Porn in our religious home

[Abreakwouldbelovely]

Been awake for hours feeling upset and confused after finding last night that my DH (married 11 yrs, 3 kids) has been watching porn despite it going against our religion. I've read loads of threads on here about porn so I know there's a full spectrum of attitudes but the complicating factor here is that I converted to this religion before we married and I live by its teachings- it's tough at times, but I do it for myself and for our relationship. For example I dress v modestly, don't listen to pop music (which is viewed in the religion as too sexy) and am careful not to seem at all flirtatious with any men. My DH is outwardly religious but this feels so undermining and so unappreciative of my own efforts in our religion and relationship. We also have sex less than I'd like (which we've talked about multiple times) which makes it feel more upsetting. And yet there's a lot of good in our marriage and reasons to be together. Please share your thoughts cos right now I feel v lonely.

So I am christian and been with my husband over thirty years. I have lived with porn in our marriage and hated it. It is against Christian teachings and more importantly I find it very demeaning to women and damaging in society with all the ethics surrounding girls being sold into sexual slavery.. My husband is a devout Christian but is now a porn addict. Recently found out he is now on sex chat sites... I trusted my husband implicitly in everything but when caught he blames me for everything including his porn use... I have suffered immense trauma to the point of acute anxiety in the last two weeks. He feels guilty now but he has racked up credit card debt over 10k.... He kept this secret with money going from our shared bank account and it has shook me to the core. He still invalidates my feel ings...I am devastated... I am at a stage in my faith that I won't put any human being before my faith beliefs and as I am unable to control what my husband does, I will make decisions about my life to live it the way I want to s o my next step is financial independence and gathering my separate social support network... My husband is not happy obviously, but if you are sure about your principals then let no one, not even your husband try to deceive you. Keep on the narrow path and trust in God's ways...I will not go to church leaders about this as this could damage his reputation.. If I separate from him I do not want him to lose everything. He is now seeking medical help for poem addiction... I am afraid once he clears this debt he will start again as like alcohol addiction it will never go. Por n changes brains and is highly addictive so if your husband came for won't stop then he might be addicted and that does not bode well unless he realises this..porn has always won in my marriage

I think it's hypocritical. You sin, you keep sinning, but you get absolved of those sins and you think, great, let's keep sinning!

@FunsizedandFabulous That's not how it works and no religion would say that's ok. In Catholicism it's called the sin of presumption. The person's saying they repent and will try not to do it again has to be genuine or they still burn in hell.

I'm not saying there aren't some hypocrites but it's not officially condoned by the religions themselves.

@Snoozley That's awful. How has he racked up 10k? Are you sure there isn't in the flesh prostitute use, too? As that's a lot of money to spend just on online stuff.

I’d like to see men dress and behave modestly too.

@IsThePopeCatholic If you see like a devout Muslim bloke, they might wear a long tunic over trousers. The amount of covering for women varies. A lot of them now are wearing for instance long Western dresses.

Wives shouldn't be second class citizens in any religion, no religion prescribes that. For instance in Christianity, wives are supposed to submit to their husbands and husbands are supposed to sacrifice themselves for their wives. So it's kind of mutual.

if husbands don't submit to their wives it's not really mutual

sounds like maybe your life is much more restricted and curtailed than his, domestically.
why are you doing all the childcare, household management etc.
he needs to play his part in bringing up the family, and running the home.
that will benefit both of you and strengthen the marriage.
good luck.

if husbands don't submit to their wives it's not really mutual

@drbuzzaro Sexually they're both supposed to give sex to each other unless it's for a good reason (I feel uncomfortable about that bit.)

Wives submit, husbands are called to give up their lives. So something should be happening in the other direction too, from the men. It wouldn't be too bad if that's what actually happened.

You do not need a piece of writing from 100 years ago to tell you that wanking to porn, while married, isn't a good thing.

Wives shouldn't be second class citizens in any religion, no religion prescribes that.

^

Contrary to what is indicated though? They may not 'prescribe' it as such, but demonstrate and encourage it.

You don't have a "need to forgive", OP. As PP said, you're allowed a reaction. You're also allowed to feel whatever you feel. You feel it's unfair because IT IS UNFAIR. And you don't have to accept unfairness.

(It took me 40 years to realise I don't have to accept to be treated badly. It changed my life. For the better)

My faith should be mine alone but I have been struggling with it and our commitment to it as a family has been a source of strength and motivation

But at least one member of that fam ily isn/'t committed to it, is he?
Or at least, only in respects which suit him, which makes me wonder how you can have any respect for him at all

NOBODY NEEDS porn op . They want porn . It’s interesting with all the excellent responses this one that allows him to continue using this mysogynistic tool is the one you seem ok with
do you not see that the violence and attitude of porn towards women is a huge problem regardless of your religion
it ties in very well with the concept of women being objects , madonnas or whores . The ‘ good ‘ women stay at home , dress modestly and don’t flirt whilst the ‘whores ‘ are there to be consumed and used for gratufication. they are the ‘bad women ‘
this mentality is a big part of the problem and turning a blind eye to it

Because it’s a form of control
these men feel much safer when her ‘sexuality is tied up and hidden , less threat she might cheat or be approached by other men , then they can enjoy the women they see as sluts
Absolutely disgusting attitude and If is reinforced by porn . Then all women around this men pay the price in how they are tested including daughters . If you don’t tow the line and behave modesty your considered bad or worse

Personally I don’t speak about ismal directly but about ALL organised religions as a concept including the five largest

You don't have a "need to forgive", OP. As PP said, you're allowed a reaction. You're also allowed to feel whatever you feel. You feel it's unfair because IT IS UNFAIR. And you don't have to accept unfairness. (It took me 40 years to realise I don't have to accept to be treated badly. It changed my life. For the better)

@whatwouldAnnaDelveydo I get what you mean and used to be into all that, but it's a very secular mindset. I suppose people have an automatic feeling, then they to some extent have a choice how they respond or relate to that feeling.

For instance, if I feel anger at someone I pray for them. And it's helped me move past some people's actions that have caused me anger, which I was stuck on before.

Wives shouldn't be second class citizens in any religion, no religion prescribes that.

They may not 'prescribe' it as such, but demonstrate and encourage it.

@mackthepony Maybe some churches/mosques etc do. My church is very traditional, but I don't think they would do that. They'll tell women to leave if they're in abusive relationships etc.

He never leaves the house and is impotent most of time so I think it's unlikely he's seen prostitues... I have no idea how long he has been filtering money off the joint account of how long he's had these additional credit cards... I think it's been going on a long time...talking to him tonight he seems to be in denial. Or something seriously wrong with his brain. He claims he was tricked and can't really understand my upset about the credit cards that he's arranged and set direct debits up for from our main account without telling me.. It's my own fault for trusting him with finances..I think porn has damaged his braincells. I'm really struggling to hold it together but when I'm well I will get my act together for seperati on

@Snoozley Perhaps it would help you if you made a thread. It's helped me a lot in the past. I for one would be interested in following your journey. x

A shepherding call?
What the bloody hell is that??????

@OldFan
I get what you mean and used to be into all that, but it's a very secular mindset. I suppose people have an automatic feeling, then they to some extent have a choice how they respond or relate to that feeling.

For instance, if I feel anger at someone I pray for them. And it's helped me move past some people's actions that have caused me anger, which I was stuck on before.

theres nothing wrong with ‘secular mindset’ oldfan
in fact a secular mindset is why you have science , many medicines , much of our knowledge, an understand of how our planet works.

if you need a surgery will you choose the dr who trained under science or one with no training who prays and puts their faith in their religion?

A secular kindest allows one to use logic instead of faith ( faith being a world for belief despite there being zero evidence )
there’s also nothing wrong with getting angry over injustice

unfortunately women in particular have been taught to push down emotions and appease men
one can forgive without religion also , if they choose , by coming to that place after DEALING with the emotions and issues rather than just pushing it down and saying ‘my religion says I should forgive ‘

min fact many would argue that to ‘forgive simply because one’s religion states one should is not true forgiveness nor healthy
issues need to be dealt with
women have the right to be angry
ams forgiveness does not mean accepting bad behaviour

@Ladylovesbooks I don't have anything against any of those things of course. The Holy Spirit is awesome though, as is Jesus and they can work wonders. If you haven't experienced it it sounds daft and malign, but it isn't.

It's a different way of approaching life.

@Ladylovesbooks Also, God will've been behind anything positive any of the human race have done, including medicine etc. He made us after all, with all the abilities that we have.

But that's a wider issue than the particular one OP is dealing with.

That’s YOUR belief and one one you are simply unable to prove . Many many millions of people believe that humanity have moral and abilities that have nothing c to do with a fictitious god

by the way whichever god you believe in you need to realise there are literally thousands of gods believed in and each and every person believes theirs is the right one
your an atheist to thousands of gods other than the one you believe in
you can believe in what you want of course yet what you can’t do is claim you know the truth or have any proof

It’s interesting that god is credited for any good in the world but never the bad

just as a side note
the countries with the least crimes are the most secular in the world and those with the biggest rapes murders hun problems etc are the most religious … interesting fact

actually onlyfans , you made a claim that god is behind anything good … now please support it with evidence
not a passage written by a man … actual evidence

this is the problem many people have with religion . The wild unsubstantiated claims with zero evidence

But this assertion is only based on your belief, not rooted in demonstrable fact.

It's hard to have sensible debate when people of faith present their faith based beliefs as fact.

That's what faith is, surely belief in the absence of absolute proof.

So using 'god did xyz' or 'the bible (or other religious text says xyz' as evidence of anything only make sense if both parties believe in god and that the religious text is the word of god.

I think you should view him as a regular man not the image of a pious man you thought he was, because that doesn’t exist. Growing up as a Muslim I’ve always been aware of the double standards, specially the men who outwardly showed society how religious they are and made sure their wives are covered up from head to toe. I’ve found them to be extremely controlling because they were up to no good(I knew that).

I’ve gone to study islam in depth after deciding to be a better Muslim(so much guilt when I was simply living a normal life) and it lead me to leave my faith and be free. I’ve studied the life of the Prophet and his Sahaba and it was hard to discover that they behaved no different to Daesh. The prophet himself had slave women. Safiyya bint Huyayy is one of them, the prophet kills her husband, brother and father and takes her for himself, it does say he marries her, it’s like saying the yazidi women accepted marriage after their family were killed. His other slave were given to him as a gift. He also desired his son’s wife and suddenly God conveniently speaks to him(through Gabriel) that after all he is the prophet and he is allowed to have any woman he desires, which lead to his son divorcing his wife so the prophet can marry her.

In the Quran the only Surah concerning women you’ll find that God(Allah) never speaks to women directly, he speaks to men in what to do with women, how to treat her if she doesn’t sleep with you etc, in the same surah God speaks to men in how many women they can have , their wives and their slaves, they don’t need to pay Mehr(dowry) for the slave women, they can use them as they like because they own them. You get the picture that this is written for men by men. Then there is the inheritance law where you see the clear injustice and frankly not compatible with modern day society and makes you question if God has made these laws for that time only because it can’t be for all times.

Regarding the vail and modest clothing, the time of the prophet they only wanted their women vailed, even when a slave woman became Muslim they insisted she remain bare chested so no one will confuse her with their elite women and also for their pleasure when she is serving them. To know for sure these books are from a man and a very insecure one for that is the 72 times 72 women men are promised to get in heaven, where as the poor wife only gets the husband she had on earth, when asked why would a wife only get her husband, they answered with, well there is no jealousy in heaven plus she will be the prettiest one of all the women😄
You only have one life try and live it for your happiness.