How to Begin Healing From Porn Addiction
Well let me tell you first of all that this answer you are looking for is not a simple pill that you can take to be rid of your addiction or a simple five step process that you can enroll your husband in. This subject of healing is going to be the subject of my next few articles.
Let me first address the wives.
I know that you have probably heard this before, but it is not your fault. Really breathe that in. You are not the problem. If you have caught your husband looking at porn or he has confessed to you, you have found out that his problem started before you were even married. Your husband probably thought that getting married would solve his problem but it didn’t. So it is important for you to know that you did not cause this. With this it is equally important for you to know that you can neither control it nor cure it. That might sting a little so again really take this in. You didn’t cause it, you can’t control it, and you can’t cure it. I will speak more about this in the future but you need to know that the help that your husband needs is not going to be found in you. Now, you can help out the process and you can be an encouragement but the cure, the healing, is not going to be found in you. For now, you need to know that the feelings of anger, hurt, betrayal, sadness, and rage are all normal for you to be feeling. You also need to know that as worthless as you might be feeling right now, your husband does in fact love you and you are very important to him.
Now for the men.
Men, if you are reading this you need to know that you are not alone! Just the simple fact that you struggle with porn puts in the majority. Where the healing has to start with you is for you to know that this addiction is not about sex. It is in fact an intimacy disorder. The reason why we seek out these sexual encounters, either virtual or physical, is because there is something in our past that is causing us to have a lack of intimacy with our spouses, or if you’re not married you don’t have an option for intimacy in your life right now so you are acting out with porn. So what does this all mean? What it means is that you need to find a way to practice intimacy.
Now when I say intimacy I am not talking about sex, or cuddling under the covers with your wife, or even holding hands as you walk on the beach. The intimacy that I am talking about is letting someone fully into your life. Porn addiction grows because it is allowed to fester and spread like an infection in our lives. We are too afraid to shed the much needed light on it because we are not used to it, and we definitely don’t want our wives to know about it because that would be the worst. Not only would we be uncomfortable by letting someone in but we would also receive a type of punishment by witnessing our wives reaction. So what is the answer? Find someone you can open up to. For most that would be a group of individuals who also struggle with similar problems.
This is the cure that I have found most successful. Practice intimacy with those who truly understand what you are going through and in doing so you will be able to have intimacy with others in your life. This does not mean you get to continue to keep secrets from your wife because in a good relationship trust and honesty has to be the foundation. We will look at exactly how these groups are supposed to work in my future articles.
Please email me if you have any questions or are requiring help right now. My email address is chris@wheniamweak.org
