90 days of celibacy

So his therapist has suggested 90 days of celibacy in order to help reset his mind so he can start feeling emotions and start dealing with them without the use of sex in any form.
I have mixed feelings about this as I am one who values sex as a part of him showing his love though I also know that when we were having sex he rarely thought of me while we were doing it.

Has anyone done this before? I would love to hear about your success and struggles to see what we are in for.

Hi, vtjeweler981! It sounds like a good idea, his therapist must be good. Maybe it will help you reevaluate your relationship too, see what it is beyond sex. Hopefully people who've been through this will reply so please stick around.

I think celibacy only excludes actual intercourse. While it may be kind of difficult at first, you could still physically touch and kiss without having intercourse. That would actually be good for a sex addict. For most woman the physical touch is the most important part of sex anyway, not the actual intercourse. I am not an actual sex addict although at one time I was addicted to pornography. The only way to kill a porn addiction is to starve it to death, in other words don't look at porn. Your counselor is doing the same thing for your husband. I think it's a great idea. My wife and I were seperated several times last year for about 10 or 12 weeks, and the sex we had after getting back together made it worth while.

I just returned from rehab last week, I was treated for sex addiction. I too was told to abstain for 90 days. I am doing this as I believe in what my therapists have taught me. My wife and I talk about my sex addiction, even after I had to disclose to her.....wasn't fun or pretty! I engaged in extra marital encounters (with men), masturbated to porn and fantasized all the time. This is a rough time for both of us but will pay off in the long run, we are with it!

I know I'm late to this thread, but I just joined the forum. My sobriety date is August 13, 2011. I also did a 90-day celibacy period. At the beginning I was very anxious about it and wasn't even sure I could do it. But like most of recovery I took a leap of faith and trusted others who had been there before me, and it worked.

I think there are a couple of reasons this celibacy period is a good idea. First, there are physical/chemical changes in the brain of an active addict. The celibacy period gives a chance for your brain to reset to baseline levels of dopamine, oxytocin, and all those other things that can get out of balance. Second, it showed me that I didn't really "need" orgasms after all. They're pleasant, but they're a decision, not a biological necessity like food, water, and air. Sure, some days were rougher than others, especially around days 45-60. But I came up with some healthy coping strategies that helped me get through.

In the end I went 115 days. I didn't want my wife to feel pressured to have sex just because my 90-day date rolled around, and so we waited until she felt ready. Honestly, this was one of my best experiences early in recovery. I finished the celibacy period feeling like "I actually did this", and it was a confidence boost. Anyway, I hope this helps someone else in a similar situation.

vtjeweler981 wrote:So his therapist has suggested 90 days of celibacy in order to help reset his mind so he can start feeling emotions and start dealing with them without the use of sex in any form.
I have mixed feelings about this as I am one who values sex as a part of him showing his love though I also know that when we were having sex he rarely thought of me while we were doing it.

Has anyone done this before? I would love to hear about your success and struggles to see what we are in for.

Celibacy is important for recovery. I've been abstinent from sex for 1 year and 5 months so far and it does get easier, celibacy helps in many ways. An important thing to know however, is that depriving oneself of sexual release in all forms can be detrimental and lead to relapse. In the beginning of my recovery I abstained from all sexual release, my sex addiction was with people, but I also abstained from masturbation. This sent me into a worse relapse than before. So I learned that I still needed sexual release in the form of masturbation. At first I became addicted to MB, excessively, and I had to learn how to have healthy boundaries and cut it back. That was a beautiful part of my recovery - learning how to enjoy it and use it in healthy ways. Now when I masturbate it is no longer a problem, and I feel truly satisfied afterwards, and there is no guilt or shame about it.
In my recovery I also worked on my relationships with loved ones. That I was distanced from lust, I was able to slowly learn how to open up and feel again. It has been quite the journey. It has taken awhile, as I still notice I am distanced and afraid of commitment, but I am getting there.
I do not have a partner, and as my sex addiction was abusive towards people, I was not allowed to in my abstinence rules. But I am now in a state of mind where I am looking for my soul mate, and I know I would be able to have a decent relationship.
Back in the day I had an unhealthy imaginary sexual friend habit. Now, I have learned to use this in healthy ways - my "imaginary friend" is more situated in romantic fantasies, and I use this coping skill to help me to learn how to have a normal loving relationship.
Anyways, from my imaginary experiences and roleplaying fantasies, I know how hard it is to be involved in romantic cuddling, kissing without that insane drive to just have sex.
But frequently imagining my imaginary partner putting limits and boundaries on me, I have gotten used to it. I know this sounds weird, but in all, if I were to be in a relationship with someone i cared for right now, I know I would still be trying to have my way with them sexually, and ultimately I would justify that in my mind as "but to feel your love I need to have sex with you"
and the more turned on I get, the more I will act out, the more it becomes harder to deal with. But, I have noticed progress, because now I can actually fantasize about just talking with the opposite sex for hours, getting to know them, caring about their well being, and miraculously, I can feel things now. Strangely enough, in my fantasies I am usually cock blocked my mind reenacts how I would be, and in the fantasy I end up regaining control of myself and do not have to masturbate to feel a connection.

So I guess my advice is that right away, trying to have intimate bondings with him, like making romantic moves, and kissing might trigger him, it might be really hard, but after awhile given time, it can be very helpful. It can be a very beautiful process! That of a sex addict learning to love and feel properly and use intimacy in the way it is supposed to be, is truly exhilarating and amazing. The first times I felt emotions, were amazing to me. I would have loved to have a partner with me during my recovery! Just how amazing that process can be... I mean there are obviously going to be hard times, and you are going to have to be very strong too, it would probably be a good thing if you had a counsellor to talk to during it. Because I can only imagine how it must be for a person dealing with a recovering sex addict.
If he's anything like me, he might try to push you away at first, but that's a good sign in all, because it means he loves you he just doesn't want to admit it to himself. When i care for someone, i become afraid of letting them in, afraid of opening up to them, so i try to distance myself from them, in the past I even did things to hurt them just to keep them at arms length, but in all, it's just a sign i truly love them. It's not right, and I wish i could take back the things I did. But it sure is one hell of a journey learning how to express yourself and open up and get rid of that fear and resistance. It's so beautiful when you can learn how to have an open honest relationship.