How to deal with boyfriend's porn addiction

[EasterJoy]

I’m actually surprised at the lack of charity in this thread. Yes it’s preferable not to marry someone with that kind of baggage but that doesn’t mean should does not have to help him.

Are we not our brother’s keeper? A fellow member of the body of Christ had been bound in chains of pornography and the advice is to just ‘dump him’? How about help him? He has made it obvious he wants to stop. She has the opportunity to save his soul and gain merit for her own soul.

I will keep you and your boyfriend in my prayers.

I said, “I’d strongly urge you to break things off entirely until he gets clean, and then start from scratch later, if you decide to do that later.” This is not about shunning him as a Christian or as a fellow human being. This is about whether or not to *continue on the road to marriage *or to draw back from that until this gravely serious obstacle to a solid marriage is dealt with.

She is not going to “save his soul.” That is not how addiction or recovery works. That is how a codependent relationship gets started. He didn’t get started because he didn’t have a girl friend or because wasn’t getting enough support from his girl friend. He isn’t going to stop because she gets him onto her program or because she reaches in and pulls him out. That is not how this works.

 

[EasterJoy]

Everybody is addicted to something. For some its an addiction to their ego. If we all held out for the perfect one we would all die alone and empty. This guy may not be her husband, but to write off a fellow Christian who IS making an effort to turn away from sin sounds very UN-Christ-like to me. Jesus didn’t walk away from those looking to escape sin. He did the exact opposite.

No. Not everyone who has ever abused their freedom as a son or daughter of God can be called an addict. Not everyone who has ever abused alcohol is an alcoholic. An addiction is a more serious kind of issue.

It is one thing to say that you are never going to find a ready-made saint to marry you and another to say that Christian charity requires you to ignore that a marriage prospect has a known addiction that makes you sick to the stomach when you think about it.

No, when you read marriage advice in the Bible, it says things like “do not be unequally yoked.” The Bible and the early Church Fathers were very serious about the selection of a spouse, and never counselled Christians to ignore character issues in a prospective spouse as a necessary exercise in the practice of Christian charity!

If this is a recurring problem, what is that going to do to the stability of their home? Honestly, if this were physical infidelity, alcohol use, or drug use, would we even be having this discussion about whether it is “un-Christian” to find those things obstacles to a stable marital union? Why would an inability to stop seeking out objectifying sexual media for “binge watching” be something different, something that should be overlooked as a venial problem similar to what any prospective husband will struggle with?

 

[EasterJoy]

Saying “he will never change” leaves no room for God’s grace. People can and do change and can be free from sexual addiction.

The man needs a good counselor and needs to get into a 12 step program like Sexaholics Anonymous. sa.org/index.php

As for marriage, it’s not about whether the woman should or shouldn’t marry the man. It’s about the addicted man himself. One can’t get married by making a vow that one is incapable of fulfilling. A man addicted to porn is incapable of living his vow to forsake all others. A woman can love the addicted man with all her heart but a man addicted to porn has no business getting married.

-Tim-

Yes. He needs to find some outside help, help that has some experience, to help him defeat this. When this serious issue is dealt with, the problem won’t be gone, but it won’t be the “Stop. Do Not Pass Go.” that it is at present. To break off the courtship will take marriage off the table and put him on the road to concentrate on this first, for as long as that takes.

 

[EasterJoy]

Amen, and amen!

Coming from the poster who best knows whereof she speaks, this speaks volumes. I do not doubt that your love for your addicted husband was and is true. It is just that true love does not solve everything. That is the truth that underlies many tragic stories in this area.

 

[EasterJoy]

Thank you all for your thoughts and advice.

I believe my boyfriend is committed to ending this addiction. He recognizes the severity of the sin and I honestly think he wants to stop for the right reasons (not just for me, but for Christ). Before we started dating, he did not regularly receive the sacraments, but over the last year we have consistently gone to Mass together every week and he has started joining me for Confession. It was just before going to Confession that he revealed how heavily his sin had been weighing on him and how much he knew it was hurting our relationship without me even knowing it.

He has fallen once since then. I know that this addiction is difficult and I realize that it will not go away overnight. I love him very much and we have talked seriously of marriage over the last few months. Before I had the chance to insist that under no circumstances would I marry a man with this addiction, he assured me that marriage would be off the table until he is sure that he has conquered this.

I have taken all of your words to heart and am gravely considering assuming the role of his friend only while he battles this giant. It is something that I would appreciate your prayers with.

You have a situation where staying with the idea that engagement is off the table until he is more stable in his “sobriety” is reasonable, because he is not defensive about how serious this is and recognizes that it cannot be minimized if he intends to defeat the problem. He is not saying, “if you leave, I’ll fall again, I have to have you here or I’m doomed” or laying anything on you. He needs his “higher power,” as they put it in AA, and that isn’t you. That is good. Actually, it is essential.

I think if I were in your shoes and I elected to stay, I’d find someone absolutely discrete that I could confide on about this on an ongoing basis. Your pastor might well be willing to be that person for you. It will be important that you and your boyfriend have others outside your relationship to talk to. That will help you stay honest about how things are going and whether or not returning to a consideration of marriage is something you can reasonably consider doing. Just don’t try to go this alone, OK?

You have to go in knowing that this could be a recurring problem in some degree, as the years go by. That’s a lot to ask of you, but if you have concurring counsel from someone with pastoral experience who knows him well, and not just your own desire to see the best of things, that could work. Just be very careful, and make your decisions with your eyes wide open.

 

[PolarGuy]

I did not read every post laboriously, so forgive me, but I respectfully think 1cor1313 and some others are missing something, namely, this: an alcoholic can go 10 years without a drink - but they’re still an alcoholic. A porn addiction is no different, with maybe something even worse: Porn is EVERYWHERE (or at least everywhere there is web access), and instantly accessible, 24 hours a day.

We are our brother’s keeper - but it’s really* way* too much to ask a dating partner to serve as a sort of pseudo-counselor for a porn addict, any more than a BF/GF can be expected to “be a keeper” for an alcoholic who wants a drink. Saying “we’re our brothers’ keepers” does not mean “I have an obligation to give my life/time/emotional well-being to a BF who can’t stop looking at porn.”

Me? I can’t for the life of me figure out why a self-respecting woman would readily continue down some “discernment” path with a guy with a porn addiction, unless maybe, maybe it’s “call me exactly one year after you’ve viewed porn, and until then, bye.”

Seriously, 1cor1313, you really have only 2 choices as I see it:

1. Break up; or
2. Look forward to a lifetime of porn blockers on the family computer; constantly worry about what your husband is doing at work; worry about what he’s looking at on his Iphone; worry about the “adult entertainment” store he passes while driving; worry about what his friends show him; worry about the newsstand he passes on the way to work; worry about what’s going on in his head when a pretty girl walks by at the beach; worry about what will happen when you for whatever reason go 2 weeks without sex and you wonder what’s going on in his mind; worry about the same thing when you gain 10 lbs. for whatever reason; and – I saved the worst for last – worry about what will happen when you are a SAHM with 2 kids age 2 & 4 – and he falls off the wagon and you find a trove of hard core porn on the computer.…

All of this ignores the terrible other costs of marrying any addict, whether to gambling, porn, or whatever. The same way that a leak in your roof can cause rot you never see, immorality changes who you are in ways we never see, and that too has cost which never can be repaid, because the images we see change us; changes how we think, and who we are, and we can never “un-see” what we look at.

Consider also that porn is a gateway. I’m no expert but I reckon many affairs have their roots in porn, because both present a seductive, “forbidden fruit” view of sexuality. Are you OK with your husband going away for 3 days on his company retreat? What if his pretty secretary will be there?

Sad to say, addictions are just that because they are powerful and because people fall off the wagon. Must it happen? No. But the worrying probably never does.

Just my $0.02.

 

[Hans_W]

I did not read every post laboriously, so forgive me, but I respectfully think 1cor1313 and some others are missing something, namely, this: an alcoholic can go 10 years without a drink - but they’re still an alcoholic. A porn addiction is no different, with maybe something even worse: Porn is EVERYWHERE (or at least everywhere there is web access), and instantly accessible, 24 hours a day.

We are our brother’s keeper - but it’s really* way* too much to ask a dating partner to serve as a sort of pseudo-counselor for a porn addict, any more than a BF/GF can be expected to “be a keeper” for an alcoholic who wants a drink. Saying “we’re our brothers’ keepers” does not mean “I have an obligation to give my life/time/emotional well-being to a BF who can’t stop looking at porn.”

Me? I can’t for the life of me figure out why a self-respecting woman would readily continue down some “discernment” path with a guy with a porn addiction, unless maybe, maybe it’s “call me exactly one year after you’ve viewed porn, and until then, bye.”

Seriously, 1cor1313, you really have only 2 choices as I see it:

1. Break up; or
2. Look forward to a lifetime of porn blockers on the family computer; constantly worry about what your husband is doing at work; worry about what he’s looking at on his Iphone; worry about the “adult entertainment” store he passes while driving; worry about what his friends show him; worry about the newsstand he passes on the way to work; worry about what’s going on in his head when a pretty girl walks by at the beach; worry about what will happen when you for whatever reason go 2 weeks without sex and you wonder what’s going on in his mind; worry about the same thing when you gain 10 lbs. for whatever reason; and – I saved the worst for last – worry about what will happen when you are a SAHM with 2 kids age 2 & 4 – and he falls off the wagon and you find a trove of hard core porn on the computer.…

All of this ignores the terrible other costs of marrying any addict, whether to gambling, porn, or whatever. The same way that a leak in your roof can cause rot you never see, immorality changes who you are in ways we never see, and that too has cost which never can be repaid, because the images we see change us; changes how we think, and who we are, and we can never “un-see” what we look at.

Consider also that porn is a gateway. I’m no expert but I reckon many affairs have their roots in porn, because both present a seductive, “forbidden fruit” view of sexuality. Are you OK with your husband going away for 3 days on his company retreat? What if his pretty secretary will be there?

Sad to say, addictions are just that because they are powerful and because people fall off the wagon. Must it happen? No. But the worrying probably never does.

Just my $0.02.

I can’t believe that reason just gets drowned out with this kind of radicalism. Once an addict always an addict. Never heard of somebody who got out of drug addiction? I’ve seen at least a dozen stories on Marcus Grodi’s Journey Home who handled their porn addiction. Matt Fradd is a just one example:

catholicherald.co.uk/features/2011/03/04/%E2%80%98satan-should-hold-a-party-when-we-die%E2%80%99/

How dare you telling the OP that she has only got two choices: ditch him or accept a life with a porn addict.

 

[PolarGuy]

How dare I? [snort] How dare you!

As I said, OP’s BF can kick a habit the same way an alcoholic can kick drinking – but he can’t undo what he did, and he’ll always be a guy who used porn, so much so that his GF came to an anonymous forum looking for help.

So I double down on what I wrote. Are you suggesting that OP can expect to never, ever worry about any of what I said she can look forward to?

I didn’t think so.

 

[PolarGuy]

Some further thoughts, Hans W:

1. What if OP was your daughter? Would you be so willing to assume OP’s BF would just suddenly turn off porn, forever…
2. …Particularly when Mr. Fradd himself, according to your link, will not say that his addiction is kicked, nor will he say it can’t or won’t happen again - which is entirely my point. I will assume Mr. Fradd’s likelihood of a relapse is lower than others (like OP’s BF, for whom we really have no proof it’s licked at all?) but, even in Mr. Fradd’s case, would you want your daughter dating a man who became addicted to porn at age 8?
3. For that matter, I didn’t actually see you post that OP would not have any of the (very real) fears/worries I articulated in the future. So I’ll stand behind what I wrote before.

 

[Hans_W]

How dare I? [snort] How dare you!

As I said, OP’s BF can kick a habit the same way an alcoholic can kick drinking – but he can’t undo what he did, and he’ll always be a guy who used porn, so much so that his GF came to an anonymous forum looking for help.

So I double down on what I wrote. Are you suggesting that OP can expect to never, ever worry about any of what I said she can look forward to?

I didn’t think so.

He can’t undo what he did. Of course. That’s why we can repent, go to confession and start again. There is a possibility that he remains addicted, but from what the OP tells us, there is a good chance that he’ll kick his habit, especially if he is sincere, willing, seeking outside help, etc. I can’t see it as a black/white situation where the OP has to ditch her BF.

We can try to help her, come up with recommendations, but we can’t tell her that she only has those two options you gave her.

 

[PolarGuy]

I’m sorry, Hans W, we will have to agree to disagree.

If there’s a third option, I don’t see it - because even his 100% kicking the addiction cold will not cause an end to all the worries I posited. Heck, I think it’s legitimate for spouses to worry about temptations to their non-porn addicted spouses, given porn’s availability. The problem is that there is a huge difference between one who’s never been addicted and one who was - the existence of the addiction, once, is sufficient to cause heightened fears, just as there’s an enormous difference between, say, “having cancer once and being cancer-free now,” and “never having had cancer.” The former patient always has a greater likelihood of recurrence (and so it is with a porn addiction).

BTW: I take back my snort. I apologize.

 

[EasterJoy]

How dare I? [snort] How dare you!

As I said, OP’s BF can kick a habit the same way an alcoholic can kick drinking – but he can’t undo what he did, and he’ll always be a guy who used porn, so much so that his GF came to an anonymous forum looking for help.

So I double down on what I wrote. Are you suggesting that OP can expect to never, ever worry about any of what I said she can look forward to?

I didn’t think so.

Sexual compulsivity having to do with pornography is not understood as well as alcohol addiction. Some addictions, while they do of course affect the brain, are not physical addictions in the same sense that alcoholism is.

One of the more concerning results of relatively recent studies is that regular viewers of pornography are at a much higher risk for depression. It is not a harmless thing to do on a regular basis.

The OP does not think that this is going to be the sort of thing that can be considered to have been cured after some particular length of remission. She would do well to learn more about this problem and her friend’s prognosis, the prognosis for a possible marriage, and so on. Still, she seems determined to proceed with her eyes wide open.

 

[Hans_W]

I’m sorry, Hans W, we will have to agree to disagree.

If there’s a third option, I don’t see it - because even his 100% kicking the addiction cold will not cause an end to all the worries I posited. Heck, I think it’s legitimate for spouses to worry about temptations to their non-porn addicted spouses, given porn’s availability. The problem is that there is a huge difference between one who’s never been addicted and one who was - the existence of the addiction, once, is sufficient to cause heightened fears, just as there’s an enormous difference between, say, “having cancer once and being cancer-free now,” and “never having had cancer.” The former patient always has a greater likelihood of recurrence (and so it is with a porn addiction).

BTW: I take back my snort. I apologize.

A poster in #23 stated that “at least 50% of men watch porn at least once a week”. Even if exaggerated, it can’t mean that half of our sex is rotten and unfit for marriage. In no way do I condone the practice, but we are all sinners and confession allows us to start afresh again, at any time.

From what the OP tells us we can assume that her BF is a sincere Christian who really repents and wants to get rid of his past habit. The third option I can see - and which you exclude outright - is that they help and encourage one another and that they will always be honest to each other.

Concerning Matt Fradd, he has been happily married for eight years and we can be fairly certain that he has enough willpower to resist any temptation, if he has any desire to go back into that habit again (which I doubt). And he is certainly not the only one who has overcome this habit. I would go further and say that he has a much lesser chance of getting back to watching porn than an ordinary married man who has never done that before, but got tired of his sex life.

 

[NormanWithers]

Oh man. Perhaps this is about different cultural background I come from but I find many statements in this thread ridiculous and bizarre.

First of all, watching porn is not the same thing as cheating! It is a serious sin but a distinct one from adultery. Lets don’t put everything into one basket. I had a porn problem bordering an addiction for many years and it never crossed my mind to physically cheat on my wife/girlfriend. To be frank, I had almost no temptation for actual adultery, as I could easily sate my sexual desires with porn. On the other hand, after I stopped looking at it, I begun to feel temptation for real woman.

I also urge you not to be ignorant regarding porn addiction. Do you have any proof of “once addict, always addict” hypothesis? I find it rather unlikely, as porn is so widespread that we can safely assume almost everyone experienced it and probably most for extended amount of time. Should we consider them addicts for life? I don’t think you can really be casual porn user, it is all or nothing.

Regarding OPs question. Porn addiction is spiritually dangerous for sure. However, it does not cause as severe problems as gambling, drugs or alcohol. It will most likely not destroy your family, unless you make a big deal of it by equating it with adultery. In many secular marriages porn is tolerated if not encouraged and they survive for extended amount of time. You need carefully consider your boyfriends merits and compare it to the harm done by porn. If he is otherwise virtuous person you shouldn’t exclude the possibility of marriage, however I strongly encourage you to wait until he fights off the addiction.

As of what you can expected while being in relationship with porn user. Speaking from experience, I can see two most important negative consequences of porn. First of all it sets very high sexual expectations for spouse and you will probably never live up to them. Second is that it causes depression and depressed person is hard to live with.

 

[benotagoat]

You actually make me feel quite nauseous ,as you are a complete and utter disgrace
to any Church which calls itself Christian as does the the RCC .
Alcoholism ,taking drugs , being glutenous for food ,being briefly adulterous in certain situations are nothing compared with making ,selling and buying pornography .

And the fianl sin which is mortal ,is to deny it .

Alcohol , food ,drugs are all only material things taken to excess . Pornography, is buying and selling of the bodies (the temple of the Holy Spirit ) of human beings which are already degraded by the pornography and then doubly so by people like you who think you have a right to it and deny that it is Always of the Devil .

The RCC is going to have to face up her culpability in this disgraceful situation.

WHO do you think JESUS would condemn ,
The person who in a poor marriage genuinely who
cares about a REAL person and falls briefly,
,a person who has been so depressed that he takes drink to drown his sorrows ,
or someone who goes out of their way to trap young women using drugs etc to sell their ‘souls’ for You to Buy .

Only carnally minded people can justify pornography, which is a Business which is Planned and Calculated and destroys the WHOLE of SOCIETY and put it as less importance in evil than the personal problems
which beset most people at one time or other in a lifetime .

CATHOLIC CHURCH OWNS BILLION DOLLAR GERMAN FIRM SELLING PORN
(International times)

 

[robwar]

I’m actually surprised at the lack of charity in this thread. Yes it’s preferable not to marry someone with that kind of baggage but that doesn’t mean should does not have to help him.

Are we not our brother’s keeper? A fellow member of the body of Christ had been bound in chains of pornography and the advice is to just ‘dump him’? How about help him? He has made it obvious he wants to stop. She has the opportunity to save his soul and gain merit for her own soul.

I will keep you and your boyfriend in my prayers.

No one suggested that she couldn’t pray for him and be a friend but that is a far cry from being engaged and getting married to someone with a big problem and porn is a big problem and there are a couple a women that have commented on this thread married to men with this problem. She isn’t obligated to “help” him by being “engaged” to him. Charity doesn’t mean patting someone on the back and saying “it’s ok”. Sometimes the most charitable thing to tell someone is the truth and the consequences of marriage to someone with a porn addiction. This guy in order to keep her can be feeding her the line, “I’m stopping, I want to etc etc etc” She wanting to believe him goes along believing this line. He isn’t the one asking CAF for help, she is and the best and honest and charitable advice is to consider moving on from this guy.

 

[robwar]

Everybody is addicted to something. For some its an addiction to their ego. If we all held out for the perfect one we would all die alone and empty. This guy may not be her husband, but to write off a fellow Christian who IS making an effort to turn away from sin sounds very UN-Christ-like to me. Jesus didn’t walk away from those looking to escape sin. He did the exact opposite.

Where is the world did you get that nonsense from?

 

[EasterJoy]

…First of all, watching porn is not the same thing as cheating! It is a serious sin but a distinct one from adultery. Lets don’t put everything into one basket. I had a porn problem bordering an addiction for many years and it never crossed my mind to physically cheat on my wife/girlfriend. To be frank, I had almost no temptation for actual adultery, as I could easily sate my sexual desires with porn. On the other hand, after I stopped looking at it, I begun to feel temptation for real woman…it sets very high sexual expectations for spouse and you will probably never live up to them. Second is that it causes depression and depressed person is hard to live with.

Don’t sugarcoat this. The rotten eggs may range from small to jumbo to ostrich eggs, but they are nestled in the same basket.

Although it is not physical adultery, it really is cheating, and a serious violation against chastity and against the trust of one’s spouse. Do you think a wife would be relieved to find that her husband was “only” having phone sex with some other woman, or finding some other way to “easily sate” his sexual desires by making use of some other woman, and not “really” committing adultery?

Plus…a “depressed person is hard to live with.” That’s* it? *Depression makes a person hard to live with?

 

[EasterJoy]

Where is the world did you get that nonsense from?

If you take the 12 Steps and put “sin” in for “alcohol,” it does sound very familiar. I think that is the idea. But you are right, that does not justify the leap from “everyone sins” to “it is uncharitable to consider the nature and degree of someone’s faults as possibly disqualifying them as a prospective spouse.” That part of this whole conversation is hogwash.

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

Porn addiction can rival some drug and nicotine addictions for the hold on the user. I can recommend the site Your Brain On Porn. I won’t link it here but you can search Google for it. Warning it is not a Catholic or Christian approved site; for instance, it is not against premarital sexual relations. But it does have a lot of excellent reading material on secular reasons why internet porn is so bad. It also has some resources for those wanting to kick the habit. There’s an ebook being flogged on the front page, but I don’t see the need for it as there is a lot of free material available, one doesn’t have to spend $50/month trying to go porn-free.