How Far Behind Someone Should a Porn Addiction Be? (Is It Still a Shadow?)

[seoulsearch]

Hello Everybody,

First I want to say that I am sorry for all the typos and misspellings in my last few posts and threads... I'm on one of my infamous random bouts of insomnia, and my sleep-deprived mind is inserting letters and words in ways that somehow make sense to me, but will look like absolute nonsense to the rest of you!

I have tended to travel in and out of the dating scene the past few years... and having made the choice to jump back into the mix within the last five months or so, I seem to be running into a common issue.

Many of the guys who have expressed interest will eventually tell me they are dealing with, or have dealt with, a porn addiction. In a thread I wrote a while back, most people here seemed to voice the opinion that they would not date or marry someone who had a current porn addiction but would be willing to consider someone who has "kicked the habit."

My question is, what exactly should the definition be of having kicked the addiction? If the person hasn't viewed porn in 6 days, weeks, months, or years, are they over it? Would you want to see some sort of "proof", such as a certificate showing that they had been through some kind of intervention program, or have a mentor?

Where are the guidelines between what you would and would not accept in a relationship regarding this issue?

I tend to be cautious in this area because I have been too open-minded in the past and found myself in very damaging situations.

But, I certainly don't want to slam the door on an earnest, heartfelt Christian guy who is a normal human being that has struggles, just like the rest of us, in many different areas.

What are your thoughts?

I still wrestle with this, and have yet to come to a solid conclusion.

 

[Moviefan2k4]

My question is, what exactly should the definition be of having kicked the addiction? If the person hasn't viewed porn in 6 days, weeks, months, or years, are they over it? Would you want to see some sort of "proof", such as a certificate showing that they had been through some kind of intervention program, or have a mentor?

I can't speak for anyone else, but in either March or April (don't remember which), my fourth "porn free" anniversary will hit, and its something I'm rather proud of. My addiction to porn dominated my life for nearly a decade, and I believe its only because of God that I have my freedom from it.

However, that doesn't mean I don't wrestle with the memories at times. See, a man's mind (Christian or not) is like a video camera, and our eyes serve as the lens. Because we are so notoriously visual, almost everything we see gets "recorded" in our brains. There's a lot of stuff from those years that I've (thankfully) forgotten, but there's also things I remember, and fighting those images can be very difficult at times. Why am I telling you this? Because I think its very important for any woman to understand that if a man she loves has battled against porn, it's very unlikely those thoughts will ever go away completely. That doesn't mean he can't grow strong in the Lord, or be free of the sinful impulses...he can. But on a certain level, some of that stuff may stay with him for a long time. God's grace and mercy are unfathomable, and I'm not saying He uses such things to punish us mentally...but even with His forgiveness, there's still consequences in the natural realm. I've been forgiven for my sins, and my memories of porn have faded a great deal, but its still a challenge to shift my focus elsewhere at different times, especially when I feel lonely or depressed.

Where are the guidelines between what you would and would not accept in a relationship regarding this issue?

Once again, I won't put words into others' mouths, but if I fell in love with a woman who later confessed she had battled porn, I'd want to know she was no longer viewing it in any way, and that she'd taken the matter to God in prayer for forgiveness. one of the hardest things in life is to forgive ourselves of sin, even when we know that God's already done His part with it. If a woman confessed her trials with me, I'd probably tell her of mine, and maybe our mutual battles could be used in a Godly way somehow.

 

[lil-rush]

Did Jesus deliver the person of the addiction, or is it simply the person trying to stop looking at porn on his own strength?

If Jesus delivered the person, the person is delivered. 1 minute elapses, 1 month, a year, fifty years. It doesn't matter the time. When Jesus heals, that is it. If someone says "Jesus delivered me of my porn-addiction" we should not try and find out how long ago it was since they last looked at porn. Instead we should say "Baruch HaShem!"

If someone is trying to quit porn on his own strength, we should pray for that person.

As to relationships, figure out if the person is earnest about giving up the porn, and if the person is doing so in a spiritual manner. People can fall off the wagon, so to speak, and just because a person slipped up once after 2 years or something of the sort does not mean that person is a porn addict. You really can't judge a past-porn-addict on the length of time since he last looked. It's all about the heart, and it's rather impossible to find out what is in the heart of another person. You just have to pray about it, get to know the person to see if this person's word is trustworthy, etc.

 

[MahogonySnail]

I think it takes about 4 weeks for your body to be free of an addiction, chemically/biologically speaking. On the scale of relationship difficulties however, porn would be less destructive than greed and financial mis-spending. Women's magazines aren't exactly pure either, the amount of top less men in those can fuel any fire. I know old men who are married and aren't free from porn addiction per se but they have a porn blocker on their computer so they can't go anywhere like that on it and the wife has the password.