Do not get married if you're addicted to porn

Please explain what you mean by that. I don't agree with this statement at all.

Everything else you said is right on point!

 

Lol-because HE thinks it’s not technically cheating, then it isn’t. He states it as fact, with the caveat but thats how they “ feel”.

 

There is a verse from Proverbs 4:23 that states: "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."

Another is from Christ, who says in Matthew 5:28: "But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Regardless of your beliefs, you should be able to appreciate the wisdom of these verses. Your wife is experiencing the truth behind them when she believes you betrayed her with your porn use, because you have. The same would be true of her is she lusted after other men.

This is because lusting after another person is a betrayal of the love you have for each other. The love between spouses is an all or nothing love, hence the vows, and no self-respecting spouse would allow their partner to say "Honey, I love you 90% and I love them only 10%", but this is what we do when we view porn within a marriage. This is what we tell our spouse every time we use.

Addiction thrives off of selfishness, so I think a lot of good can come from taking time to pause and put yourself in your wife's position. Empathize with her, and by that I mean take your knowledge of addiction and leave it at the door and imagine being her in her position.

 

This is basically what our pre-marriage counsellors advised during the awful session when I confessed about my porn use, leading to my fiance in floods of tears with "do you want to marry me?"

10 years later and we are still happily married, but porn has been the poison you speak of. I am not in full blown addiction as i was back then, and I likely will be in recovery for life. But it has left its mark.

I think however that marriage will always be between two fallen beings, and to suggest you should rid yourself of addiction first dishonours that simple fact.

I am glad though that i started work on the porn before we got married.

 

I don't suppose that would be because regardless of marriage we're all fallen beings? Ya think? However, speaking of "dishonor", just exactly how honorable was it to hold on to, to hold out, and not disclose the sex addiction prior to getting married? Your confession during counseling was the exception. Not the rule. This robs us of our ability to make educated choices and decisions about our relationships. It is the ultimate act of betrayal.

So let's play a game. Let's play Family Feud for a moment. One hundred people surveyed. Top 5 answers on the board. "Name something you would do if you had known about your partner's porn use prior to getting married."

1. Postpone the marriage indefinitely.
2. Sever the relationship.
3. Establish boundaries
4. Set everything on fire.
5. Kill him.

Please spare us the discussion on dishonor. It's not very honorable or dignified.

 

He said he confessed in his pre-marital counseling. So he was honorable in letting her make the choice to marry him. I applaud him for this.

 

I did say...

...in case you missed it. I felt like I gave him credit for that. Me too. I applaud him for that.

 

Lol I did miss that!

 

I love family feud ! #2 if disclosed before , after marriage ? Smart thing would be #5 then #4

 

I disagree with this. All of us are sinners who have things to work on. If you wait until you are perfectly free of sin to get married, then nobody would ever be married.

But I absolutely do believe you should tell your partner about your addiction before marrying them, so they can make an informed decision about whether or not they can handle that. And when I said tell them before, I mean longgg before. My husband told me before we were even technically dating, I think.

 

To be clear, I don't think any of us are declaring one needs to be free of sin to get married. There is a huge difference between sinning and sinning against your partner that has a profound impact on them where they don't have all the information to make an educated choice. Sin all you want to. You can take that up with God if you believe in that sort of thing. Don't subject your partner to it and expect them to be OK with it though.

Question...if your partner hadn't told you and you learned it after the fact, how would you have responded? Go up and play the Family Feud exercise and tell me what you would have done. I'm just curious.

 

I specifically said I think you should give your partner all the information so they can make an educated choice

Nobody is expecting anyone to be okay with the consequences of sin. It's not okay. But your partner is subjected to the consequences of pretty much any sin you commit, not just porn. So if you want to be with someone who will never subject you to the pain or consequences of their sins, you're going to be alone forever. But as I said, obviously you should give someone all of the information if you have some kind of addiction problem, so they can decide if they want to deal with that particular issue, because it's a very difficult one and they deserve to know everything first.

I'm confused about the family feud thing, because the question is what would you do if you DID know beforehand. Which was my situation already. And I did number 3. But my answer to that is dependent on a number of factors. I mean, one very important factor, for example, is how the person feels about their addiction... are they sorry for it? Are they trying to change? Or do they think it's no big deal and they don't care? Those are entirely different scenarios. There are definitely some cases in which I could imagine either postponing things or breaking up completely.

I'm not sure what I would have done if he hadn't told me and I had found out later. I can't really answer that because it depends a lot on his reaction and, like, a million other factors. It's possible it would have changed nothing, or it's possible it would have changed everything. Or anywhere in between. It certainly would have felt like a betrayal to me, but we had lots of moments of betrayal throughout our engagement, related to his addiction, and I still married him, and I'm beyond joyful that I did. But there was a time in which I felt unsure about whether I should marry him.

Regardless, this is not exactly related to my comment, because I certainly never said that porn addiction can never be a valid reason to not marry someone. Of course it can. I'm simply saying that I disagree with giving all men who have a porn addiction a blanket statement that they shouldn't get married, period, just because they have an addiction. I think it's much more nuanced than that, and I think this is unfair advice that can hurt people. That's just my opinion.

 

Well, you're right it is an opinion. I've just been witness to too many of them that become a complete disaster. It's not 100%, but it certainly is up there close to it.

 

Yep, I never claimed it was anything more. It's my opinion, just as you have yours.

 

Thank you for this, it's an eye-opening perspective.

 

My unsolicited (and unpopular) opinion is that being marriage can inspire or exacerbate a propensity for porn. I know a few married guys - and men in relationships - who turn to porn since their sexual urges aren't met by their wife, and, most importantly, they never beat the addiction in the first place, or did a long-lasting, effective measure of SR. Marriage comes with a TON of stress, responsibility, tedium and compromise (I'm not married myself), and it's no surprise that guys seek out porn in low moments. Even if they never used before....there can be times where a man is desperate enough, denied enough, neglected enough to seek out visual stimulation. One really has to master Oneself - and not just merely a porn addiction - before getting married. But if he does master himself, perhaps he won't even get married....

 

I want to get married, but I think if I wait until I "beat" the addiction then I will never end up going through with proposal and marriage because I'm in a perpetual clean-relapse-clean cycle.

 

I think this is a bit of a generalisation. We were talking about porn in a Facebook group I'm in and a woman said she had no problem with her ex (when they were in a relationship) looking at it because as a woman with a disability she knew she couldn't completely satisfy him sexually. We are all different and some people view porn differently than others.

Anyway, I can't imagine a situation where I'll ever ask a woman to marry me. If she wants to get married she'll have to ask me herself. If I was in a relationship I expect I wouldn't have time for porn because even as a single person I hardly have time for it.

 

I am married, and you have a point here that one’s partner can’t meet all of their sexual needs at all times. To be honest it is a lot to ask of someone to meet all of your needs at all moments of time right when you need it/ask for it. Marriage requires a lot of patience. I’m starting nofap again after being married almost 1 year. When I met my wife I was doing PMO maybe once a month or less. Now recently I’ve been watching porn sometimes 5 times per week. Here’s what’s important though: I need to be careful that my sexual desires/needs aren’t being altered and influence only by PMO. I need to ensure that I’m tuned into my own actual desires and can respond to those of my partner.

In a marriage it is definitely possible to be sexually satisfied, but you have to be honest. Honest with yourself, honest with your partner, be open to having conversations around what you need sexually. It isn’t that marriage kills a sex life, people often think that though. The truth is it just requires patience and communication. PMO can definitely get in the way and make it difficult/embarrassing to get what you need.