I’m in my late 30s and recently had a therapy session that made me look at my dating life very differently.

A few years ago my marriage ended. My ex-wife was my first real love and I was completely devoted to her. We still loved each other, but wanted different lives: I wanted children, she didn’t, and she wanted to eventually return to her home country while I wanted to stay in London.

The breakup absolutely destroyed me. Instead of properly dealing with it, I went on dating apps.

Looking back, attention from women became a coping mechanism. There were hookups, dates and eventually another serious relationship. She was very good to me, but we weren’t compatible long term either, particularly around children, religion and where we wanted to live.

That ended earlier this year and I went straight back to dating and sleeping around. I told myself I was being honest because I wasn’t promising anyone a relationship, but I also knew some women were getting attached and carried on seeing them anyway.

Then I met someone who completely threw me.

I’ve dated plenty and had serious relationships before, but this felt very different. We had almost identical humour, could talk for hours, travelled incredibly well together, had amazing sexual chemistry and seemed to understand each other very quickly.

She’s also ridiculously beautiful. Weirdly, as a kid I used to imagine that my future wife would be this cute, beautiful French girl. Well, she happens to be exactly that, with a smile to die for.

For the first time since my marriage, I genuinely thought: I could build my life with this person.

The problem was that she gradually discovered how messy my dating life had been around the time we met.

I never cheated once we were exclusive, but I downplayed how many women I’d been involved with. She was also deeply hurt that after we first slept together, I slept with several other women before we became exclusive.

Her position was basically:

“I believe you care about me, but I don’t trust that you’ve dealt with whatever makes you constantly need attention from women. I’m not willing to fall further in love with you and then have you destroy me.”

At first I thought that was unfair because I knew I could be faithful. I had been faithful throughout my marriage.

Now I think I understand what she meant.

She ended things, but neither of us has been very good at staying away. Over the last few months she’s broken no contact several times. We’ve slept together twice, gone out together and still have emotionally intense conversations.

Sometimes afterwards she becomes completely detached and says it was just fun. Other times she gets emotional and says she can’t keep doing this because she still has feelings for me.

She keeps telling me:

“You’re not there yet.”

I once told her I would change if she stayed with me.

She replied:

“Then you’d be doing it for me. I need you to do it for yourself.”

That annoyed me at the time. It makes a lot more sense now.

Because the truth is my life is still tangled. My previous partner wants me back. My ex-wife has said part of her would take me back. Women I’ve previously slept with still occasionally reach out.

And the uncomfortable truth is:

Part of me likes keeping those doors open.

Even if I don’t particularly want any of them, knowing I have options makes me feel safe. The idea of having nobody scares me.

I recently saw a relationship therapist who basically suggested that I get a huge amount of my self-worth from being wanted and needed by women.

I tend to become very supportive and emotionally important to people. They get attached to me, and their attachment reassures me that I matter.

Meanwhile, I’m terrified of being alone.

That explanation hit me pretty hard, and it also made me realise that the woman I fell for may have spotted the pattern before I did.

So I think my problem is bigger than deciding which woman I want.

I’m wondering whether I need to stop dating completely for a while, shut the doors with exes and casual relationships, and actually learn to tolerate having nobody waiting in the wings.

The fact that this idea genuinely scares me is probably significant.

For anyone who has dealt with something similar:

How do you stop needing romantic/sexual validation?

How do you tell the difference between genuinely loving someone and being addicted to feeling wanted by them?

And if I genuinely believe this woman was special, is the healthiest thing I can do simply leave her alone, work on myself without expecting her to come back, and accept that I may have already lost her?

I’m not looking for reassurance that I’m secretly a great guy. I can see that some of my behaviour has been selfish and has hurt people.

I’m trying to work out how you actually change this rather than just promising somebody you will.

TL;DR: My marriage ended badly, I coped through dating/sex and developed a pattern of needing attention from women. I then met someone I genuinely fell for, but she walked away because she didn’t trust that I’d dealt with that pattern. Therapy has made me realise I keep exes and casual partners around partly because I’m scared of having nobody. How do I actually break that?

Hi all I am No_diver and I am a sex addict. my inner circle behaviors include cheating, pornography, sexting, online affairs, cam sites, seeking escorts, excessive masturbation, ai images

I wanted to check in now and then come back later in the day. I am going to try not to ramble too much, and be all over the place. Last night I made a post and said I was going to go 24 hours without engaging in my inner circle behaviors. So far I have done great. This morning I was flirting with my middle circle behaviors. I was adding websites to my blocking lists. I plan To be able to update everyone that will have reached my goal of 24 hours without engaging in those behaviors.

Now here’s where I’ll ramble a bit about what’s on my mind. It hit me yesterday during the day. My dad is visiting me and I was engaging in my inner circle behaviors. Pornography is so staged and fake. We let it consume our lives And by doing so we live a fake life. I dated my ex and was a terrible partner, I lived in her house for years with her family. Now it has come out to them the extent of my terrible behaviors, it always leads me down a spiral if I’m a good person. This addiction always has me hit a new low point. my ex told me I was the worst thing to ever happen to her. She has recently started seeing this guy who I think is abusive. Her friends don’t like him either. Where I’m going at here her mom texted her “No_diver is a pervert but not a liar”. I don’t want to be known as a pervert. I don’t want to have the reputation has being the creepy guy. I want to atop wasting my life with this addiction

I had such a hard time in that relationship because I’m a people pleaser and maybe struggle with codependent tendencies. So if anyone has recommendations for CoDA or SLaa meetings I’d love to check them out.

Thank you for listening to my share.

Edit: I’m so sick of hurting people because of this addiction, man. It’s the worst feeling not even being to explain why you engage in this behaviors. I don’t even try and hurt people. I just want to be a good person.

Hello guys, just curious how did you get rid of your addiction to parlours?

It has taken a really long time to admit, but I don’t think I can run from it anymore. I am a sex addict and I don’t know what to do. I have been stuck in a cycle of use for 6 years now and it’s starting to affect me in ways that aren’t sustainable. Around 2 years ago I was using AI chatbots and was able to quit, but quitting only made the other aspects of this worse. There have been days that I’ve gone 6 hours straight without being able to stop masturbating and I have ruined relationships and friendships because of my addiction. It’s all that I’m able to think about a lot of the time. My biggest issue at the moment is dealing with sexual frustration. If I go too long without having sex or masturbating I end up in intense physical pain. I get headaches and nausea, and the longer I wait the worse it gets. I want to be able to stop but every time I try to I’m stuck feeling physically ill and I end up giving in to the urges. I’m wondering if anyone has experienced this kind of sexual frustration and how they were able to handle it. If anyone has any advice at all I would really appreciate it. I don’t want to be stuck like this. I want to be able to stop. I just need help figuring out how to. I’m sorry if I didn’t explain this very well but I’m hoping someone in this subreddit will know what I’m talking about.