Love Him, Hate Porn Helps

I’ve been here in Italy with Becky for the last few days. We’ve been reading “Love Him, Hate Porn”, which is a great book. This book has opened up some discussions that have caused me to discover a simple truth I’d never thought of before:

I have never really ever thought about my feelings in the past or what I really need in order to overcome my addiction.

As part of our talk last night we discussed emotional connection. Emotional connection, to me, means that I feel needed, respected, wanted, loved, and understood. It may mean even more than that, but that’s what comes to mind right now.

Becky and I talked about this. We realized that nearly all of my life I’ve feared loneliness, or, in other words, lack of emotional connection.

I’ve dealt with this through “connecting” via pornography.

I’ve dealt with this through being guarded so that I don’t get hurt if someone doesn’t want to connect with me.

What Beck and I discovered is that my issues during our marriage have been all about this emotional connection, or lack thereof.

One of the main reasons I’ve always loved Becky, ever since I met her, was because of the emotional connection we always had. Even on our first date we connected so well, talking about songs, past experiences, and whatever else.

Then, when we were with other people, I’d get really weird fearing that I was losing that emotional connection with her or was going to have to share it with others.

During the tough times, I would sometimes try to reach out to Becky to connect; however, I wasn’t sure what I really needed. My reaching out would be in the form of sex or making out or affection.

Granted, those are ways to connect but they aren’t necessarily the only way and they aren’t necessarily what I really needed. After all, even in the toughest times during the online affair, Becky and I were having plenty of sex.

The thing missing was the emotional connection, the emotional closeness.

Sex, by itself, isn’t enough of the emotional connection.

My key to recovery moving forward will be to recognize my feelings and express them in an open and non-critical way to Becky or whoever else I feel may be a helpful resource.

I’m really excited and grateful for this discovery.

I feel so blessed to have Becky as my wife, my confidant, my emotional connection.

I love how she thinks about things. I love how she emotionally connects so easily with so many people. But I love how I am them one she wants to emotionally connect with most.

It’s been a great day!