Do I stay or do I go now?

Aaron2,

My heart goes out to you, I am so sorry for what you’re going through. Second only to murder, really? You’re right, these are very unhealthy attitudes and the church has made people think it’s a big enough deal to break up families over it. Ugh. I don’t know what it’s like to feel addicted to these things but helping a child through some problems I learned that I don’t trust the church or LDS social services to deal with sex issues in a healthy way. “Porn is evil, porn is evil, porn is evil. Hey, why am I thinking about porn?”

I wish I could talk to your wife. I was pretty judgemental about my husband’s lack of enthusiasm for his Priesthood duties until I started reassessing my own faith. When I started to let go of my expectations for him in the church, I started seeing him as the husband and father that he is and I appreciate him much more. Keeping my marriage covenants are important to me no matter his testimony or his “worthiness”. I don’t know how I found a new lens to look through but it has strengthened our marriage to do so.

I don’t have any advice for you but wish you love and peace on your journey.

What I always find interesting about being told you can’t have the spirit with you if you don’t keep all the commandments is that none of us are perfect and keeping all the commandments. It would be weird to have a plan from Heavenly Father where none of us would have any help from the Spirit because we aren’t keeping the ALL the commandments.

It doesn’t work that way. We all have things we’re working on. If you consider perhaps natural things in life that the majority of people experience isn’t necessarily major sin worth defining yourself about, perhaps there are other parts of life that really do define you and who you are, and keep a perspective. If I take a sip of coffee…am I immediately an unworthy priesthood holder and terrible husband and sinner unworthy of God’s love? I doubt it. There needs to be perspective.

Let go of fears and remember God loves you for who you are. Separate out your issues so you can work with them one at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed.

The Church can be a support, but it is not the only path to God or happiness. Real life issues need real help, sometimes from professional sources outside the church that can handle things with expert skills (marriage counseling, addictions, etc). Bishops try their hardest, they just are not professionals.

Hang in there. Feel free to seek support from this group. You’re not alone. We’re glad you’re here.

You’re definitely not alone. I struggled with some of the same things in my past as well. I can completely relate to the guilt and other feelings you are experiencing. Because I moved around so much, I have talked to probably 8 or 9 different bishops, and had a pretty wide range of attitudes from one branch president who basically shrugged off my problem to over-zealous bishops who made me feel like I was going to hell, even though I had by that time managed my problem to where I only had a couple of problems a year. The hellfire and damnation speeches were a waste of time; you feel guilty enough on your own without their ‘help’. One of the things that was frustrating the most is that most people, unless they’ve been addicted themselves, don’t quite get it. Sometimes they just assume that if you just tried harder or had more faith, you would conquer it. Willpower alone isn’t enough sometimes. Your situation may be more difficult than mine (my addiction never became tangled up with pornography), but there is hope. It’s been probably six years since I had an active addiction. It gets easier. At first it was all I could do to make it from night to night, then week to week. Now it is only on rare occasions when I feel strongly tempted. Hang in there

Aaron, I’m recovering from the same problems, so I now want you’re going through. The difference with me is I’m still active in the church. I also have mild mental disorders that complicated things more. I’m on medication, so that does help with them. In fact, in my introduction I got into more details about my problems. I will keep you in my prayers to help you heal sexually and to find peace wherever you can find it. Welcome.

My heart goes out to you Aaron2. You end up facing the the emotional and spiritual roller coaster because of your honesty with everyone you mentioned above. You’ve probably been too open and honest with people for your own good (outside of your spouse, perhaps). Most of the people you sought help from don’t sound like they were able to help.

Quick answer: A lot of people I have talked to with similar experiences seem to find their “problems” go away or are reduced greatly when they finally just deeply accept that it isn’t the problem they thought it was, that it really isn’t that big a deal, that it is normal natural behavior, and accept this about themselves. It’s NOT the same thing as giving in and going all crazy with those things. It’s a final and deep sense of relief, love and acceptance for themselves. A realization that you are completely normal, and that almost all healthy normal people have some involvement to some degree with erotica and masturbation. It’s been around forever. It doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere soon.

Just as an example, women read steamy romance novels. But GA’s don’t stand up in General Conference to declare that fantasy outlet as “2nd only to murder.” In our Mormon culture, we just don’t pay much attention to that or shine the spotlight of shame on it. We don’t tell husbands it ends their temple sealing or makes their wife unworthy to be a mother. I’m just picking on that as an example.

Problems or not problems (or somewhere in between), these issues and our church cultural response to them have been blown WAY out of proportion. 2nd only to murder? For real? That pernicious and evil comparison is revelation from the Lord of Darkness himself, and I mourn the day it was introduced as an idea, as an apostasy from The Gospel (the Good News), in our Church.

You see, I’ve been told by every Bishop I had met with and many sunday school teachers in lessons, that unless you’re keeping the commandments, you will not have the spirit with you. Since I was not capable of keeping the commandments, I was not able to have the spirit. This lead to great feelings of unworthiness. I couldn’t trust myself or my feelings because I didn’t have the spirit with me.

Also a false, pernicious and destructive teaching: that you can only have the Spirit and be loved by God when you are perfect, when you obey all commandments. I don’t care who taught it, it is wrong. It is wrong conceptually, as you pointed out. If this were true, then NOBODY who ever lived would be worthy of love and the Spirit. It would destroy the purpose of creation. It is a teaching of the Devil. It is a teaching meant to destroy souls, to grind them in an every descending spiral of negativity and darkness.

Fortunately, it sounds like you reached the breaking point and see. Some of us need to reach those points before we are ready to make a change and develop/expand past those barriers in our souls. Knowing is power. Change the cycle. Break out of it.

You see, in the church, we teach our young women to look for worthy men to marry in the temple… What are those qualifications? They need to be a return missionary (which I am). They need to be eagle scouts (which I am). They need to have their duty to God (missed that one). They need to be able to be married in the temple. I pulled some last minute sobriety to get into the temple and get married. But the point was that my wife had been raised to feel that her husband had nothing good to offer because it was all trumped by his pornography addiction. She was raised to believe that it was a direct attack against her. That it was bringing evil spirits into the home and would destroy the children if it wasn’t overcome. My wife felt for a long time that she had made a mistake in marrying me. She had settled for something less than she was worthy for.

This is a problem. It is a very dysfunctional way of going into a marriage, and in seeing what a marriage union means. Let me take a step back — it works really good for a very small number of highly ideal people. It works less and less as people don’t match up with the perfect idealism.

But really, when you break it down, those attributes are NOT guarantees for a compatible mate or a good marriage, not now nor in the eternities. We also in our culture have a tendency to push off problems to the magical “eternities” future when we subconsciously hope God will solve the problems.

We have to see our spouse as they are, and love that person as they are.

We also have to adapt with change in our relationship over time. That which does not bend will break. It is unrealistic to expect that problems won’t arise, and that people don’t change. The Savior doesn’t just save the easy people and leave the tough folks hanging.

Nobody is worthy. Nobody. But that is negative, so I prefer not to think of it that way. We are all fallen. We are all STILL WORTHY regardless. Life is not a test. Say it a thousand thousand times in the mirror to yourself. Life is not a test. It’s an experience. It’s a hero’s epic journey.

We make the story.

“Do I stay or do I go now?”

Either way, make sure you listen to The Clash

On a more serious note, we can’t say what the future holds. Will you stay or leave? That’s your decision to make, and there’s no single right answer. You will figure it out, what is best for you and the people you love. It will all be OK in the long run.

We’re here to help people figure out how to stay. We’re totally fine if people need to leave too though.

I want to echo others who have said that focusing on stopping every single instance of what you see as sin probably exacerbates the problem instead of curing it. It sounds like you’ve already come to that realization for yourself, though. It’s good to hear you’ve found a program that is helping you. I believe that programs which focus on acceptance of self are much more useful than ones that focus simply on eliminating the addictive behavior.

I also agree with others who have expressed doubt that you’re actually addicted. That’s just my default stance whenever I hear an LDS person say they’re addicted, since the vast majority of people within the church who say they’re addicted actually are not by any sort of clinical definition. I don’t think the label is helpful when it’s misapplied. But, for those who are actually addicted, their addiction is often just a symptom of other problems in their lives. The addictive behavior is used to cope with other pains in life, and if one tries to deal with just the behavior without addressing the bigger underlying issues, it’s very likely to be unsuccessful.

And one last thing, I apologize if this seems too personal, but I just don’t think issues of pornography and masturbation in marriage can be properly addressed without discussing it: how is your sex life with your wife? Just speaking from personal experience, it’s much easier to avoid things like porn and masturbation when my wife and I are getting sexual fulfillment from each other on a regular basis.

I wish you the best in your efforts to be the person you want to be. It breaks my heart to see real families face the prospect of being broken up because of teachings of the church. I cannot understand how having a husband and father who can go to the temple every once in a while is more important than having a husband and father who is present in the home and loves his family.

I really appreciate all the replies and time you guys put into responding. They have been a been a strength to me and have given me a lot to ponder.

I should add that my wife has come a long way in the last couple of months. She too is starting to have a lot of doubts. I won’t go into it further because I know she wouldn’t want me to speak on her behalf.

and Cylon… no, it’s not too personal. You guys don’t even know who I am… I have nothing to fear by posting here. Sex with my wife is good and often. It seems to make no dent in my addiction. My wife really is a great person and I’m lucky to have her. Time will only tell as to where we will all end up. While divorce is always a real option, I feel that we’re heading away from that option right now as we both make good progress towards healthier living.

As for my porn addiction, I readily agree that the attitude that the church culture plays towards it is completely blown out of proportion and that is what has stopped me from being able to overcome it. While I do think some… a lot of men, probably look at it from time to time, this is not me. I use it to suppress issues in my life that are painful for me. Shame and guilt from being raised in a problem home, to being raised in a church who feeds on guilt and fear. My big reason for taking time away from the church was to get away from that while I focus on dealing with the issues in my life that are the root cause of my unhealthy living. I believe that as I become a more healthy person mentally and spiritually, I will have no more need for the other. As I told my Bishop once… stop telling me to mow the lawn when my house is on fire… He didn’t like the example… lol and began proceedings with the stake president for a church court. Later after in depth discussions with me, he decided to hold off a bit and try to see if I would make any progress.

I will continue working on letting go of the guilt and shame for who I’m not, and will work on forgiving myself.