The Other Side of Porn Addiction

When I was 15 years old, I had a boyfriend who decided we should be intimate. Naive and wanting love, I allowed it to happen. One day we were at his house, and I saw a DVD player in his room. He had never had a DVD player in there before, so it piqued my curiosity. To my horror, it was a hardcore pornographic DVD. I opened the drawer beneath the TV, and it was filled with DVDs of similar content. I was devastated. I thought I was his only one; I thought he only wanted me. But instead I was merely an object for his fulfillment. It broke my heart; it made me violent. I took his "stash" out into the garage and beat them with a shovel; I literally rubbed his face in it like the dog he was. There was no room for forgiveness in my heart. In fact, I didn't feel like I had a heart anymore.

Six years later, I met a man. A man who I fell deeply in love with but always felt like there was something I didn't know. For a year, I gave him the benefit of the doubt since I thought I was being paranoid. One day he stayed the night at my house. The next morning I went to work, and he asked if he could stay there until I got back. I, of course, said yes. When I returned, I got on my computer to check out a video. It linked me to a plethora of pornographic sites. He visited them and masturbated to them while I was gone. In my own home. On my own bed. What is worse, he denied intimacy with me the night before. This time, I gave him a chance. I told him I wouldn't leave him as long as he never did it again. He said he was so sorry; he was crying; he had such shame; he couldn't believe he did that to me. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Two months later, I found it again. He tried to blame it on everyone else but himself. He even tried to tell me it was my fault because I nag him too much. He made me question myself. Why wasn't I good enough? Am I not attractive enough? Is it because I won't do the things that the girls in the movies would do? My pain just kept adding up. I honestly didn't want to live anymore. I wasn't good enough for anyone. It didn't matter that I kept myself in shape, my teeth white, my hair long, my eyes perfectly lined, my lips perfectly glossed; I still wasn't anyone's one and only.

This roller-coaster lasted another year. I later discovered he went to strip clubs as well and would spend hundreds of dollars a night when he wouldn't even have enough money to take me out to dinner once a month.

Finally, one night, I walked out into the living room and caught him in the act of masturbating to porn. At first I felt numb, but then I turned violent again. I lunged at him and grabbed him by his nether regions squeezing as hard as I could until I heard him cry out in pain. Finally, I caused someone else pain! I started to leave his house in my pajamas, in a frenzy. My face covered in tears; I knew my mind would never be the same.

He called out to me "Please, remember your Christian values!" And, to me, a personal full of hate and spite, that hypocritical reminder was almost demeaning. A man who snuck off in the middle of the night to fulfill his devilish desires of the flesh, leaving me completely alone, begged me to remember my Christian values? I was livid. Jesus told us that to even LOOK at another woman with lust in your eyes is the same as committing adultery.

But what he intended to harm me with, God has turned into good. He was right; the effect's of another's sin kept destroying me because I lost touch with my God. My God who promises to heal the broken-hearted.

From then on, it wasn't easy. There was a lot of Christian counseling. A lot of crying. A lot of forgiveness. A lot of self-evaluation. A lot of praying. A lot of paranoia. But I feel as if this terrible burden of hatred/wrath/deteriorated self-esteem slowly lifts itself under His grace everyday.

My boyfriend, now my fiancee, got help too. He has been "clean" from pornography and strip clubs for almost a year now. He too was touched by the grace of God. Does he still struggle with carnal desires? I am certain. Right now we are working on finding ourselves accountability partners; people who we can feel secure telling the truth about ourselves to without judgment, knowing they will help set us back on the right path. He for his sexual addiction; me for my wrath. The Lord, in his unyielding mercy, has delivered us.

"For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." -Romans 5:19

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