When Wives Become Sex Objects | Porn Addiction in Marriage, and How a Man Overcomes Sexual Obsession
- Jake Kastleman
- Sep 4, 2024
- 49 min read
Updated: Sep 14, 2024
Today, I address common questions many men I’ve worked with have had about porn addiction in marriage. We’ll talk about how wives can unfortunately become sex objects in today's cultural climate (and how to put a stop to it), and how a husband can:
Overcome sexual obsession so he can lead a happier, more fulfilling life.
Feel truly sexually satisfied in the relationship.
Help his wife feel safe, accepted, and loved.
Quit porn by building a recovery mindset and lifestyle.
If you’re a spouse of a porn addict, this article is also for you. You will gain a far deeper understanding of porn addiction, and (I hope) a compassion for your partner who is struggling with it.
You are not alone. You are not crazy. And you can both heal and get better, and I'll give you a path to do this step-by-step in this article.
Understanding the Impact of Porn Addiction in Marriage
Many men and women are extremely concerned by the effects porn addiction has had on their marriage. They are also uncertain about how to approach the sexual relationship and satisfaction in their marriage, especially as porn addiction has tainted so many of the would-be pure and positive parts of that relationship.
Here are some of the questions and concerns men in my program have had about porn addiction and their marital sexual relationship:
“I find my wife to be very beautiful. So why do I keep going to porn and masturbation? What’s wrong with me?”
“Is looking at sexual videos/images of my wife considered porn?”
“Can having sex with my wife fuel my porn addiction? After all, don’t I want to be ‘addicted’ to my wife? Isn’t that a good thing?”
“When I have sex with my wife, I feel the addict part of me emerge. This is very discouraging for me. It almost makes me not want to have sex with my wife anymore and risk activating the porn addiction wiring in my brain. What should I do?”
“My wife says that I want to have sex with her too often. But I’m a man, so I want to have sex more than she does. Isn’t it reasonable for her to accommodate that need and have sex with me a little more often than she might prefer? After all, I am her husband.”
“I don’t find my wife very attractive. I see that as a major reason for my addiction to porn. If she just [lost some weight, exercised, took better care of herself, dolled herself up, etc.], then I wouldn’t have a need to go to porn.”
If you feel any of these ways, or if you have a spouse struggling with these challenges, I want to tell you that you’re not alone.
There are millions of men who are addicted to porn now.
Men across the world are finding it difficult to get aroused in the bedroom without porn due to Porn-induced Erectile Dysfunction.
They’re discouraged by sexual obsession—cravings for porn and sex that seem to rule their minds.
They aren’t able to form meaningful relationships with their wives or women they’re dating.
Their spouses feel unwanted and unloved, like they’re not enough, that they’re not beautiful, or that the standard is too high when compared to these perfect women that their husbands are viewing online.
Quite frankly, to whatever degree, women can feel like they’re sex objects sometimes, or that their husbands are obsessed with sex.
If you’re a man who struggles with porn addiction, I think it’s safe to say you don’t want to be obsessed with sex. You want to love your wife, and for sex with her to be enough. So sometimes, you will think:
“If I can just become ‘addicted’ to my wife, then all will be well. I’ll get away from this addiction to porn.”
In today’s article, I’m going to help you see all of this through a lens that you may not have seen it through before—by pointing out several places where we go wrong in our thinking about sex in a relationship, and several ways we can improve these ways of thinking in order to heal our brains so we can have a positive sexual relationship that is balanced by a recovery mindset and lifestyle that lends itself to a happier, healthier connection between man and wife.
So, take notes because the insights you gain today have already helped many of my clients, and I believe they will transform your life if you apply them.
Before Marriage: A Porn Addict’s Brain
If you struggle with porn addiction, it has, in part, become your mentor—teaching you what makes a relationship meaningful and what sex should look like.
One of the most disturbing effects of porn is that it gives you a false sense that sex is at the center of a relationship, rather than an appendage. This belief system becomes ingrained because of how porn consumption works.
With porn, we go from 0 to 100 in a second. The instant we see a woman, she is already displayed before us in the most physically vulnerable fashion possible—before we ever get to know her, understand her, sacrifice for her, love her—nothing.
“Sex is at the Center of the Relationship”
Porn teaches us that sex requires no significant investment in the relationship. It also teaches us to some extent that the relationship is the means and sex is the end.
When a man has been addicted to porn, and he gets married, he enters that marriage with this belief system intact, to whatever degree it exists. It doesn’t mean he believes marriage is only about sex necessarily, but his time watching porn has often influenced his mind to think more this way—to put sex up on a pedestal and make it a significant focus for him that surpasses other things it shouldn’t.
When a man goes through porn addiction recovery, he can change this belief system if he has the right knowledge, tools, and skills to do so. The less he watches porn, the more balanced and beneficial his belief system will become.
However, if a man who has struggled with a porn addiction does not go through this process and continues to watch porn, then it is likely that the very same mechanism set up in his mind surrounding porn will be set up surrounding marriage.
In other words, his wife can, in part, become an object of his addiction—a sex object to a degree.
Again, it’s not an all-or-nothing type of thing; please don’t misunderstand me.
Many men have had the belief that once they enter marriage, it will be the answer to all of their porn problems. They’ll simply replace pornography with sex, and then everything will be solved. Makes enough sense!
Porn is Not About Satisfying a Need for Sex
But if I told you that your addiction to heroin or meth would be solved by getting married, what would you tell me?
You’d probably tell me I was crazy.
This is a similar logic to expecting that our addiction to porn will be solved by getting married. Why? Because sex is not the need we are trying to solve with porn. It’s a tiny part of it—maybe about 10%—but there are so many other reasons we seek out an addiction.
We become addicted to drugs or alcohol because we are trying to escape or numb ourselves to mental and emotional suffering—whether consciously or unconsciously—and porn is no different. We seek it out as a way to numb out, escape, and distract ourselves from hard things that we are feeling—ranging from anxiety to depression, to loneliness, to a lack of fulfillment, to societal pressure, to anger we’re carrying, to trauma from the past, insecurities, perfectionism, shame habits, etc.
During Marriage: A Porn Addict’s Brain
So, when we enter marriage expecting that our wife will replace our need for porn, in effect, we unconsciously expect that having sex with her will become the solution to the mental and emotional suffering we have been trying to escape using porn.
Our Wife Becomes the Object of Addiction
Hence, she becomes the object of our addiction. She becomes the replacement for our coping mechanism of watching porn. She becomes a sexual object.
That is, until the addict part of us gets bored of having sex with her, or feels emotionally betrayed or put upon by her, or feels she is not giving it what it wants. Then, that addict part of us will relapse with porn, as sex with one woman simply cannot compete with virtual sex with thousands of women.
How can a real human being who has needs, wants, and preferences different from our own possibly compete with the instant gratification of an electronic device that requires nothing in return for its sexual pleasure?
This can become incredibly confusing for both the sufferer of the addiction and the betrayed spouse. As the one suffering with the addiction, we can’t yet perceive all of the reasons why we feel a need for porn, nor can we perceive the holes we are trying to fill with porn and sex. If we could fully comprehend these holes, then we could begin filling them. We don’t yet see them for what they are.
So, quite naturally, we perceive what’s on the surface, which is a craving for porn and sex, and we continue to seek it out.
Our spouse, in all their confusion and severe hurt, doesn’t trust us to have sex with them, because they fear the way we turn them into an object of our pleasure (which they may not really understand or perceive), or they feel hurt because we choose porn instead of them, which causes them to feel unwanted and unloved.
Porn Addiction is a ‘Protective’ Mental Mechanism
On a deeper level, the addict part of us uses porn and sex cravings as a way to ‘protect’ or distract us from underlying mental and emotional suffering.
This has nothing to do with our spouses being satisfactory or attractive. Whether it’s sex with them or sex with a computer screen, we try to use sex and porn as a way to cope with issues unrelated to sexual desire, and it will never be enough, no matter how pleasurable.
So, in order to overcome addiction to porn—and to stop perceiving our wife as a means of getting our “fix”—we need to develop a ‘no more porn’ mindset and lifestyle to manage or overcome the root causes of our insecurities, our anxieties, our feelings of loneliness, inadequacy, lack of fulfillment or purpose, etc.
Healthy vs. Unhealthy Sexual Relationships
Now that we’ve talked about the roots of addiction generally, let’s discuss what we can do to overcome sexual obsession, stop turning our wives into objects of our addiction and pleasure, and build a truly meaningful relationship in which sex is a happy, healthy part.
Just as a preface, I’m not going to be addressing sexual abuse, as I think it’s clear that’s not okay and not healthy. What I discuss below can certainly be a part of abuse, but I’ll be addressing our mindset and dynamics that are a bit more nuanced than that—behaviors that we may see as normal in a relationship, that are causing us problems, but that we don’t fully recognize yet.
1. Sex is part of a healthy relationship. It’s not at the center.
Healthy relationships do not place sex at the center of the relationship.
If you’re married, sex is an appendage, a beautiful cherry on top that makes things more special. It’s not the driving force of what makes a relationship meaningful or happy.
In a healthy relationship, if sex wasn’t there, the couple would still love each other, feel fulfilled, and be generally satisfied. Sure, it would be challenging on occasions to not have sex (Duh! It’s biology.), but there would be enough other substance to the relationship (and to each individuals’ inner world), that it would fill that space and each partner would be okay.
I’m not saying that a lack of sex is ideal. It’s not. What I am saying is that the emphasis of a healthy relationship is on love and commitment and everything else flows from that. Healthy sex flows from a healthy relationship. Not the other way around.
If sex is at the center, then it’s more likely that, like porn, we are using it to try to fill a mental and emotional need. And our spouse will feel that. They’ll feel we’re a bit obsessed or too focused on it. We might feel something is missing or that we’re not quite satisfied. And we’ll keep seeking it out, whether through sex with our spouse, masturbation, or porn.
So, one question to ask yourself is: “Is sex at the center of my marriage?” If you feel it is, how is that causing a lack of satisfaction for you or your spouse? What can you do to be less focused on sex and place it in its proper place as part of the relationship, not at the center?
2. Meaningful sex is not selfish.
Men I’ve worked with who struggle with porn addiction often feel unsatisfied after sex with their wife. For those with a religious background, they often feel guilty about it. They don’t feel like the act is as fulfilling as they want. They’re confused and can’t figure out why.
I think one of the root causes of this can be found in how sex was introduced to them through pornography.
With pornography, sex is primarily a selfish activity—a one-sided endeavor where we get to have the sexual high we want without much regard for the partner’s needs. In pornography, sex is used as a vehicle for escapism, a way to tune out from life’s challenges, and a temporary fix for emotional emptiness. This mindset, however, is at odds with what makes sex in a committed relationship truly fulfilling.
Fulfillment in a marital sexual relationship, however, is often much more deeply tied to a shared experience of intimacy and love—a connection that is mutual, selfless, and focused on giving as much as receiving. It involves being present, attentive, and attuned to each other's emotional and physical needs. In essence, it's not about what we get but about what we share.
Men who only see sex as an outlet for their own desires can find themselves feeling empty and unsatisfied even after the act, leading them to wonder why they aren’t feeling more complete or why the addiction feels like it’s still there.
If we approach sex as a mutually fulfilling experience, rather than a fix for emotional emptiness or an escape from life's challenges, we can begin to create a more meaningful sexual connection with our spouse.
3. Mindfulness and emotional presence are key.
In my experience, one of the major shifts that help men move away from using their wife as an object for addiction is developing mindfulness and emotional presence during sex. This means being fully present in the moment, not letting your mind wander to past experiences with pornography or letting your expectations override the current experience.
If you’re caught up in thinking, “Is this enough? Am I feeling what I should be feeling?”—you’re likely missing the point. Try to let go of any preconceived notions about what sex should be and focus instead on what it is in that moment: an opportunity to connect with your spouse on a deeper level.
One practical way to cultivate this mindfulness is to engage in shared activities outside of the bedroom that build emotional intimacy. The more connected you feel emotionally, the easier it will be to be present and mindful during sexual experiences.
4. Open communication can transform your relationship.
Lastly, open communication is crucial. Men often struggle to express their fears, insecurities, and feelings about sex due to societal norms or fear of rejection. However, openly discussing your feelings, needs, and expectations with your spouse can be liberating.
It allows for a shared understanding and fosters empathy. Instead of fearing your spouse’s judgment, you might find that they are more understanding and supportive than you think.
Open communication paves the way for deeper intimacy and helps dismantle the secrecy and shame that often accompany pornography and sex addiction.
If you’re struggling with sexual obsession or the sense that your wife has become an object of your addiction, know that you are not alone. Many men have been where you are, and many have found healing by shifting their mindset and focusing on building a healthy relationship grounded in mutual respect, love, and emotional connection.
Remember, recovery is not about suppressing desires or escaping your addiction through marriage. In part, it’s about transforming your approach to relationships, intimacy, and sex.
By understanding the deeper emotional needs underlying your addiction and committing to open communication, mindfulness, and a selfless approach to sex, you can begin to heal both yourself and your marriage.
Question & Answer: Navigating Porn Addiction in Marriage and Overcoming Sexual Obsession
To wrap up the article, I’m going to directly address the questions posed at the beginning. I hope these reflections resonate with you and give you inspired answers to the questions you or your spouse have had.
“I find my wife to be very beautiful. So why do I keep going to porn and masturbation? What’s wrong with me?”
This is a common question among men struggling with porn addiction.
The addict part of us can be very convincing, making us believe that our actions are driven by a desire for sex. However, as mentioned earlier, this is not the primary reason for seeking out porn and masturbation. It's a coping mechanism—a way to numb ourselves from mental and emotional distress.
Often, this distress is so deep-rooted and subconscious that it becomes difficult to identify until we start employing the tools of recovery.
It’s important to remember: It’s not about how beautiful your wife is. It’s about how you’re using sex or the idea of sex to manage feelings of discomfort or disconnection.
Your path to porn addiction recovery will involve identifying these feelings and learning healthier ways to cope with them that don’t rely on sexual escapism.
“Is watching a sexual video of my wife considered porn?”
For some men, particularly those in the military or who travel frequently for work, this question comes up often. There’s a misconception that watching a sexual video of your wife is different from watching porn because the content involves your spouse. While there may be a grain of truth to that, it's crucial to get honest about what’s really happening.
Ask yourself:
When you watch these videos, does it feel more like an addictive session with porn, or is it a shared, intimate experience?
Are you interacting with your wife, or are you simply seeking a fix, using her as a means to an end?
The distinction here lies in the intent and context. If it feels like another way to feed your addiction, it could be a sign that this behavior is more harmful than helpful to your recovery.
“Can having sex with my wife fuel my porn addiction? After all, don’t I want to be ‘addicted’ to my wife? Isn’t that a good thing?”
This question highlights a fundamental misunderstanding about addiction and intimacy.
Yes, having sex with your wife can indeed fuel your porn addiction, especially if you approach sex with a self-centered mindset. If your primary goal is personal gratification—if you’re seeking to "get your fix" rather than to connect with your spouse—then you’re simply transferring the addictive behavior from porn to your relationship.
However, if you enter the experience with the intention of mutual pleasure, connection, and intimacy, sex can become a powerful tool in your recovery. The key is shifting from a mindset of taking to one of giving and sharing.
Healthy sexual experiences are based on equality, mutual respect, and a genuine desire to connect. They can serve to strengthen your marriage and support your recovery journey by helping you develop a healthier relationship with sexuality.
“When I have sex with my wife, I feel the addict part of me emerge. This is very discouraging for me. It almost makes me not want to have sex with my wife anymore to avoid triggering my addiction. What should I do?”
This is a tough situation, but it's also a common experience among men in recovery from pornography addiction.
When you have a history of porn addiction, your brain has been conditioned to view sex through a lens of addiction rather than as a meaningful, connected experience. This can be incredibly discouraging and might even make you fear engaging in sexual activity with your spouse.
To move past this, you need to reframe your experiences of sex. Make it about “us” rather than “me.” Focus on serving your spouse, being present in the moment, and fostering a deep connection.
If necessary, communicate openly with your wife about your struggles and set boundaries to ensure that sexual experiences remain healthy and supportive of your recovery.
Remember that it’s okay to pause or step back if you feel the addict mindset taking over. Recovery is about progress, not perfection. Take each experience as a learning opportunity to grow closer together and build a healthier relationship.
How to Build a Healthy Sexual Relationship in Recovery
Here are some practical steps to help you build a healthier sexual relationship with your spouse, one that supports your recovery rather than undermines it:
Mindfulness and Emotional Presence: Develop the ability to be fully present during intimate moments. Focus on the here and now, rather than letting your mind drift to past experiences with pornography or unrealistic expectations.
Open Communication: Be honest with your spouse about your feelings, struggles, and progress. Open dialogue can lead to deeper understanding and empathy, helping both partners feel more connected and supported. Make sure when you do this to deeply consider your wife’s feelings and talk about how you only want to engage sexually with her when you’re in a healthy space, so she can feel valued and loved. And when you don’t do this successfully, forgive yourself and keep practicing.
Shift Focus from Obsession to Connection: Work on changing your mindset from seeing sex as a means to an end (satisfaction, release, etc.) to seeing it as an opportunity to connect and build intimacy with your spouse.
Reframe Your Thoughts: Challenge cultural or internal beliefs that place undue importance on sex. Understand that sex is a natural, human experience, not a marker of status or worth.
“My wife says that I want to have sex with her too often. But I’m a man, so I want to have sex more than she does. Isn’t it reasonable for her to accommodate that need and have sex with me a little more often than she might prefer? After all, I am her husband.”
This is another challenging topic that requires a shift in thinking. While it’s natural for sexual desires and needs to vary between partners, it’s crucial to remember that sex is optional, not a need. It’s a choice that both partners should feel comfortable and willing to engage in, not something that should be done out of obligation or a sense of duty.
Approaching your sexual desires from a place of entitlement can be damaging. It’s important to recognize that just because you have a desire for sex doesn’t mean your spouse is obligated to fulfill that desire on demand.
Instead, focus on building a fulfilling life outside of sex, one that’s rich in meaning, connection, and personal growth. Fill your life with things that bring joy, fulfillment, and achievement.
When you do this, you’ll find that your need for sex diminishes, and you’re better able to appreciate it as a shared experience rather than a personal entitlement.
“I don’t find my wife very attractive. I see that as a major reason for my addiction to porn. If she just [lost some weight, exercised, took better care of herself, dolled herself up, etc.] then I wouldn’t have a need to go to porn.”
It’s essential to be brutally honest with yourself here: Your wife's appearance is not the cause of your porn/sex addiction.
This addiction isn't about how someone else looks; it's about how you’re choosing to cope with deeper emotional and mental challenges.
Redirecting focus from your wife’s appearance to your own internal work is a vital step in overcoming porn addiction.
Your journey to recovery will be much more fruitful if you let go of any desires to control or change your wife’s appearance.
Instead, focus on your personal growth—mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
As you progress in your recovery, you might find that your perception of attractiveness shifts naturally, guided by a more selfless and supportive view.
Final Thoughts on Porn Addiction, Marriage, and Overcoming Sexual Obsession
Overcoming pornography addiction, especially within the context of a marriage, is a complex journey that requires a deep commitment to personal growth and transformation. It involves challenging long-held beliefs, reframing sexual experiences, and learning to connect with your spouse on a deeper level.
Remember that recovery is a journey, not a destination. Each step you take towards understanding your addiction, building healthier habits, and fostering a more intimate relationship with your spouse brings you closer to breaking free of porn addiction.
By focusing on emotional connection, mindfulness, open communication, and a selfless approach to intimacy, you can begin to reclaim your life and your marriage, experiencing a more fulfilling relationship and greater internal peace.
For the ultimate guidebook to beat porn triggers, download my free eBook: The 10 Tools to Conquer Porn Cravings.
You’ll learn 10 quick mental techniques that you can use anytime, anywhere to redirect your mind and replace porn cravings with new thought patterns and mental habits.
You can also check out my Free Workshop: The 8 Keys to Lose Your Desire for Porn, where you’ll learn a practical and applied roadmap for recovery, including…
The REAL root causes of porn addiction.
How to stop porn cravings before they start.
The 5 Levels of Cognition that influence addiction.
The 4 Unconscious Drivers of porn cravings.
How sexual shame fuels pornography addiction.
1 simple daily practice to get out of the addiction funnel
And a whole lot more…
So, head to nomoredesire.com, or hit the links in the description, to grab the Free Workshop or the Free eBook and get going on the next steps of your recovery journey.
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Transcription of Episode 66: When Wives Become Sex Objects | Porn Addiction in Marriage, and How a Man Overcomes Sexual Obsession
Welcome to No More Desire. My name is Jake Kastleman. Today is episode 66, When Wives Become Sex Objects, Porn Addiction in Marriage, and How a Man Overcomes Sexual Obsession.
Today is a very heavy topic and one that I am going to try to address from a place of sensitivity and compassion for both those of us who struggle with addiction and then those who have spouses who have faced betrayal trauma. Today's episode is really about addressing questions that many men that I've worked with personally have had and it's also about helping spouses of porn addicts or as I like to say people who struggle with porn addiction because the term porn addict doesn't define who we are. But I want you guys to not feel like you're alone, that you're not crazy whether you're on one side or the other and that and I want spouses to be able to feel that their husbands can heal and get better and that if you are someone who struggles with porn addiction you can heal, you can get better.
And I hope today you'll discover some life-changing answers and I truly believe that you will whether you're a spouse or the one struggling with addiction. So I'd like to start out with some of these questions that have posed to me personally by those that I work with. Maybe you can relate to some of these questions and concerns.
One of them is, and they're all in kind of different veins, so one of them is, I find my wife to be very beautiful so why do I keep going back to porn and masturbation? What's wrong with me? This should be the answer, right? If my wife is beautiful, she has an incredible body, she's everything I want physically, why would I want porn and masturbation? We'll talk about why that is. Another somewhat related vein, a question that I've gotten is, is watching a sexual video of my wife considered porn? Again, very different question but related in ways that we'll talk about. I have clients who are in the military, who travel for work, and they wonder whether watching a sexual video or looking at sexual pictures of their wife is porn or not.
So we'll address that. Another question, can having sex with my wife fuel my porn addiction? After all, don't I want to be addicted, quote-unquote, to my wife? Isn't that a good thing? We'll address that. And here are some other kinds of questions, a little bit different that I've received from clients, but again, related and you'll learn how.
When I have sex with my wife, I feel the addict part of me, as I like to call it, the addict part of me emerge, or some of my clients have called it the beast, or we'll call it Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, right? Mr. Hyde emerges, if we can kind of put a visual to that of this beast that emerges that we don't feel like is us. But when we're having sex, that part emerges and it's very discouraging for me. It almost makes me not want to have sex with my wife anymore and risk activating that addiction wiring in my brain.
What should I do? We'll address that. Another question that we'll address is, my wife says that I want to have sex with her too often, but I'm a man, so I want to have sex more than she does. Isn't it reasonable for her to accommodate that need and have sex with me a little more often than she might, let's say, personally or emotionally prefer? After all, I'm her husband.
Again, some flaws we can see in that question there probably immediately, depending on who we are, but also something that many men do feel, so we'll talk about that. And then the last question is, I don't find my wife, well, this is a completely different question, but it is one that I've gotten and it is tragic, but it's real and that's why I want to address it today. I don't find my wife to be very attractive.
I see that as a major reason for my addiction to porn. If she just lost some weight, exercised, looked better, then I wouldn't have a need to go to porn. Again, very, very heavy and very hard.
And so we'll talk about that. Perhaps one of these stories sounds like yours, and these questions may not seem to be the same as one another, but they're all tied together by what we'll talk about in today's episode. Also, if you feel any of these ways, or if you have a spouse that's struggling with these challenges, I want to tell you again that you are not alone.
There are millions of men who are addicted to porn now, and men across the world are finding it difficult to, for instance, get aroused in the bedroom without porn. They're discouraged by the sexual obsession that they're facing, these cravings for porn and sex that seem to rule their mind. They aren't able to form meaningful relationships with their wives.
They find it hard to empathize and connect, or they aren't able to form good relationships with women that they'd like to date or that they are dating. Very hard on both ends for different reasons. Their spouses, when we struggle with addiction, our spouses can feel so unwanted and so unloved, and they feel like they're not enough, and that they're not beautiful, or that the standard is too high.
Maybe you're a spouse of an addict that feels that way. It's too high when compared to these perfect women that your husband is viewing online. Quite frankly, to whatever degree, you may feel like you're a sex object sometimes, or that your husband is obsessed with sex.
Again, I want to let you know that you're not alone. There are so many people who would have compassion and understand what you're going through. It is a very complex situation, and it is not your fault if your husband feels that way.
For a man who struggles with porn addiction, we often don't want to be obsessed with sex. We want to love our wife, and we want sex with her to be enough. I see that very commonly.
There's so much good in your husband if he struggles with that, or he has those desires or tendencies. It's not something he ultimately wants to feel, and he just doesn't have the tools or the insights yet to overcome it. And so sometimes a man will think, you know, if I can just become addicted to my wife, then all will be well, and I'll get away from this addiction to porn.
Or they'll try to solve their addiction to porn by having sex with their wife, and ultimately by doing that, your wife can become the object of your pleasure, your fix, your new addiction. And it is not the answer to an addiction to porn and sex. It isn't the answer.
We'll talk about why that is in today's episode. I'm going to help you see all this through a lens that you may not have seen it all through before. I'm going to point out several places where we go wrong and are thinking about sex in a relationship, and several ways we can improve these ways of thinking in order to heal our brains so we can have a positive sexual relationship that is balanced by a recovery mindset and an outlook that lends itself to a happier, healthier connection between us and our spouse, right? If we struggle with addiction between man and wife.
So take notes here. The insights that you gain today have already helped many of my clients. I believe they're going to transform your life if you apply them.
So listen up. And I also wanted to say, if you want to learn far, far more about porn addiction and where it comes from and how to quit porn for good, my highest recommendation as far as something that's free that you can get right now is my free workshop. If you go to nomoredesire.com, you can watch my free workshop there, The Eight Keys to Lose Your Desire for Porn.
This free workshop is going to help you navigate addiction in a different way than you have probably ever considered. It's going to help you build a recovery mindset and a recovery lifestyle, a way of life that supports your recovery instead of supports your addiction. And there are so many things you're probably doing right now that you're unaware of are supporting your addiction.
And that workshop is going to show you what those things are and show you how to change them and what to do instead. I'll teach you exactly what is actually making you susceptible to porn addiction and I'll share with you keys for recovery. So check that out at nomoredesire.com slash free-workshop or hit the link in the description below this episode.
So let's talk about, let's start talking about this, today's topic. And I want to start out by saying when a man struggles with a porn addiction, that pornography has in part become his mentor. It's become the filter through which he sees life.
And that can be changed. I just want to plug that in. That can be changed.
There's so much hope. I know how I used to see women. I know how I used to see myself and how I used to perceive life and how much of a central role sex and sexual desire took in my life.
And now it's so much more where it belongs, which is just a tiny portion of my overall focus in life. And something that is appropriately takes up an appropriate amount of space in my mind, mentally, and in my life, physically, that it doesn't need to be a central focus or something that controls your mind. Porn often teaches us that sex is what makes a relationship meaningful.
And one of the most disturbing effects of porn is that it gives you a false sense that sex is at the center of a relationship, rather than being an appendage of that relationship. And I will add, often not a very important appendage, okay? A nice thing that we can do together with our spouse, something that can be really healthy and really fun and exciting and enjoyable. But ultimately, especially when we have children and we have so many other things that we're doing and things we're pursuing and creating and building together, sex is just... it becomes something, or it should become something, that is really not at the center or a great focus within the relationship, in my view.
It should be something that, yes, we do together. Yes, it's enjoyable. And then, obviously, we use it to create children.
So it's an extremely powerful ability that stands to transform our families and our lives in the world. But when it is outside of creating life, it can be something enjoyable and wonderful and positive and loving, but does not need to be an obsession. So this is pretty automatic, right? When we watch porn, we don't have a choice as to whether we allow this message that sex is at the center of a relationship.
We don't have a choice as to whether that kind of comes through, at least in my mind. It works this way because with porn, unlike a real-life relationship or a healthy relationship, I should say, we go from 0 to 100 in a second without knowing anything about someone. The instant we see a woman on the screen, she is already displayed before us in the most physically vulnerable fashion possible before we ever get to know her, understand her, sacrifice for her, do something nice for her, take her on a date, at least, right? Nothing.
And so what does that teach our brain? It teaches us that sex requires nothing of us, no significant investment in the relationship, and it is the beginning and the end of a relationship's satisfaction. Sex is at the center. So when we get married then, if we're a man who struggles with porn addiction just as I was, we enter that marriage with this belief system already intact to whatever degree it is, right? It doesn't mean that we believe that marriage is only about sex necessarily.
I'm not saying that, right? For some men it may be that way, but this time that we've spent watching porn and that it influenced our mind, it influences us to think more this way, to put sex as more up on a pedestal, as a central focus, as an obsession, to whatever degree it does depending on our addiction and our history, to put sex up on a pedestal and make it a significant focus that surpasses other things that it shouldn't. And when a man goes through porn addiction recovery, he can change this belief system if he chooses to do so. The less that he watches porn, the better it will become, and the more that he focuses on women as human beings with needs and with wants and dreams and desires and that he can serve and do good for and build quality loving relationships with, even platonic relationships, right? If he's just people in his community or if he's dating or whatever he has going on, if we can actually learn to form true meaningful good healthy emotional relationships with women, generally platonically and then also romantically, then we can experience a very highly fulfilling life that is fulfilling on both ends, both for the man and for his wife, or for the man and for the women he's dating.
But if a man who has struggled with a porn addiction does not go through this process and he continues to watch porn, it is likely that the very same mechanism set up in his mind surrounding porn will be set up surrounding marriage. In other words, our wife can, in part, become an object of our addiction, a sex object to a degree, right? Again, not that it's an all-or-nothing type of thinking. Please don't misunderstand me.
We can be very prone to that, especially in today's day and age in western culture. When someone makes a claim, it's like, you believe that way entirely. Please, this is much more nuanced than that.
But we can see our wife as our fix, the object of our pleasure, or we need to use her to get what it is that we want. And we don't want that to any degree, right? To no degree. We don't want that.
And we can train our mind to think differently through psychological and behavioral methods, through building a recovery mindset and lifestyle. Many men have had the belief that once they enter marriage, it will be the answer to all of their porn problems. It'll be the answer to their porn habit because what they'll do is simply replace pornography with sex with their wife and then everything is going to be solved.
Makes enough sense, right? I'll just replace porn and masturbation with sex. But if I told you that your addiction to heroin or meth would be solved by getting married, what would you tell me? You'd probably tell me I was crazy. This logic, right? It's the same.
It's nearly identical. I need to drive that home. If you don't understand that, sex is not about it.
This addiction to porn, I should say, is not about a need for sex. This logic is similar because sex is not the need we are trying to solve with porn. It's a tiny part of it, maybe about five to 10%.
But there are so many other reasons we seek out a porn addiction. We seek out porn. We become addicted to porn, first and foremost, to fill our mental and emotional needs.
This is what many men can't see. But once you go through recovery, you see it so clearly. And I've watched this for other men as well.
When they start out in the program thinking, this is what I need. It's a sexual urge. It's a desire.
It's natural. It's normal. And it's just overactive.
I just have a high libido or a high sex drive. Don't believe the lies of that part of your brain that's trying to convince you that sex is what you need. We become addicted to drugs or alcohol because we are trying to escape.
We're trying to numb out. We're trying to numb ourselves to mental and emotional suffering we are experiencing, whether consciously or unconsciously. And porn is no different.
And how do I know that? Because I've had both addictions and a lot, lot more addictions. It's always the same underlying themes and reasons with some nuances and some other factors, right? Some different reasons we become addicted to whatever substance or experience it might be, but all the same underlying themes and reasons that I've seen repeat and replay again and again and again. We seek out porn as a way to numb out, escape, and distract ourselves from hard things that we're feeling, okay? Ranging from anxiety to depression to loneliness to a lack of fulfillment to societal pressures to uncertainty to a lack of direction, a lack of fulfillment, loneliness to anger that we're carrying around with us, trauma from the past, insecurities that we're dealing with, perfectionism that we're experiencing, shame, fear, all these feelings that we are trying to numb and escape from and distract ourselves from.
This part of our brain that gets us focused on addiction is trying to protect us from all those feelings. It's trying to help us, albeit in a way that is ineffective, but it is trying to help us by protecting us from those feelings using the addiction. And porn is just no different.
It's the same as a drug or alcohol or gambling or these other types of substances or experiences that are addictive. Again, typically different reasons we choose one or the other, but the same underlying needs. So when we enter a marriage expecting that our wife will replace our need for porn, in effect we unconsciously expect that having sex with her will become the solution to all of this mental and emotional suffering that we've been experiencing.
Do you see that? We build a habit mentally and unconsciously, almost always unconsciously, that we're seeking out porn as a way of solving our mental and emotional problems that we're experiencing. Then if we go into marriage expecting that sex is going to be the replacement for porn, we are expecting sex with our wife to be the answer to this mental and emotional suffering that we've been in. Hence, she becomes the object of our addiction.
She becomes a sex object, right? She becomes the porn addiction if we go down that road. That is, until the addict part of us gets bored of having sex with her or feels emotionally betrayed or put upon by her or that we feel she's not giving us what we want. And then that addict part of us, that very immature part of us, will seek out porn again as sex with one woman simply cannot compete with the virtual sex with thousands of women and the needs and wants of a human being that can't compete with that instant gratification of an electronic device that requires nothing in return for its sexual pleasure.
It's so much easier to watch porn and masturbate than it is to have sex and actually form a quality relationship and have someone trust us and have someone who feels safe sexually with us. An electronic device doesn't ask anything in return. It's much easier.
It's much more instantly gratifying. Our wives can't compete. So they may become a sexual object in the beginning, but then they become old hat, just as different women on the internet become old hat, if that is the focus of our mind and our relationship.
And again, that can change. This can become incredibly confusing, by the way, for both the sufferer of the addiction and the betrayed spouse for both ends for different reasons. Because as the one suffering with the addiction, we can't yet perceive all of these reasons why we feel a need for porn or masturbation, nor can we perceive the holes that we're trying to fill with porn and sex and masturbation.
If we could fully comprehend these holes, then we could begin filling them. We don't yet see them for what they are. And so quite naturally, we perceive what's on the surface, which is the craving for porn, masturbation, sex.
And so we continue to seek it out as long as we stay deluded by that perception. And then our spouse, in all their confusion and severe hurt, doesn't trust us to have sex with them. They fear the way we turn them into an object of our pleasure, or they feel hurt because we choose porn instead of them, and they feel unwanted, they feel unloved.
What's wrong with me? Do I not look good enough? Am I not satisfying? It has nothing to do with that. And on a deeper level, the addict part of us uses porn and sex cravings as a way to protect or distract us again from that underlying mental and emotional suffering. So this has nothing to do, again, I'm going to repeat, this has nothing to do with our spouses being satisfactory or attractive.
It's not what it's about. If you're a spouse listening, it's not what it's about. Because whether it's sex with you or sex with a computer screen, we try to use sex and porn as a way to cope with issues unrelated to sexual desire.
And it will never be enough, no matter how pleasurable. If your husband was addicted to heroin, would you blame yourself? Would you, I mean, you might, but would you logically blame yourself? Like, man, why can't I compete with your heroin? It's so much the same thing. It's so much the same thing.
Don't blame yourself or your body or the way that you look for your husband's porn addiction. There may be a small part that plays into his addiction of his sexual satisfaction, but it's so, so small. The changes that need to occur to develop a recovery mindset and lifestyle have so little to do with his satisfaction in the bedroom.
You're just not going to fill that need. There are other things that need to fill it, and other changes that need to occur for him in order for him to no longer have this need for porn. So in order to overcome porn addiction and to stop perceiving your wife as an object of your addiction, to whatever degree that is, you need to develop this recovery mindset and lifestyle in order to manage or overcome the root causes of your insecurities, your anxieties, your feelings of loneliness, inadequacy, lack of fulfillment, lack of purpose.
All right, so now we've talked about the roots of addiction generally. And again, if you want to learn so much more about these roots and so much more about how to overcome porn addiction than I could ever share in this episode, I have a highly focused and highly specialized free workshop, The Eight Keys to Lose Your Desire for Porn. It's going to give you eight insights, eight main keys for overcoming porn addiction.
nomoredesire.com/free-workshop. Now that we've talked about the roots of addiction generally, we're going to talk about what we can do to overcome sexual obsession, stop turning our wives into objects of our addiction and pleasure, and build a truly meaningful relationship in which sex is a happy, healthy part. Now, just as a preface, I'm not going to be addressing sexual abuse as I think it's clear that that's not okay.
It's not healthy. Sexual abuse is not an okay thing in a relationship. And what I discuss can today can certainly be a part of that abuse, but I'll be addressing many things of a mindset when it comes to having a healthy sexual relationship, what's going to help in overcoming addiction versus what's going to hurt, how to stop viewing our wives as sex objects, and how to overcome sexual obsession.
So that's really what I'll be addressing here. And that will give, if you're the spouse of someone who struggles with porn addiction, you're going to gain some very deep insights into that that are going to help you have an understanding. So these are sometimes behaviors that we can see as normal in a relationship, by the way, that are causing pain.
They're causing dissatisfaction for both sides. And I'm going to talk about how to change these relational dysfunctions, especially, well, really in multiple ways. So we're going to dive into that.
So I'm sometimes asked what makes the difference between porn or a one-night stand or sex and marriage. Often men will ask that. It's like, well, like what makes this difference? And I contemplated and thought about this for many years, trying to understand what makes this separation between the horrible feelings that I have when I view porn and masturbate or when I have a one-night stand or things like that, right? Versus what would be the difference in a marriage relationship? How is sex and marriage any different? It's still sex, so like what makes it different? I think there are many men who ask that.
And our culture, our mainstream culture these days, can encourage things like one-night stands or things like having sex with multiple women as something that's just normal and it's even healthy, it's acceptable. It even makes you cool, makes you popular, makes you interesting, makes you a more highly achieving and desirable male. That's BS.
Having a healthy sexual relationship with our spouse is about so much more than what's happening in the bedroom. Okay, that's one of the biggest things that needs to be deeply understood. This is what makes the difference and this is what is going to truly bring you fulfillment and joy and happiness.
You want to find fulfillment, joy, and happiness in having sex with all sorts of women all around and play in the field? It's not going to bring you joy. It's not going to bring you fulfillment. It's not going to make you happy.
It might bring you a thrill. It might bring you that feeling of conquest or it might bring you that feeling of um being desirable right or or obviously sexual and physical pleasure. Yes, it could bring you all that but ultimately what you are searching for innately as a human being from a spiritual and mental standpoint, I believe, is a fulfilling quality relationship in which you give, you sacrifice, and you feel deep trust and deep connection.
And many men think they don't want that and they want it. I see it all the time and I saw it with myself. I kept trying to find the love and attention that I wanted in all of these other areas with all of these women.
I never got what I wanted. It was never enough. Never.
Having a healthy sexual relationship with our spouse means showing up every day. If you don't want your wife to be to be a sex object or to be someone who is ultimately a fix for you or involved in your addiction, you have to work on the many other aspects of your relationship in order to enrich that sexual experience with her. Show up as a husband.
Show up as a father every single day. And that's not easy. It's freaking hard to do that.
Make no mistake. It is not easy to truly show up and be present as a husband and a father. You have all this stuff to juggle.
You have work. You have home life. You have cleaning the house.
You have showing up emotionally for your wife and listening to her when she's going through hard things. You have actually building a meaningful connection with your wife and with your kids and all these things that you got to do in your church and your community and friends. And then all the things you need to do for yourself in order to feel good physically, mentally, spiritually on a daily basis.
There are so many things to juggle and no one does it perfectly, but you can do it really, really well. And so if you want to have a healthy sexual relationship, this is the gap. This right here is the gap.
If you do not show up and you do not have meaning and a deep connection in your relationship, the less of a connection there is there, the less you are showing up and sacrificing and giving to that woman, the more you are going to view her as an object of pleasure in the bedroom. If you show up, if you sacrifice, if you give, if you work to become selfless, then you will act that same way in the bedroom and you will feel that context to the situation. You will feel that meaning in the sexual relationship and the interaction that you're having with your woman in the bedroom.
So you can become addicted to your partner just as easily. I shouldn't say as easily, but to a degree, you can become addicted to your partner just as much as you can become addicted to porn, sexting, or sexual encounters. It may be less novel or thrilling, right? Because again, how can one person compete with thousands of women at the click of a button who ask nothing from you in return for their sexual pleasure to you? But you can still turn them into your fix.
You can still turn them into your fix. And what makes the difference is the rest of your relationship. If the rest of your relationship is going really well, then you will be far less prone to turning them into a sex object in the bedroom.
Again, this huge difference between when you're in the bedroom, so automatic for us when we've struggled with addiction, can be, I'm getting mine. I'm getting my pleasure. This is about my climax.
This is about me feeling good. And we have to work so hard to change that habit. So hard to change that habit.
So let's address some of these questions that I talked about at the beginning of the episode. The first question is, I find my wife to be very beautiful. So why do I keep going to porn and masturbation? What's wrong with me? The addict part of us can be very convincing.
Okay. It can tell us that we are seeking out porn and masturbation because of a desire for sex. And as I said earlier, this is not why you seek out addiction in general.
And so porn addiction is very, very similar, if not identical in so many ways, we're seeking it out as a way of coping, numbing, distracting ourselves from mental and emotional distress. And it is often very hard for us to see this distress because it's covered over by the addictive mechanism until we begin to implement tools of a recovery mindset and lifestyle. And we can see, ah, now I understand where my addiction has come from and I see what I need to do to overcome it.
Okay. It's not about how beautiful your wife is. It just is not.
It doesn't matter how many things she changes through exercise or nutrition or plastic surgery or what have you. It will never fulfill that need because the need you perceive for sexual and physical pleasure and attraction is just a mask for the other needs that aren't being fulfilled. And those are only needs that you can fulfill for yourself mentally and emotionally by living a more meaningful, full, and bold life.
The next question is, is watching a sexual video of my wife considered porn? Okay. Again, I have clients who've been in the military, who travel for work. They wonder whether watching a sexual video or looking at sexual pictures of their wife is porn or not.
I'm often asked this because we think it's different if we're looking at our wife instead of some random woman online. And while there is some amount of truth to that, you need to get real about what's going on here with this experience. Again, all excuses and justifications and rationalizations aside.
And before I say more on that, I know that this is a biological desire that is extremely strong. There is a reason that wars have been fought in history over sexual desire and men wanting to be with certain women. There is a reason that it has been an ongoing conflict and an ongoing focus for all of time.
It's not an easy thing, but we can bridle this desire. But we need the recovery mindset and lifestyle factors in our lives to do that. It's not just about willpower at all.
It has little to nothing. It has zero to do, I venture to say, with willpower. We have to have these other aspects in our lives that are going really, really well, that we're working on consistently to replace that sexual obsession.
Okay? Because it's so easy to get drawn into. So easy. All right? So that adds to the difficulty of porn addiction.
It's, I mean, of all the addictions that I worked through and overcame, it was the hardest to overcome in part because it's biologically built in to you, right? Just like food addiction can be so hard for people to overcome because it's biologically built in. And I will add, as a man, you can't get away from it. You're going to have wet dreams.
You're going to have sexual desires and physical attraction. It's built in. It's not going away.
And so you have to learn how to manage it and how to redirect your focus and fill your life with other things that are filling up your focus and your time and your desires and this drive that you have. Again, I've talked about that a lot and more in other episodes. We could discuss that a lot.
But as far as this situation with, is watching a video or images of my wife considered porn? Ask yourself, when you look at images or videos of your wife, is that more akin to an addictive session with porn or to having an intimate and connected experience with your wife? Which one does that look more like? You're sitting there with an electronic device in your hand staring at an object, okay? That looks to me just like porn. Only the person that you're looking at is your wife. But what's to stop your mind from perceiving her as an object all the same? It's far more akin to that.
And then I need you to ask yourself, if you're trying to go through porn addiction recovery, is that feeding your addiction or is it feeding your recovery? That's a hard question, right? Because we don't want to face that answer because we really like to have this crutch and make no mistake, it is a crutch, okay? And I know that doesn't make sense in a lot of ways because you think, well, it's sex. Like everybody wants it. Yeah, everybody wants it.
And just like things like anger or other difficult emotions, we have to learn how to give space for them and how to redirect our focus in order to live meaningful, good, service-oriented lives. If sex controls you, if it's something that you feel a need for and you aren't doing what's necessary in order to direct your focus and your desires, it's going to rule you forever. And you watching videos and images of your wife is playing directly into that, in my view.
Sex is not a need. It is optional. And that's hard for many of us men to accept because it is such a powerfully strong biological force.
And I understand that and I have a deep compassion for that because I'm a man. I get it. And then the other thing you have to ask with reference to this is, is there someone you are interacting with personally or is it just about getting your fix rather than having an intimate relational experience? When you're one-on-one with your wife, there is intimacy.
Hopefully there's communication. Hopefully there are good, loving experiences you're having in that experience together, having sex together. Okay, it's not.
It's just all about pleasure and getting yours in so many ways. So you can continue with the justifications or rationalizations, but ultimately, again, in my mind, that is all part of the addict mindset is to justify and rationalize. You got to take a different road if you want to get sober and really get sober and really feel good.
The other question is, can having sex with my wife fuel my porn addiction? After all, don't I want to be addicted to my wife? Isn't that a good thing? Again, this is completely based on context. All right. So having sex can fuel your porn addiction.
It can play right into it. If you enter that context, if you enter that experience with the I'm here to get pleasure for me, and you don't have to think those words, but if that's the intent, then it's playing right into your porn addiction. Whereas if you enter that context thinking, I'm here to have a good experience with you for both of us to have a good experience, and you feel that equality, that's going to play very much into a healthy experience.
That's actually going to fuel your recovery. The more you can have healthy, loving, connected, intimate sexual experiences with your wife, someone who you are committed to and have an overall meaningful, loving relationship with, that is going to help you recover. So it can be a hindrance or it can be a help.
It just depends on how you live it. The other question is, when I have sex with my wife, I feel the addict part of me emerge. This is very discouraging for me.
It almost feels like it almost makes me not want to have sex with my wife anymore and risk activating the addiction wiring in my brain. What should I do? Again, similar themes here. When we have a history of porn addiction, our brain has become wired to see sex as a self-centered addictive experience rather than something that is whole, that is beautiful, and that is connected to another person.
And that sucks. It is so discouraging to feel that. I remember how powerless I felt against that for so long, for so many years.
It can change though. It can change. I know I bring up these free things, but this is very pertinent to what we are talking about here.
My free eBook on my site, if you go to my homepage, grab the 10 Tools to Conquer Cravings. It is going to give you 10 approaches when you feel cravings for porn or masturbation. It will give you 10 different approaches you can use in an instant mentally in order to address those cravings, redirect your mind, and think about it all in a different way.
You can start to train your brain out of these ways of thinking that ultimately are fueling this kind of negative experience in the bedroom, or your wife feeling like a sex object, or porn addiction being linked up to what happens in the bedroom with your wife. It is going to help you through psychological and behavioral and evidence based kinds of strategies to overcome those types of mechanisms in your brain. So again, the 10 Tools for Cravings, you will see that on my site.
Here are some other things that you can do. In addition, make the experience when you are in the bedroom about us. Again, I have already said that, but make it about us together, us having this experience.
Serve your wife. Really make it a focus when you are in the bedroom. This might sound so corny, but I promise you it helps.
If you believe in God, and God has played a central role in my recovery. It is so beautiful if you have a higher power. I think it is so central and so powerful, but if you have a belief in God or a higher power, utilize that.
Before you have sex, ask God or your higher power, say, hey, I would really like for this to be a really positive experience for both of us. I would really like it to be filled with light and love, and for my wife to feel cared about, and welcome, and accepted, and seen, and for her to have a good experience here. Then go about serving her.
Make her your focus, and you can enjoy it too. As you look out for her needs and you serve her, it will help you have a good experience. Another thing that is kind of practical is talk with your wife during sex.
Have a connected experience. Practice. Again, it can feel so awkward for a long time, but as you practice, you can build up just really, it doesn't have to all be flirty, or dirty, or crazy, or a big deal.
Talk with her, and give her compliments, and show her love, and speak to her about whatever it feels right in the moment. Let that come over time. That's going to be very personal between couples, what that looks like.
Then another thing is call it quits if you need to. I know that can be so hard. It can feel so unnatural, but if you are going into an addictive space when you are having sex, if it's starting to feel like this beast in you is coming out, this addict part of you is emerging, you can be open and vulnerable.
Maybe that will be hurtful for your wife. I don't know. It depends on where she's at in her recovery process from her own betrayal trauma, but you can say, hey, I'm kind of entering into an addict mindset here.
I don't want to put you in that position. That's not good for you. Again, you see how you're kind of turning it towards, I want to do what's right for you.
Of course, on your end, you want to be able to do what's right for your recovery. Then you can come back later and have sex later at a better time. Just don't be afraid to say that, or if you can communicate, talk with your wife about what you're going through.
Hey, this is kind of what I'm facing right now. I'm kind of going into this addict space. Maybe you could just speak to me.
Just remind me who you are. You're my wife. We love each other.
That you're here for me. It can feel really scary and traumatic. Addiction is a traumatic experience for the sufferer of addiction.
We can carry that trauma, and it can take time to change the way we think about sex, years even. It's okay if it takes that time. Don't be discouraged.
It can get better. Then we'll work on removing these kinds of perceptions that we have about sex. I think in Western culture, specifically, we can see sex as rebellious or dirty or a big deal.
We live through these kinds of filters, and they can be so automatic for us, especially through media and movies and TV. Number one, stop watching those dirty, disgusting movies and TV shows. I'm not trying to judge you there.
It's not fueling your recovery. It's hurting your recovery. It's bringing you down.
It's making you susceptible to addiction in general, including porn addiction. Get out of that garbage because it's fueling your twisted view of sex and of sex within a committed relationship. We can become extremely attached to things like rebelliousness or feeling dirty or like it's a deal.
Look at us. We're having sex. We're so cool.
We're so dirty. Those types of feelings, you probably understand what I'm talking about. Sex is a normal human experience.
You can mentally practice replacing these feelings and this obsession with these types of things with this understanding of sex is a normal human experience. People can often blow it way out of proportion. We have so many messages in our media and entertainment about how cool it is to have sex, how dirty it is, how rebellious it is.
Dude, do you know how long people have been having sex for? Forever. Forever. Since the dawn of man, there was not a time when we did not have sex.
If you believe in Adam and Eve, we could talk about timeline there. As long as we have been procreating, we've been having sex. That is forever essentially.
There was not a time when we weren't. You're not cool for having sex. It's not impressive.
It's not impressive how long you can go in the bedroom or all this other garbage or how big you are down there. All this stuff that's talked about and boasted about and focused upon and obsessed about in western culture, it all just makes you so focused on the physical body and disables you from focusing more on other things that actually will bring you happiness. It takes up mental bandwidth.
It's just a normal human experience and hopefully it's reserved for someone important who you are committed to. Other than that, it's just something humans do. If you can remove the obsessive nature and extreme beliefs that you have surrounding sex, this can help you stop feeling so enamored by it and it can make it so it stops ruling your life so much.
This can help your recovery. I hope that makes sense. I hope it doesn't seem too eccentric or too harsh or judgmental.
I'm just trying to be helpful and help you to kind of see through that. One of the other questions was, my wife says that I want to have sex with her too often but I'm a man so I want to have sex more than she does. Isn't it reasonable for her to accommodate that need and have sex with me a little more often than she might prefer? After all, I am her husband.
Sex is optional. Sex is a choice. Sex is optional.
It's not a need and when we think that our wife has to meet some kind of quota or that we're owed sex or that we're betrayed or it's not fair when she doesn't want to have sex with us, life's not fair. I don't know what to tell you. Life's not fair and you guys can work that out together as a couple but I'm just saying when you think that it's a need and you're being somehow slighted, you're not because it's not a requirement.
It's not a need and I know that the urge for sex can be completely overwhelming but again, by developing other parts of your life that uphold recovery, a recovery mindset and a recovery lifestyle and filling your life with meaning and connections and noble pleasures, things that actually bring you joy and that bring you achievement and fulfillment and that fill your cup on a daily basis, things you're doing physically, spiritually, mentally and in your relationships, you won't have so much of an obsession or a need for sex and you can take it or you can leave it and the ability to do that is freaking freeing. It is the best life you can imagine and you're not going to be perfect at that. Sometimes, you know, especially if you're stressed or maybe you have your sex drive is quite active which I would argue that that's drive as a whole.
If you use that drive for other things, the sexual part of it is going to be far more diminished and it's just you're filling it with other things in your life but if you feel that strong urge, just know that you're working on this life of recovery and it makes sense. It makes sense. So, I got to keep going here because we've been going quite a while but I hope that it's very helpful to you.
One of the other types and one of the other questions I want to address is I don't find my wife very attractive. I see that as a major reason for my addiction to porn. If she just lost some weight, exercised, looked better, whatever it might be, then I wouldn't have a need to go to porn.
I want to be very blunt. It doesn't matter what your wife looks like. That doesn't determine whether you have an addiction to porn or not because again, it's not about the need for sex.
It's about other things and your wife working on her physical body and looking better isn't up to you. It's not something that you have any control over and it's honestly beneficial for you if you work to let that go and you work on other parts of you and your life and your healing and getting better mentally and emotionally and working on your spiritual life, your physical health, etc. to feel better as a human being.
Let go of trying to control her into changing. Let her take care of that and then hopefully over time your desire for her to look physically better will come purely from a selfless place of I want you to feel healthy and I want you to feel happy and you won't even mention it because you'll leave it to her. So rate, follow, and hit that notification bell.
I hope you found today's episode helpful. Again, if you want to learn far more about overcoming porn addiction, my highest recommendation as far as something that's free to get right right now is to go to nomoredesire.com and watch my free workshop, The Eight Keys to Lose Your Desire for Porn. This free workshop is going to help you navigate addiction in a different way than you have probably ever considered.
You're going to build a recovery mindset and lifestyle. You're going to learn how to do that. You're going to learn about a way of life that supports recovery.
I'll teach you what actually makes you susceptible to porn addiction. We've talked about some of it today. I go way deeper in this workshop and I'll share with you keys for recovery including the real root causes of porn addiction, how to stop porn cravings before they start, the five levels of cognition that influence addiction, the four unconscious drivers of porn cravings, how sexual shame fuels pornography addiction, and how to overcome it.
One simple daily practice to get out of the addiction funnel that leads to relapse and a whole lot more. So check that out nomoredesire.com slash free-workshop or hit the link in the description below my friend. God bless and much love.
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