Today's post is a bit of a vent - so, warning!
Last week I read a letter posted on a very popular anti-pornography website. It was written by a girl who chose to stay with her boyfriend and help him work through his pornography addiction. A few months ago I read an article about another girl who chose to marry a man that she knew had a pornography problem because she could tell he was repentant and wanting to heal.
I love that porn does not conquer all. That when an addict puts their mind to it and dedicates themselves to thereapy and hardwork it is possible for them to turn over a new leaf.
But . . . here is my issue with letters like this.
They give the impressionn that if a girl leaves her boyfriend because he is a porn addict it means that she didn't really love him any way. That a girl doesn't really love you if she leaves.
Groan!
This is an aweful thing to say to both the girlfriend and the porn addict. Having a boyfriend with a pornography addiction can tear you apart. It causes emotional issues, and is no picnic. The girl in the letter I read said that because of this she had had to deal with depression already. And they aren't even married!
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't fault a girlfriend for moving on because she found out her boyfriend has an addiction. If you are having those kinds of problems before marriage, you'll have them after as well. Only maybe worse because in the addicts mind he might be thinking "She knew about this before we married and was ok with it."
I think if a marriage has any real, good chance at all that the addict needs to get help to try and not take those issues into a marriage.
You don't want to tell the addict that if a girl leaves him that means she didn't truly love him. How aweful is that for the addict! Basically you are telling him that every girl that left because she didn't want to put her, her future marriage and kids through a pornography addiction, was just stringin him along in the first place. Oh, don't worry. She didn't really love you anyway.
That's aweful!
Don't put that on either the girlfriend or the addict.
If anything, I would tell a young man to not get wrapped up with pornography and I would tell him that it is a total turn off for girls. They don't want to feel compared to someone else, they don't want to go through those issues. I would tell him that he will most definitely lose girlfriends over this. And probably the ones he would really want to keep.
Now, if a couple is married and the wife finds out that her husband is an addict, then I think they should try to work it out if at all possible. Dating relatoionships are a lot more expendable than marriages, which should be permanent. I know that sometimes this doesn't work out in a marriage, that some addicts cross dangerous lines that they cannot just come back from. There is a point where you have taken your addiction to levels and once you get to that level you will have to deal with a more dangerous level of temptation for the rest of your life. Some addictions put people at risk.
That being said, I think if you are married, try to work it out. If you are dating, don't be pressured to stick around just for the sake of proving your loyalty.
We need to teach kids that there are consequences for their actions. And yeah, you might lose a girlfriend over this. That doesn't mean that she didn't love you or that she was just stringing you along. If you find a girl that is willing to stick with you, then good for you. But don't be surprised if a girl doesn't want to deal with that.
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