By no means is this list exhaustive, but here are five ways in which your sex addiction is violating the sanctity of your marriage right now:
1. It gets in the way of you being able to experience soulful sexuality with your wife.
The compulsive energy behind a sex addiction turns sex into something primal and mechanical. It is the result of neediness and weakness. The need to have sex simply to let go of sexual tension, and having one’s entire focus on getting that next “fix” or “hit”, as quickly as possible, for that momentary pleasure.
That right there destroys the spiritual gateway that sex was meant to be for both men and women. This not only robs your spouse of intimacy, but it makes her feel like she is being used.
Sex has the potential to be one of the most loving, spiritual, and creative acts between a man and a woman. It has the potential to bring their hearts closer, to bring about the adoration of one and other, not from the external, not in the body in terms of it’s appearances. But to see and be seen by the soul of each other.
When sex is compulsive or strictly physical there’s no way any of these spiritual objectives can be experienced.
2. It breaks the trust, the bond in your marriage.
They say that trust is probably more fragile than glass, once broken, it’s nearly impossible to mend.
You can cover up your tracks by deleting your browser history, closing out your secret chat sessions or hiding your bank statements, but what you cannot control are the non verbal cues that your wife is picking up from you and you behaviors, subconsciously.
Although you may have never been “caught” for the trust to be shattered, it’s these conscious and unconscious suspicions and second guessing that your wife is experiencing that is cracking the already fragile trust that’s there between you.
There have been multiple accounts I’ve heard and read personally from members of our coaching and other programs, who have had their wives tell them that they had dreams about them compulsively accessing pornography, when they never had a clue.
The fact is that your actions speak louder, even if you have taken extreme measures of hiding from your spouse. There is a level of mistrust that develops in the relationship that is not open, honest and transparent.
3. It impacts the self esteem of your spouse and how they view you.
When your wife chose to marry you, she was imagining someone who had her eyes only on her and not on other women.
Your sex addiction is about you, and your inability to cope with life and deal with your problems. It has nothing to do with your spouse.
When your spouse senses dissatisfaction from you and that you don’t find fulfillment in her, subconsciously, she believes that she is at fault, she is not good enough and that she cannot make you happy.
Your lack of presence in the relationship whether that be through compulsion at work, or avoiding intimacy causes her much hurt, as she begins to believe that something is wrong with her and she is not good enough for you.
4. It’s infidelity, plain and simple
You might have made excuses with your wife that you’re busy doing work online, but in reality you are acting out compulsively by viewing explicit videos. The hours you spend texting women on the phone, or even chatting with women online is no different than having an affair.
You are exhausting all your emotional and physical resources on an individual who is not your spouse. When you return to your spouse, you come empty handed and have nothing of value to offer to her.
5. You become blinded from your wife’s beauty.
You find your mind polluted with images of pornography when you engage in the act of intimacy with your spouse. Your can never truly enjoy your wife’s beauty, or experience the joy of being satisfied by her beauty because of your compulsion with pornography.
If you cannot lower your gaze, whether that be out on the streets or online, you are always comparing with what you don’t have. It’s not that your wife never had the beauty, but you have become completely blinded to it. You are not able to appreciate what you do have.
These are all points that are important points to consider, not to make you feel hopeless, but to recognize that like any disease, your sex addiction is silently killing the joy that is in your life right now. It’s slowly eating away at that sacred bond between you and your spouse.
Many men from the Purify Your Gaze Program, have made strides in their marriage through their commitment of recovering from their sex addiction. The first step is always the hardest, but once you take it, Allah SWT will make a way out for you that you never thought was possible. He can heal what has been broken beyond repair.
