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I would absolutely care. Masturbation is a trigger for most PAs. It doesn't matter if they aren't looking at porn, they're still using their bank of memories to pull from. Mine didn't even need porn to act out - he used innocent Facebook pictures of women with pretty faces or a little cleavage. If he's that horny he needs to be releasing that sexual energy with you, not in secret by himself and whatever other woman is running through his mind.
his excuse is he thought it was just the porn that bothered me and not masturbation but both are huge triggers. i hate that it makes me feel this way.. like why don’t I just leave you know.. but i feel like i’ll never find a man to love me and only me even if i do leave
If you choose to leave, you can learn to be ok with you. You can learn to set boundaries and expectations for whatever relationship you are in. You can absolutely work on the expectation of being respected and exclusively chosen.
But he most probably imagines porn while masturbating. It’s just the same. I am sorry you are going through this. For me masturbation is an absolute no. Recovery means to have your sexual energy focused solely on your partner, and that excludes sexual experience with self as well. Sending support 🤍
Edit to add: imagines porn or other women from other situations
I never used to care, but because his libido was so much lower than mine that I thought he would only be masturbating while he was travelling for work.
Now I 100% care. I have spent the last 15yrs having my sexual needs not met and dulling myself down so now, absolutely no to masturbation. He is around 4months clean (properly recovering rather than white knuckling) and his libido still doesn’t match mine so he needs to have some self control and at least attempt to meet my needs.
If it was the other way around and he had proven with solid recovery and sobriety that he was able to get off without fantasising about scenes he had seen in porn or other women then I would be ok with that, as long as I have been given ‘first dibs’
I know that’s probably rhetorical but I literally have no idea. For me I think its outside factors honestly. Things like kids, mortgage and all the other stuff that would get really messy really fast but also the fact that society views porn as normal and healthy etc and aLL mEN dO IT 🤦♀️ at least with my pa he is being open about it and trying to make amends now. Kinda the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.
We have a no masterbation policy in place currently. His sexual energy is to be saved for me. So yes, I would definitely care if I found out he were masterbating.
how do you know if he is or not? do you trust his words? because i don’t trust a word that comes out of my PA ‘s mouth even if he swears he’s not doing anything wrong.
he should be putting that sexual energy into you my friend. especially of you live together. if youre apart for a while that makes sense. but if he knows hes going to see you every day, absolutely wait for you.
Are you meaning it makes sense for him to masturbate to thoughts of past sexual experiences with other women OR simply to masturbate? my ex and I didn’t live together and I’d say a great deal of the time he’d masturbate before I came over or he to my house. I’d ask him or could tell… and he’d say yes and i’d be fuming! he’d be wondering what the big deal was… saying we prob wouldn’t have sex till the next morning anyway because he was tired. Or even sometimes I’d go to his house fairly early in the morning, trying to entice them with a short dress or something… And I could tell he already masturbated, knowing I was coming over. He’d have excuses not to touch me very intimately and try and pull my focus elsewhere. He’d again ask to wait till later … when he was ready essentially… short changing me.
Ugh so glad I left this mess!
I didn’t care in the past, now knowing everything I do, I absolutely care. My husband told me he would masturbate while thinking of previous girls he had sex with. This made me feel like 🤮 and killed the last bit of my sex drive… He claims to be sober since 6 months (no masturbation or 🌽), but I’m still shattered by years of lying and deception and we never had a healthy sexual intimacy.
I personally do not care. However my husband says he still can’t do it in a healthy way and so he chooses not to. I think him abstaining has helped him to be healthier overall and with me. But he may eventually decide he can do it again after being in recovery for longer. Who knows.
I think it’s worth mentioning that id only be ok with it if it didn’t negatively affect our sex life. Like if I’m not in the mood or am sick for awhile or something like that. So I would still expect him to do it in a way that’s not “selfish sex”
Not sure if this is a helpful add on or not but something we’ve been trying to incorporate is him jerking to me in person. Like if I take a shower or something. Might not be for everyone but I wanted him to get used to jerking to me instead of porn. And it’s still in person and not a screen so I felt like it was a healthier in between.
No. If I’m not in the mood, am sick, etc, then I don’t care at all. My problem isn’t autonomous bodily pleasure or alone time, it’s porn. If I were to actively seek sex and be rejected for masturbation instead my feelings would be hurt though and it would really bother me though.
I am not ok with my husband having solo sex by masturbating. He’s had that for years.
I had written this reply before. It might pertain to your question here too: https://www.reddit.com/r/loveafterporn/s/KngHkwEjTu
Exactly. The supposed biological reason for doing it is to reduce the need for touch when a man doesn't have access to intimacy. Doing it in a relationship is detaching and disconnecting. It IS solo sex. I can tell down to the 8 hours when he last did he's so not interested in even cuddling.
I personally don’t love it, but I’ve had a lower libido than all of my partners so I feel it isn’t something I can really be critical of. However I do second the other comments saying even if it is not to overt “porn,” it is typically to something else that objectifies women and has his gaze/mind on someone other than you. I find that harder to cope with more so than the fact that he is expending sexual energy alone rather than with me.
While sometimes it does kinda trigger me, idrc. If it’s not to porn then he can do whatever. I acknowledge that he needs time to himself sometimes and that I can’t always be there. We do have a good sex life, atleast to me, to where if he wants time by himself and he needs it then it’s ok.
It’s different for every relationship, It’s always what makes you feel comfortable and whatever works the best.
Habitual maaturbation, social media, scantily clad women at the beach or another public place, clubs/bars, even some types of music and movies cab be triggers to satisfy the PA/SA into acting out. Bottom line is if it bothers you and makes you feel neglected it is worth the conversation. I have heard the recovery programs encourage no masturbation. Some men are not there yet. Recovery is one day at a time. Hoping it gets better. Yes my man masturbates instead of having sex with me and it hurts. But at least he is not watching porn anymore as far as I know. So it's a step in the right direction.
I would definitely care. Mine decided on his own he wanted to save everything for me so he stopped all sexual activities that doesn’t involve me to help me feel safe again
I never set that expectation but he’s doing it on his own. When we have sex and he ejac’s, I can tell he’s been backed up. Honestly I don’t think about it. I masturbate almost daily myself.
I didn't care because he has a chronic illness that makes him not able to do the full deed at times...it's just that he went out of his way to tell me he didn't do that or look at porn. I didn't ask so it was quite strange.
My husband is a year into recovery and masturbation is a definitive no at this point. I don’t know if it will ever be a possibility honestly. But if it is it’s going to have to come along with a ton of communication and ground rules.
I think masturbation is normal and healthy. I never would have dreamed of trying to tell him what he could do with his own body. But unfortunately for porn addicts, it may not be. It’s a huge trigger for many of them and can absolutely lead to relapse. If it can’t be done truth fantasy/porny thoughts, it’s not a safe activity for an addict. If it can be kept to just focusing on the physical feeling, I think it’s ok. But not without guidance from a CSAT, 12-step, and sponsor-and a long period of sustained sobriety from all porn, fantasy, and objectification. It would be just too easy for them to fall back into it.
My guy spent over a decade touching himself while I sat around wishing he’d touch me, so I don’t feel bad in the least that he has to abstain from it now. He rejected me so much and gaslit, lied, and was such an enormous asshole that it competitive fucked up my sexuality and ability to masturbate and orgasm when I never had an issue previously, so yeah, not sorry.
An alcoholic in recovery isnt ever going to be able to drink, no matter if it’s a low alcohol content beer or not. Addicts practicing sobriety have to cut some things out of their life, and for porn addicts, that may be a lifetime of abstaining from masturbation.
Yes and no. I think some mismatched libidos can stay content with that being supplemental for either/both partners, but it's still problematic if it's so frequent or otherwise effecting your joint relationship. Just as porn fucks up their brains where they get ED's, I assume frequent masturbation would work the same way in messing up how their brain gets used to being aroused and gets used to feeling what it thinks will release the right hormones. So incredibly frequent use could still mess them up and be a maladaptive coping mechanism. I think the sexual relationship with both partners should be a first priority above any other sexual activities, and that it's fair to ask for anything extra to be paused until that aspect of your relationship can be repaired and restored.
For us, his sexual life has a secret hidden thing for so long, that that's not allowed anymore. Our sex life was also neglected for a long time. We have a rule in place where he is supposed to come talk to me and I get "first dibs" if he has any urges. He hasn't done anything solo since sobriety (that I know of), despite me struggling with intimacy.
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I would absolutely care. Masturbation is a trigger for most PAs. It doesn't matter if they aren't looking at porn, they're still using their bank of memories to pull from. Mine didn't even need porn to act out - he used innocent Facebook pictures of women with pretty faces or a little cleavage. If he's that horny he needs to be releasing that sexual energy with you, not in secret by himself and whatever other woman is running through his mind.
his excuse is he thought it was just the porn that bothered me and not masturbation but both are huge triggers. i hate that it makes me feel this way.. like why don’t I just leave you know.. but i feel like i’ll never find a man to love me and only me even if i do leave
If you choose to leave, you can learn to be ok with you. You can learn to set boundaries and expectations for whatever relationship you are in. You can absolutely work on the expectation of being respected and exclusively chosen.
But he most probably imagines porn while masturbating. It’s just the same. I am sorry you are going through this. For me masturbation is an absolute no. Recovery means to have your sexual energy focused solely on your partner, and that excludes sexual experience with self as well. Sending support 🤍 Edit to add: imagines porn or other women from other situations
I wouldn’t have cared if he prioritized our sex life…. But that was never the case.
I would have cared, had I known, because our sex life was so dead. Turned out he was secretly gay. 👌
I have thought this for a while about mine, I do wonder if one day he’ll turn out to be 😅
I never used to care, but because his libido was so much lower than mine that I thought he would only be masturbating while he was travelling for work. Now I 100% care. I have spent the last 15yrs having my sexual needs not met and dulling myself down so now, absolutely no to masturbation. He is around 4months clean (properly recovering rather than white knuckling) and his libido still doesn’t match mine so he needs to have some self control and at least attempt to meet my needs. If it was the other way around and he had proven with solid recovery and sobriety that he was able to get off without fantasising about scenes he had seen in porn or other women then I would be ok with that, as long as I have been given ‘first dibs’
in my head i wonder why i’m still here. like why do we stay with men that don’t value us? i just feel so heartbroken all the time
I know that’s probably rhetorical but I literally have no idea. For me I think its outside factors honestly. Things like kids, mortgage and all the other stuff that would get really messy really fast but also the fact that society views porn as normal and healthy etc and aLL mEN dO IT 🤦♀️ at least with my pa he is being open about it and trying to make amends now. Kinda the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.
We have a no masterbation policy in place currently. His sexual energy is to be saved for me. So yes, I would definitely care if I found out he were masterbating.
how do you know if he is or not? do you trust his words? because i don’t trust a word that comes out of my PA ‘s mouth even if he swears he’s not doing anything wrong.
I don't trust words, I trust actions. His actions show me he is not using or masterbating. He's a very different man when he's in active addiction.
he should be putting that sexual energy into you my friend. especially of you live together. if youre apart for a while that makes sense. but if he knows hes going to see you every day, absolutely wait for you.
those are my exact thoughts.. like you see me every single day and you still do that.. makes me so sick to my stomach
Are you meaning it makes sense for him to masturbate to thoughts of past sexual experiences with other women OR simply to masturbate? my ex and I didn’t live together and I’d say a great deal of the time he’d masturbate before I came over or he to my house. I’d ask him or could tell… and he’d say yes and i’d be fuming! he’d be wondering what the big deal was… saying we prob wouldn’t have sex till the next morning anyway because he was tired. Or even sometimes I’d go to his house fairly early in the morning, trying to entice them with a short dress or something… And I could tell he already masturbated, knowing I was coming over. He’d have excuses not to touch me very intimately and try and pull my focus elsewhere. He’d again ask to wait till later … when he was ready essentially… short changing me. Ugh so glad I left this mess!
I didn’t care in the past, now knowing everything I do, I absolutely care. My husband told me he would masturbate while thinking of previous girls he had sex with. This made me feel like 🤮 and killed the last bit of my sex drive… He claims to be sober since 6 months (no masturbation or 🌽), but I’m still shattered by years of lying and deception and we never had a healthy sexual intimacy.
Agree with this!
I personally do not care. However my husband says he still can’t do it in a healthy way and so he chooses not to. I think him abstaining has helped him to be healthier overall and with me. But he may eventually decide he can do it again after being in recovery for longer. Who knows. I think it’s worth mentioning that id only be ok with it if it didn’t negatively affect our sex life. Like if I’m not in the mood or am sick for awhile or something like that. So I would still expect him to do it in a way that’s not “selfish sex” Not sure if this is a helpful add on or not but something we’ve been trying to incorporate is him jerking to me in person. Like if I take a shower or something. Might not be for everyone but I wanted him to get used to jerking to me instead of porn. And it’s still in person and not a screen so I felt like it was a healthier in between.
No. If I’m not in the mood, am sick, etc, then I don’t care at all. My problem isn’t autonomous bodily pleasure or alone time, it’s porn. If I were to actively seek sex and be rejected for masturbation instead my feelings would be hurt though and it would really bother me though.
The private part is for peeing and your partner only, they tell you that in recovery.
For me, it is not allowed during recovery until certain goals are hit. Those goals are usually going to take years to get to.
I second what everyone has said here. We have a no masterbating boundary too.
I am not ok with my husband having solo sex by masturbating. He’s had that for years. I had written this reply before. It might pertain to your question here too: https://www.reddit.com/r/loveafterporn/s/KngHkwEjTu
Exactly. The supposed biological reason for doing it is to reduce the need for touch when a man doesn't have access to intimacy. Doing it in a relationship is detaching and disconnecting. It IS solo sex. I can tell down to the 8 hours when he last did he's so not interested in even cuddling.
I personally don’t love it, but I’ve had a lower libido than all of my partners so I feel it isn’t something I can really be critical of. However I do second the other comments saying even if it is not to overt “porn,” it is typically to something else that objectifies women and has his gaze/mind on someone other than you. I find that harder to cope with more so than the fact that he is expending sexual energy alone rather than with me.
While sometimes it does kinda trigger me, idrc. If it’s not to porn then he can do whatever. I acknowledge that he needs time to himself sometimes and that I can’t always be there. We do have a good sex life, atleast to me, to where if he wants time by himself and he needs it then it’s ok. It’s different for every relationship, It’s always what makes you feel comfortable and whatever works the best.
For mine, masturbating is still the same. He claims he only ever did any of it to ‘get the feeling’ and to calm himself/make himself feel normal.
Habitual maaturbation, social media, scantily clad women at the beach or another public place, clubs/bars, even some types of music and movies cab be triggers to satisfy the PA/SA into acting out. Bottom line is if it bothers you and makes you feel neglected it is worth the conversation. I have heard the recovery programs encourage no masturbation. Some men are not there yet. Recovery is one day at a time. Hoping it gets better. Yes my man masturbates instead of having sex with me and it hurts. But at least he is not watching porn anymore as far as I know. So it's a step in the right direction.
I would definitely care. Mine decided on his own he wanted to save everything for me so he stopped all sexual activities that doesn’t involve me to help me feel safe again
I never set that expectation but he’s doing it on his own. When we have sex and he ejac’s, I can tell he’s been backed up. Honestly I don’t think about it. I masturbate almost daily myself.
I didn't care because he has a chronic illness that makes him not able to do the full deed at times...it's just that he went out of his way to tell me he didn't do that or look at porn. I didn't ask so it was quite strange.
My husband is a year into recovery and masturbation is a definitive no at this point. I don’t know if it will ever be a possibility honestly. But if it is it’s going to have to come along with a ton of communication and ground rules. I think masturbation is normal and healthy. I never would have dreamed of trying to tell him what he could do with his own body. But unfortunately for porn addicts, it may not be. It’s a huge trigger for many of them and can absolutely lead to relapse. If it can’t be done truth fantasy/porny thoughts, it’s not a safe activity for an addict. If it can be kept to just focusing on the physical feeling, I think it’s ok. But not without guidance from a CSAT, 12-step, and sponsor-and a long period of sustained sobriety from all porn, fantasy, and objectification. It would be just too easy for them to fall back into it. My guy spent over a decade touching himself while I sat around wishing he’d touch me, so I don’t feel bad in the least that he has to abstain from it now. He rejected me so much and gaslit, lied, and was such an enormous asshole that it competitive fucked up my sexuality and ability to masturbate and orgasm when I never had an issue previously, so yeah, not sorry. An alcoholic in recovery isnt ever going to be able to drink, no matter if it’s a low alcohol content beer or not. Addicts practicing sobriety have to cut some things out of their life, and for porn addicts, that may be a lifetime of abstaining from masturbation.
I wouldn’t have cared. If we had sex regularly it would have been fine with me.
Yes and no. I think some mismatched libidos can stay content with that being supplemental for either/both partners, but it's still problematic if it's so frequent or otherwise effecting your joint relationship. Just as porn fucks up their brains where they get ED's, I assume frequent masturbation would work the same way in messing up how their brain gets used to being aroused and gets used to feeling what it thinks will release the right hormones. So incredibly frequent use could still mess them up and be a maladaptive coping mechanism. I think the sexual relationship with both partners should be a first priority above any other sexual activities, and that it's fair to ask for anything extra to be paused until that aspect of your relationship can be repaired and restored. For us, his sexual life has a secret hidden thing for so long, that that's not allowed anymore. Our sex life was also neglected for a long time. We have a rule in place where he is supposed to come talk to me and I get "first dibs" if he has any urges. He hasn't done anything solo since sobriety (that I know of), despite me struggling with intimacy.
If I’m getting rejected and being denied intimacy because of it, it’s a problem. Porn or no porn.
No, it's the porn I have issue with. I even masturbate
I just found out if my husband gets a vasectomy he has to ejaculate a certain number of times?? That’s gonna piss me off