subject: How Porn Ruins Marriages [print this page] More people than ever before are exposed to pornography and at younger ages. It is having tremendous effects on people and their relationships.First of all, people who use pornography on a regular basis often are embarrassed or feel a need to hide it. So they are already setting their relationship or marriage up for a potential problem. They hide it, perhaps lie about it and they are often struggling with strong feelings that they feel a need to suppress.
Furthermore, people who are exposed to pornography at a young age and/or use it frequently, tend to develop unhealthy ideas about what an intimate relationship should be. For example, many people with a pornography habit tend to believe that the sole purpose of a relationship is for the sexual experiences. They do not know how to create a normal bond with someone based not only on mutual sexual attraction but other areas of intimacy that are not related to sex.
Through viewing pornography, particularly the type of adult content available on the Internet today, the person's expectations become unrealistic and even warped. A husband may develop the belief that his wife should be acting like the women he sees in the videos and start thinking something is wrong with him, with her or with their relationship when their sexual relationship life is nothing like the "relationships" he is watching every day online.
When pornography use becomes compulsive, it can have destructive powers. The compelling need to view pornography is not about enjoyment. It effect's a person emotionally, socially, financially and sexually. It is a vicious cycle. The person is overcome with feeling of guilt or shame and feels they have lost control of themselves. They resolve to stop and believe that if they are worthy and strong, they should be able to resist the temptation. But over time, that resolve can not withstand the desperate need they feel to look at pornography again. They feel stressed and miserable and the easiest way they can find relief is to go back to the pornography.
Prolonged use of pornography can actually alter a person's brain chemistry, not unlike addictive drugs. But we don't need to convince anyone that heroin can ruin a marriage.
