If you find yourself still struggling with an unwanted habit such as turning to pornography, deep down do you wonder how this will impact your ability to get married?
Perhaps you’re afraid that you might hurt your future spouse because of this struggle.
Or maybe there’s fear that special person might not accept or love you if they knew what you struggled with.
Some people we’ve worked with had the concern that because of their unwanted habits they wouldn’t be able to be sexually satisfied with their future spouse.
If you’re afraid that you struggle with an unwanted sexual behavior such as pornography could negatively impact your marriage, you are absolutely right.
Take Brother Mahmood, for example, who had been turning to pornography for decades before he started looking into getting married. All his friends around him were getting married, and marriage is something that really fired him up, and so this motivated him to work on healing from his pornography addiction.
However, as he began considering his prospects, he found that he just wasn’t attracted to any of the sisters. He considered dozens of sisters from various sisters, yet none of them got him excited. He felt they all looked bland. And he was deeply afraid that if he married someone who wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous he wouldn’t be satisfied and he would end up resorting to Haram.
What he didn’t realize at the time was that it wasn’t the sisters who weren’t pretty enough, but it was his addiction to pornography that made it impossible for him to appreciate their natural beauty.
Or maybe you’re like Brother Abdallah who genuinely loved the woman he got married to and he swore up and down when he got married he would never turn back to his old habits. Yet months into his marriage he woke up to the reality that his struggle was not solved by his marriage, marriage did not change a habit that had been taking root in his life for more than a decade. He genuinely loved this woman and he did not want to hurt her.
Yet one day he was in his office with the doors closed and he turned back to his old habits and his wife caught him and she knew exactly what was going on even though he denied it. And at that moment he broke her heart. She went to the couch crying and saying “you don’t deserve me”.
Now for many people, something very dangerous happens. They are sincere people who find themselves struggling and are afraid of damaging their marriage because of their struggle, and so… they sit and wait.
They wait for things to change in their life.
They think to themselves, I’ll delay marriage for one year and hopefully by then I won’t be struggling any more.
But what they failed to realize is that time does nothing to change a habit – time only makes a bad habit more permanent.
And so while they thought they were delaying marriage, what really happened is that they sold marriage. In the time that passed they held onto their old habits like an old friend that’s always there to comfort them.
And that year very quickly becomes another year and another year.
Mindset #1 To Prepare For Marriage: Own Your Dream!
Don’t sell your dream of achieving a beautiful marriage – own that dream!
It’s a beautiful thing and it’s a sunnah of the messenger salla Allah ‘alaihi wa sallam and it’s pleasing to Allah and it’ll help you and your partner grow and develop and it’ll be the foundation from which you can go out into the world and have an impact.
Don’t sell all of that just for a little bit of short-lived pleasure that only leaves you feeling more drained.
Marriage can be such a strong motivator for change, but in order to it to motivate you you have to own that dream.
Mindset #2 To Prepare For Marriage: Take Charge Of Your Personal Development
So if time isn’t going to change anything for you, then what will?
Things will change bi’ithnIllah when you bring the intention, the investment of your time, energy, and money, and the efforts to develop the character needed to enter into a strong marriage.
And that starts by facing your unwanted habits head on.
Is it going to be uncomfortable? Absolutely. Are you going to have to ask hard questions? You bet. Are you going to have to reach out for help. Yes, 100%.
But if you own your dream, then you’ll be more than willing to put in that effort to overcome your unwanted habits.
Mindset #3 To Prepare For Marriage: Grow To Give, Not To Get
You see a lot of people are aware that their struggle with pornography is not serving them in the long term, but they feel like there’s nothing big enough that’s really motivating them to change.
Here’s the thing… I could tell you if you change and you overcome your struggle, you’re going to get a wonderful spouse, you’re going to get love and affection, you’re going to get happiness and peace…
All that is great, but in reality it’s still easy to trade all of that in for the “easy and delicious” pleasure you can get right now by indulging.
But what if I told you there’s someone else that needs you to change. That future spouse that Allah will bless you with one day – she needs a husband who can love her. She needs a husband who can honor her. She needs someone who can value her and be faithful to her.
You see this whole discussion is now just about you achieving what makes you happy. Because you can find pleasure at the click of a button, if that’s all you want. But if what you truly want is to give, to be the man or woman who can give wholeheartedly to your future partner, then that’s gonna take some work.
Imagine that moment you embrace your future spouse for the first time. Imagine if you’re there that moment and you’re giving. There’s no distractions on your mind. You’re present and you’re giving with your whole heart.
That can be your reality, but if that’s going to happen then you’ll need to take ownership of your own healing and growth, and face your struggles head on.
We at Purify Your Gaze have developed a proven and effective system for change that will help you to not only bring an end to your unwanted behaviors, but most importantly allow you to engage in the process of self-discovery and address the root causes that caused the problems to begin with.
In our program we give you a curriculum that teaches you the strategies we’ve taught thousands of men and women to help them break free, and you’ll also be supported by our team and our community along your journey of healing.
If today you’ve taken ownership of your dream of achieving a beautiful marriage and you’d like to get to work, we’d love to invite you to apply to our Community program.
It’s simple from here – click on the link above to learn more and then just click the button to request an invitation to the Community. Once you submit your request, we’ll receive it and we’ll review it within a few days and you’ll hear back from us directly insha Allah.
I hope you found these tips helpful and I look forward to seeing you next time insha Allah!
