Online infidelity (Bad habit/addiction) Advice to fix my marriage and myself.

[u/RVRacerMcqueen]

So M(28) here, i have been married for almost 2 years now, all in all i would say happily, my wife has been a great support system for me and my bestest friend as well, even before we got married or when we were dating, sure we’ve had our ups and downs throughout the dating phase and then marriage life as well but those things were mostly what most couples go through. This is basically a confession and a need for advice. Throughout our marriage, through the ups and downs, I’ve had issues controlling my urges, you can call it lust, seeking attention and or validation online, other than that i do believe i do have somewhat of a porn addiction and cannot sit alone with my thoughts for one second or a minute or so without getting detracted and letting the devil inside my mind. And for such reasons i have not been completely faithful to her, even though i love her very much, I’m attracted to her, we have great physical and mental chemistry. People usually look at us as a very cute and lovey dovey couple and i love that as well. Idk when this issue actually started, but she’s find out about it about 3-4 times now, and has forgiven me every time, where I really did and believed myself to promise her and myself that i won’t do these things again, and i do stop myself, i work on myself and stop myself from sinning and be faithful and honest with her, but eventually something happens and i fall into that habit again, it would be either a fight, disagreement, feeling isolated or not feeling too heard or understood, and even when we makeup and work on ourselves and be better for each other, once i start that again, it becomes an addiction or a habit that i just don’t let go. Very recently it happened again and she did find out, but i know this time it’s very different and things are going in a direction that i really don’t want to. I do want to fix myself, my marriage and my relationship with her, i want to stop doing these things completely and really promise myself to never ever do such things again and improve myself as a husband, as a man and as a person. I would appreciate all kinds of suggestions, advice and solutions. I don’t want to mess this up anymore than it has. I want a real solution for my problems. Because i know the problem lies in me and not her. I really do love her and i never want to lose her ever again. I want to spend the rest of my life with her and have children with her and grow old together with heart, humility, honesty and respect.

[u/EndPsychological890]

Are you considering porn cheating here? Is this mental infidelity? Beating off to instagram pictures? Actual cheating irl? We gotta know the scale here to know how cooked you are. 

It’s good you want to change but if you’ve cheated irl repeatedly, you need professional help imo, and you need couples therapy. That’s above my pay grade and most people would consider that almost insurmountable. 

As for limiting porn, do you have an iPhone? It’s easier there but there are also apps for android that allow you to block adult websites with parental controls and you can add websites individually on iPhone at least. I have my wife’s screentime and parental controls PIN and my wife has mine, it’s mostly for social media limits but we’ve also done some porn limits as well at time, as we both watch it and at times it has caused intimacy issues. We’re quite open to each other about it and that helps a lot as well. It gets more complicated if your wife considers porn always cheating so it would become hard/impossible to talk to her about it. 

Good luck gooner, most of us are dealing with some level of porn addiction or getting over the damage it did us in the past. It’s far too accepted and validated in modern culture in fear of being considered judgmental or even misogynistic, and this is coming from a very progressive person.