A man who loves wisdom brings joy to his father, but a companion of prostitutes
squanders his wealth. Proverbs 29:3
Today I learned that a young Christian woman I know, who is intelligent and from a good family, is dating a young man who may have a serious problem with on-line pornography. This young woman has her whole life ahead of her. I hurt deeply when I think of the life of excruciating pain that she will endure married to this young man. I know this truth because I have lived it.
I am now a woman over 40. What would I say to my younger 20-something self? I would say first "do not marry a cultural Christian from a church-attending family, but instead marry a godly man." Find a man who loves Jesus more than anything else, loves the Bible, loves to worship, and can sharpen you in your spiritual walk.
I would also say, if you believe that marriage will fix your boyfriend's addiction to pornography, it absolutely will not. A deep heart transformation and love for Jesus is the only thing that will release your man from this bondage, and even then, lapses are likely, painful, and devastating. I would tell my younger self, "what you have caught him doing is only the tip of the iceberg." No matter how much he swears it's no big deal, that he doesn't look often, or that it's not his porn on the computer, he is not telling you the truth.
I would say to my younger self, imagine you find porn again a few years after the wedding and you have moved to another state and bought a first home together. To divorce now requires pain, shame, and loss of financial security. So he promises to stop and buys you flowers and you forgive and begin again. Now imagine several years later you have three young children and a bigger mortgage and you have scaled back your education or your career to take care of your family. Then you find hardcore porn, or some evidence of on-line chat romance or sexting. You think of the pain for your young children to lose a father and how hard it will be as a single mom of three. So you accept your man's promise to join a Twelve-Step group for sex addicts, your try some couples counseling, and you forge ahead. Now imagine that you have four children, one in college, and a busy family life. Your husband's addiction has escalated to several times a day, or perhaps to hookups or prostitutes or voyeurism. Can you imagine yourself married to a sex-offender? Telling your children that their father is in prison? Paying fifty thousand dollars for a criminal defense attorney? Or maybe you will be fortunate and the worst consequence will be that your husband treats you with contempt, loses his job and retires to the man cave with his computer.
There is only one reason a young man looks at porn, and that is with a plan to masturbate. He has already begun to bond as one flesh with video images of women, and to the extent he has bonded with them, he will never bond with you - his young bride. No matter how nice he seems, he is enjoying degrading and objectifying the women in the videos. By this behavior he is practicing degrading and devaluing you, his future wife, in the same way someone practices a musical instrument. He is training muscle memory and neural paths in his brain to enjoy things a certain way, to prefer a woman who does not expect intellectual or emotional engagement, a woman who does just what he imagines in his fantasies, a woman who does not demand intimacy or promise-keeping.
I have heard many, many women say there is no life more lonely that marriage to a porn addict. I whole-heartedly agree! And I wish someone had told me that when I was 22.
You may think that looking at porn is not so bad, and indeed it may be ubiquitous. But as the porn use and fantasy life with unreal women permeates his thoughts, and your husband's hidden shame increases, he will begin to lash out at you. Without gospel-filled repentance, he cannot accept why he feels so awful, so he assumes it must be his wife's fault. This might start a few days or a few years after the wedding, but it is certain to start sometime. He will blame you for his problems, shame you into submission, control you into staying with him despite his inability to be emotionally present and intimate. And the verbal and emotional abuse that sex addicts inflict on their spouse is far more crushing to a wife's soul than the unfaithfulness of eyes, hands and body parts.
I would say to my younger self --- run! Run far away, run as far as you possibly can. Turn to your dad or uncle or brother or youth pastor or any godly and courageous man in your life who is willing to protect you from this disease. Turn to them for honest advice and prayers; ask them to walk with you as you discern marriage. Ask God and your advisors to protect you and to guard your heart. "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." Prov. 4:23 It has taken me a long time to realize that I cannot guard the door to my own heart - I need other Christians to stand guard for me and I must invite them to stand near me, guarding the door together.