I have lost all motivation

george92 · Jul 15, 2015

…to not look at porn. i’m 22 and really don’t have any friends (moved to a new city,cuz i work two jobs…and i really don’t like people anyways). when i come home from work i’m exhausted and just want to lay down and look at porn

. i just don’t see how it harms marriage but i know it does although marriage seems lightyears away from me being a single guy.

any advice?

PolarGuy · Jul 15, 2015

A good Marriage always will be “light years away” when you regularly look at porn.

And does looking at it make you any better of a person? Is it a good use of your time?

Didn’t think so.

MadetoLove · Jul 15, 2015

What you need to do more is pray.

Pray for the grace to know God better. Pray for the grace to want to be pure.

I’m a female, use to look at porn here and there. The closer I got to God the more I came to detest the evil.

A decade of the rosary takes about 5 minutes to pray, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy takes about 15 minutes. Start praying one or both of these each day.

Go to confession each time you slip up. God’s mercy is vast. All He wants is for you to be free from the chains of sin.

Slowly over time you’ll see a great improvement. God bless you brother you can do this

tawny · Jul 15, 2015

Praying to the Holy Spirit to give you guidance, direction, strength, fortitude & wisdom to overcome your temptations.

1990Domer · Jul 15, 2015

If this helps at all, think of the woman you are looking at being someone’s wife or mom or daughter. Perhaps she needed the money to pose in those magazines due to a bad marriage, a bad childhood, whatever.

Porn objectifies women. They are not seen as people with lives, emotions, souls, troubles. They are seen for their body parts. I hope you can catch my drift…

TarkanAttila · Jul 15, 2015

My friend, are you part of a men’s prayer group?

It is no secret that I chronically masturbate. But prayer, the friendship of other faithful Catholic men, and self-education have helped me to appreciate that God is right and that masturbation truly is evil.

If you really mean to follow God, and the Catholic Church, you must pray. Get out of yourself. Become an active, sociable part of your parish, somehow.

And perhaps find other ways to use your computer. Read articles online about the Faith, about moral questions. There are books online you can read, for free. Animal Farm. Orthodoxy, by Chesterton. The Great Divorce (on YouTube). There’s all kinds of free games if you want to get into gaming, perhaps to take your mind off of the porn. Team Fortress 2. Haven and Hearth. Princess Maker 2. 99 Bricks on Kongregate. Just get your mind off of it, and perhaps expand it into something that is certainly good, or at least fun.

It doesn’t always work. And I sometimes want to return to it, to fulfill my sexual fantasies. But then I remember the harm I am doing to myself, and to those around me.

Even reddit recognises this: that masturbation and all those fantasies keep you locked in yourself, like a prisoner. It’s tough to get out. But you gotta want to.

geekborj · Jul 15, 2015

Exactly that you “don’t see how it harms marriage” that it harms something “lightyears away”. Imagine how many things you can think about women and develop them to a bad “eyesight” of man-woman relationship in the future.

Pornography is not the right means of preparing of future marriage. Marriage life requires patience, respect to others and self-control. These are exactly the virtues that you loose in pornography. Make friends, do house chores, help parents/siblings in their work in and around the house, do something productive.

As for the grace and energy to do the right thing: Frequent the sacraments and pray always.

Xantippe · Jul 15, 2015

Yes, porn addictions do harm marriage. There are lots of unfortunate stories you can find on the internet (including on secular sites) of women that find that their husbands are glued to pornography all evening and don’t have the time of day for normal marital intercourse, let alone a normal family life.
The full menu of activities depicted in porn is not going to be available to you as a faithful Catholic husband, so it’s going to make being a faithful Catholic husband that much harder.
Porn lies about women, women’s sexuality and sexuality. It shows women that are ready to go all the time, never get sick, never get sore, never need much foreplay, climax with minimal effort on anyone’s part, and are ecstatic about activities that the average woman finds degrading and uncomfortable. Basically, porn is a training video for teaching you to be a lazy, selfish, ignorant lover that will never get better and has no idea what he doesn’t know.
Oh, and it will probably make you feel inadequate.
Your porn habit is keeping you away from forming real relationships with real people, for instance your future wife.
A normal life as a practicing Catholic husband is going to involve a lot of abstinence. Your continued porn habit leaves you vulnerable to falling back into the habit whenever you hit a rough spot in your future marriage.

PolarGuy · Jul 15, 2015

Good point Xantippe about it being a training video to be a lazy lousy lover. True, and a bit different perspective than I’d ever considered.

Xantippe · Jul 15, 2015

Thanks!

Believe it or not, that’s mostly cribbed from a VERY secular male relationship blogger.

TK421 · Jul 15, 2015

Marriage will remain lightyears away from you as long as sexual sin continues to have such power over you. At least any marriage that is desirable.

Porn has become your “happy place”. You go there to feast & feel excited, but there’s absolutely nothing there to offer you happiness. You are by yourself, feasting & demoting women that you will never meet. This will drain your energy, your motivation, and your courage to try new things. It will continue to gradually spiral down as you become more and more internalized in your private world, removed from the community of God.

The advice is: pray, and fill your time. You can’t go home and simply “will” yourself to not look at porn. You just can’t. If it was that easy, this conversation wouldn’t be taking place right now. Go ahead right now and try to do it. Here’s a spoiler, from one ex-porn watcher to a current one: you will fail. This temptation has wrapped itself around you and it will keep you trapped there, like a small object trapped in the orbit of a larger planet. It’s too powerful for you. You might delay it by an hour or a day or if you’re really impressive, a few days, but you’ll be chomping at the bit and back at the computer. There needs to be tangible, measurable, physical action taken to remove it.

Install parental software and block yourself from pornographic sites. Make the password something complex & obscure and then destroy it so that it is forgotten.
Pray, consistently, for Divine Aid.
Fill your life with wholesome things to occupy yourself. This can be all sorts of stuff: exercise, reading, volunteering, school, work, jogging, whatever. Everything, anything.
Pace yourself & be prepared for the long haul. One month from now, you will still be craving illicit sexual pleasure. 6 months from now, the same. 1 year from now, the same. 2 years from now, the same. 10 years from now, the same. 20 years from now, the same. But, every day that you spend in love with the Lord and not with your genitals and some fantasy women, it will have less and less power of you. You will start to notice changes in you overtime. You will develop an appetite for holier things. You will eventually feel ready to engage in dating & marriage with wonderful daughters of Mary that can offer you infinitely more happiness than pornography can. It starts with day 1.

God bless.

Trident_H · Jul 15, 2015

Yeah, well take it from me a skewed sexuality can ruin your life. Look, think about how porn used to be like. It used to be at least somewhat decent(well by comparison to today), but now it is so trashy. It has slid really quickly to that and that should be the clue. You see the brain craves novelty so constantly indulging in porn kind of burns that out for you. You just get trashier on the inside and then that is your new normal, but that sweet girl you want to marry doesn’t deserve that to be brought into her life so don’t give up porn for you, give it up for her. Start loving your future wife now before you even meet her. It’s the only decent thing to do.

truthquester · Jul 15, 2015

Please forgive me for asking, I mean no disrespect and I am not Catholic but one thing that has always bothered me is why is it such a terrible sin for a young single man to masturbate?

EasterJoy · Jul 16, 2015

*“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna.” *Matt. 5:27-30

The spirit that tells you that whether or not you have any right to look at a woman with lust in your heart has a single thing to do with how tired you are or how many friends you have or whether or not you are motivated is the Father of Lies, and none other.

*If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. *Joshua 24:15

At Easter time, how did you answer these questions:
Do you reject sin, so as to live in the freedom of God′s children?
Do you reject the glamor of evil, and refuse to be mastered by sin?
Do you reject Satan, father of sin and prince of darkness?

OK, so I can’t know if this has to do with you, but you asked for advice.
Ask yourself if you have considered these things, or if you have been lured quietly into a web of lies. God is there to free you, Our Lord is there to save you, the Holy Spirit is ready to fill you and empower you, and by the bidding of God St. Michael is at the ready to do battle for you. Nothing you have done is a surprise to God, and whatever you have done or thought, God does not recoil from you. God only wants you to renounce sin and come to Him, to live in the happiness and joy of the children of God.

Trident_H · Jul 16, 2015

Well I don’t think it is. I mean I was raised that it was, but it just led to a lot of repressed urges that led either to feeling pretty isolated or to learning how to cheat a bit. I guess the argument against it usually comes from people who worry that it will distract you from wanting to get to know real people and will lead to a self-centered mindset, but with me it was about repressing stuff that led to even worse behavior later. I don’t know. I think maybe I’m going to be in the minority here, but while I think porn is just awful (it used to actually make me weep as I imagined the back story that led these people to allow themselves to be served up for the rest of the world to take advantage of. I can’t look at porn without first thinking about the people involved. I think about how that person was once someone’s sweet innocent kid. I think about how the cameramen go home at night and treat their partners like what they just saw. I think of their partners justifying the industry and raising their kids to do what exactly? I think of the producers lining their pockets with money made off people’s miseries and addictions. I think of all the people logging in to take advantage of someone’s momentary bad choices that will be with them forever. I think about how they will feel when they are parents themselves and how they won’t be able to tell their kids not to do certain things because they have this permanent example of their own bad behavior. I think of how the porn stars will have to worry about their grandchildren eventually getting a hold of their pictures by accident. I guess I’ve just always been a bit over-sensitive.)

So what I’m saying is that I’m probably in the minority because while I don’t think masturbation is wrong because it is just you getting involved with yourself, porn is different because it allows other people to lose their innocence for your viewing pleasure. And that can’t ever be right, can it?

3DOCTORS · Jul 16, 2015

It sounds as if you really are exhausted with the two jobs, and the bad habit is the least common denominator. If you’re run down and kind of depressed it’s going to be a lot more difficult to choose a more wholesome way to spend your little bit of leisure time. Are you taking as good of care of your health as you’re able to in other ways - nutrition and so on? Maybe then you’d have more energy and be able to refocus on something like others have suggested - prayer, a game, reading, a walk, a hobby . . . You did something, do you realize, that indicates you are not satisfied with the status quo that is your current life. You made the effort to post and ask for advice. If you’d really been okay with how things were going, you wouldn’t have bothered. So the Holy Spirit is giving you a bit of a nudge! That’s great!

Of course you rationalize some - that’s normal human nature foot-dragging, we all do it. But a part of you realizes things could be better. That’s the part to pay attention to and cultivate. God bless you.

Birdpreacher · Jul 16, 2015

Stop! I know I am agnostic, but looking at porn online is not doing you any favors to your mental health or when it comes to impulse control.

Try reddit. A great support group exists for men desiring to eliminate masterbation and porn from their lives and its not Religious based. www.reddit.com/r/nofap

Try working out. I worked all day as a PE coach and found daily workouts before/afterwork to be Energy Creating in the long run. Plus, additional female attention is nice.

EasterJoy · Jul 16, 2015

Just for the record, exercising self-control isn’t psychological repression. Psychological repression is an unconscious suppression of desires that keeps them out of the conscious mind. If a therapist turned up some desire to have your mother for your lover that you were never aware you even had, that would be a repressed desire.

Seeing that your next door neighbor is desirable and yet trying not to dwell on that natural desire is not repression. Giving yourself permission to bump into her in creepy ways is not going to make it less likely that you’ll indulge in “even worse behavior later.” Rather, openly recognizing the temptation as a temptation in a powerful area of human emotion and finding practical ways to avoid giving into it or entertaining it will make it less likely that you’ll ever do something “worse” to the poor unsuspecting young woman.

Trident_H · Jul 16, 2015

Well this is hard now because every time I read one of your posts I think how can one person be so wise? I mean I have been sort of in awe of all of your good advice so do you think I’m going to sit here and argue with you? I mean which of us is likely the more decent person?

But here’s the thing. When I supressed those urges they did not just go away they multiplied. So yes, I suppose with the right exercise (as BirdPreacher mentioned) or the right amount of proper effort it is probably possible to overcome, but I didn’t get that kind of information growing up. Instead I got a very dramatic driving command to not even talk about such things. So there I was making up my own rules. I don’t care that this makes me look bad. I’m trying to be honest. I was attracted to guys before I liked girls, but because of my upbringing I forced myself to pursue girls instead. That ended really, really badly in a way that I can’t get into here. What I am trying to say is that after a person like me has given up on ever being in another relationship (and if you knew the reasons why, you wouldn’t doubt what I’m saying) there comes a point where it just becomes useless to pretend any other way is left. I’m not going to say that I do it for fun. I’m even not going to say that I like it. I just know that reading philosophy every time I need to calm down isn’t a solution for me (that was one priest’s suggestion once). I’m not going to pretend to be strong enough to lead a celibate life and yet I also know that I have to stay away from people because I always cause them pain. I’m on my own island so I’ll make the rules while I’m here. I’ll do this ignoble thing for a noble reason and be safer that way because of it. And so will everyone else.

Peace.

-Trident

EasterJoy · Jul 17, 2015

You don’t do it for fun and you don’t even like it? That sounds like a compulsion, not a solution. The idea that " I have to stay away from people because I always cause them pain" and “I’m on my own island so I’ll make the rules while I’m here” are also red flags. This is not how the Body of Christ works.

Self-mastery does not work the way you are describing, but you are indeed talking about challenges that are out of my depth. I am really concerned about you. This is a vale of tears, yes, but you sound as if you are running rapids with your kayak sideways. I am not being flippant; I mean to say I am concerned that you are doing your honest best but not the best that would be possible if you knew what you were about. Not drowning is indeed no small feat when you lack certain skills necessary to run rapids, but you might want to get to a shore and talk to someone who can really help you. When you exhaust yourself–and you almost certainly will–you will go through times no one here wants you to go through. Try to get some help in finding the missing pieces, OK?

I have lost all motivation

george92

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PolarGuy

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MadetoLove

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tawny

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1990Domer

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TarkanAttila

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geekborj

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Xantippe

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PolarGuy

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Xantippe

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TK421

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Trident_H

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truthquester

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EasterJoy

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Trident_H

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3DOCTORS

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EasterJoy

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Trident_H

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