8- Do you think watching pornography can hurt your relationship? Why?
Pornography users start to see sex as simply recreation separate from intimacy, love, and respect. This disordered idea of sex is actually addictive and thisaddiction has effects similar to that of heroin or crack cocaine. Here is a website that lays it all out: http://fightthenewdrug.org/Get-The-Facts/
Images imprint our brain in a deep and lasting way. Statistics show that one out of three men and one out of six woman in North America are addicted to sex. This addiction does not “show” on people the way other addictions do (drugs or alcohol) making it even more vicious. It happens with many couples today and slowly but surely destroys them.
Pornography has become a "silent killer of families". Out of all the divorces in 2003, 56% were rooted in Internet pornography. Pornography has the ability to hurt the family deeply. Therefore, pornography has to be completely banished from our life. We must know we are weak and protect ourselves. Pornography completely distorts the meaning of sexual intercourse, turning persons into objects for pleasure. It is totally immoral as it is against God's will and the dignity of the person.
Personal testimony from one of our couples:
"I think I can be the poster child for that, my first husband is addicted to Pornography, that's what ended our marriage.
He was so addicted to Pornography that he spent half his paycheck on it. He would sneak out of bed in the middle of the night and spend hours on the computer looking at it.
I confronted him about it several times and he always laughed it off, saying that's what guys do.
It was devastating to me and our children. I felt betrayed, cheated, I had no self-esteem, I blamed myself thinking I was not pretty enough or sexually adventurous as he wanted me to be.
I still struggle with it today even though I know it wasn't my fault.
I knew it had gotten bad when I got a call from my son’s second grade teacher saying my son had brought pornographic magazines to school.
Once again I told my husband that he had a serious problem, but again..." Christina
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The heart has become a battlefield between love and lust. The more lust dominates the heart, the less the heart experiences the nuptial meaning of the body. Adultery in the heart is committed not only because man 'looks' in this way at a woman who is not his wife... Even if he looked in this way at his wife, he could likewise commit adultery 'in his heart'. John Paul II The Theology of the Body.
To read more on this subject, you can check the following links: addiction to pornography,
pornography
and Sexaholics Anonymous, Inc.
