It was almost wet... Dreams.

I remember my husband mentioning that he almost had a wet dream recently. I also remember him talking about it on more than one occasion though I can't honestly say that I remembered the second time very clearly. For some reason I feel like he talked about it while there were other people around, but I really don't think that was the case. I feel like he talked about it with other people around because I vaguely remember there being another person's reaction to it. It's more likely that either I had a dream about him talking about it with people around, he brought it up during the visit to the psychologist that he went with me to, or that when he was telling me about it the second time around he did so in a manner that was as though he was having a conversation with himself. I don't think that last one was the case though, because I really do remember someone having a somewhat confused reaction that caused him to explain himself further.

Anyways. The point is that he told me that he "almost" had a wet dream recently. I really wish that I didn't go so long between writing down blog post ideas. I should have written this down for my own records if anything. I remember when we first talked about him quitting porn, I had mentioned that I thought it was a good idea for him to keep a journal of the things he experiences along the way. Personally, I wanted him to keep an old fashioned paper and pen(cil) journal because it is something he can take with him wherever he goes and write whenever he finds/makes the time. But I also encouraged him to check out some of the forum sites where people often keep records of their day to day or week to week experiences.

I'm not exactly sure the reason why I decided to make this post. It's late and I've been jumping back and forth between a lot of things. I will probably not even publish this post at the time of writing it. Oh well...

I think the big reason why I've started this post is because I decided to look at a few of the journals of people in our age group. One journal in particular had a post from a guy who started off apologizing for not posting for so long. He cited all of his other FAPing activities as reasons why. (F=fun, A=active, P=productive). Some of the activities include a lot of going to the gym, loosing himself in art, and going out and doing things like concerts.

Being more physically fit and working on music are two of the things my hubby wanted to do more of, but really hasn't. I sort of feel like I'm to blame for this, and there will definitely be another post about that. Another thing that the guy went on to mention in his recap of the time between this and his last post was that he went a period of time in which he was having pretty regular wet dream. That's it! This journal is the reason I decided to make a post. It reminded me about my hubby's story.

On to the important part shall we?
One of the things I recall being a pretty big/common rock in the road to porn addiction recovery was having wet dreams. They are nothing bad, or anything to be ashamed of. It's probably not even accurate to call it a rock. Perhaps a pebble would be a more apt term. Yeah, a pebble. It's in the road, and isn't going to stop your progress, but is something you'll notice as you make the journey.

So why did I decide to make this post? Well... to simply document it really. I want to make note that it's something that happened during week two of his reboot. It's very likely that it's actually been three weeks since he last PMO'd (a new term I just learned. It stands for Porn/Masturbation/Orgasm and basically means when a person ejaculates due to masturbating while watching porn). I suspect three weeks because I have no way of really knowing when he last PMO'd, but I do know when he last saved a porn file to his computer. And let's face it, if he was up for hours looking at porn, then he more than likely masturbated while doing so. It's also likely that it was just at the one week mark if my suspicions about him talking about it to my shrink is correct. I'm going to have to talk to him about it.

So why almost? Well, that's what he told me. He said that he was having a dream that had nothing to do with porn or sex, I think it had to do with computers, and he started to feel... "funny". He said that in his dream he was conscious enough to recognize that something didn't feel right and woke up. He said he recognized the feeling, and then went to pee to rid himself of it.

Now, to further pin point when this could have happened, I know it was after we got the bed, and on a night that I slept in my room and he slept in ours. So... We got the bed on Wednesday of week 1 (Nov 19th), and I slept in my room... I think I didn't sleep in my room until a while after. I think this because I know we slept together the first night we got it, and also the following night. I wasn't going to at first since we both slept so poorly, but he said that he didn't have work the next day so it would be OK. I think the first time since getting the bed that I slept in my own room was Sunday night because he did have to work the next day.

If it is that the almost wet dream occurred on a night that I slept in my own room is correct, and I'm correct in thinking that it didn't happen for the first time until Sunday night, then the possibility of him telling my shrink about it is zero because I hadn't seen him since the day after we got the bed. Man. This not remembering shit sucks. I used to be so good at recalling all of the small details like this so easily and clearly. I can't believe this is happening to me.

So... In the beginning of this post I concluded that one of three things had to have happened when my husband told me about his almost wet dream the second time. I said that I don't think the last thing I listed could have happened because I remembered someone having a reaction to him telling the story. But I also know that it couldn't have been that he told my shrink about it since the days and actions don't match up. So either he did talk about it with other people present‒unlikely‒, I dreamed it all up‒pretty likely‒, or the thing I ruled out right away was indeed the case, and I was the person who had a funny reaction‒also pretty likely.

I guess it doesn't really matter who was around when he told me or if anyone was though. What really matters is that he told me about it.

Now, what does him telling me about it really mean is the next question? I remember him telling me that he hated wet dreams because it meant waking up to a sticky mess, and then either having to change the sheets or sleep in it. I'm not really sure why I mentioned that except for the fact almost seems kind of... unreal. I don't want to think that he made it up though. What would be the point in that? That we had a conversation about them before hand, and he know's it's one of the S/S of a reboot? That he might have made up the story to lead me to believe he's going along with the reboot without failure so far and that having a wet dream is a sign so that I can believe him. That he actually masturbated that night that I wasn't upstairs for, and he knew he was low on the semen but wanted to have a plausible explanation in case it made me suspicious?

These are the issues of trust that a partner to someone who is rebooting has to face. It's not pleasant. In fact, I kind of feel like shit for letting those thoughts cross my mind. Do I believe he would make this all up and lie to me? No. I don't want to anyways. Do I believe he's capable of doing it? Unfortunately, yes.

So what am I left to do? Well, encourage him to keep a journal for one thing. And hope he would be willing to share it with me. Take the power cord to his computer when I'm not home or awake? While it may be a good solution for the time being, how does this encourage the building of trust? I don't really think it does. I don't really know. It's one of those things that I keep meaning to talk with him about, but don't really know how. I need some forms of reassurance. I can't deny that. But at the same time, I don't need him thinking that I simply just don't trust him. That's not the case. I'm just so worried that the addiction will pull through, and he just won't be able to say, "I'm shouldn't do this" and not.

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.

--------------------

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.