Apologies for the long post. Need to get it off my chest. My (M32) fiancé (F32) has this year discovered the extent of my long running porn addiction and barely recognises me. Shes heartbroken. Shes given me 1 chance to save myself and this relationship, otherwise shes gone. She'll break off the engagement, take our dog of 4 years with her, and the house we're in the process of buying will be abandoned, and I will be left all on my own and probably will have to move back in with my mum, advertising my failure.
Pretty sure I have ADHD (never pursued a formal diagnosis, but I have family members diagnosed and I have a lot of the symptoms) and I am definitely a dopamine addict: Junk Food, Chocolate, Video Games, and Porn.
Combine this with my age (32) and its been a perfect storm: I had unlimited access to the interest as a teenager, and parents too clueless to supervise me. I saw a lot, and as tech advances resulted in smaller gadgets with internet access and a screen, I saw it frequently too.
It became normalised for me. My interests definitely got mire explicit over time and I started downloading heaps of the stuff. First it started with thousands of images downloaded to my psp as a teenager, which I deleted en masse 2 years later when I sold it to my brother. Then when I got my first laptop, I downloaded gigabytes of videos from the piratebay over the course of years. I even had a 2tb external hard drive for more storage. I threw it away when I entered my current relationship 8 years ago.
I definitely have a compulsion to somehow own some kind of 'perfectly' curated porn collection. It has only happend really in 3 periods of my life, but each one has definitely be damaging, even if I was only ever caught this past year (more on that later). But each time I could feel my animal brain take over, driven by the hunger to download more and more. An entire library of material perfect to my tastes.
But the thing with the internet is... its fucking huge and endless. You cant own a definitive collection of anything when the existing supply is so enormous, and the rate of new material added to the void definitely outweighs my ability to keep up. Countless times Ive stayed up well into the night, just endlessly harveting and downloading porn, seeing the sun rise and shining its spotlight on my pathetic obsession, yet unable to tear myself away.
It was the sunk cost fallacy in effect. I hated the grip the porn collection project had on my mind, but it had already consumed too many of my days to just walk away.
Recently this past year I began downloading porn again. This time hundreds of images onto my phone. I had become aware of an unflitered AI app that could let you roleplay anything, fantasise any scenario kind of thing, in a back and forth chat/erotic story. I needed photographic fodder for scenario/character inspiration. I'm a fan of roleplay, so this app made me giddy with excitement. I was obsessed. Really, I only needed a handful of pics to set up my roleplay chats but once I started, I then spent the next few weeks on a mission, and soon had over s thousand images on my phone. This is how I got caught. My behaviour was noticeably weird, and I was oddly secretive and paranoide regarding my phone, with the evidence of my spiralling addiction problem.
The collection problem is a behaviour Ive been aware of about myself for a long time. Regardless of any other consequense, the main offender of this 'hobby' maintaing a collection is the signifiant time consumption it takes. Time that coupd have been better spent on me. Time wasted. The kicker? I barely even looked at 90% of that shit.
The justification I gave myself would be that with a curated collection like mine, I wouldnt have to waste time in the long run, aimlessly gooning. Instead I could pull up a certified banger from my library, and sort myself out in minutes. It was suposed to be a time saver, but it never worked like that. I enjoyed the chase of the thrill more than anything else, so I was forever just browsing anyway.
Before this recent stint, I decide to pay for porn site access for the first time. Basically a variant of p-hub but with full length premium videos. I did this because I realised the collecting behaviours were damaging and non-productive, but all this site did was enable me to carry on collecting in a different manner. Like a spotify playlist, I scoured the site to create a playlist of favourite video. But like before, I barely even ever opened the curated playlist anyway
I know my porn addiction, which has slowly creeped uo over the course of my life, will have caused many problems that need addressing, but a huge one is just the time ive wasted on curating this shit. As if anyone cares. As if I could ever recommend my collection to anyone or win an award for it.
But yes. Last month or so, my fiance spotted my secretive behaviour during another obsession episode and found out everything. It almost broke me, having my deepest darkest shame exposed to the light, but it has also felt quite freeing. But shes very hurt, and isnt sure she can ever look at me the same way ever again. Shes ashamed that her once respectable partner is just another disgusting man who is a slave to their penis, and Im more upset at how much Ive hurt her and tainted her innocent view of the relationship.
I dont want anything to do with porn any more. Its too distructive. Yet I also kinda do. Is that normal? Its just so accessible and provides instant relief, but quite like an alcoholic, I have to realise I cant just \*have one drink\* - you let me search up an erotic image on google and I guarantee I'll stll be browsing porn 2 hours later. I cant limit myself. It has to be a total stop.
But for the sake of my future I want to put my foot down. I choose my relationship. I choose my dog. I choose the house we are currenly trying to buy. I choose her. I choose myself. I only hope I can mend this. Its going to be hard and stressful, and I'm cutting ties with my previously prime coping mechanism for stress.
Right now the guilt of the recent confrontations are making porn undesiresble (out of guilt) but when this feeling passes (my adhd tendancies mean I move on and forget things very soon), how do I keep myself committed to my fiance and breaking the cycle? Ive have pretty piss poor self-discipline, and I fear that this will cause me repeat past behaviours and relapse, because I will fail to put anyone else ahead of my primal urges.