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When people talk about addictions, certain things tend to get more priority than others – in particular, substance abuse. However, there are some rather low-profile types of addictions that can creep up just as badly on a person’s life and wreak havoc before one’s had a chance to even process what’s going on. I had a pretty good thing going with my husband and our children, enjoying a lifestyle that was pretty close to what most people would describe as perfect.
Something always seemed amiss though, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I let those feelings go most of the time because I understood I should focus on what was right in front of me and stop occupying my mind with “what-ifs”. Plus, there was no reason for me to even doubt that anything could be going on – my husband came from a respectable background and had been living a relatively strict lifestyle compared to mine before we met.
The problem, as I started to formulate it after some time, wasn’t the fact that he was regularly absent from home on work-related appointments and other similar ordeals. Rather, I started to notice that even when he was there – physically – he wasn’t really engaging me as much as he used to. He was mostly inattentive and blank in his mannerisms, so it didn’t take long for me to start suspecting that something might really be up.
It all came out in the open when one day I received a statement for a credit card I didn’t even know he had opened. His balance was overdue, which immediately set off some red flags in my head. Had he been hiding money from me this whole time? Surprisingly, he immediately admitted to having a problem, although it was in a completely different area that somewhat blindsided me – he claimed that he had a serious issue with his body’s urges and cravings.
He went on to explain that he had a serious addiction to porn, and even though he had put some efforts into stopping the problem, it was seemingly out of his control at that point. On the bright side, I thought, now that the cat’s out of the bag and we’re playing with our full hands on the table, perhaps this could be the turning point that led our marriage to salvation and made our bond even stronger. Alas, little did I suspect how difficult the next period in our lives would be, and how much effort it would take to overcome this problem. For both of us.
I completely understood how this all came to be, too. The background my husband had grown up in made it a pretty strong guarantee that something like this would happen eventually, and his upbringing could have definitely been more open about sexuality. Growing up in a sheltered manner is never a good combination with the open way our modern society is running in most aspects, and then there’s also the fact that porn addiction can be a pretty strong one, as far as addictions go.
The release of dopamine in the brain is hard to compare to anything out there, even some of the more powerful drugs available to most people. It’s not hard to see why so many people can easily get hooked on doing something like this, but breaking the habit is often a huge challenge and a constant battle that many simply don’t want to put themselves through. To add to the issue, my husband was also experiencing an internal conflict with his Christian values which was making it even more difficult for him to properly process his behavior and adjust it accordingly.
Writing was a huge help for me in this whole ordeal, and it was the one thing that allowed us to save our marriage and preserve it from these problems. Publishing a book that drew inspiration from what was going on around me, and seeing such strong recognition for it, finally helped me realize that there was a way to address this problem in a constructive manner. It takes effort on both sides though, and it’s not something you can just wish into existence, even if you both fully realize that there is a problem that has to be addressed.
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