JoshDixOnline

After I wrote this post, I started getting a different kind of feedback in regard to men staying faithful to their wives.  The topic?  Addiction to pornography.  It was an interesting--and appropriate--application of the discussion of marital faithfulness.  While I had originally pointed to sexual and emotional affairs as a destructive behavior, many men came forward and confessed to me they had a different kind of unfaithfulness.  They were addicted to pornography. 

Many of them shared common traits that further enabled their poor choices: 

• Lack of true biblical community
• Lack of biblical truth in their lives
• Anger towards their spouse, fiance or girlfriend for any number of reasons, most notably a lack of sex in the relationship.

I did not once get emails from men who were cheating on their wives in response to my call to be faithful.  Every email said the same thing, which tells me what I already know--there is a porn epidemic.  And it tells me if we think about pornography a little differently, we could make a case that it is the number one way men are unfaithful to their spouses.  There is a lot to cover here, so I'm not even going to try, but I'm going to speak to a couple things that came out of my interaction with some of these guys.  I pray it is helpful.

In some cases, a man may have experienced previous abuse.  Abuse is more common in men than anyone realizes.  Dan Allender's book Wounded Heart or The Healing Path may be a good resource there.  I recommended counseling to several men, and if you're reading this it may be helpful for you too, particularly if you are struggling in your marriage, dealing with addiction, or dealing with the weeds that have grown from past sin done against you. 

I remember in a college class watching a Frontline special on the pornography industry.  We saw how a woman brought her friend into the industry, and without knowing what the scene was going to be, the friend was raped on camera with a knife held to her throat.  The first woman explained how not telling her friend what was going to happen made it more authentic for the viewer.  In that moment, I also remembered that 1-out of- 3 girls is sexually abused by the age of 18.  And I was overwhelmed with the idea that when a man engages in pornography, he is implicated in her abuse.  What I mean is he contributes to the cycle of abusive behavior by participating in an industry that perpetuates sexual sin against that girl--even if she is sinning against herself under her own will.  The porn addict rarely thinks of himself in the same light as he would think of a man who molests a young girl or a man who rapes a young woman. But I'm beginning to think he should.  

Finally, married men, pursuing oneness is an essential key for you and your wife.  Everything we do either moves toward our spouse or away from her.  There is no middle ground.  If you do nothing, you drift.  Oneness has to be a constant pursuit.  So in a fight, if you and your spouse can have oneness as the goal--not compromise, but oneness--instead of just winning the fight or discussion, you are saying your relationship is more important than your argument or position.  And if you can see that everything you do is either actively pursuing her or moving away from her, you can have an internal check for yourself when you see that you're drifting apart.  My wife and I have made this part of the language we use to talk about our relationship every day.  Frankly, it has saved us through all kinds of suffering that could have easily made us drift.

So if oneness can be your ultimate pursuit--the kind of oneness that means showing Christ to one another--then you can see how choosing pornography over your wife is contrary to oneness.  Or if she shuts you out sexually--as several men claimed happens to them--and you don't effectively communicate how that hurts you, you can see how your passivity in communication moves away from oneness.  And if you do communicate how you feel rejected, you do it in the correct way, and she still rejects you, you can keep pointing towards oneness as your pursuit...communicating how your real heart's desire is not just for sex, but for oneness and intimacy with her.  It may not solve everything, but it's a start.

The Five Love Languages was helpful for my wife in learning how to pursue oneness with me.  Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas was a helpful book for me in thinking about oneness and the constant pursuit of loving my wife like Christ loves the church.

In a sermon a couple weeks ago, my friend Jeremy Irwin said that when dealing with sin--particularly sin that is addictive--we have to be "strategic and severe."  He is right.  I pray you men can find the strength and support around you to be strategic and severe with the sin that is crippling you and your marriages.  

Stay connected to other dudes.  And stay in the word, bros.