porn kills everything.
I am now close to two months into my process of quitting porn after my girlfriend found out about my excessive habits with porn, my anxiety that is connected to it and the way it has always been the problem for fights, even though they are rare in our relationships, without us knowing. She has decided to stay with me and go the way with me to figure this out together. I have decided to go on this journey of quitting porn, both for my personal development and keeping this relationship alive, to the girl I could, that I know is the one for me. I have changed a lot about my whole life, have started therapy, implementing new, healthy habits, started running (again), actively learning to communicate and to better my stress and anxiety coping mechanisms, reading, healthier lifestyle, no masturbating - and obviously: NO porn, which entailed me deleting all of my throwaway accounts on reddit, twitter, discord, tiktok, instagram, telegram, etc. that I have used for porn before. Even though I have come across moments of heavy anxiety attacks and I have definitely formed new anxieties connected to my girlfriend and what has happened, but I see drastic improvements in my life, which I know will longterm outweigh the negative ones I feel rn. Additionally, I feel more secure in my ways to cope with these issues. Nevertheless, I have realized, which is completely understandable, that my girlfriend still struggles with what I’ve done and just things like her seeing my PC triggers certain emotions in her. I feel very anxious in these moments, my head feels like it’s exploding from the words she tells me, still I want and will listen to her and every word she has to say. I feel scared that this is something, regardless of how much effort we put into this, that will stay FOREVER. I love this girl and every aspect about her and will do everything in my power to work on myself. At the same time I don’t want her to feel like I am doing this "just to save the relationship" - I have mainly started this as a journey of personal growth and have already in the beginning known for myself that I don’t want her to feel like this is me temporarily reacting to a crisis and then going back, because it’s not. I see that I am overly cautious with my words and actions, not wanting to do ANYTHING wrong when interacting with her in any way. I leave my phone out open with her in the kitchen while I go shower, I feel like I always have to be out of the house too when she is, because I know she knows I have done this when I was alone. But at the end of the day, she does rarely actively address her feeling uncomfortable with how I act and I don’t even know if she really feels like that. I feel like I am avoiding situations that are inevitable to happen again, like being alone at home just because I connect so much regret and hurtful behavior towards my girlfriend to it. I just wanted to put this out here. I am sure some of you guys have thoughts on this and would be delighted to hear about it. All I can say to sum up my personal journey is, that you can do it, if you WANT. This is not (just) about a scientifically proven brain damage. This is about will power. Find your ways, reinvest your energy and find healthier ways to do so. Think bigger - don’t seek fast and simple dopamine rushes. It won’t be easy, there will be days where you think you wanna relapse and end it all but there’s not a single need. Keep going.
You sound like one hell of a strong willed individual and you're lucky to have a partner that understands you. Your message helped me, thanks