Sins

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SmokedSalmon

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I don’t have many things that cause me to sin but one…I masturbate, since I got married 2 years ago it is getting out of control.

I have sex with my wife about once every 2 or 3 weeks, it’s not something she urges for like me.

I haven’t received communion for 1 year or more because of this.

I just can’t stop, I can’t force any other thing to enter my head but straight after I know I am a step closer to Hell.

There must be people out there who used to masturbate a lot and don’t now.

I know we are only human but it is no excuse.

Thanks

😊
 
1 star thread rating!

I ask for help and you treat me as if I am in a talent show.

Are you really calling yourselves Catholics?

I would never do that to somebody.

Shame on you.

😦
 
*I just noticed that rating myself, that’s odd.

Ok, my advice would be…first, don’t think you are doomed to hell. Go to confession–OFTEN. The more often you go to confession, the more equipped you’ll get at noticing triggers, and what triggers you to sin.

Second, I think you might have to discuss your thoughts with your wife. You both need to compromise perhaps, in this area. She might need to come to terms with that marriage is about sacrifice. It’s about unity. It’s not about only having sex when you ‘feel like it,’ but it’s about sacrificing to please the other. Now, if she’s ill, and your requests are unreasonable, that’s another ballgame. But, if your requests are turned down more often than not, there needs to be a bit of a compromise on your part. Are you using NFP?

Third…having sexual ‘urges,’ and wishing to be with your wife to relieve them, as you know, is not what the Catholic faith teaches as what sex should be about. It needs to be procreative and unitive in nature…yes, it’s most definitely pleasurable, but when you say…‘my wife doesn’t have the same urges I do,’ it implies that maybe your wife feels she is just asked to have sex so you can have pleasure. Not saying this is how you think, but I’m saying she might feel this way, based on what you post here.

So…you both need to give a little here. And I have a feeling that things will get better. Keep the faith…go to confession often…don’t hold your head in shame…figure out what triggers this…and try to get to a happy medium with your wife.

Ok…did you get all that? 😃 Praying for you.*
 
SmokedSalmon, take it easy, pal. Jesus loves you and He knows you are struggling with this.

It sounds to me you may be addicted. If so, your addiction definitely mitigates the grave sinfulness of the act. Pray a good Act of Contrition and I think you’ll be OK for the most part.

As for overcoming addiction, I would start with WhateverGirl’s advice–that is, speak to your wife about your urges and maybe she will bend a little. Simple acts of kindness also go far with women when it comes to romance. Try a little tenderness, as the song says. 🙂

Most importantly, when do you fall, don’t beat yourself up. We all succumb to temptation and gratify ourselves once in a while–God understands that we are only human. Just ask for His help and always keep Him in your life. We are not called to be perfect, just to take it one day at a time and try to do the right thing. Remember, a baseball team will try to win every game, but you don’t have to be 162-0 to make the playoffs.

Hope this helps!

Mike
 
Yes there are many people out there who struggled with this sin and have given it up completely. I’m one of them, I’ve haven’t masterbated in two years. I now see just how much it poisioned my view of woman, masterbation caused so many lustful thoughts. So many of these stopped when I gave it up. It’s something I deeply regreat.

I don’t think it’s okay to say it just happens once in a while, we must try and get rid of it for good.

Perhaps the task overwhelmes us, we might think we can never go the rest of our life without doing it. The devil appeared to St Ignatius and said “you can’t go the rest of your life without commiting a mortal sin.”

Ignatius said, No I can’t but I can make it until the end of today.
Of course he never commited a mortal sin again in his life.

We must take each day as it comes, set yourself the goal of making it through just this day.

We need to plan what to do when temptations come, perhaps we could go to a public place where we will be unable to do it.

I think the more we try and hide this the easier it is to keep going, we need to be accountable to someone. Is there a friend or a priest that can help.

As soon as these thoughts enter our heads we must try and think how can we perfect it. For if I say don’t think of a pink elephant thats teh first thing we will do. We must try and have thoughts to counter it, ie loving women because they are craeted in the image and likeness of God.

I posted this in another question. We can fall into this sin by thinking we’ve blown it. If lustful thoughts come into our head we can think, I’ve gone this far there’s no point stopping now. Yes there is there is always some part of the sin we can avoid. If a Nazi said I’ve killed 6000 people what difference will one more make, well it would make a huge difference.
God bless
 
SmokedSalmon said:
I just can’t stop, I can’t force any other thing to enter my head but straight after I know I am a step closer to Hell.
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Forgive yourself. You’re the only one whose forgiveness is hard to get.

God loves you, not for what you do, but for you. He’s going to give you the strength to resist temptation, but you cannot receive this grace if you are sitting in judgment over yourself. Read the book “Addiction and Grace”, maybe. Talk about this face to face with men who know you and love God.

Jesus came for sinners, not for righteous people! Reach out to Him.
 
I’m not catholic (anymore) but I’ll put in my 2 cents anyway.

To be honest, it’s something that everyone does, yup, even catholics.

I have 3 things that you might want to try. It helped me out when I was catholic. Read on…

The thing is to remember that your faith has the sacrament of confession. This tool works in two ways, but you have to do two things first. A) choose a confessor and stick with him, no matter what. B) go to regular confession, perhaps once every week or two weeks.
Like I said, Confession works in two ways, first it helps you to vocalize the sin. This is a great thing for facing it. The second thing is that when you stick with the same confessor, the fact that you are going back to the same person to vocalize the same sin honestly helps you when temptation hits. After a while the mere thought of going back to that same person and vocalizing it again acts as a deterrent.

So, make a resolution to attend confession regularly, at the same confessor.

Also, try to determine when the time of day is that you are most tempted and fall the most, and then schedule something into that timeslot….go to the gym, run, write a novel, heck, build model airplanes! Something to fill that specific gap.

That will help you on the road a little bit and you’ll notice you go to confession less and less, since you do it less and less.

Good luck buddy, it’s tough, but do-able.
 
SmokedSalmon said:
I don’t have many things that cause me to sin but one…I masturbate, since I got married 2 years ago it is getting out of control.

I have sex with my wife about once every 2 or 3 weeks, it’s not something she urges for like me.

I haven’t received communion for 1 year or more because of this.

I just can’t stop, I can’t force any other thing to enter my head but straight after I know I am a step closer to Hell.

There must be people out there who used to masturbate a lot and don’t now.

I know we are only human but it is no excuse.

Thanks

😊
Click to expand...
I think its in the makeup of men to masturbate, most men have a problem with it, married or not. If your adicted, then your not culpable, talk to your priest, but do go to confession , if U think U have to, dont deny yourself the Eucharist because of it. If I commit this sin I take it to confession & I am married also
 
NoWhereMan said:
if U think U have to, don`t deny yourself the Eucharist because of it.
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If I understand you correctly, I don’t think this advice is in line with catholic teaching…he can only receive the eucharist if he has been absolved in confession.
 
PennitentMan said:
If I understand you correctly, I don’t think this advice is in line with catholic teaching…he can only receive the eucharist if he has been absolved in confession.
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Did You note that I wrote, Do go to confession
 
Smoked Salman - I have no clue whats up with the star count on here. I hope you aren’t too offended.
That said, everyone has given you pretty solid advice so far. As far as your wife not being as interested as you, have you discussed possible underlying reasons? Perhaps she has a fear a pregnancy…have you researched NFP options that can put her more at ease? Or have you discussed the possibility of children resulting in your union and accepted it as a good thing, even if you are trying to avoid for the time being? Maybe your wife has other issues left over from childhood or adolescence that have left her with hang ups so she cannot enjoy herself.
Most importantly, I encourage you to really delve into what it means to honor a dignity of a person. The dignity of your own person and the dignity of your wife.
If this is a compulsion you need to get professional help. God does not want his gift to cause anxiety for you - and once you can place it back in your loving married relationship as God intended and not in a “selfish” context of self gratification you will be free of that anxiety.
As far as your fear of hell - bathe yourself in God’s mercy. If you can’t receive the Eucharist, at least go to adoration and pray over this. You might be surprised to find yourself changing.
 
Prodigal_Son said:
Thank you, PennitentMan, for being a decent human being and giving good advice. 🙂
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Hey, any time. We’re all fellow human beings, and if my life experience can help any, I’m happy to.

Have a good day, it’s a really gorgeous one out here today.
 
You havn’t really said much about why you think your wife doesn’t seem interested - so if you can, could you please give us an idea if you think it’s from fear of pregnancy or maybe a physical problem that causes her pain or maybe low self esteem? Although I’m aware that everyone does this at one time or another, you say that you are doing it quite often. This is just a guess - (in case the other possible reasons are not why she isn’t much up for sex)- but is she aware that you do this and how often you do? I’m familiar with someone who has a husband who has a similar situation as yours as far as the masturbation. She has accidentally come into his office and seen him - this causes her to feel bad or like she’s not enough for him since he still does this. This in turn caused her to feel very self concious with regards to sex because she began to wonder what the point of sex was if it wouldn’t just be easeier for her husband to pleasure himself with out her present. I know when she tried to bring it up, he got all embarassed and apologized to no end - because they wouldn’t talk about it, it made going to bed together awkward especially for her, They did finally talk about it because he found her crying about it one day and didn’t really understand why. I’m still not quite sure I understand why men are so much more into masturbation than women, but I think it has to do with being very visual and as I have read having sexual thoughts extremely often. If anyone can explain this to me, (especially from a man’s perspective) I’d love to be able to explain it to my friend.

Anyway, they have come to something that has helped some and that is having signals for each other when either feels “in the mood” - (I believe some of the “problem” was that he felt since she rarely if ever initiated that she wasn’t really attracted to him any more) - anyway, the signals keep them from feeling embarassed having to say "i’d like sex now, if you think you might like to as well " but also keeps the other from feeling hurt if one isn’t up for it. It isn’t perfect, especially if you’re trying to avoid getting preggers with NFP - I do n’t know if this will help at all, but I really believe that for things to get better you need to talk to your wife about it. Think back to when you two were first together and you could tell each other anything - she may need you to explain that to you masturbation is very different from intercourse with her and that it isn’t that you don’t want her and that you’re trying to get it under control - maybe she’ll have some ideas of ways to help. But more than anything, when you talk to her let her know that this has nothing to do with you NOT being attracted to her. I don’ t know if this helps at all - I hope it does.
God Bless and I’ll pray that you three can come up with a solution (you, your wife and God)
Rye
 
I think you can do 2 things, one is to avoid temptation as much as possible and the other is to fight it. The first question you must ask yourself is where and when you get tempted. Now, don’t place yourself in that situation or if you have to, find a good way to deal with it. Maybe make the sign of the cross a bunch of times.

Finally, strengthen your faith. Read the Bible a lot, just stay away from certain stories.Also read the catechism.
 
Don’t condemn yourself. I think that’s the first action we should all do when we sin. I’m also experiencing problems in preserving chastity. Maybe if you would know who I am you will be disappointed. I’ll pray for you and please pray for me also.
 
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