Hi Nate thanks for your clarity. After graduating to new ways of acting out my fantasies, I, like you, found no serious satisfaction with masturbation. I'm just suggesting to you that it's not likely any sign of yiras Shomayim but rather there's probably just a lack of deep motivation to do it because you have graduated to something more exciting, a new ritual. 

In a very similar way, this is why getting married actually makes things worse for many of us, especially if we are sex/lust addicts. Once a guy who's full of pornography and desire actually breaks through the barrier of having real sex with a real woman - in this case, his wife - new vistas open up for him, unfortunately. I have seen this happen over and over again.

I also relate very much to your experience here, having masturbated for years and losing the compulsion for it after graduating to more extreme behaviors...finding new rituals. But, b'H, I've been clean for years so far because of working real recovery with real people... unfortunately, a forum isn't 'real relationships'. I was on the phone earlier this week with two guys in a very similar boat as yours...there's help. Over the past 7-8 years, I have met hundreds of guys with your story... There's help, I promise. And there's even more than just one kind. but I haven't found anyone get any kind of real help until they went about it in a real way.

I'm not suggesting to you that what works for me and others will work for you. But I'd be happy to share with you what has been working for me if you want to talk. Posting on GYE is a nice start and see how understanding everyone here is! But I want to suggest to you that the reason your wife isn't as understanding, isn't because she's not as nice, nor is it just because she is hurt. It's mostly because she is reality. Your real relationships - especially your marriage - have a pesky problem: they are real. There are real consequences to our choices. And to any real spouse the most real demonstration that's a marriage is a farce, is that their partner has sex with someone else.

That's going to have to be dealt with in a very real way, because as your wife reminds you, this is very real.

And I think it's pretty obvious that such a thing requires some real changes and some real honesty, which is only real when it's part of a real relationship...not just a forum-post or email to a person using a fake name and who is mostly nice, supportive, and understanding - because what you are doing doesn't affect them at all (which thank G-d, it doesn't). Rather, I suggest that you find people who have been through this themselves and are clean for some time, now.

If you haven't spoken face-to-face with a therapist about this matter yet, would you be willing to? Especially since this is now a family matter, I have discovered that a good therapist is a tremendous help in saving a marriage and helping it thrive after this kind of mess.

​If you haven't yet spoken to anyone who isn't hiding their identity from you (and is sober/clean), would you be willing to? I and some others here have been doing this for years and have met hundreds of people and helped share what we have with them - or at least helped them find real help somewhere else. 

I'm just suggesting to you that doing real things will probably be helpful to you, in contrast with just posting here, no matter how honest the posting and no matter how beautiful the responses.

If you have already done these things then I'm so happy for you! And I trust that things will start to improve in a real way once you stay on that path. But if you haven't yet, then it's probably going to take a bunch of Bravery. And I think that your marriage is worth it.