Hello, AdultHistories friends. I would like your advice, admonition, correction, insights.
We’re both in our 50’s, married 22 years. And both from a very strict, conservative Christian church, never had sex before marriage. Always believed masturbation is sin, using sex toys is out of the question. Sex itself is a taboo subject almost. The only reference is relating to sinful sex outside marriage etc. Seldom any positive things.
So the reality for probably most normal men, I started masturbating at 15. I always felt or believed it to be a sin, trying to refrain/abstain for 40 years. Now I am 56 and sort of realized how much unnecessary shame and guilt I piled on top of myself. I felt despair and like a loser resisting for a week or two but then succumbing to the urge.
I confess I used porn for a while before we married. And also after we married when the 3 kids came 2 years apart. Sex was scarce in those years when my wife had to nurse and had them all by caesarean.
Not to excuse myself but the porn was not daily or compulsive like what some people struggle with today. It was occasional, every month or so, and then a binge of a day or 2. And then the cycle of guilt and shame. And all that while I was in a church which expects complete confession of all know sin. So I went to a counselor to confess my masturbation, and the porn use, every time it happened.
Since around 2011 up to now I seriously tried to recover from the porn use. I do feel that I have overcome it. Confessing every time to my counselor and having accountability helps. I use accountability software, and have learned about addiction, porn addiction and how it affects the brain.
My counselor told me never to tell my wife, I just needed to confess to him. I felt I needed to come clean with her. When I mentioned it, she did not want to hear it. She feels I should sort it out myself with my counselor.
It all makes our sex life complicated, for me. She is happy to have sex once a week and sometimes another day in the week when she is eager. Over the years, I’ve been very oversensitive for rejection. I have become resentful and bitter in a way that she is not as interested in sex as I am. But she does not like me to masturbate when she is not wanting sex at that moment.
So I tried over the years to resist masturbation. I sought to wait until the weekend or when she is willing to have sex. In the last few years I stopped trying to initiate in the week when I am horny. And I was tired of the rejection. I try to make her cum first, but she says its not that important to her.
Duty sex is NOT something I want her to have anymore. It felt like for years she complied with my wishes during the sessions in the week. I want her to enjoy it and be in the moment with me. And she is, but that only once a week. She is not much up to anything else but the missionary position. Pleasuring herself, the use of toys, and other positions, etc. seem out.
And she is happy with that. But I am not happy and I am not good at not showing it. So I get grumpy or whiny, and then she feels bad.
And we’re both so shy and uptight about sexual stuff that we cannot really have a great open relaxed conversation.
So, now I am one of those people who actually should not be here on this site. The About-section explains because my wife does not know I am here. And the stories probably make me feel resentful about my reality.
But here is a forum where I assume I can ask these things without judgment. I have bodily needs. I sometimes feel the need to masturbate if we have not had sex for a few days or so. But what should I do, if I changed my view on masturbation? For years I believed it to be always a sin. I do believe it can be a sin when done with porn and compulsively as an escape from reality. Also escape from difficult situations that should be dealt with in better, other ways. I do believe it is not a sin when addressing a physical urge and to release pent up sexual tension/frustration. Or as part of lovemaking with my wife.
I am supposed to confess my sins to my counselor. But I don’t want to believe that masturbation is always a sin. If done without porn and while thinking of my wife or focussing on the sensations? Why not OK. My wife might believe it is a sin, too. And she might not want me to do it. So what now? And I find it just realistically, practically impossible not to do it sometimes.
Should I continue trying to abstain forever until I die? Should I try to talk to my wife again? It would be to explain or try convince her that I believe it to be OK.
At some stage she made me touch myself as part of our lovemaking. It kind of turned her on, but not recently.
I am wracked with confusion and cognitive dissonance on this topic. Sometimes I am obsessed with reading the different views on masturbation in marriage and as a Christian. Most are negative and condemning and judgmental. How do I continue to live? I love my wife, I want to be with her. And I want her to enjoy the richness of a full sexual experience as God meant it to be. But this masturbation thing is like a nagging monster.
Thanks for listening and sorry for the rambling. How do I know if I am not maybe addicted to masturbation? I am not even doing it daily. Frankly, at 56, I just physically cannot do it daily. I am scared it may prevent me from being ready for sex with my wife. When the time comes on a Saturday or Sunday evening or morning, I want to be ready.
My best streak of abstaining was about 7 to 9 months. I could never yet make it a year without masturbation. I always wished I could get to 365 days. It was kind of a challenge, a dream, a goal, but alas, only failure so far.