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Get insight, advice, and encouragement from our community of writers on the topics of porn addiction and sexual integrity.
Frequently Asked Questions.
I am a young man almost two years into my second marriage. I was molested at a young age and introduced to pornography at the same time, and struggled with addiction to pornography, masturbation and homosexual thoughts from that time forward. I served in the Army and married my first wife when I came home from Iraq. I was a virgin on my wedding night, and supposedly so was my ex-wife. My first marriage devolved quickly, with my wife being verbally abusive, constantly making me have sex with her almost daily, and ended when she attempted to murder me in my sleep. My walk with Christ had struggled already, dealing with issues coming from my deployment, and this pushed me over the edge. I fell into alcoholism, promiscuity and nicotine addiction. I was suicidal and ended up getting a medical discharge from the Army. When I came home, bitter and angry at God, I found myself in my parents’ church. Through the loving grace of Christ, and the help of a great group of guys, I rededicated my life to Christ and was baptized about a year after I got out of the Army. I met my current wife and we were married. God gave me victory over my pornography addiction and homosexual thoughts not long afterwards. That was nearly two years ago. Now my wife’s sexual drive has diminished greatly due to some medical issues she is having. Mine however hasn’t diminished at all, and I’ve found myself struggling with masturbation and reading erotic stories. I don’t watch videos or look at images, though I know the stories are just as bad. The group of accountability partners have all moved on to plant another church and other small groups, and my work schedule doesn’t leave me with a lot time to participate in a small group. My wife knows my sex drive is high, and she tries her hardest to keep up, but sometimes we go months without having sex. She either isn’t feeling well, or is too tired, or doesn’t want to. I have even come to the point of thinking she was having an affair, but there’s no evidence or even rational reason to believe that. I’m struggling because I know masturbating is cheating on my wife, and the stories are porn. I don’t make friends easily because I don’t trust easily. I’ve been betrayed, abused, and hurt by so many people in the past, and I keep waiting for my wife to do so as well. I love my wife with all of my heart, she is the greatest thing to happen to me second only to Christ. I don’t know where to go from here. I use your software, and have my father and another friend as accountability partners, but I also have a hard time discussing things with them and keeping in touch on matters of this nature. Please give me some advice? I’m paranoid, I already struggle with PTSD, and now I work in law enforcement. I want to trust my wife again, and I want my sex drive to go down. But I don’t know what’s healthy anymore, and I don’t know how to trust.
Cameron,
Man, my heart breaks reading what you have been through. To be honest the first thing that comes to my mind is that you need to seek out professional counseling for both you and your wife.
You need to talk to someone who can give you good solid advice and direction for your marriage and to figure out a way that you can both meet in the middle with your sexual relations.
Also you alone need to seek out someone who can provide help in the other areas that still affect you. It is obvious that these are still slowly killing you and you need to find this help soon.
What do I do when I know in my head the truth about pornography and the redeeming power of Jesus Christ but have forgotten it in my heart?
I fully understand your struggles and your situation right now. I use to be in the exact same spot at one time in my life. Over the last five years of my sobriety I have found so many new things out in regards to my recovery and honestly others as well.
You have already figured out the first couple of steps in your recovery with admitting your struggle, confessing it, and getting accountability. But, the one thing and I find to be the biggest thing for people is there seems to be a lack of what we call “Real Change”. You seem to exhibit the signs of what we call “White Knuckle Change”.
White Knuckle Change: Is the most common types of change that we see and the least successful type of change. This type of change happens when we have to make a change in our habits based on either getting caught or just a realization that we have to stop this and we say “I have to stop this” or “I will quite right now”. Typically this is followed by us removing adult content we have and maybe telling someone about it and the placing accountability software on our computers. These are all good things but, this is where most people stop and bring on the White Knuckle affect. Things go good for a while; maybe a month, two months, or even weeks. Temptation creeps in and we fight it for a while all the while clinching our fists say “no I will not give in I will not look at it”. (Hence the white knuckles) But, after time we give in to the temptation and look only to start the cycle once more.
strong>Real Change: This type of change is the most successful and solid type of change in recovery. Real Change cover more steps and takes you further into what this struggle is and why you do it. The first step is understanding why we look at this stuff and understanding the physiology of how our brains work in regards to addiction.
Once you have figured this the next thing is abstinence and removing this sin from your life. Being able to recognize and avoid sexual sin. What are your triggers, what type of environments set your trigger off, and what are your emotional triggers. This is a big key to figuring out a game plan to avoid your weak points and moving away from them or at least recognizing them and being prepared to move away from the temptation.
The third step and sometime hardest thing to do is acceptance of unconditional love. Not allowing your guilt and shame to dictate who you are or how you allow Christ and others to love you. Starting to recognize your lack of truth, self trust and boundaries. After accepting this you have to then put this to work.
Building this plan and sticking with it works and will work as long as you dedicate yourself to it. With real change you go back to the last step you where at and restart because you now understand why and how. With the white knuckle change you always fall back into the sin you where trying to get away from.
Do not think for one second that you are alone in this, because you are not. And remember there is nothing you can do that will take away the love of Christ for you. We are praying for you and your next step in recovery.
span style=”border-collapse: separate; color: #000000; font-family: Tahoma; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium;”>Another way to get good accountability and a safe place to do it is with an X3 Groups Online group. You can find out more about it at www.X3groups.com It is a great program.
First just let me say that I am sucker for horror movies. Nowadays most horror movies made have at least one sex scene. Whenever a new horror movie comes out on DVD I usually buy it within two months of the release. Is it considered a sin when I watch all these horror movies with sex scenes in them? Kind regards, David
David,
Are these sex scenes causing you to fail? Are you acting out from these scenes? I would suggest fast forwarding through these scenes myself and avoid them. The sin comes into play when you knowingly watch them so I would avoid all together.
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