Clearing up common bits of bad advice

A subscriber asked an astute question that I'd like to share, because I know many others can relate.

I'm enjoying your emails! Thank you for all the hard work.

Reaching out with a question:

I struggle with porn/masturbation just occasionally, and because of this I have not been willing to invest in working with you in a more committed way.

I am 90 percent of the time feeling aligned with a greater purpose and working on projects that keep me fulfilled, and using porn or masturbating seems far away and unappealing. During these times, I don't feel like I'm actively abstaining or struggling.

However, my partner travels for work on short trips a couple of times a month, and occasionally when he is on these trips, after some time alone I use porn or masturbate again several times over a ~2 day period.

I regret these times because I feel I lose motivation to keep up with other better habits, and also feel more disconnected from my partner for a few days right after this happens. They interrupt my general rhythm of life.

What advice on quitting would you give to someone in this situation? Someone who uses porn roughly once every 2 months and wants to stop, but for who this is not a struggle the majority of the time.

Thanks in advance!

👫 Beyond the Partner Solution
Learn why relationships after porn require deeper work than simply having a partner present to prevent use.

I have a few thoughts, dear reader.

Firstly, I want to point out that this is a good example of the flawed "find a partner" piece of advice that is oh-so-common online, as though that's a full solution. Obviously, as you're experiencing, it helps. But it can also be a trap of sorts if we aren't doing the other work because we're fairly complacent with our partners around, and then once they aren't around for some reason... something in us snaps, pushes us back into the trap of making some regrettable choices, and the cycle continues.

Sometimes this might just be an infrequent thing that happens a few quick, successive times every month or two while a partner is away for travel.

Or if it's a longer period of absence, such as being newly single again, or even just encountering a particular rough patch in work, love, or otherwise... Sometimes it could even become kind of out of control.

But that's a hypothetical point in the future we'd like to prevent.

So let's bring it back to the present.

From what I've pulled from your message, you're aware of the way it undercuts your goals and momentum still, even if it's infrequent. And it doesn't feel in alignment with who you are, your authentic best self.

Which is a good time to clear up this common misconception that porn or secks addiction means someone is going crazy with it regularly. It's not. What it actually means is that you're dealing with a behavior that is disruptive to your better self-interest, and that it's a struggle to stop that behavior. And it sounds like that's pretty much what you're dealing with. It's less about the frequency, more about the disruption and difficulty controlling it.

Many of my best clients have been guys who were using very infrequently, but they could still see how it was still messing with their relationships, consistency, confidence, and how they show up with others and weren't willing to let it stand anymore.

They're the kind of guys you probably know and respect in your day-to-day.

Fit. Successful. Happy. Normal. There's just this thing inside undercutting them… despite many other things going well.

I am not just here for those wild, knock-down-drag-out cases.

Anyways, you're doing a LOT right already if you're generally living in a purpose-driven, connected way.

But a gap I see is that there's some inner work that needs to be done, too.

These infrequent but disruptive usage patterns are probably stemming from your own Rationalizing thoughts, and also your feelings. I know, how masculine. Emotions. But every one of us has them - and when we haven't learned how to cope with certain feelings in healthier ways yet... they can keep pushing us back into self-destructive patterns against our will time and time again. Of course, without a proper conversation, I can't quite be sure... But that's my hunch.

So I'd recommend that you, at minimum:

Sit with the thoughts your brain uses to justify those behaviors, and analyze them. See if you can identify the beliefs you have around this stuff. Things like it being no biggie because it's infrequent, it being normal or good, or just something you deserve or need when your partner isn't around.

Then, even more importantly, sit with what you're feeling during those times they aren't around and see if you can figure out a healthier way to soothe whatever is going on inside you.

And if you'd like, I can help you shorten that learning curve by potentially years, by guiding you through the full frameworks I've developed to retrain those deep patterns. So you can finally sort this out for good and move on from this chapter as a healthier, more integrated man who's no longer falling into the same old cycles anymore - without being quite so reliant on someone else's presence to do it.

Download the BeFree App today and start addressing the emotional patterns beneath infrequent use.