Advice about boyfriend addicted to pornography


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No. A betrayal MAYBE, but not even close to the same as looking at porn. Just no.

 

A betrayal certainly, not maybe, and on the same order as looking at porn. Arguably worse. To tell deeply personal things about one's spouse to others whose business it is not is a deep betrayal indeed. I am surprised that anyone would attempt to defend or justify such an action.

 

She's telling a trusted friend. Should she carry the weight on her own? I have a friend who has been through this and worse, and yes, I was her confidante. She knew I wouldn't go spreading it around. It was vital that she had someone to confide in. She was crushed and alone.

 
Nope. I understand your argument, but I don't buy it. Some things you don't tell. You keep your mouth shut. You do not expose the weaknesses and foolishness of your spouse. You do not so cruelly expose someone you claim to love.
 

I know you're not crazy about women that aren't your wife, Vort, but that's just silly. 

 

I don't know why you would make such an accusation toward me, Eowyn. I like women just fine, even those I'm not married to. I think they're wonderful That does not mean I have to approve of ghastly actions of betrayal.

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Well at very least you underestimate how much it damages a woman to have her marriage fractured by her husband's pornography habits. To leave her to deal with that pain alone is cruel. To deny her one friend she can safely confide in is selfish. 

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So my basic questions are,

1. Would you ever recommend marrying someone that has a porn addiction?

2. What is a reasonable amount of time to expect for him to achieve sexual sobriety (assuming he is enthusiastically working on recovery)?

3. What is a reasonable amount of time for him to be sober before considering engagement?

 

Based on his accountability reports, he currently views porn about once a week. He has told me that he is willing to do whatever it takes to stop. 

 

 

My thoughts:

 

1.  If and when they overcame it and were worthy to have a temple recommend.  There is very little that the atonement cannot fix, but full repentance needs to take place first.  You will have to pray about this one to see if he has overcome the addiction.  

2.  See my comments below.

3.  Depends on how bad the problem is.  The worse the addiction, the more time is necessary to repent and break the addiction.  At very minimum, the guy needs to fully repent and be clean first before getting engaged.

 

If I may break something gently to you, if he cannot even go more than a week without watching pornography, it does not seem like he is really taking his addiction very seriously.  If I were that addicted, I would throw the TV or the computer out of the house and live like a monk for awhile to get control of my life, especially if it was holding me back from marrying someone I love.

 

There is always a risk that anyone can develop a pornography addiction.  You need to be fully informed that your boyfriend may carry a higher than usual risk of falling back into addiction, as he is a former user, and you need to prayerfully ask yourself if you are OK with that risk or not.  That said, I believe in the atonement and that it can cure this type of problem... if the person repents first.

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Well at very least you underestimate how much it damages a woman to have her marriage fractured by her husband's pornography habits. To leave her to deal with that pain alone is cruel. To deny her one friend she can safely confide in is selfish. 

 

 

How would the wife feel if she found that her husband was dishing out all her flaws to his 'trusted' guy friend?  From everything I have seen on-line and from my own wife... It would be absolute devastating to her.  Yet it seems perfectly OK for a woman to do to a man something she would not want a man to do to her.  That is just not right.

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It's not "all his flaws". It's something happening that is extremely painful to her, for which she needs support from someone other than the person doing it. It's not dishing it out online, it's confiding in one trusted friend.

Edited by Eowyn
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It's not "all his flaws". It's something happening that is extremely painful to hey, for which she needs support from someone other than the person doing it. It's bit dishing it out online, it's confiding in one trusted friend.

 

 

Yet she can't talk about 'her' pain without dishing out about 'his' flaws.

 

In all the threads we have had talking about porn use and people asking for help, I have rarely (to the point of never) seen a very simple piece of scriptural advice given

 

Luke 6:31 And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

 

People should be treating their spouses the way they would wish to be treated if it was them that was sinning. (Female pornography addiction is a thing).  Would they want their spouse to share all the pain a sorrow they were feeling because of their actions, with others?

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If I were doing something deeply painful to my husband and damaging to our family- let's say I had a major shopping addiction that was running us bankrupt- and my husband was in pain and didn't know what to do, I would CERTAINLY want him to go to one trusted friend for help. It would be incredibly cold and selfish of me to say he needed to deal with it on his own, and if he needed to counsel with someone on how to cope, he could come talk to me. That's just nonsense. The person who is causing the pain has little to no ability to comfort and counsel the one hurting.

 

I did talk to my husband about this, and he thinks the idea is as absurd as I do. He agrees that he'd want me to have help to deal with the problem and to heal. I'm not talking about complaining about socks on the floor over doughnuts with the neighborhood ladies. I'm talking about heart-to-heart talks with one close, trusted friend who is going to help me do what I need to to not fall apart, and to keep my marriage together. 

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A woman talking around about her husband's pornography addiction forever ruins his reputation and ability to interact with those people whom she tells. It is a profound betrayal. I cannot believe you can't see that.

 

What's she going to talk about, anyway? "Oh, boo-hoo, my husband looks at pictures of nekkid women. He's so awful! How could he do that to me?" "There, there, you poor thing. He's a worthless cad. You deserve better."

 

What good is going to come of complaining to a friend? Is the friend going to resolve the husband's porn usage? Is she going to build him into a better man? Is she going to create a situation where he can move past such undisciplined, selfish actions and get control of his own soul?

 

You may be right, and I may be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. But saying "Well, duh!" or "My husband agrees with me, so there!" does not establish your case. How is telling others about a spouse's pornography usage Christ-like? How does it bring either the teller or the spouse unto Christ? Is that what God does with us -- spread around our foibles and foolishness so that we're ashamed to look another person in the eye?

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Well at very least you underestimate how much it damages a woman to have her marriage fractured by her husband's pornography habits. To leave her to deal with that pain alone is cruel. To deny her one friend she can safely confide in is selfish. 

 

I don't see anyone saying that the wife has to deal with this alone.  That is what professionals are for.  That is what the bishop is for.

 

I agree that it is a betrayal of her husband/marriage to tell something like this to a friend.  It can actually compound the damage to the marriage.  What happens when the husband is able to overcome this problem, they stay together and have a strong marriage?  That does happen, you know.  So now the friend - in this case, you - knows this personal information about the husband.  It's always going to be the elephant in the room.  Should he be forever forced to wear a scarlet letter, so to speak?  Do you want him to feel your scorn and to feel humiliated whenever he sees you?  Is that supposed to be part of some punishment process?  Or is the atonement not available to those who have struggled with porn?

 

No one is perfect.  Some people have done far worse things than look at pornography.  Do you think everyone's sins should be announced to others?  Maybe we should all wear some sort of pin denoting our particular failings.

 

I think women in general have become much too quick to share the personal parts of their marriage and do so to the detriment of their marriage.  And other women enable them.  It's like a new sport or something.

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Yeah, I think we're done here. 

 

Yeah, that's a dodge, Eowyn, right along the lines of claiming I dislike women. Instead of acting like my wording was sooooo offensive that you're going to take your ball and go home, you could respond to the points I made. Or you could simply own your decision to leave the conversation instead of pretending that it's my offensiveness that's driving you away.

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Or you could try and look at the issue with a little compassion instead of being soooo snide and sarcastic.

 

I'm not dodging, I'm just not interested in being your bickering subject of the day. But I would encourage you to think about the ways pornography can hurt not just a marriage, but a woman, beyond "nekkid pictures". For starters, how a woman's self-esteem is decimated. How she starts to question not only her worth, but choices she's made in life. How it becomes difficult to be an effective mother, or even take care of herself, with the depression that can overtake her in the wake of his "looking at nekkid pictures". 

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Personally, I think it depends on whether he's involved in that decision or not. I would speculate that if I were married and had this issue, I would probably be more than ok with my wife getting support from a friend...if and only if we had discussed it together and agreed beforehand on someone we both trusted. If she talked about my problem behind my back, I would absolutely feel betrayed on a deep level. Granted, I would have little room to complain considering my own betrayal in this scenario, but it's not about who has the moral high ground or who started it or which betrayal is worse. The simple fact is that it would make an already terrible situation a whole lot worse, and healing would become that much more difficult for me personally and for the relationship as a whole. Because of that, it would almost certainly be worse for her in the long term as well.

 

Leah nailed it. In most cases, this role would be best filled by the bishop anyway.

Edited by Josiah
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Or you could try and look at the issue with a little compassion instead of being soooo snide and sarcastic.

 

I'm not dodging, I'm just not interested in being your bickering subject of the day. But I would encourage you to think about the ways pornography can hurt not just a marriage, but a woman, beyond "nekkid pictures". For starters, how a woman's self-esteem is decimated. How she starts to question not only her worth, but choices she's made in life. How it becomes difficult to be an effective mother, or even take care of herself, with the depression that can overtake her in the wake of his "looking at nekkid pictures". 

 

 

Compassion of a person weakness does not jusfisy breaking of gospel prinaples.

 

When such details are shared outside the bounds of marriage or trusted/trained professional/reglious leaders..  It is gossip.

 

Trying to excuse gossip under the guise of " a Woman had different needs..."  Is as much a fail as trying to excuse a guys behavior under the guise  "a man has different needs"  In the case of a guys they are pretty much unverisally told they need to get over it and get back in harmony with the gospel.  Yet women seem to get a free pass.

 

As for your husband, is approval does not make it the right thing to do.  His approval simply means he has a Christ-like senstivity to your weakness, and it willing to suffer for it.  That is wonderful for him and you, but does mean that the action of sharing is correct.

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A woman can get support from friends and family without divulging a thing, especially something that could ruin the reputation of the spouse.  If I ever get into this situation, I'm not going to tell even my own Mother about my husband's weakness, how much more for a friend.  But yes, I could see myself going to my own Mother and say, "I'm having such a bad day/week/year" and get my circling wagons without going into detail.  Anything in detail goes to a professional.  I don't even know if I can go in detail with a bishop.

 

I'm reminded by the conversation between Yoda and Anakin when Anakin tried to get advice from Yoda without going into details.

 

Mothers and friends tend to side with the daughter/friend without question and start ganging up on the spouse.  And even when this problem has passed, the damage in their eyes are permanent.  This has happened in my family so many times... I even had an aunt that is always deemed the bad guy all the way to her death even after my uncle has assured everybody she's not really like that.  She was still in her 40's when this happened and she died in her 70's.

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I think anatess nailed it. There's getting support from a friend and then there's divulging private marital details. I encourage support systems; by no means should a spouse have to go through something alone, but I don't think that necessarily means giving out details.

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Well at very least you underestimate how much it damages a woman to have her marriage fractured by her husband's pornography habits. To leave her to deal with that pain alone is cruel. To deny her one friend she can safely confide in is selfish. 

 

I find this statement interesting and worthy of exploration. It is also crucial to any couple working through any number of issues that may or may not involve sexual matters to face this question:

 

Why was the marriage fractured? Is it truly because of the husband's habit of viewing sexual images/content, or are marriages fractured by how we react to issues and difficulties that arise? 

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I find this statement interesting and worthy of exploration. It is also crucial to any couple working through any number of issues that may or may not involve sexual matters to face this question:

 

Why was the marriage fractured? Is it truly because of the husband's habit of viewing sexual images/content, or are marriages fractured by how we react to issues and difficulties that arise? 

 

Let me take a shot on this:

 

Marriages fail because people are self-focused.

 

When a husband views sexual images the wife goes, "He hurt me!" instead of "He's hurting himself!".  So, the wife goes on full defense mode and becomes useless in helping the husband fight that problem... because, the husband becomes the enemy... so the husband is left to deal with it on his own - which, as he already showed he fails at it is not a promising prospect - while the wife goes and deals with it on her own - and goes to her friends to get her comfort.  What should have happened is that the husband and wife works together to fight this problem and provide each other comfort along the way.

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Posted (edited) · Hidden by estradling75, September 5, 2015 - hiding the match
Hidden by estradling75, September 5, 2015 - hiding the match

(removing true but apparently unnecessary post.)

Edited by Eowyn
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provide each other comfort along the way

 

When you or someone close to you deals with any sort of marital infidelity, let me know how that works. Husband cheats, husband comforts wife? Doesn't work. At least not in the early stages. 

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Posted · Hidden by estradling75, September 5, 2015 - Hiding the responses
Hidden by estradling75, September 5, 2015 - Hiding the responses

I have a hard time taking marital advice seriously from someone who throws things at her husband's head and expects him to just understand and deal with it, and holds him responsible to manage her rage.

Seriously??? Did you really just say this to me?

Let me spell this out for you... We work as a team. I have a weakness, he helps me get over it. He doesn't go whining to his friends about it.

Now stop being a bitter girl with your panties in a wad because I disagreed with you.

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When you or someone close to you deals with any sort of marital infidelity, let me know how that works. Husband cheats, husband comforts wife? Doesn't work. At least not in the early stages.

Girl, I grew up Catholic. Divorce is a mortal sin in Catholicism. This is what Catholics do. Infidelity is not exclusive to Mormons. You could learn a thing or two from the Catholics.

Edited by anatess
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I probably could. Do you see that you might learn something from someone who has been through something you haven't, or actively helped someone through something you haven't experienced? Because I'm certain there are things you have not been through or experienced or have a family member that's an expert or. . . or. . .

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Posted · Hidden by estradling75, September 5, 2015 - hide the responses
Hidden by estradling75, September 5, 2015 - hide the responses

Seriously??? Did you really just say this to me?

Let me spell this out for you... We work as a team. I have a weakness, he helps me get over it. He doesn't go whining to his friends about it.

Now stop being a bitter girl with your panties in a wad because I disagreed with you.

 

Let me spell this out for you, because I know I'm not the only one who thinks so: you wear this weakness like some kind of badge. You talk about it with no remorse or shame. I bring it up in public only because you have on several occasions and because, yes, I find it a big enough issue that it discredits to me anything else you might have to say about a healthy marriage. 

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