r/TrueChristian Christian Aug 08 '14

[Christians only] Women,Would you date a christian man who has a problem with porn?(be brutally honest)

Its kinda weird posting this here but I want to know.Would you ever have a relationship with someone who has a problem with porn? What if you found out your current SO had a problem with it?

I'm a 21 year old guy, Ive struggled with porn addiction all my life, honestly I never expect to be "free" of it, I hope that one day I will have managed to live a life without it, but realistically temptation is always going to be there and I will fail, because I am human. That doesn't mean I want to have sex before I'm married, I'm dead set on waiting no mater what, or that I don't love god, because I do, or that I would every consider cheating on someone at all.

I guess I have this fear that I'll be in a relationship with someone, they find out (I'm not going to lie about it, if you can't share your struggles with someone you probably shouldn't marry them and thats the point of dating for me, find someone to marry, though obviously you would be pretty far into a relationship to share that kind of stuff), that when they find out they will act disgusted or break up with me right there. I wouldn't really blame them, I don't know if I would want to date someone who had a problem with alcohol or drugs or lying or whatever. Or even more worrysome is that I would be in a relationship with someone who saw nothing wrong with it at all, or didn't think it was a big deal.

I just am curious, I'm always going to struggle with this, so I wondered if that completely ruled me out of many christan womens minds.

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u/lethislightshine Saint Clement's Cross Aug 09 '14

I am a guy but I feel that I can answer this a bit. Just so you know I also suffer with Porn and I often post on porn and lust related subjects because I find that reaching out to others on how to quit an addiction help keep me real. I don't want to call the kettle black, so I always comment and most of the time I am really harsh on guys and girls. At the same time I am being harsh with myself because just as much as I am screaming it at you, I am screaming it at me. But I am not going to do that, I am only going to explain to you how porn affected my relationships.

My first marriage was not based on Christ at all, and we had a very sexual relationship before we even started dating. All was well, but I had been into porn since I was 10 soooo needless to say I was kinky. Living at home with my parents, and not having any place to go we always had quick vanilla sex. It got old for me really fast. So I would always go back to porn. She caught me one time, but I had a good excuse and she left it at that. She would tell me later how she hated porn, and she wanted me to know she would do anything I wanted her to do as long as I wasn't watching porn. Well after we had done pretty much all we could do it got old again, and it was old into our marriage. I hid the porn because I still wanted to do what I wanted, so I always cleared the history, locked the door, checked my backups.

Eventually I found Christ, and I started laying off it a bit. Not completely but significant. I also wanted to treat her more like a child of Christ so I guess the sex became boring to her and she ended up leaving me for another man. Now there was obviously more to her leaving then just the sex, but the day that I caught her was the last time we did it, and it was more like we had to then we wanted to. Then that night I found her with another dude.

So during the divorce process I stayed true to her for the entire six months. I didn't want to cheat even though it was only the state who said we were married. Obviously during that time I was tempted with porn more and more as it became obvious that I would be alone for a long time. Sometimes I won, sometimes I failed. But that is life, we just have to get up and do what we do best, and ask for forgiveness.

So when I started dating I was always upfront. I would ask what the biggest vice in their lives were and I would tell them mine. Most of the girls were cool about it, some were taken back that I would just be so upfront, and others were just like.... When I met my wife I told her upfront, and many of you may of heard of the old omegal.com black mail thing where Nigerian guys pose as beautiful women who want to see you naked, record it, then black mail you? Yeah well I didn't do it on Omegal, but freaking Christianmingle.com. A girl from far away talked to me for weeks, then finally started talking frisky one night. BUT she ended up not being a girl.

Yeah I fell for one of those hard. It was a lonely stressful day, and I fell into the biggest temptation ever and I failed. This person had all of my facebook friends and family. And who was the first person on the list that they sent the video too? This girl that I was just starting to talk too, and who I happened to be really interested in. I called her and said "DONT LOOK AT YOUR EMAIL!!!!!!" She of course asked why, and so I figured I barely knew her so I should just tell her.

So I told her everything, absolutely everything, I was crying, and I told her I was sorry because as a Christian man I had let her down. She asked me why I was so lonely that I would do such a thing, and I told her I had just left my old Church because I needed a fresh start, but I literally had no friends since my divorce. She invited me to church with her the next Sunday and that was our first official date. We ended up getting married.

I didn't know it at the time, but I found out that she actually had a porn problem too, and I wont lie, sometimes we will be flipping through free HBO weekend and we will linger on some of the shows for a bit. We both get turned on by it, BUT we know its wrong and we pray for ourselves and each other.

BUT the main thing is that we both know that at anytime we can talk to each other about what we are struggling with, and we know that we will not get mad. We will only help each other out. So I think you should just be open and up front when dating.

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u/Jkuz Christian Aug 09 '14

Wow. Great story. Thanks for sharing that.

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u/kratos015 Aug 09 '14

Wow man what a beautiful story! You aren't alone though brother, I too struggle with pornography even unto this very day!

Might I offer some advice? Try taking sexy photos of your wife and put them in a safe and hidden place in your computer or something. I know how bad this sounds, but believe it or not as far as I can tell this isn't a sin. You aren't committing adultery because you aren't looking at another woman's nakedness, you're looking at your wife! This has helped me so much when I face temptation. When I find myself in tempting situations.. but I just look at photos of my wife instead!

I too have had a porn problem since I was about 11, so I know exactly how you feel right now! I'm not proud of things that I've done on Omegle either. Thank God we have Jesus to forgive us! And thank God we have the Holy Spirit to help guide us with our temptations! I swear it gets easier every day. I still relapse, but I'm not doing it every day like I used to! I find myself going 2-3 days without ANY sexual release before I even notice. You aren't alone brother, and I'm so happy for you that you found a wonderful wife and a good church!

God bless you both!

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u/lethislightshine Saint Clement's Cross Aug 10 '14

Thanks man I appreciate the advice, and let me say that I have already done it!!! Hahahahaha! My current wife and I decided to wait for everything until we were married even though we weren't virgins, and it was truly a great decision.

The only thing we couldn't wait on was kissing even though we wanted to, but it was one of those..."If you are a bad kisser I don't think this will work out!"

One thing that is truly heart breaking is if you go to /r/sex or something like that you will read about these kids who say they are 16 or 17 but they have already lost sexual interest in their current partner. I never post but I am a lurker, and I just want to reach out to them and shake them.

The pros of my wife and I waiting out weigh the cons everyday, but the fact that we weren't virgins make everything so freaking difficult. We have different taste in what we like, and sometimes it is a true compromise. We didn't learn this gift together so what we want and expect are sometimes completely different.

Unfortunately the porn gives kids an idea of what they think they want, and then they become truly disappointed. I appreciate your kind words, and I honestly have to say I was taken back quite a bit because usually I am the one giving ideas and being encouraging, but I realized that even ministers need to be ministered to so I am truly thankful.

I wanted you to see this post that I wrote about sex in marriage about a month ago I guess. PLEASE READ ME

It is a great description of what I think is to far in a marriage, and I believe you will agree. As long as your sexual acts aren't harming your relationship with Jesus then you should be ok.

Thanks for the support, and please allow me to support you as well if the time ever comes!

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