A Magic Cure-All

My husband made the comment that the reports he heard on the videos I had him watch of people who gave up porn seemed kind of far fetched. He said it seemed like they believed that porn was the root of all of their problems, and that kicking the addiction was some sort of magic cure all. It's true that the first time I saw some of these self-reports I thought to myself, "I think this is a bit of an exaggeration." But like I said in the post that inspired this post: I love psychology and I think and am able to empathize with their feelings and sort of even understand where those feelings come from.

I believe that he said this mostly as a way to give himself some wiggle room if he continued to have some of the problems listed even if/after he too kicked porn addiction. Or, if I'm being honest, I also think that he said this because he didn't yet want to fully admit to having a porn addiction.

Being empathetic:
Some of the claims the guys made did seem pretty far fetched, it's true. But I can see where they are coming from and some of why they would think these things. For a lot of the claims, I'm sure they are true: people overall reported being more productive and being happier. Just using my own husband as an example, he would spend an average of 4 hours at a time looking through porn sites. This would happen for several days in a row. If, in a particular week, he went on a three day binge, that would equal 12 hours of searching through, clicking, and watching porn. Now imagine all of the things a person can do in 12 hours. And as far as being happier goes, I think that if a person gets to the point in their life that they can freely acknowledge that they have an addiction to porn, I don't think they would be very happy at that point. Go from being depressed and beating themselves up over having a shameful addiction to being able to say they no longer had that monkey on their back? Well, I'm sure anybodies quality of life and over all level of happiness would go out tremendously. But, I can see how a pessimistic in nature sort of person such as my husband would have a hard time viewing things from that angle.

Wiggle Room:
I eluded to the fact that my husband has some of the signs and symptoms common to porn addiction. I also mentioned that I think he wanted to give himself some wiggle room. This comes from a few things.

First off, as mentioned above, my husband is a pessimist. Rather than hoping for the best, he really does set him self up to expect the worst. This is something I've known for a long time, and I hate it. I think that he's avoiding seeing some of the signs and symptoms as being attributed to porn addiction because he's too pessimistic to believe that these things that have been a problem for so long will simply clear themselves up when he finally kicks this addiction.

Secondly, we're all scared of failure. I think the want for the wiggle room of these signs and symptoms not being directly correlated to porn addiction has to do with the fact that if they persist after he's given up porn for a significant period of time it would seem to him like a sign of failure. Like, even though he hasn't viewed any porn, he's still failed at kicking the addiction.

On the other hand, and thirdly, it's also very hard to admit when we have a problem. I said it before and I'll say it again. I'm don't really think my husband has fully admitted to himself that he has a porn addiction. I think the need for wiggle room also comes from a worry that if he does go a significant period of time without porn, and these signs and symptoms do end up clearing, he needs to be able to say that they (the S&S) weren't related to porn addiction, so their absence is not a sign that he over came porn addiction because it wasn't a problem to begin with.

Signs and Symptoms:

Some of the S&S that are correlated with PA include (taken from YBOP):

• Copulatory impotence - impotence during sex with a partner.
• Erectile dysfunction - with or without a partner. 
• Morphing taste in porn
• Social anxiety
• fatigue, irritability
• lack of motivation, depression, anxiety
• inability to concentrate, brain fog

I left out the ones that don't seem to apply to my husband, but it's pretty telling that I only left out two.  I'm now going to go into a little more detail about each of them. I'm also going to add in one of the two that I took out, because it used to apply to him. 

Copulatory impotence / Erectile dysfunction 

I combined these two because they seem to be basically the same thing. I think they were only separated because one was specific to relations with a real person (copulatory impotence) and the other could also occur even with porn. There have been on and off periods with my husband that he either couldn't get his penis hard, or couldn't keep it hard. I talked about this a lot already, so I'm not going to get into the details, but I just want to note, this one applies.

Morphing taste in porn

This is another one of those things that apply and that I've talked about a lot already. 

Social anxietyThis is something that I don't think I've talked about, but totally applies. Luckily, it doesn't apply nearly as much now as it had in the past. He used to really hate talking to people he didn't know, or being put in situations where he was left alone with people he didn't know. I remember he used to complain about me not taking him to parties, but when I would he would get really mad and think I was up to no good because I would leave him a lone where ever "the guys" were hanging out. 

He says that he's gotten a lot better at being a social person, and he says I have a lot to do with that. I don't know if I can take all of the credit, or it his growing social skills also has to do with the fact that it's been ten years since we've been together and it's just one of those things he's gotten better with as he matures. 

I do also want to vent just a little. He used to get mad when we would be at his family's house and I would basically be stuck to his side. I didn't like when he left me alone with them because it was an awkward silence. Looking back now, I feel like he was being a little hypocritical. It wasn't OK for me to leave him alone with a group of guys chatting and hanging out, but it was OK for him to leave me alone with his quiet family who often left me alone in rooms? Pssh. 

Fatigue, irritability

This is something that has been an ever present problem in our lives. My husband, for as long as I can remember, has always had a problem with getting enough sleep. It's been one of those things that he's always complained about but has never seemed to be able to get a handle on it. Even with prescription drugs. That's the fatigue part. The irritability either comes and goes, or is something that I don't really notice that much. Back to the lack of ability to get a good night's sleep though. I don't remember this being a problem when we were really young, but I do recall it starting right around high school. I also recall, as you might from past post, that porn has been a part of his life since he was very young. Before high school even. And that during high school, it was such a big part of his life that he would go on masturbation binges. This may just be me looking for the magic cure all, but I think I'm beginning to see what the root cause to this particular problem is. 

Lack of motivation, depression, anxiety
I can't honestly say that my husband isn't a motivated man. When he decides to do something, he gets it done and puts 100% of himself into it. This may be another problem I've been wanting him to deal with for some time though. 

The other things though... Depression. Anxiety. These are 100% a real thing with him. Maybe not so much lately, but have for sure been omnipresent in the past. In fact, his depression was one of the biggest factors in bringing us together. Back then we were in high school though, and there were many other factors involved. But I can't help but to think that if he didn't have a porn addiction problem from such a young age, the feelings of depression wouldn't have been so bad. 

I remember the first time it really hit me that my husband had an anxiety problem. We were living together and I drug him to Wal-Mart. The crowd was so crazy that he started to have an anxiety attack. He warned me about it, but I honestly never knew anyone with that problem, so I didn't really take him seriously until it happened. Even at the time though, I wasn't really sure I totally believed it was real. It seemed a little too... I don't know. He didn't want to go, and he told me that was his reason why, then all of a sudden he had an anxiety attack? He'd never had one before to my knowledge, and any of the ones he may have had since have been no where near as severe as that one. None the less, it has been ever present. Doctor's have given him prescription after prescription and nothing has worked.

Inability to concentrate, brain fog

When we most recently talked about this, he said it's something new. However, I remember him complaining about this since around the time we first moved in together. It's always been a major complaint of his too. Right up there with not being able to sleep well and anxiety. He's tried a few things here and there, but nothing has every really worked, and he hasn't really stuck to anything either. Even though he always complains that he can't remember anything, I don't really think that's true. The type of work that he does and how he approaches it requires him to call upon a data bank of information in his own head on a regular basis. I think the thing that bothers him the most is that he has a hard time recalling things that aren't based in fact, but are based in feelings and emotions... and that's just some of the time. He sure as hell remembers what I said when we last fought when it comes up again. Those are the things I forget. 

Frequent masturbation

The actual thing the S&S said was, "frequent masturbation, little satisfaction ("feeling like a lust-ball all day")" I don't really know what a lust ball feels like, and I don't really know if he's ever felt like one because I'm not him, but I wanted to include this because I know for a fact that when he was in high school, he used to go on masturbation binges and that masturbation was a part of every day life for him. I want to say that I don't think there was a week that went by since he was able to and felt at ease doing so that he didn't masturbate at least three times a week all the way up until some point after us moving in together. I don't really know if this applies to the S&S here since it also has the caveat of "little satisfaction". I suppose this has to apply to the morphing in taste though. You masturbate to the same things, and it just doesn't cut it. But you continue to do so because you've got an itch that needs scratching, and you haven't yet figured out that you need something a little harder to get you off. 

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Man. My post are all so very long. One day I'm going to turn these into videos or recordings. I think that the tone in which a person says something also adds a lot of meaning to the words they speak. 

But seriously. Making this post has me thinking a lot. The first part was be contemplating how other people feel after they've kicked their porn addiction. The second part of this post went into detail about what I think about my husbands reaction to their feelings. And the last part went into detail about the signs and symptoms that my husbands shows that are common to porn addiction. 

I recapped all of that not only for my benefit, but also to bring you‒the reader‒back to the point at hand. Which is what the signs and symptoms are that my husband currently shares with many other porn addicts and how he stands to gain from kicking the addiction. Even if he won't admit the possibility or their correlation. 

Gains

The biggest ways I think he stands to gain from kicking porn addiction are: No longer having to worry about sexual dysfunctions, getting more sleep, having better short term memory/less brain fog, and overall decrease in depression and anxiety. Those are the things listed in the last part of the post, but to address things listed in the first parts, I think he also stands to become more productive, and have more motivation to be so.