I have a great marriage but I struggle with myself sometimes.

I recently married my absolute favourite human in the whole world - and we have a great life together, I’ve been open and honest about my past struggles with smoking (thankfully this is mostly minor now, and I feel I have control of) and with porn addiction (something I feel affects a lot of us).

The trouble is on occasion I have relapsed (in both camps) and felt that shame weighing heavily on me, especially because we are looking at housing and struggling with trying to conceive.. my wife has PCOS and it’s something we have a conversation about nearly every day. I just feel like these larger things should inspire me to be better and instead I go to these past addictions as a form of escapism. (I also work from home which can be difficult to mange urges).

The worst part is I know it’s a stress response and a broken pathway in my brain chemistry, but I haven’t shaken the habit in over 10 years now, and nothing I do aside from talking with my wife and going to church has much of an effect.

I have faith (Christian) and want to be better. But I know too part of me just needs to accept myself also.

Does anyone have any advice on how to start making smaller improvements? I adore my wife and how far we’ve come. I just don’t want to be working on this again in another 10 years time..