What to do if you have a porn addiction: Reclaim control, heal relationships, and build a healthier connection beyond pornography.
A recent study found that daily porn use decreased relationship stability by 45% and commitment by 30%.
Yet porn usage is on the increase. As society’s acceptance and technology have changed, porn is now a part of our culture.
So let’s put any judgment aside. The distinction between right and wrong relies mainly on personal opinion. What is more important is what works for you and the life you want.
Ask yourself, “Is porn helping or harming my relationships?”
One of the major effects of porn that gets less focus, is that it harms relationships. It creates distance and dissatisfaction. Resulting in feelings of loneliness and low mood.
Could this be you?
Here are five steps to resolve emotional distance, rekindle intimacy, and reduce your desire for porn.
Step 1. What to do if you have a porn addiction: Understanding why.
There are many reasons why people turn to porn in unhealthy ways. It’s essential that you start by reflecting on what your reasons might be.
Gabor Maté, a famous psychiatrist and addiction expert, says that addiction stems from deeper emotional issues. These include stress, loneliness, and unmet needs. Porn might soothe uncomfortable feelings, distract from life’s stresses, or fill an emptiness.
“It is impossible to understand addiction without asking what relief the person finds, or hopes to find, in the drug or the addictive behavior.” Gabor Maté
It’s crucial to understand that it’s not your fault. It is a result of your life experiences and how you’ve found ways to cope with them.
We all sometimes use quick-fix strategies to get us away from uncomfortable feelings. It’s a completely normal human instinct.
Step 2. How to know when your porn addiction has become a problem.
Addictive behaviors are problematic because they are a short-term fix. In the long term, they make things worse.
In the case of porn addiction, there is one major aspect that creates more issues over time. It creates disconnection from those closest to you.
Author and speaker on addiction Johann Hari said, “The opposite of addiction is not sobriety; it’s connection.” This points to what makes porn addiction so challenging. A major reason for using porn is the lack of connection. Then, porn use creates even more disconnection.
Check in with yourself now. Do you notice that you feel more connected or less connected in general since you’ve been using more porn?
Another issue is that addictions can create a sense of shame, which can get you stuck in a loop. You feel bad, and you go to the thing that soothes you, making you feel better for a short time. Then it makes you feel worse as you experience the added pain of shame.
Step 3. Uncover how your porn addiction is affecting your relationship.
Excessive use of porn in a relationship often causes emotional distance. Is this the case for you?
There are several reasons this could be happening:
- Your attention moves away from your partner. This creates fewer opportunities for connection. You engage in fewer meaningful conversations. You might avoid resolving conflicts, creating even more distance.
- When you use porn, you begin to look for specific experiences that give you the best feeling. You end up chasing that feeling by looking for that exact same experience. This is not realistic in a relationship, creating sexual dissatisfaction.
- Unrealistic images of sexual experiences create doubt about your feelings for your partner. Overthinking the relationship could create stress and distance.
- Your partner may feel rejected and upset, even if you don’t mean to do this. This can cause arguments and more emotional distance.
“The hyperbolic portrayal of sex in pornography can lead to unrealistic expectations about body image, performance, or frequency of sexual encounters. These distorted standards can cause dissatisfaction with a partner or the relationship, creating tension or frustration during intimacy.” Psychology Today
Step 4. How to build a stronger connection with your partner
So if you’ve decided that you want to try to reduce your porn use and experience more connection, where do you start?
This is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. It’s become clear that reducing or even cutting out porn for a while would be beneficial. But when you try, all the uncomfortable feelings come up and you go right back there.
It’s important to find other ways to cope with stress and discomfort in relationships. One of the best ways to do this is to work on your connection with your partner.
- Use open communication. As scary as it can feel, sharing how you feel about your porn use can be a great way to get closer again.
- Try to rekindle activities that you used to like to do together. Or find new ones that might be stimulating or fun for you both.
- Focus on physical closeness without pressure for performance. This can include non-sexual touch, like massages or holding hands. It aims to rebuild comfort and trust.
Don’t place too many expectations on feeling good straight away. If there’s been distance for a while, it might take some time. But taking those first steps will make you feel like you’re going in the right direction.
Step 5. Rewire your brain for better long-term satisfaction.
To be clear, I’m not talking about surgery here! A key principle of neuroscience is, “What fires together, wires together.” If you repeatedly have a particular feeling during an experience, you are more likely to experience that feeling again.
When you have a porn addiction, you use porn repeatedly, and the experience brings pleasure. Your brain creates the same good feelings for you every time you use it. It becomes used to needing porn for those feelings. It then struggles to feel them in other experiences.
The good news is, the less you use porn and the more you engage in other activities, the more those activities will feel pleasurable again. You will find pleasure with your partner once again. And you’ll not only get the fleeting joy of porn, but also the lasting joy of a true connection.
If you want to experience more connection and less stress in your relationship, we should talk.
No need for therapy or endless coaching sessions. I combine psychology and neuroscience to help rewire your brain.
Get the relationship you want. Book your free call here.
I am a psychotherapist and men’s relationship coach. I have a Bachelor degree in Psychology and a Masters degree in Psychotherapy. In recent years I have focused my work on developing tools that combine neuroscience and psychology to provide an alternative to therapy. I’ve found this work particularly helpful to men experiencing relationship issues. Through these tools, I have been able to empower them to get the relationship that they want without the need for endless coaching or therapy sessions.
´Having worked with thirteen therapists, using the Rewire Tool with Jess is the only thing that has worked.´ Rob 50, happily married with two children.
If you want to be in a relationship that makes you happy, we should talk.
