Posted on 06/20/2013 12:01:02 PM PDT by Resettozero
Recently I was asked about a very difficult situation.
A woman has been married to a man with a long-term addiction to pornography. The last few years he’s been trying to stop, but by his own efforts alone. When she asks him if he’s struggling he will deny it. She finds out he’s using again and then has the double-hurt of his use and his lying.
At one point, with her husband’s permission, she talked with their pastor (who is also her husband’s brother) about this situation. He told her that her husband had to seek help (true) and that there was nothing he could do (not necessarily true). He then said a prayer. If her hope was for anything more than that, she was disappointed.
She concluded this part of her story (there is another piece of the story we’ll take up in subsequent post) by saying “this problem has gone on for so long I don’t talk to my husband about it anymore.”
(Excerpt) Read more at covenanteyes.com ...
metmom, my hat is off to you. I can only hope that certain parties to this discussion open their eyes/minds and hear you, rather than continue to excuse sinful/lustful behavior in terms of a pity-party.
I’ve been dealing with an acquaintance who has her own issues with sin (not porn) and I am getting pretty sick of hearing the pity party and rationalizations and excuses. I hate the victim mentality.
Sin is sin and needs to be repented of, whether it’s stealing, alcohol, drugs, porn, lying, whatever....
It’s a choice.
Bingo. No woman who is not "acting" for a camera is like the women in porn.
Moaning at whatever he does to her, no matter how degrading ... having an orgasm in 2 minutes flat? Please. Porn is beyond unrealistic and kind of pathetic. Titillating at first and then it's the same thing over and over again plus a lot of fake.
Good post. I’d add that he has no fear of rejection from porn. Even if just for the night or the moment.
Wives have a responsibility to their husbands and that includes sex on a regular basis.
Agree/disagree?
What does it do to the husband when his wife rejects him?
“I know of men who get plenty of sex with a willing wife and still do porn”
Do you know if this man in question is one of them? Does the article provide sufficient evidence to make this determination? No, it doesn’t.
This gets at what I said earlier. I’m sorry you don’t get what I was saying, but blaming the man exclusively isn’t going to help him get off porn. What’s the ultimate goal here? Feeling good about yourself or helping someone overcome an addiction? You can’t tackle the root problem without first determining what the problem is.
Not all alcoholics drink for the same reason, and treatment can’t start until you address the actual problems.
One of the first things family members must learn about addicts is that they will always attempt to lay blame on their loved ones. The drunk's or druggie's spouse "makes" them do it -- he or she is always complaining about the drinking or drugs!
Assuming the blame is the worst thing a spouse can do, even though the spouse is often the first person bystanders will blame.
This husband has gone off on his own for many years, probably since before their marriage, developing his sexuality with fantasy partners instead of his real spouse. He has abandoned his responsibilities to communicate with his wife and develop a healthy sexual relationship with her alone through tenderness, experimentation, trial and error, communication and fun. Instead, he has retreated into an adolescent, self-indulgent and imaginary world of power and control, immediate gratification and retreat from insecurities that has addicted him, just as destructive as if a young wife had refused her husband's needs and immersed herself in romance novels and self-pleasuring, or a string of affairs.
Once an addiction has destroyed the addict's power to resist, there are three entities in the marriage, and the third party is not God. The addict's behavior is unfaithful and a betrayal. The husband in this story needs to find a support group, and they do exist, to deal with his addiction. The wife needs to learn about addiction and how best to sort out her life with, or without, the addict.
It's a crushing blow to most people to learn that the happy, healthy family they dreamed of is the equivalent of a cancer patient. The addicted marital partner is undead, and there is no end in sight until the addict begins to fight to overcome, and shows real signs of improvement -- which can take years, a miracle, or both. Even then, there is no guarantee of a continued good outcome, especially if children are also involved.
Same question I asked before.
Do you believe that one of the duties that a wife has to her husband is regular sex?
Agree, disagree?
There actually has been research on this point, and many husbands could get more sugar on their cookie if they would share the housework willingly, and do some of it with their wives, like both tidying up the kitchen and family room before going to bed.
Above all, a husband should NOT say to her, "I just did [name of housework chore here] FOR YOU", or "I HELPED OUT with YOUR WORK." Unless the woman stays home full time, and even if she does if there are children at home, the husband should just assume that he should perform a fair share of household tasks.
That said, it's not always the husband who slides out of housework and causes resentment. Having an actual discussion or making a list of the fair division of chores and timeline for doing them helps greatly if either partner just doesn't get around to it. Otherwise, the put-upon spouse feels like an underpaid employee, and will do just enough in bed to get by.
You are not a prosecutor; this is not a cross-examination and I am not a hostile witness or a defendant on trial here; nor are any of the other freepers who are here trying to communicate with you, it seems, in vain.
But for what it's worth, here it is again: both parties are responsible for pleasing each other -- with a regularity that is subject to negotiation and renegotiation as time passes and circumstances change.
When one or both partners is rigid, demanding or engaging in a power struggle instead of being patient, communicative and cooperative, a couple can become polarized and frozen in opposition, blaming, and so forth. Then the justifications for addictions, porn, masturbation or affairs come into play, because the excuses have already begun.
If you do take the time to explore the web site kindly provided by resettozero, you can find some other articles or links, such as the article on the site that is a follow-up to this one, that did provide more of a view of how pastors can help people struggling with this problem. But addiction digs very deep: to expect a single blog post or article to clear up all the tangled web of Satan's tentacles extended through porn may be unrealistic.
This article and thread, to sum up, are limited to one story about a man who has an addiction to self-gratification that have become a crisis threatening the survival of his marriage, and yet he does not want to deal with it. Facing the problem and healing the problem are his responsibility.
Viewing porn is a problem whether you are male or female, married or single, using media or your own imagination. If it is an addiction, and like Louis Foxwell said, not the root but rather an outer layer of a deeper addiction to self-pleasuring, it needs to be confronted as an addiction or an idolatry, and treated aggressively.
“But for what it’s worth, here it is again: both parties are responsible for pleasing each other”
I’m not talking about pleasure. I’m talking about sex.
Do you believe that one of the duties that a wife has to her husband is to have sex with him on a regular basis. Pleasure’s a bit of a weasal word. So let’s cut right to the chase.
Insofar there is disagreement on this point - then we aren’t working from the same presuppositions. It makes further agreement unlikely. If you don’t believe that regular sex is a duty of a wife, then of course, you’ll agree that the husband should be ok with the wife declining sex - “whenever she feels like”.
The bible is very clear on this. Any period without sex should be, limited, and with mutual consent, ie, that the husband must agree to it. The wife unilaterally deciding isn’t sufficient cause.
Now I am not saying that a husband should force himself on his wife, but I am saying that the wife should see it as part of her responsibility to her husband. It’s no different then if the husband were to turn around and say, “I don’t want to work today”. Well, tough.
Sometimes you do your job because that is your job, and sometimes when you are not at your best. Sex is the same way. Sure, maybe you’re not in the mood, but is that sufficient cause to say no? I would say no.
Unless there is a cause, ie, sickness or something, I would argue (and this works both ways). A husband has a duty to his wife. He can’t be at work 24/7 and leaving her with nothing. There has to be a balance here.
This is why I’m getting at the root here. Is the problem the addiction to porn, or is the problem that the husband is not getting what he needs from his wife? I don’t know what’s true in this case. There is insufficient information to make this determination.
“you can find some other articles or links”
Which, I suppose, contain the same ‘advice’ to ‘seek’ a ‘focus group’, so I guess that the poorly treated wife can get started on husband number 2. Someone who understands her. ;)
“But addiction digs very deep: to expect a single blog post or article to clear up all the tangled web of Satan’s tentacles extended through porn may be unrealistic.”
I thought the advice was particularly bad and warranted further discussion of other possibilities not considered.
“Facing the problem and healing the problem are his responsibility.”
No, it’s not, and I confront this. This is a marriage problem. It is not just his responsibility. It is a responsibility of husband and wife together to tackle this problem.
Would you say that Alcohol was solely the problem of the wife and she had to get well (without the support of her husband?), of course not. You’d be telling the husband that he has to do his best to support her through the addiction. Why?
Because the addiction is not the person. Same here. There is a separation between the identity of the person and the addiction.
“it needs to be confronted as an addiction or an idolatry, and treated aggressively.”
Agreed. I disagree with the bad advice presented by this article.
OK, have it your way. Gettin’ much?
Would be premarital sex. So no, no, I’m not.
OK, that explains a lot.
I don’t think you have to be married to understand marriage well. I’m not the only one who’s had these insights, btw.
EXCUSE ME?!?!
AND you're single?!?!? No shiite. ROFLMBO!!!!!
Unbelievable. Truly, just unbelievable. Grow up, little preacher, grow the hell up.
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