in order to figure out what the betrayal is really about. Sounds like you already know. The porn doesn't define your value. It's actually his coping mechanism under stress. It's like how a reformed alcoholic, smoker, drug addict, emotional eater can also relapse under stress. When all the emotions that come with stress get to be too much, they'll reach for the things that offer them the emotions they desperately crave. If the ground feels like it's being pulled out from under them, they'll reach for what feels grounding. So, you could reach the conclusion that the sense of betrayal can be based on his stress, insecurity, desperation, maybe some hopelessness, a need to feel an emotional difference etc. Learning to manage life without porn could be a learn as you go experience, something you both might struggle with yet master as you go along. Maybe you've both hit on a whole new revelation, a trigger for porn is extreme stress. This could be regarded as progress, even though it may not feel like it at the moment.

If sexual self gratification is your husband's way to go for stress release, a sense of grounding or a way of feeling happy, maybe this could be a new thing to explore in the way of intimacy. Without going into too much detail, sex can be a resource for many different emotions. While having fun, it can be good for a laugh. While feeling stress, it can be a productive form of stress release. It can offer a sense of calmness or a sense of excitement. It can offer a sense of adventure or a sense of purpose in one way (serving a partner). It can bring about joy, hilarity, happiness, relief, peace, bliss and more. It can even be a mindless experience, with pure feeling and no thought (meditating on feeling and nothing else). Maybe you could even become his guide through an intimate guided meditation. If things aren't working for him immediately, a reassuring question may be 'Why are you in such a hurry?'.

If you've experienced your own beauty in natural and caring ways that make you you, if you have amazed yourself at times (especially when it comes to how far you've come in life through all your mental health challenges), if you love in ways that have led you and others to evolve and if you have felt many of the ways in which you sense easily and deeply, this defines you as beautiful, amazing, loving and sensitive. Porn can never take away from who you truly are and how incredibly valuable you are. It's simply an affordable trigger for those who seek to indulge, for one reason or another. You're so much better than a lot of cheap thrills. You're downright incredible and you need to own that.❤️