Marriage is not the solution to your guy’s problems with a serious porn addiction and abusive behaviors.
It’s very easy for a guy to hide a serious pornography addiction, especially when you’re just dating. The signs can be tricky to see. “Is this feeling I have real? Am I just making up a problem? How do I confront something that’s just a feeling?”
Through the last five years of working with women in relationships with abusive men who use pornography, I’ve found it’s not that there aren’t signs, sometimes women just turn off their gut instincts and think, “He’s just stressed because he’s finishing law school.” Or “I can wait for these issues to be resolved because I love him. Love conquers all right!”
Believing the relationship will get better or be more fulfilling if you get married, live in the same city, or see each other exclusively. Unfortunately, marriage or moving closer to one another doesn’t stop porn use.
Even if you can’t see his compulsive sexual behaviors, you can watch for behaviors that creep up in the form of emotional abuse. Instead of pushing uneasy feelings aside, listen to your heart. Pray to be guided. Whatever you do, don’t ignore what your intuition.
Knowing the abusive behaviors that accompany porn use help you make a good decision about whether to break up or continue dating someone. The following points will help you understand emotional abuse so you can see it when it is happening.
Of course, not all addicts exhibit these behaviors, but these examples will be a great starting point for diving in deeper to the issue of a potential pornography addiction.
1. Your boyfriend withdraws suddenly, without a reason.
You’ve been having a great time, spending quality time together and suddenly he stops calling. A few days or even a week later, he texts and acts like everything is normal. But you’ve been dying inside wondering what happened.
In this scenario, tell your boyfriend how you felt when he stopped contacting you. If he blows you off or fails to show compassion, reevaluate the relationship. Because if your concerns or feelings are marginalized now, things will only get worse.
2. Your boyfriend spends an excessive amount of time online or uses work, school, gaming or other excuses to avoid connecting with you emotionally.
What do you do together? Do you simply make out and then he quickly leaves to go study or work? Do you connect on an emotional level? Do you talk about how you’re feeling in the relationship? Does he ask how you’re doing?
If you express a concern, does he reach out in a caring way to reconnect, or does the interaction leave you feeling hollow and confused? If you’re afraid to really tell him what you think and feel because he might leave you, consider what you’re motives are for being in the relationship.
Rather than thinking about the type of guy you want to be with (good-looking, successful, charismatic), start thinking about the type of relationship you want (peaceful, loving, happy).
3. Your boyfriend is obsessed with working out and looking like a fitness model and wants you to do the same.
Our emotional and physical health is linked, and physical health is essential to our overall happiness. But unless you’re a professional bodybuilder, an obsession with the perfect body (either his or yours) will most likely decrease the happiness in your relationship.
A healthy, happy relationship is established and maintained on principles of honesty, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities Happy marriages are not based on whether or not you adhere to the latest diet and have the biceps of an ox. Only porn teaches that.
In pornography, physical acts are staged using film angels and soft lenses to create the illusion that sex is simply about the physical act. So the myth perpetuated by porn is: if you’re physically perfect, your sex will be amazing and you’re relationship will be out of this world! Yikes. That is absolutely not true. The following IS true:
- There is no such thing as the perfect body, just like there are no perfect people.
- Fulfilling sex is impossible if you don’t have a solid emotional connection.
- An amazing body does nothing for your emotional connection. Some of the happiest, long-married couples I know have a bit of padding. A little padding goes a long way toward a happy marriage.
4. Your boyfriend isn’t sure about marriage or a family.
Pornography perpetuates the myth that it isn’t natural for a man to be married and faithful to one woman. Similarly, pornography has no respect for children.
How does your boyfriend feel about marriage and family? When you think about your boyfriend being a father, does it seem natural? Does he talk about children or family life? What are his main interests?
Even if he says he is interested in marriage, consider his actions and words. One sign might be that he wants to date perpetually without moving toward marriage. You may get the sense that he’s wondering if something better will come along. Pornography grooms men to always be curious and looking for a bigger lust hit, rather than a lasting, peaceful relationship.
5. Your boyfriend is secretive, evasive, defensive, or irritable.
Let’s say you can’t find your phone, so you pick up your boyfriend’s phone to call your own in order to find it. You ask for his password, and he grabs the phone and says, “That’s private.”
Or perhaps your boyfriend doesn’t see you coming, lost in his phone, and when you approach him and say hi, he accuses you of sneaking up on him. Does he seem irritable when you ask him questions about his day? Your questions or presence may make him uncomfortable if it threatens to discover his secret.
Without Treatment The Abuse & Porn Use Will Escalate
These types of behaviors and others will intensify with marriage. So marrying someone who is exhibiting emotionally abusive behaviors thinking that sex or a public commitment will change things is a bad idea.
Because porn use numbs their negative emotions, and marriage doesn’t automatically make someone emotionally mature. Marriage is not the solution to your boyfriend’s problems with abusive behaviors. Without treatment, having sex with a pornography addict puts you more in the category of a drug, rather than a person in a relationship. That means you’re in an abusive relationship.
But What if My Boyfriend Is Serious About Recovery?
Because so many people are affected by pornography addiction now, it’s tricky finding someone to date who have never had an experience with pornography or used it.
Most pornography addicts think finding the right woman and having sex with her will solve the problem. Because that is completely false, you’re looking for a man who is willing to go to therapy and to attend 12 Step Meetings. Not to check off boxes, but because they want to live an emotionally healthy lifestyle.
Navigating Troubled Waters
In dating, there are always risks. No matter how hard you try, you cannot anticipate every problem or scenario. When you date a porn user:
- You risk being viewed as an object, rather than a person.
- You risk being cheated on with pornography or with other compulsive sexual behaviors.
- You risk having a relationship with someone who is emotionally abusive, and will likely have a difficult time connecting with you emotionally.
- You risk the possibility of being completely and totally miserable.
But these risks exist in any relationship. You cannot expect to date someone who is emotionally mature if you are not. Your first goal needs to be that you are happy with yourself.*
The next goal is a workable friendship. So while dating, try to imagine what everyday life will be like. If you are feeling uneasy and disconnected, don’t blame yourself. Don’t try harder. With love, you’re looking for an open, honest relationship. Not a struggle to eek some love from the person you’re infatuated with. If you’re hustling for love, give up. That’s not love, and a miserable life isn’t worth hustling for.
Finally, trust your gut because porn use is an abuse issue. Women in relationships with porn users often find themselves a victim of abuse in the form of lying, manipulation, emotional distance, emotional neglect, verbal assaults, anger, and other abusive behaviors. So think before you drink the water.
*If you’ve been hurt and want to keep from being hurt again, Betrayal Trauma Recovery offers to help move you along into a place of safety and healing so moving forward into a better/non-abusive relationship can be possible.
What a load of garbage. Unless it is child pornography there are no abusive behaviours that accompany/caused by pornography use. There are abusers that watch pornography but there are significantly more people who are not abusers that also watch it. All you are doing is fear mongering and propagating pseudo-science myths about sex, pornography and morals. It is not an addiction to porn, it is a excuse to control people’s sex lives.
When I’m being lied to and completely ignored, it’s a problem. When my boyfriend has to watch porn before he has sex with me, it’s a problem. When he is caught and calls me crazy, continues his habit knowing how bad I’m hurting, yells at me for questioning him and neglects his children and me to watch porn, that is abuse.