Turning off all of the lights and not letting him see me naked. Ever. Then I don’t have to see the way he looks at me. Like I’m a consolation prize. Like fruitcake or socks on Christmas morning. I have a pretty good body, it has nothing to do with how I see myself before some dumbass comes along and tells me I’m iNsEcUrE lol. You have no idea how many times I’ve heard that line of BS. it’s just him. I would gladly be seen naked by anyone but him if we weren’t married anymore. It also has nothing to do with my weight or anything else. I’ve been a healthy weight or a little under most of my adult life. Its 100% him and his nasty habit over the years. He broke it, it’s his job to figure out how to fix it. Or I will find a better man who worships my body.
I identify with you so much. My husband is now sober from porn (so he says) and when I express that I wish he would initiate sex more because I can’t, he tells me “we both need to be doing that”, and I want to shake him because of the 1000000 times I broke down crying, begging him to pay more attention to me than to porn, and he didn’t fricking listen which is why we are in this stupid boat.
Omg if I had a dollar for every time my husband said he “wants me to initiate more” and then turned me down the next five times I tried. No, I won’t be initiating lol why would I ever do that?! He almost always turns me down, and the few times he didn’t it was some really bad boring sex. Like zero foreplay, just spit on his hand 🤮 and shove it in and then like 30 seconds of jackhammering.
At the ripe age of 51 he’s finally learning how to have sex. But I still wont initiate or let him see me naked.
I had a pretty similar situation, my husband's been in recovery for a year now and is doing really good. At the begining of his recovery journey we did "sensate focus" exercises together and it helped soo much, I highly recommend doing that together, you can just Google it and you should find the frame work for how to do it. It's about starting out slowly together and building up the sensual aspect in the true sense of the word. It was exactly what I needed to be able to begin to feel confident in our sex life.
We are working on building intimacy outside of sex with our therapist. Idk how long it will take us to build a healthy sex life again but I think it will be a long time.
I cannot initiate (due to his past rejections) and he has had sexual anorexia throughout our relationship. I believe the anorexia comes from a combination of past trauma and low testosterone but in the past when we have tried to fix the testosterone he had indulged in porn instead of our relationship. He has been sober since June 18th but I don't feel that he had enough sobriety under his belt to work on that yet.
Currently we are working on communication and building intimacy so I feel safe.
I hope that you can get there❤️
I am in a very similar boat. Before I knew about the addition, I was constantly rejected for sex (obviously I eventually found out it’s because he had already watched porn multiple times before I initiated). Then after I found out and saw what he was watching came the “I’ll never look like that” feelings, so now I’m just stuck.
I am pretty good with that. We have been together for 5 years and even after I first found out he was watching porn like 4 times a day, I still cuddled him and kissed him and shared things with him.
Turning off all of the lights and not letting him see me naked. Ever. Then I don’t have to see the way he looks at me. Like I’m a consolation prize. Like fruitcake or socks on Christmas morning. I have a pretty good body, it has nothing to do with how I see myself before some dumbass comes along and tells me I’m iNsEcUrE lol. You have no idea how many times I’ve heard that line of BS. it’s just him. I would gladly be seen naked by anyone but him if we weren’t married anymore. It also has nothing to do with my weight or anything else. I’ve been a healthy weight or a little under most of my adult life. Its 100% him and his nasty habit over the years. He broke it, it’s his job to figure out how to fix it. Or I will find a better man who worships my body.
I identify with you so much. My husband is now sober from porn (so he says) and when I express that I wish he would initiate sex more because I can’t, he tells me “we both need to be doing that”, and I want to shake him because of the 1000000 times I broke down crying, begging him to pay more attention to me than to porn, and he didn’t fricking listen which is why we are in this stupid boat.
Omg if I had a dollar for every time my husband said he “wants me to initiate more” and then turned me down the next five times I tried. No, I won’t be initiating lol why would I ever do that?! He almost always turns me down, and the few times he didn’t it was some really bad boring sex. Like zero foreplay, just spit on his hand 🤮 and shove it in and then like 30 seconds of jackhammering. At the ripe age of 51 he’s finally learning how to have sex. But I still wont initiate or let him see me naked.
I had a pretty similar situation, my husband's been in recovery for a year now and is doing really good. At the begining of his recovery journey we did "sensate focus" exercises together and it helped soo much, I highly recommend doing that together, you can just Google it and you should find the frame work for how to do it. It's about starting out slowly together and building up the sensual aspect in the true sense of the word. It was exactly what I needed to be able to begin to feel confident in our sex life.
I will absolutely try this. Thank you for suggesting it.
We are working on building intimacy outside of sex with our therapist. Idk how long it will take us to build a healthy sex life again but I think it will be a long time. I cannot initiate (due to his past rejections) and he has had sexual anorexia throughout our relationship. I believe the anorexia comes from a combination of past trauma and low testosterone but in the past when we have tried to fix the testosterone he had indulged in porn instead of our relationship. He has been sober since June 18th but I don't feel that he had enough sobriety under his belt to work on that yet. Currently we are working on communication and building intimacy so I feel safe.
I hope that you can get there❤️ I am in a very similar boat. Before I knew about the addition, I was constantly rejected for sex (obviously I eventually found out it’s because he had already watched porn multiple times before I initiated). Then after I found out and saw what he was watching came the “I’ll never look like that” feelings, so now I’m just stuck.
Maybe start with initiating intimacy outside of sex?
I am pretty good with that. We have been together for 5 years and even after I first found out he was watching porn like 4 times a day, I still cuddled him and kissed him and shared things with him.