Emotional Intimacy Back After Recovery From Porn

Question

How long to get intimacy back after porn addiction? What do you do when your addiction caused your wife to change just to keep the relationship going and now that your in recovery she is having a hard time changing back? I am a porn addict. I have been married for lucky 13 years. We had a good marriage for the first 3 years but then I started with shift work and so that affected our sex life and how much we got to see each other and then I got into watching porn and this led to a severe porn addiction and a total collapse of intimacy in the marriage. My wife dealt with this and kept the marriage going so we could stay together as strong parents for our 3 children. Now I want things to change and I am really trying but she likes things the way they are now. She doesn’t want to change back or try to reestablish an intimate relationship (I don’t mean sex, I mean emotional intimacy). I want to prove my intentions with actions, not words. How long should I prove myself to her before I start pushing for things to change?

Jennifer Martin · Accepted Answer

Hi there,

Thanks for writing in and sharing your concerns. This is not uncommon but can be helped. Your wife and you need couple counseling from a psychotherapist specializing in sex addiction treatment. It is a process of slowly rebuilding emotional intimacy and weekly sessions will help strengthen and support that process. Your 3 children will benefit from having more emotional closeness in the home. If your wife is not willing to begin couple's work, you can get started and increase your emotional intimacy skills, and that will help her understand how much this will benefit her too. As a choose help expert, I offer a reduced fee to clients who write in for help (jennifer@relate2.net)

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