Hope and Encouragement for Those Struggling with Sexual Sin
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The tips on this podcast come from an article I did for Pastors.com called “Tips For Helping Others in Crisis”. I posted the article on our blog on Monday. Check it out HERE.
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@porntopurity on Twitter
Call-in voicemail line line: (321) 5-PURITY
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Sexy dreams are something unavoidable during our sexual purity journey. We’re in a battle. We’re fighting for purity. We’re contending with our lust. It’s a conscious battle that sometimes spills into our unconscious.
It shouldn’t surprise us that we have sexy dreams. In the past, we’ve lusted with our eyes, objectified, fantasized about sex, starred at porn and had sexual encounters with others. All of these memories swim around in our brain and can affect our dream state. Even if we’ve stopped our behaviors, the memories are still there.
Some sexy dreams come during stressful periods, times where we’re feeling the struggle.
Sexy dreams may come when we’re in need. We might need touch, affirmation, valued, or a desire for companionship. When we need connections with other people and with God, those are times I’ve noticed my dreams can be sexy.
We might have sexy dreams after a great encounter with our spouse. When I bask in the glow it might troll up some garbage.
Sexy dreams are confusing. They feel real. They may evoke a wet dream. They elicit feelings of excitement, fear, confusion, guilt or shame. They may be accompanied by talking in your sleep or masturbating in your sleep.
ENCOURAGEMENTS
Don’t beat yourself up over them. We’re not responsible for what we do in our unconscious state. It’s not the same as conscious, willfully sinning.
Know that sexy dreams will happen. They’re a part of your struggle, sin nature, and the process of renewing your mind.
Sexy dreams probably have to do with a struggle. Check yourself. Check your emotions. Make sure you’re fighting the battle effectively.
Check the lust flow. What have you been looking at or thinking about and daydreaming about? Is anything that needs to be cut?
Is there something that needs healing? Ask God to give you insight about your dreams. Go back. Maybe you have an attraction or an emotional attachment that needs to be broken. Ask God to fill that place in your heart with your spouse or Himself.
Pray before you go to bed. Ask God to be Lord of your unconscious. God wants us to surrender this part of us over to Him too.
Control the things you can control. Work on the things you open the door to. What do you watch, look at during the day, day dream about? What do you meditate on? Make sure you’re meditating on the good, holy, and pure (Phil. 4:8).
Realize this is a process. Your mind is being transformed and made holy. You’re somewhere on this journey. You’re not going to have a perfect unconscious and perfect sleep all the time.
Visit a counselor. You may have damage and a need for healing. Counselors are trained in matters of the heart. They can help you explore your dreams more, and the needs in your conscious life.
Bring it out and talk about it with a friend. Bring light to your dreams. Don’t keep them secret and hidden. When we internalize it the struggle becomes worse. You don’t have to talk about the details, but you saying, “I had a sexy dream and it’s carrying over into my day and I don’t want it to be this way.” Helps a lot.
Sexy dreams can be frustrating, shameful and scary. But dreams might be springboards for finding experiencing a deeper relationship with God and a deeper level of purity.
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@porntopurity on Twitter
Call-in voicemail line line: (321) 5-PURITY
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We spend a good chunk of our time in our work environments. It’s a major place of influence that demands your energy, creativity, and the building of relationships. You have to include your work in your purity strategy.
It’s not unusual to encounter triggery women at work. They might dress seductively. They may be the flirty girls. They may remind you of your wife or an old girlfriend. Or they may be “nice Christian girl” that you develop a friendship with.
I want to give you several tips that I’m picking up from recovery veterans on how to deal with the triggery girls at work.
1. Know what triggers you – There is no universal type of triggery girl. Not every triggery girl is the sexy, sleezy, flirty girl. You need to be aware of what types of girls catch your eye, which girls you are drawn to, what personalities or clothing that pushes your buttons. Knowing yourself is essential to building a smart purity strategy.
2. Set a cold tone – I picked this tip up from a friend of mine who had multiple affairs with women in his work setting. When he meets a new woman at work he keeps his distance by coming across as cold. He keeps conversations short and does not go to the next level by getting personal.
3. Avoid – We can’t avoid all triggery women. Some might work in our department or on our team. Some by be our bosses. But there are many women we can avoid. The outgoing, sexy, party girls should definitely be avoided. Any girl that flirts or dresses provocatively should be avoided. And any girl that excites you to be around should be in your no-fly zone.
4. Don’t get personal – Some relationships need to stay strictly business. If you have to work around or with one of your triggery girls, keep it straight. Don’t make attempts to build a relationship or get to know her.
5. Talk about your friends and family – Inject reality into your conversations. Talk about your wife and kids. Make sure she understands that you love your family. To some needy women it can be a turn off. It also reminds you of your most important relationships. If you are single, you can deflect personal conversation by talking about your friends. Push the focus of the conversation away from yourself.
6. Don’t be a shoulder to cry on (emotions) – You may be an emotional guy. You may care. You may feel sad or sorry for her, but you can’t be the “emotional go-to” guy. That’s a role for her girlfriends, husband, or family. When a guy responds to the emotional struggles of a woman it pushes a powerful relationship button. Be careful.
7. Change your route – If you have a larger office you may need to change the way you walk to the break room or to the boss’ office. Many times we will change our route so we can look walk by the pretty girl’s desk. Make sure you change your route for a righteous reason.
8. Don’t overestimate yourself – Don’t be the guy who says, “that will never happen to me”. You are not that guy. No guy is that guy. We are all vulnerable, and don’t forget, we’re talking about a girl that already pushes your trigger buttons.
9. Don’t underestimate the girl – Don’t be the guy who says, “She will never go that direction in our relationship.” There’s a lot we don’t know about our coworkers. We all have hurts and brokenness. If a needy woman feels your attention or senses you’re attraction you could be in trouble quick.
10. Pour into your critical relationships – The best offensive strategy for us is to feed the right relationships. Spend time with God, with your wife, with your kids, and with other men. Maintaining healthy bonds with those closest to you will help you be less vulnerable to a questionable relationship at work.
11. Pray for her – Take the first few moments of each morning while you are booting your computer up and pray for the triggery women around you. Pray that you would see them as real people. Pray that God would minister to their needs and keep you from temptation, lusting, and objectifying them.
12. Somebody’s daughter – Try to remember that the woman you are making eyes at is somebody’s daughter, and maybe much more than that… somebody’s mommy, somebody’s wife, or somebody’s future wife and mommy.
13. Get some accountability – You need to talk to another guy about any girls at work that you are triggered by. You’ve got to bring it out into the light and you need another guy asking you how things are going.
Guys, I don’t want you to be paranoid about girls at work. But we have to keep the bar very high and our relationships pure. Don’t forget the high calling of Ephesians 5:3 “there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality”.
For all the time we spend at work, we need to make we’ve got it covered in our sexual purity plan.
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@porntopurity on Twitter
Call-in voicemail line line: (321) 5-PURITY
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What major breakthroughs are you experiencing in your sexual addiction recovery?
A new blogger friend recently asked me “How long had you been in your recovery before you started helping others?”
Marsha and I were in the Crisis Stage of sexual addiction recovery for about 6 months. Once we left Buffalo, NY and came to Raleigh, NC we entered a major phase of pain, discovery and healing. We spent a lot of time and money on our recovery. We both started attending counseling and found support groups.
It would have been foolish for us to start a website in the middle of our crisis or in the middle of the emotional rollercoaster we were going through.
God brought at least six major breakthroughs in our lives before we were able to start our website, blog & podcasts.
Notice that only one of these breakthroughs has to do with my behavior. Most of them are on an emotional, relational, spiritual level.
1. UNDERSTANDING THE CONSEQUENCES OF MY ACTIONS
A key part of my recovery happened when I started to see the consequences of my actions and could see the affect it had on others. I could see myself through other people’s eyes. I imagined what it would have been like in their shoes.
2. HEALING FROM MY ANGER AND SEXUAL BONDS
It’s amazing how much anger I had toward God, my wife, myself, my pastor friends… over getting found out.
I had a lot of anger in the past toward my dad, and people that had hurt me.
I still had emotional bonds with old girfriends, crushes, or images on the computer that needed God’s touch.
I spent a lot of time in journaling and in the counseling office to work on these things. I still have to work through patches of resentment & emotional bonding.
3. MARSHA’S DEPRESSION / MY ABSTINENCE
About a year into our recovery, Marsha had an emotional breakdown. Too many struggles built up and she fell into a time of depression. She took 6 weeks of unpaid leave from work to “catch her breath” emotionally and seek God’s healing. Her counselor recommended that I abstain from sex with her for the 6 weeks. That was an important time of healing for me, leaning on the Lord, and serving my wife even deeper.
4. CONSISTENT SOBRIETY
Building a track record of sobriety was important. Every day and month of freedom from pornography and masturbation built my strength and dependence on the Lord. It’s not that I didn’t have slips occasionally, but they were rare. I was experiencing the effects of a good defense and a good support system.
5. LEADERSHIP AND VISION PASSED BACK ON ME
When I went into recovery the mantle of leadership shifted over to Marsha. I was in shock. I was confused. I did not have a vision for our family and could not lead. During the abstinence time I felt the Spirit of God come back on me. I could lead. I had a vision for our family. I knew how to make decisions. I knew what we needed to do next. What a glorious experience that was!
6. MARSHA AND I STARTED SEEING THE NEEDS OF OTHER STRUGGLERS
Our website developed out of our own brokenness, healing, & needs. When we went into recovery, nobody gave us the needed resources. Marsha started scouring the web (as many wives do) for resources, and we started finding a lot. I found a lot of recovery podcasts on I-Tunes and we started bookmarking them. We felt like there was a need for a central site to share resources. Additionally, we thought we could share our story so people wouldn’t feel alone. The blog developed out of my journalings and note taking. I just wanted to share what I was learning.
The podcast was the same way. We saw a need for something like Porn to Purity Podcast and Top Tips. God allowed us to create the something we needed.
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@porntopurity on Twitter
Call-in voicemail line line: (321) 5-PURITY
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Let’s face it – sexual sin is a blow to any marriage. But for newlyweds, it can be traumatic. A young marriage is shaken. They start asking questions like:
“Where did this come from?”
“Did I marry the right person?”
“Is our marriage over?”
We want to offer our encouragement and insight. We want to explore why this is so hard, and share some reasons why the early years are the best time to work on sexual struggles in a marriage.
THIS IS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD OR YOUR MARRIAGE
We want to say, first of all: you can get through it! Your marriage is not hopeless.
You’re not alone. Sexual sin affects most couples. Our backgrounds are full of negative sexual messages and experiences. Internet pornography is prevalent. You are not the only ones faced with a sexual issue in your marriage.
Many have worked through it. There are many, many marriages that have been able to work through sexual addiction in a healthy way. It doesn’t matter how deep it goes, you can work through it.
Great help is available. You will be able to find the resources you need to work through this. Our Porn to Purity website has resources for men, women, couples, and ministers. We have links to ministries, counselors, and support groups that will be able to come alongside you in this crisis.
There are people who are actively talking about their sexual struggles. Most of us did not grow up in environments where sexual matters were talked about openly or in a healthy way. But we live in a time where many individuals and couples are reaching out with their stories. Our website is an extension of our own recovery journey and there are many others.
This was not a surprise to God. You may have been caught off guard with the reveal of sexual sin, but God wasn’t. God may be the one who allowed your spouse to get found out. He may have prompted you to walk in on your spouse while he was on the computer or catch that email. He is here and He can help you recover from this. He’s done it for so many already.
WHY THE REVEAL IS SO HARD
It’s happening in the front of your marriage – This is not a chapter you expected to have to go through as a couple, certainly not in the early years of your marriage. Now should be a time for the Honeymoon Phase or the First Years – the time when you are still riding the waves of having two lives become one. Sexual sin is a major disruption to this bliss.
Your relationship is younger and more fragile – Even if you and your spouse have been dating or engaged for years, your married life is very young. Your investment in your marriage is not as strong as it will be 15 years from now. You are less mature relationally and emotionally. You have not weathered many storms together and built up strength in your marriage.
Doubts – The news of a spouse’s sexual struggles creates doubts and serious questions to any marriage. It’s not unusual to ask, “Did I marry the right person?” or “Did I make a mistake?” Both of you have recently stepped into the scary territory of marriage. You are combining bank accounts, consolidating your possessions, and living under one roof. Sharing your lives together for the first time brings a lot of instability. Sexual struggles bring another layer to a relationship that’s already causing you to feel uneasy.
Who did I marry? – We feel like we know everything there is to know about our spouse. We feel like our spouse has been honest with us and talked about their issues. This is not the case with most marriages. We keep the skeletons to ourselves and hide parts of our lives in dark corners, even from our spouse. There are parts of our family background and sexual history that we probably haven’t talked about. We probably didn’t think it would affect anything. Bottom line, the real person we married is different from the perfect person we thought we were saying “I do” to.
WHY THE REVEAL IS GOOD FOR YOUR YOUNG MARRIAGE
A challenge you now have to tackle together – This may be your first big challenge. It is an opportunity to face it head on, surrendering to God and getting the help you need. God can take this challenge and help you get healthy in ways you can’t imagine. If you and your spouse work this, you will thank God for allowing this to happen early in your marriage.
A quick lesson in baggage – Eventually we figure out that the husband and the wife bring their past baggage into the marriage. Your spouse’s sexual sin has accelerated this process. Finding the answer to “Why did he do this?” is not easy. You have to go backwards. Sexual struggles have roots in family background, early exposure to pornography, wounds and unmet needs. Both the husband and the wife will discover junk they brought into the marriage and ways that they contribute to an unhealthy marriage.
A critical lesson in true intimacy – Intimacy is the degree of knowing one another and being known by one another. Physical intimacy is only one part of intimacy. You’ll find through the process of recovery that God wants you to develop relational, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual intimacy.
Mr. Perfect he’s not (neither are you) – Most of us have idealized dreams and expectations about our spouse. We think our spouse will complete us and meet all our needs. Sexual sin often shatters the image we have of our spouse. Our spouse is a struggler. He does not have his life together in this area. A couple that recovers well will have to reset their dreams and expectations. We realign to reality and not the fantasy image we had of our spouse.
Our lies about sex are busted up – Recovery will help you uncover lies you or your spouse have believed about sex. Lies such as:
Many couples never figure these out. You are fortunate for learning these lessons. They will help you have the healthy sexual intimacy that God desires for you.
The secret sexual sin and cover up would be much worse later on – Some couples have to deal with decades of sin, cover-up and lying. The betrayal felt and broken trust is tremendous to longer marriages. Sure, it’s terrible now, but not as terrible as it would have been if you had found out 5, 10, 20 years down the road. Repenting and turning the marriage around is much easier in the early years of marriage.
FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE – DID YOU MEAN IT?
I (Jeff) have performed countless weddings. Most couples include in their vows to one another “for better or for worse”. Sexual sin brings a “worse” condition to a marriage. You weren’t prepared for it were you?
You and your spouse have to decide if you really meant what you said. God takes your vows seriously. He believes has brought you together.
He has not abandoned us in spite of all of our sins past, present and future. He calls us to a high level of commitment to our marriage. He calls us to work this problem together.
And this may not be the worst thing you have to face together. It might be the other spouse’s junk next time. It might be a family issue. It might be a tragedy or period of unemployment. There are many hardships that hit a marriage.
You can get through this! God and others can help you navigate this overwhelming reveal.
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@porntopurity on Twitter
Call-in voicemail line line: (321) 5-PURITY
