Letter from the Wife of a Porn Addict

[Anglewannabe]

For me, personally, I would not be hurt deeply if my wife were struggling with that particular sin.

A lot of men work through issues of infidelity. It just seems you haven’t met any of them.

Just because you wouldn’t hurt does not make it any less painful for others. And if you are saying a lot of men have forgiven their wife’s infidelity, then yes, I have never met any. I only know one woman who told me she was unfaithful and her husband had forgiven her and I honestly did not understand why. It was like she was bragging about it not repentant

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Personal and anecdotal opinion here, so take it for what it’s worth.

I think the Catholic world is lacking an open and honest discussion of sexuality. It’s mostly here’s a long list of thou shalt nots and here’s a link to Humane Vitae, the latter being an incredibly important document, but one that is basically composed of flowery prose.

Maybe unrelated, but about dating: in the Western world, we mostly go to mass, then leave it all behind us and go on with our lives. Maybe we’re involved in a ministry, but probably not. Either way, we’re at mass—we often don’t want to speak or be spoken to. When singles come here, they get “check out Ave Maria singles” as advice because that’s sadly one of the few reliable ways to get Catholic singles together. I’ve got a friend that’s non-denom and his church makes it a point to host social events often, to set singles up, etc. Life and faith are one and the same for them, they socialize with those of their faith. So faithful couples come together. And yet we wonder why good young Catholics marry outside the faith.

We’re getting married later in the West—late 20’s, early 30’s and so on. When a young person comes to CAF interested in marriage, they are often discouraged—told to get a 6 figure income before they even start looking for a spouse. Yeah, in this economy. LOL.

So essentially what you’re asking a man to do is wait out his adolescent life without having a sexual thought, make it well into his 20’s, then and only then pursue marriage. And when he is married, only have sex when the wife is willing and able, e.g., what, a couple times a month on average if you account for pregnancies, illnesses, mood swings and a certain time of month? OK. Now, do not masturbate. Do not engage in oral sex or manual sex. Do not use contraception.

As a guy, I want to have sex every day. Every single day. Been this way since I was 12, and still this way almost 20 years later. It never stopped. I don’t consider my sex drive abnormal, I bet you most guys would admit that they’re similar on this point. That is A LOT of sex and/or masturbation prevented for the faith.

So what? Do I want a cookie for this? No, I don’t want a cookie for this.

But I darn well wish that we could be more honest about what’s happening here. Find me a man that hasn’t masturbated or engaged in pornography a plethora of times throughout the years and I’ll find you either an asexual or a saint. Constant struggles with masturbation and/or pornography doesn’t make you a sex addict unless we’re willing to concede that sex addicts are the rule rather than the exception. We need more than to just chastise a few faithful but struggling Catholic men, we need our culture to shift in a way that acknowledges the prevalence of the behavior and does more about it than complain or denounce.

No offense intended to the article’s author for my (probably) irrelevant rant.

I agree with everything you’ve written, though I do wish that you had acknowledged that many women have the same issues and complaints that you outlined above.

When nonreligious people or religious people who reject religious teachings on sexuality describe the teachings as oppressive, outdated, irrelevant, impractical, or whatever, this is what they are talking about.

The question is, what do you want done about it? I have my answer, and that’s how I lived my life. But I don’t believe in god, much less in the bajillion catholic sex rules. So how should a catholic deal with this? Obviously, the church won’t change its teachings. Obviously (or so I hope) we shouldn’t make a nationwide push for 18 year olds to marry. So what to do?

 

[OraLabora]

Agreed. Although certainly most here will disagree, I believe the bar is set too high. I live the psychological damage due to awareness of Catholic teaching on sexuality from a very young age, and going through adolescence and young adulthood discouraged, angry, and afraid.

I’m inclined to agree. Perhaps when people married at 14, the total lack of licit sexual release outside of marital relations made some sense.

I married at 30. Try to tell a normal man he cannot have any sexual release, even once, between puberty and age 30! It makes no sense whatsoever. However the CCC does appear to allow some wiggle room in determining whether culpability for masturbation is mortal or not, citing:

affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety, or other psychological or social factors that lessen or even extenuate moral culpability.

Which sounds like it could apply to just about any man; and I imagine many women would have the same struggle, though I can only speak for my own gender.

I do think though that we have to separate the issues of porn and masturbation. Too often the two are conflated here. In reality masturbation has gone on for long before porn was widely available, and just because one masturbates does not make one a porn addict.

I am completely against porn as it victimizes both the person posing for it and the person viewing it. But I think a blanket “no sexual release whatsoever from puberty until marriage, and if you don’t marry, never”, is simply an unrealistic expectation; one monk I know says Catholic sexual teaching wasn’t designed for humans. I have no doubt that some can do it; I know monastics that do for a lifetime, often with heroic effort. But just because I can ride a bike doesn’t mean I can compete in the Tour de France, and just because one is Catholic doesn’t mean that one is instantly a saint. We all have different strengths and weaknesses.

But as a Catholic, I know it is God who created man and God has always been aware of the temptations all His children face. Most responses to this thread seem to imply church teachings are wrong. How on earth could a practicing Catholic think God could make a mistake?

God? No. But man-made rules, or misinterpretations of what God intended? Yes.

Perhaps I’m being overly rational but “just because the Church says so” doesn’t always cut it with me.

Ethically, I agree completely that porn is wrong. I don’t even think you have to be religious to figure that one out. But my question mark is with the notion of no sexual release whatsoever outside of marriage, when the time between marriage and puberty can exceed 15 years or more nowadays especially when one gets an advanced education.

 

[bmaj]

This is at marysaggies.blogspot.com/2014/05/letter-from-wife-of-porn-addict.html

The referenced link is a very important, heartfelt letter written to a priest by a wife who is deeply hurt - and who also has sons who may follow the same path as their father. A small piece of good news is that there is an anonymous support group online here at CAF for wives (and girlfriends) suffering in this way with husbands or boyfriends who view porn. It’s titled, “Women Suffering Because of Unchastity” (see top toolbar). Strange name for it, but that’s the only one CAF would allow. Apparently the admin didn’t want the word porn in the title for some reason. I pray that priests everywhere will aggressively address this extremely important issue which is tearing apart families, not to mention luring so many souls to sin. Satan is surely thrilled to be winning over so many Catholics and non-Catholics alike. We all need to work to put an end this epidemic. God’s love and assistance to families everywhere dealing with this issue.

 

[Anglewannabe]

one monk I know says Catholic sexual teaching wasn’t designed for humans.

Not all monks are perfect. Just because one makes a statement does not imply he knows what he is talking about

God? No. But man-made rules, or misinterpretations of what God intended? Yes.

One difference between Catholics and Protestants is Protestants can make their own interpretation of the bible. So I agree with your statement re misinterpretations. However, the Catholic religion teaches about the popes infallibility in matters of morals and faith. IOW, the Catholic teachings re sex are correct. Whether they are communicated properly by the people in the church or not, is a different matter.

After all, the whole purpose of a Catholic is to seek out God’s will and do it. Jesus never said it will be easy, he simply said he will be with us in our struggles

Angie

 

[bmaj]

Not all monks are perfect. Just because one makes a statement does not imply he knows what he is talking about

One difference between Catholics and Protestants is Protestants can make their own interpretation of the bible. So I agree with your statement re misinterpretations. However, the Catholic religion teaches about the popes infallibility in matters of morals and faith. IOW, the Catholic teachings re sex are correct. Whether they are communicated properly by the people in the church or not, is a different matter.

After all, the whole purpose of a Catholic is to seek out God’s will and do it. Jesus never said it will be easy, he simply said he will be with us in our struggles

Angie

Again, so true, Angie… so true.

 

[hamilte3]

But I darn well wish that we could be more honest about what’s happening here. Find me a man that hasn’t masturbated or engaged in pornography a plethora of times throughout the years and I’ll find you either an asexual or a saint.

But didn’t you tell us more about how you feel then you think? Also, since a lot of men do it, does it make it right? No it does not. So if you are right that hormones tell us to have sex every day from puberty and Jesus tells us to engage in sex only within marriage and God the Father wouldn’t make us into something that wouldn’t contridict Jesus, then what is the answer.

The answer is to find a way to follow God and Jesus both. So being married seems the best answer for most people at some point. And to further discuss, since Jesus founded a Church with virgins and celibates who vow chastity, then hormones can also work in people where we benefity the entire church as both the married state and religious state can only be to be vocations devoted to serving God and nieghbor with true love.

I think the answer to it all is first nature must have some answer to it since God made us for celibacy and chastity before marriaige. Second, nature is perfected by the super-nature of Grace, so anything we feel we can’t do can bridge the gap.

Finally, I Jesus gave us enough when he spoke the Gospel. I think that the quietness of watching what we say about sex, we should note that Jesus didn’t get that specific. Maybe you are right that we must be open to talk things out, but if you speak too much, the saints I think were wise to note that it can stir things up more in our minds and cause more temptations sometimes.

So there is one story I read once where a monk carried a whore on his back across a raging river. A younger monk said he couldn’t do that and how did he? The monk replied something to the effect that he didn’t think about it. The younger monk was so concerned, his thoughts about beating the issue of lust made him think about more. Trust God is what I get from the story.

Just some thoughts,

Ed Hamilton