Reading material

I talked to hubby about... well I asked him if he's been looking into some websites for groups, forums, or anything else that may help him in the way of support for this long road we're going to be on. He's mentioned that he hasn't really made a point to, and‒I can't lie‒I was a little disappointed. However, he did mention that he did take the time to read through some of the websites that I had loaded in his browser the first time he turned on his computer since "the big convo". He said that even though he found them interesting, he didn't really find them useful. He said that most of the things he saw was about people who were currently going through the struggle, and that it kind of all seemed like the same old story over and over again.

This made me thing of a few things, and I thought of them all pretty much concurrently, so even though I might list one thing before another, it doesn't necessarily mean that it was the first thing that popped into my head. These are the things I thought about, and most of which we'd talked about in the same conversation.

One of the things I thought of, and told him, was that right now he's not finding things hard. It hadn't even been two weeks (at the time) and so it all probably kind of seems ridiculous to him. This next part I didn't say even though I was thinking it at the time: I don't think he really believes he has a porn addiction. I think that he was willing to accept porn addiction as a possibility because it seemed like the best reason as to why he continued to watch porn even after I'd repeatedly asked/begged him to stop. I think that our marriage does honestly mean enough to him to try giving it up, and that was the real reason he considered porn addiction as a possibility. It meant that it would give him one more chance to try to make things work with us.

Anyways, I went on to say that over time, when things start to get hard‒if they ever do‒these are probably going to be the things that will help him. By these things, I mean these forums and what not of people struggling and their current stories. I told him the following thoughts: I think that the post about current struggles are prevalent because when people are going through he hardest times, it's helpful for them to know that they are not the only ones going through a hard time. Also, that when someone is going through a challenge like this, they are going to have a lot of new experiences and are not really going to know what those experience mean, if they're normal, or what to expect afterwards.

This brought me to compare and contrast different kinds of addictions and the processes through which people go in order to kick them. This is something I had been contemplating a lot, and meaning to write a post about. I still might. Anyways, the major point of comparing different kinds of addiction was mainly to point out the different levels of understanding of those addictions, the different levels of support for people battling with them, and the different levels of social acceptance for the substance being addicted to. There's AA for alcoholics and rehab for druggies, but the only thing people with porn addiction have are these forums and other websites.

We also talked about the fact that he wasn't seeing a lot of, "it's been two years, here's how things are going for me" kind of stories. I told him first off that it's probably do in part to the fact that he didn't do a whole lot of looking. All of the things I'd seen in my first day of surfing the web included many examples of people who had already kicked porn and were singing praise to the changes in their lives.

I remember very clearly when I had him watch those first 5 videos, one of the first things he said was that he thinks some of the people were being a little... Well, I don't really know the best way to explain it, but that it seemed like they were basically blaming all of the bad attributes in their life of their porn addiction and that they acted like it was a magic cure all. I'm not saying that it didn't seem that way to me too, but then again, I also really love psychology and am able to empathize with their feelings and sort of even understand where those feelings come from. Probably another post.

Either way, that's not the point. The point is that I've seen plenty of examples of "my successes/life after kicking porn" stories and I know that he has too because he watched those same 5 videos, Anyways, I didn't mention that, but I did mention that there are some forums sites out there like RebootNation.org that have a forums section specifically dedicated to success stories. He took that into consideration and made it sound like it was something he would look into. I don't think he'll be looking into it anytime soon though. He's got a lot of things on his list of stuff he wants to do, and I want to encourage him to keep busy with those productive things. 

Something I didn't think about until now but wanted to mention is that Porn Addiction is a relatively new thing. Well, not the actually addiction to porn per se, but the movement to make it a known thing, and something people talk about and share (pseudo)openly. 

Another subject that I broached thanks to the part of our conversation about other forms of addiction was something that I saw mention of in one of Gabe's videos. He mentioned that me moved his computer from his room to a public space. I say I broached this subject because even though I brought it up, I don't really feel like it was really discussed. If I'm being honest with myself I might acknowledge that my feelings may stem from the fact that he didn't agree to move his computer (yet). I say yet because this is something that is important to me and that I think will not only help him avoid temptation, but also help me to gain trust. I mean, don't get me wrong we did talk about it, and he did show more consideration to the idea, but no action was made yet. We didn't have our new bed either though, so it wasn't the best time... I don't know I feel like I'm going back and forth again. I'm making excuses for his lack of action, yet I don't like his lack of action. I understand there were reasons at the time that he didn't jump to and move his computer, but at the same time he didn't out right say he was going to either. This is one of those things you are probably going to see another post on.

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I don't really remember the other things we talked about or thoughts that floated trough my head during that conversation, so I'm going to end here. I will say that I've been known to reread my post, and if anything pops up, I will likely make a new post with that information and a link to this post, as well as edit this one to link back to it.


The overall point to this post was that I talked to him about if he had found any new reading material, and he hasn't. He had read some of the things I had open in his browser, but that was the end of that. I want him to find more reading material, because I think it will be helpful for this journey. Also because everything guys reply with in the forums I use encourages him to look more into educating himself on the subject, and I think they are right. What this post has turned into is a recap of how the conversation went and some of the thoughts I was having during the conversation.