Marriage prep and the pornography question - how worried should I be at "once a month"?

[redcatholic]

The discernment in marriage prep is to see if you have a spouse who can be faithful. Who can promise to be faithful in the wedding. He said he can’t promise that. That would take the date right off my calendar.

 

[LaughingBoy1503]

He said he uses porn once a month? Is this a planned out thing? If he’s using porn, doesn’t matter if its once a month or 100x a month, has no intention of stopping then even if he goes to confession after every time, he is still in a state of mortal sin. One needs to resolve to not do it again to be fogiven.

If he “falls” once a month into this sin and confesses and wants to stop then that is a separate issue. But he would have to also know that his porn use is a problem and it sounds like your fiance does not think that once a month porn use is a problem. Is he going to confession after his porn use? Why would he commit this sin if he is so well “formed” unless either he is lying, does not think it’s a sin, or is in fact somewhat addicted?

That is not a “spiritual man” he might be able to fake being “spiritual” but he is not.

You need to find out what IU s really going on. His soul is at stake for one thing. This needs to be discussed. It is no longer just his business it is yours now too.

I would be careful. I am one of the 30% of Catholic men who dont use porn. But I use to. Have not looked at a single bit of porn for 6 years now. I was addicted in one way or another for probably 15 years. I highly doubt it’s just a once a month thing for your fiance. And if it is, then he should be able to stop. And btw, I told my wife everything about my past porn use before we got married. Did he intend to hide his issue before you started asking questions, or did he plan to tell you?

 

[Peeps]

And if it is, then he should be able to stop.

Just like alcoholics should be able to stop, and overeaters should be able to stop, and smokers should be able to stop and gamblers should be able to stop and…

Addictions are not easy to stop. And porn addictions are especially difficult to stop with the easy availability of the product online–don’t even have to run up to the 7-11 to buy alcohol, junk food, smokes, and lotto tickets.

I’m glad whatever you did worked for you. I’m not saying people should give up trying to overcome an addiction–I’m just saying for many people, it’s a brutal struggle and many people fail countless times and some people never succeed and die addicted.

 

[LaughingBoy1503]

Just like alcoholics should be able to stop, and overeaters should be able to stop, and smokers should be able to stop and gamblers should be able to stop and…

You misunderstood me. I said “IF IT IS NOT A ADDICTION He should be able to stop”

If one cant stop, it is likely that they are addicted. But he claims he is not. So he should be able to stop. That was my point.

I have been addicted to everything you mentioned. Smoked for years, drug addicted, morbidly obese as a teenager (lost 130lbs with diet and exercise) been a problem gambler, been addicted to porn. Stopped it all. Nobody needs to tell me overcoming addiction is hard. I know it better then most the general population by personal experience, not theory. And none of it was easy, I never said it was. My point was that if her fiance is telling the truth that he’s not addicted, then it will NOT be hard for him to stop using porn once a month. But indeed, my guess is that he is lying. But I could be wrong

 

[AdamP88]

Addictions are not easy to stop. And porn addictions are especially difficult to stop with the easy availability of the product online–don’t even have to run up to the 7-11 to buy alcohol, junk food, smokes, and lotto tickets.

I don’t think anybody is disputing this. But the real issue is if she should go ahead and marry someone who may be addicted to porn.

 

[EmilyAlexandra]

the women in porn are so unrealistic that they feel they can’t compare.

My husband and I are both 38, which is quite old in terms of the ubiquity of pornography. Interestingly, perhaps, one of the reasons why neither of us have any interest in the vast majority of the pornography that is on the internet is because the actors (male and female) are so unrealistic, as are the scenarios they act out. Obviously I appreciate that all pornography is out of the question for Catholics. I’m just saying it’s interesting that for an older generation like us, we just don’t find most pornography remotely erotic anyway. It’s as if the younger generation has been programmed to be aroused by something that isn’t actually erotic.

My adult daughter tells me that young women are starting to turn to older men because they grew up before computer pornography ruined their ability to relate to real women.

I am particularly struck by the way younger people think it’s disgusting, and actually abnormal, for adult humans to have pubic hair. Apparently that’s actually changing somewhat, but there’s a whole generation that has grown up with the idea that pubic hair is somehow weird and repulsive. Of course, people can do what they like with whatever hair grows anywhere on their body; I’m not saying it’s a bad thing if some people choose to remove some or all of their body hair. But until, say, 20 years ago, that was a choice that people could make based on their own preferences. Now, I think there’s a pressure to remove pubic hair because there’s this idea that it’s abnormal, disgusting, unhygienic, and unattractive. I don’t watch the awful TV show Naked Attraction, but I’ve seen bits of it on Gogglebox. If a participant in the show has pubic hair, the presenter, Anna Richardson, always seems to make a big deal of it and will say something like, “How do you feels about that?” (She definitely seems to think that pubic hair is more weird than having tattoos and piercings.) One person described having had “a bad experience” when they discovered that a woman had pubic hair. The footballer Peter Crouch commented that at least if you’ve already seen a woman naked there’s no risk that she might have pubic hair, although the way he phrased it was considerably more vulgar.

Sorry, that’s possibly just a personal hobbyhorse of mine. But I worry for younger people (and probably older people) who are living in a world in which they are expected to conform to norms that are dictated by the ways in which people, especially women, are portrayed in pornography.

 

[MNathaniel]

Addictions are not easy to stop.

Everyone here agrees with you.

As others have now noted, and you’ll see if you read the whole thread up until now, the ‘Why doesn’t he just stop then?’ comments are rhetorical because (as per the OP’s post) the fiancé claims he’s not addicted. At the same time as being unable to promise to stop.

The point is that either the fiancé is not addicted (as he claims) so he should just stop – or the fiancé is addicted and has to acknowledge his addiction as a basic first step to overcoming it.

 

[AdamP88]

The OP unfortunately seems to have left. I hope she can sort through this and ultimately make the right decision. It must be terrible to have this shadow cast over your wedding plans.