Going to be making my own post on this, but figured I'd share some thoughts I had after doing some searching through the forum. It seems to me that a major part of each of our issues is inability/struggling to communicate our needs and having that acknowledged, much less addressed. Please correct me if you disagree, but that's just what I'm seeing.

We all have fairly high libidos. We each have a partner who's libido does not meet the same level as ours. And we all feel we can't discuss this with our respective partners, for one reason or another. Again, forgive me if this doesn't match your situation, it's just what I'm picking up. I'll re-focus on my own situation now, but I just wanted to point out the similarities. I, too, have at times taken to hiding my masturbation from my partner, lately by using my time in the shower. My situation is a bit more specific, in that I've already abused the trust of my partner and that has made it more difficult to discuss my needs. I've a thread in sexual addictions detailing my porn addiction, so I'll leave it at that. Anyway, I feel like I can't try to communicate my needs for a variety of reasons. I'll go silent mode because I either feel unworthy of having my needs acknowledged or that they'll be ignored anyway. I feel like they'll be ignored or misconstrued because of prior experience in this relationship. When K (my partner) and I got together, I was polyamorous at the time. It was not a good situation, but I didn't recognize it as such. However, I quickly became exclusive with K and removed myself from that situation for a variety of reasons. When we got together, I tried to communicate clearly that I was polyamorous, that I am a very sexual being with sexual needs that need to be met either by her or by me or by someone else, and that she needed to accept that to be in a relationship with me. I no longer believe myself to be poly (for reasons that I won't get into here) but the rest still stands. At the time she said that she understood and accepted this, but that soon changed. Some of the change was my fault, but some of the blame lies with her as well. I quickly found I couldn't even discuss my needs with her without it having great potential for starting a fight. So I stopped. I stayed silent when she derided my needs and desires. And in recent fights, I've had to endure her saying my sexuality disgusts her, had her spit those words at me like they were venom. Now, when I try to think of a way to communicate about this with her, those words resonate in my mind and I shut down again. I feel like she'll never tolerate the full reality of my needs, much less accept.

However, I could be wrong about this, and by not trying to find a way to communicate, I'm already forgoing any opportunity we have to reconcile and overcome this issue. So I'm trying to find a way to communicate again. It's just very difficult getting over that.