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LAW
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Posted: Mon Dec 24th, 2007 07:34 pm |
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Well I'm learning about woman. I'm dating a Godly rock solid Christian woman. I havn't look at any porn of any kind in 12 weeks.Why? I've learned so much from this ministry its incridable . However the masturbation hasn't stopped,I just think about her only. We are conducting our relationship to the dotted i of teaching laid out in scripture. We french kiss every once in a while and that's it. Oh and long hugs and that's it. Long long conversations and we have come across many pebbles on our road to intamacy. Mainly the "Law of Differences" stuff speaking her launguage. She must be treated as if there is no other ( and there isn't) Don't dare mention other women I've dated weather good our bad. She wants to here words of endearment and tittles daily "Honey" "Sweetie" " Sugar" plus wants to feel being pursued and cherished. Wants to know when we will see each other again pronto. Its very interesting. She knows very little of the porn I looked at,our any struggle with masturbation. Plus doesn't know any thing about drugs I took in my semi distant pass 70s,80s90s and a to a much lesser exstant in present melinieum. Last time I smoked doap was April 4th 2006. So what say yee? Merry Christmas to all.
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purebygrace
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Posted: Mon Dec 24th, 2007 09:30 pm |
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Merry Christmas to you, Law. I really hope you have a wonderful Christmas this year.
I've been married 12 years, and had an addiction to porn and masturbation for 30 years. Thank you for your post, and for your honesty.
When my wife & I were dating, porn was not an issue. Eleven months after we met, we married, and we were not sexually intimate until we were married (somehow, by the grace of God!) It was not easy, that's for sure.
As I read through what you have said, and your request for feedback, I do have some very specific thoughts. First, congratulations on a year and a half of freedom from drugs! That is awesome! And, it is great to hear about 12 weeks of abstinence from porn! That is a start. However, I have a question for you to ponder: Is masturbating with this special woman in mind any different than masturbating to pornographic images? If you were to share with her that you think of her and masturbate, how would she respond to that? Would she think of it as pure before God, or would she feel as if she is no different than the images you used to look at? I know it might be a difficult question, as I have had to face the very same one myself.
When my wife found out (sadly, not by my voluntary disclosure) about the issue of pornography & masturbation that was so deeply rooted in my life, and that it had been an issue for so long, she was not a happy camper. It was the Lord who revealed it to her and not I. That was part of the pain for her. It wasn't an issue of a little sexual acting out on the side, like I had viewed it. It was a deep, foundational issue of trust. My inability to tell her the truth on such an important issue brought great damage to our marriage. We are still working on rebuilding many years later (and it took most of those years for me to learn that I could disclose myself fully to this person I had committed to for life).
The words of endearment she wants to hear are an outward verbal representation of what she desires from you, just as you have said, that she is the only person you are thinking of and interested in. Period. I would encourage you toward something even more complete, though, Law. If you are fully and completely devoted to Jesus Christ, with him as your first Love, you will go much farther in being devoted to her and her alone (provided that things go well with her). If you consider how your masturbation with her in mind makes your Lord feel, that might change the perspective some. Then, plead with him to help you think in a new way. Reading Romans 6 through 8 over and over again, slowly at times, quickly at other times, in different translations, can help here quite a bit. He is able to help you think in a new way. He has done it with me, and I continue to be amazed! Have you read Mike's book, The Road to Grace? If not, please do so. It can help you tremendously in this.
Last, and you'll need to bathe this one in a lot of prayer, and perhaps some Godly counsel, but at some point you will need to talk to her about who you really are. While you are no longer involved in drugs, integrity would demand that she be aware of what the complete package is that makes up who you are today. The same thing applies to your struggles with sexual purity. This will not be easy, and it might even break you up. But she will respect you. You can even consider approaching the subject with how much you love her, and because of your love, you need for her to know some things. God will give you the words and the right timing if you ask him persistently and wait for him.
Please be assured that I will be praying for you.
purebygrace
____________________
nowhere without Him,
purebygrace
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purebygrace
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Posted: Mon Dec 24th, 2007 09:43 pm |
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Also, Law, Joel 2:25's reply back in November is still pertinent:
Just a few comments from a girl whose been on the "other side" of the porn issue.
1. Does this woman know about the porn? If not, I would HIGHLY recommend you open your mouth and say something. Preferably AFTER you get in a support group, accountability group, etc. I say that order because you at least can say, "Look, this is an ongoing problem but here's what I'm doing to correct it". If you two get married and you've hid this from her ... big storm on the horizon.
____________________
nowhere without Him,
purebygrace
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LAW
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Posted: Mon Dec 24th, 2007 10:14 pm |
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Thanks Pure By Grace. I'm sick of masturbation.Every thing you say is valid. I will pray like a bad boy on the vital topics you brought up. I'm going to medatate on Romans 6-8. Good . What a great ministry this is.
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decide2love
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Posted: Wed Dec 26th, 2007 03:04 pm |
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Just a point of experience to ponder (from a woman's point of view):
I had NO idea that my H had issues with P&M when we married. I caught him Ming after 6 months of marriage in the bed next to me...
Over the last year he has admited that he used to M at the thought of me, even before we started dating as well as while we were dating. But after a few months of having the 'real' thing he grew bored and displeased with me because I couldn't measure up to the fantasy he had contrived in his mind concerning me, (my body had been wracked with changes from having 5 pregnancies and from weighing 220 lbs and then dropping to 130 lbs, plus the fact that I am 44). I wasn't the airbrushed woman he had envisioned me to be. I couldn't do the wild acrobatics in bed he had fantasized about... I have FMS, am a disabled vet, and simply could not move that way anymore. All of this was talked about before we got married... I wanted him to know that I did not have the perfect anything, and he said that he loved me for me, not just my body. He quickly became distant and cold and eventually went back to his P&M. It only took 4 months for him to return to his unrealistic world... another two for me to catch him.
He has no desire to stop because it pleases him and as long as he is pleased then he says I should be content because, after all, he's not having sex with 'real' women... just with himself and his fantasies.
At first he tried telling me that he would M to the thought of me while he was out on the road, and it tickled me, because I thought he was satisfying himself so he wouldn't have that need fulfilled by another body... Then I caught him again and again in the bed next to me, after watching a movie with a romance scene or just a movie (like Electra). He would wait till he thought I was asleep and he would rewind it to wherever he wanted and watch it again and again while Ming in the bed next to me. It sickened me, and when I would get angry about it he told me that it was just my jealousy and insecurities and that I wasn't justified in my revulsion, because it was just fantasy. We would go for a drive and have to stop off at a convenience store and he would spy a woman and get that lustful and crazed drooling look about him, and I knew she was his next fix and I would get angry, he would tell me that it turned him on to know that I was jealous of him. He'd never had a woman jealous of him before. Then he started doing it out of sheer vulgar pleasure to get my reaction. I stopped reacting and began playing it off and it made him even worse. When I realized what it was... adultry, lust, shame, self-loathing etc. I felt betrayed in the core of my soul and the pain was nearly unbearable. I started smoking again, I began taking sleeping pills so I could sleep through his infidelities. I tried several antidepressants to help ignore the pain (none of which I am on now). I went to a psychologist, thinking it was me. I changed my appearance, my dress - trying to entice him back to only me. Each time I'd see him spy his next fix I would change something about me to become more like them. It would work for a week or two and then he would go looking again, with me beside him.
In the beginning of my dating this man, I wanted to spend every moment I could with him and we called each other and seen each other each chance we got. He loved the attention and so did I. It continued on until month 4 of the marriage and he stopped wanting to spend so much time with me. He said that he wanted to get back to doing the things a 'man' should be able to do. (ie. fishing, hunting, going to the bars with his buddies, hunting for his next fix with his binoculars, instead of calling me at lunch he would sit in a secluded spot, or on the way home he would stop off and buy his porn) The first two I didn't have a problem with, the third one I did - for obvious reasons, and the last three I knew nothing about, until later. I continuted wanting his attention and he continued pulling farther away. At first he said that 10 hours was too long to be away from me, then he said, by his actions, that a week was not long enough to be away from me. He would go out on the road and wait until 11pm to call me, after he had gotten off work at 5pm. I would ask him what he was doing with his time and he would become defensive and evasive, saying that he watched tv and had lost track of time and would I give him his wake-up call at 4am, goodnight.
I was a 'Godly rock solid Christian woman' as well. The Word says for us wives to conform ourselves to our husbands, so I conformed. I did not look at it as sin. I looked at it as trying to be pleasing to my H. My H professed to being a Christian and by his actions and his words when we met and too while we dated I thought he was! I thought I was getting a knight in the armor of God who rode a bay stallion! Boy was I deceived. I married a Balaam!
What a mess I was, and still am. The Lord showed me that I was worshiping my H. What a blow! I stopped. My dress went back to the real me, my actions toward me and him changed and I began to renew my relationship and my worship with my first Love. My heart broke when the Lord revealed to me that I had tried to exchange Him for my H. This too made my H angry and withdrawn because he wasn't getting the worship he thought he deserved and was his just right to have. I told him what the Lord showed me and my H said that he knew I was doing this and that he would miss it and hated to see it go, but that he knew I would stop. That's when he said he started buying porn again. He used the excuse that I no longer adored him and that I acted differently toward him. He said that he didn't feel loved because the worship and adoration had stopped. What I had stopped doing was trying to seduce his lust toward me. I want his Love toward God and then it will come to me. I want a Godly covenant marriage, not one filled with lust and betrayal.
My point to all of this is... if there is even the slightest possibility that reality cannot live up to fantasy, then there will be exceeding disappointment and regret involved for both parties. If healing and restoration does not occur before you tie the knot with anyone, it will be a disaster at best. It may be a beautiful disaster for a season, but a disaster none the less. Sin only accomplishes death and distruction... not life.
My marriage is destroyed and there is nothing left to my H being any sort of father to my children, nor any sort of Godly H to me. He justifies himself by saying he is the king of his house and will be respected as such, no matter what he does and no matter how he acts, even to the point of the death of our love toward him.
If you are Ming to a fantasy of her, and it is fantasy because you have not tasted of the real fruit of her vine, then there is another and the other is in no way or fashion your Godly rock solid Christian woman. She's just another fantasy you have contrived and the real woman will never measure up to the fantasy you have created.
Get into Christ, get so deep that she has to seek out Christ in order to find you.
Last edited on Fri Aug 8th, 2008 04:12 pm by decide2love
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TimM
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Posted: Wed Dec 26th, 2007 07:50 pm |
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LAW wrote: So what say yee? I say you have a wonderful opportunity, which many of us have squandered horribly.
Many of us, and I am certainly one, thought that the solution to our addiction lay outside ourselves. I thought that by having a girlfriend, I would solve my problem. I thought that by marrying her I would solve my problem. I thought that by having kids I would solve my problem. Every time a significant or insignificant date or event came along, I thought, "Now I am starting a new thing, and temptation will leave me."
But the problem wasn't with my wife, nor with my kids, nor with my calendar. The problem was mine, and I carried it with me through many, many years of courtship and marriage and parenting.
I carried it until I became willing to consider surrendering and changing fundamental pieces of myself.
The first thing I think, then, is that we can't change ourselves for somebody else, and that the excitement of a new relationship wears off, and that what we are left with then is the same self we started with. The energy of a new relationship may offer the drive to be serious about counseling and about support groups and about prayer and about introspection and about all the other things that lead to sobriety and recovery. What are you doing now, and what can you continue to do, to nurture the fundamental change that can hope to transform 12 weeks of sobriety into 12 months and 12 years and a lifetime? You have a huge opportunity to take now any steps that may have seemed too hard to take previously. May you use that opportunity better than I did!
You also have a great opportunity to begin your new relationship on a basis of openness and honesty, another opportunity I squandered. I thought I could handle my addiction alone, and I thought my wife didn't need or want to know about my struggles; and so we spent 30 years never knowing one another on other than a superficial level. It took us 30 years to begin to learn honesty and openness and trust and intimacy.
You have a chance to start better than I did. Of course your girlfriend can't cure you of your problem, but you have the chance to be open with her from the start, and that trust and vulnerability will make a huge difference to both of you. When you say she knows little of your porn use, I assume this means she does know something. If not, sharing with her that you are a sex addict in early recovery and that you have struggled with drugs in the past is obviously important for her and for you.
The chance you have to build an honest relationship from the beginning and to do the inner work to avoid years of dishonesty and pain is deeply precious. I rejoice that you have the chance to live a life unlike mine. May you use it well!
Tim M.
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LAW
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Posted: Wed Dec 26th, 2007 11:13 pm |
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To all of the Children of God who have responded to my post.Far as I'm concerned its "Cut and Dry" no if and butts about it. I'm going to follow your advice.This women's( My Woman God has brought into my life) ex-husband cheated on her when she was pregnant with her now 15 year old son.I come from good stock,I'm accountable to many fine christian people.Hebrews 12:1 ( Some don't know it) My work is my mission field. I'm a team leader in AWANA ( Kids ministry) God is blessing me with good health,work,hobbies. The stories I just read knock me off my feet.It says in Proverbs "Rods are for the backs of fools" All the stories about husbands not caring about the pain inflicted on their wives blows me away.I'm shocked at the post I've read.Today I spent time reading Romans 6 I'm going to start reading Romans 7 in a couple of minutes. Thanks every body for sharing your lifes experiences. I choose to listen and bow.I believe everything you all say.
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purebygrace
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Posted: Thu Dec 27th, 2007 04:24 am |
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Tim,
Well put. Very well put.
Law,
Your true colors are showing! You are not all of the things the whisperer tries to persuade you of. You are a new creation. Who you are now at the core of your being is a lover of God, who has been loved by God from before the foundation of the world! I will be praying that our Lord, who lives to intercede for us (Heb. 7:25), will be daily helping you to discover the differences between the truth of who you are in Christ as compared to the lies and deception that come with the secret addiction.
Decide2love,
All I can say is Wow. You are such a wonderful picture of the steadfast love and grace of God! I grieve with you over the choices you have described from your husband's (or former husband's?) insistence upon his own way. It is a vivid description of Romans 6:19-23:
19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. This sheds a different light on vs. 23, which is primarily used to focus on eternal "death" - but the context is actually describing the immediate, increasing consequences of offering oneself as a slave to impurity. Sobering.
____________________
nowhere without Him,
purebygrace
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LAW
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Posted: Thu Dec 27th, 2007 06:04 am |
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Holy Smokes! One thing about this Godly woman she admits to being insecure. All day today I aimed at speaking her love launguage. I made sure I wasn't late picking her up to take to my parents for a late Christmas celebration. She looks like an expert in social situtations. My family loves her. When I took her home in soon as I got in the door she started chewing me out for making her feel abandonded.She was talking to every one laughing fellowshipping. I was thinking she had it all together. So I ministered to my nieces and nephews that our young teenagers dealing with peer pressure and temptations. Her son looked like he was having a righteous time with my cousines that were his age.( And he was, plus he's also a rock solid Christian) She then said " I'm PMSing so I'm extra sensitive" I felt like I was blind sided every thing was going fine little did I know she was feeling in fear of loosing me.When she gets this way( which happens very easily) Suddenly my single life feels like heaven.I'm learning that women are complicated people.It gives me a glimps at how hard marriage must be??????Holy smokes If I don't line her ducks up just right she falls all apart and chews me out about either being 3 minutes late,Not making her feel the most important and extra special. So we talked and I guess she felt better. Then as I was leaving I said "when what happened to night after Christmas dinner happens it scares me" Opps then it started up again "How could I say that after we talked and hugged" "How can I leave her with that comment" I was just being transparent and honest. You know what having a girl friend isnt so thrilling as I thought it would be. Maybe I'm not meant to be married. I just don't feel like I'm any longer fretting over my single life. Plus she aslo told me she is in a huge amount of credit card debt. Dang it! Suddenly I like being single. What say ye?????????
Last edited on Thu Dec 27th, 2007 06:07 am by LAW
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TimM
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Posted: Thu Dec 27th, 2007 01:21 pm |
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I say neither of you needs to make any instant decisions. You both have major questions to consider. You need to decide if you are ready for marriage and intimacy with another person, and you need to practice staying sober and growing in recovery while being open and honest with someone else and while feeling a lot of new feelings. She needs to decide whether she can trust you and whether she is ready for a relationship with a recovering sex addict and whether you're the right person.
Any new romantic relationship is complicated, and one between 2 people with your histories and your present condition is doubly so. My guess is you'll need a lot of time and a lot of conversation and a lot of prayer before anything becomes clear.
What you're experiencing now is what relationships with people are like. Walking toward that fear and trying to work your way through all the feelings and confusion may be worthwhile even if you eventually decide that this relationship - or marriage in general - is not for you.
Just possible thoughts from someone who also struggles with understanding humans. Regard these words as those of a complete amateur.
Tim M.
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truthseeker
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Posted: Thu Dec 27th, 2007 03:43 pm |
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Hi Law,
I believe Tim has given you wise counsel about not making quick decisions about this relationship. Yes, a relationship/marriage is hard work, and, like a garden, requires constant tending to keep weeds at bay.
I'm not clear on how she communicated her feelings of abandonment to you, but I gather that it may have been somewhat hostile/accusatory. Communication is a two-way street, and, in my opinion, she could have excused herself from your other family and joined you with the nieces and nephews. You didn't tell her she couldn't join you. But then again, I'm not one to whom the term insecure has ever been applied, and don't have any patience for the "he's supposed to read my mind if he really cares" game that some women play. For me, it's say what you mean, and mean what you say, in love, of course. Perhaps she could do some reading on assertiveness and healthy communication? There is a healthy need for attention and encouragement, but there comes a point when it can become a parasitic drain that is not unlike an addiction itself. Just my thoughts, as I have no credentials to back them up. :-)
It is not a bad idea, after the heat of a conflict has dissipated, to revisit it with cool heads and explore the options which both of you could have chosen for a smoother outcome. For instance, you could have dropped a word in her ear that you were going to visit with the nieces and nephews and asked if she'd like to join you, or remain to fellowship with your other relatives. The point is that both of you, not just her, and not just you, could have done something differently. What some women call a sensitive guy is one who can practically read their mind, but those are few and far between. If she will calmly share her mind, while proactively asserting her desires, not presuming the worst of you, then, in time, you will know her mind better. It takes two, and neither can throw all of the responsibility for communication on the other.
Regarding debt, you may wish to try to determine if it has accumulated due to the struggles of single parenthood, or because she is undisciplined in spending/budgeting.
And don't wait too long in sharing your struggles. It is a fine balance between waiting for the right time, and waiting so long that her trust is shattered.
Praying for you...
TruthSeeker
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Seeking God
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Posted: Fri Dec 28th, 2007 10:04 am |
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Hi LAW,
just dropped in to say that I share some of your worries,
like you, I am (very much) in love with a woman for six years now. She has been one of my inspiration for my walk of purity, and sometimes the main source of "irritation". Yet, God truly have a way of shaping me from this relationship, I learn of humility (to ask for forgiveness), of courage (to share my feelings and worries), of peace (from jealousy), of patience (from handling miscommunication), and the list goes on.
Well, I just want to encourage you to move closer to God, I personally am convicted by what Decide's word,
"Get into Christ, get so deep that she has to seek out Christ in order to find you. "
Seeking God
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