An anonymous woman left the comment below on this blog. I started to delete it because the comment was completely unrelated to the post on which it was left. But it’s a good question; I thought I take a stab at a response.
I don’t get it. How can a woman be mad at a Christian man who’s trying to fight a porn addiction and is honest when he messes up?
My husband hasn’t been looking at porn since January, from what he’s told me. Today he messed up. The one thing he asks of me is that we have more sex. That puts a big burden on me but it seems to help him. Also, I have to be someone I’m not in bed. Is that what a Christian woman is supposed to do in order to help her husband not fall into temptation?
Porn is a multi-billion dollar industry today. It’s on the internet, cable tv, and video stores – and that’s just the digital versions. And it’s a huge business because, let’s face it, men are hard wired to be visually aroused. Men are designed to gain pleasure from looking at naked women. In healthy marriages (and among Christian men seeking to live a sanctified life) we males are supposed to get that visual stimulation from our spouses. I’m not trying to excuse your husband, just aiming for some understanding of the problem.
Having said that, sex is not the problem. Porn is always about fantasy. Fantasies are always better than reality: there are no kids to raise, bills to pay, bosses to appease, or lawns to be maintained in one’s fantasy world. Life is always perfect, women are always attractive, and men are always suave, debonair, and desirable.
So men who find themselves unable to stop looking at porn really need to stop thinking they simply need more sex and start thinking about how they manage the day-to-day stressors in their life.
If I asked 100 men why they first looked at porn I would probably get 100 different answers; maybe variations on a handful of themes, but different answers. But ask 100 men who find themselves returning to porn after promising themselves they wouldn’t and I get essentially the same answer: mismanagement of thoughts and emotions.
Becoming someone you’re not in the bedroom (violating your own sense of right and wrong) won’t help him “take every thought captive” or learn to identify and express his emotions in a healthy way.
What’s a Christian wife to do? Stop enabling him to think viewing porn is all about sex. Insist he address the underlying problems in his thought life.
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
Thank you for taking a stab at this question.
That’s an excellent stab…
I agree that pornography is not really about sex… it is more of the idealized life. My inability to manage personal relationships, work commitments, study workload, and other stressors tend to lead me to not being able to ‘take every thought captive’ and thus mismanagement of emotions and thoughts… leading to the idea of mischief being relief, like a drug. Thus, indulgence into pornography.
Hope this helps.
My husband is very interested in us becoming swingers. I do not feel comfortable with this, as i take my weding vows very seriously. I thought he did too. We are a young couple, and are married only 4 years. We have kids, too. I feel that i should be enough for him, i always thought i was enough,obviously not. He says he loves me 100%, but feels the need to live out this fantasy, make it a reality. Im deeply hurt, heart broken, and lost. I dont know how to deal with this. I feel that if i dont do it then i am holding him back, and as i love him, i dont want to hold him back. He says he would be ok, with other man sleeping with me, this is absolutely heart breaking for me, as the thought of other women being with him, just kills me. He is totaly natural and confident when he is talking about it, like second nature. I thought i knew him, can you help?
P.s. To make it even worse, i forgot to mention, he sprung this on me the day before our wedding anniversary!