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Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

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What is Sex Addiction? – Sex and Relationship Healing

Sex addiction is a dysfunctional preoccupation with sex that continues for a period of at least six months, despite negative consequences and attempts to either quit or curtail the problem-causing behaviors. Or, stated more simply, sex addiction is an ongoing, out-of-control pattern of sexual fantasies and behaviors that causes problems in a person’s life.

Sex addiction is diagnosed based on three primary criteria:

  1. Preoccupation to the point of obsession. Sex addicts spend hours, sometimes even days, fantasizing about, planning for, pursuing, and eventually engaging in sexual acts (with self or others). They often “lose time” when floating around in their sexual obsession.
  2. Loss of control. Most sex addicts try, usually repeatedly, to either quit or cut back on their sexual behaviors. Sometimes they even succeed for a short while. But before they know it, they are back where they started, losing themselves in sexual obsession.
  3. Negative consequences. Sex addicts typically experience the same basic consequences as other addicts—problems at work or in school, relationship woes, financial issues, declining physical and/or emotional health, loss of interest in previously enjoyable activities, isolation, arrest, etc.

If you identify with these three criteria, it is quite possible that you are sexually addicted. If so, it’s likely that you are compulsively engaging in one or more of the following behaviors:

  • Hour after hour of porn and/or webcam use, with or without masturbation.
  • Losing oneself in hookup apps and similar technologies—dating sites, video chat, sexting, etc.
  • Constantly “hunting” for sex—cruising in the car for sex partners, surfing online for sex partners, hanging out in the steam room at the gym, etc.
  • An ongoing pattern of intense and highly sexualized affairs or brief “serial” relationships.
  • Consistently having casual and/or anonymous sex with people met online or in-person.
  • Consistently visiting strip clubs, adult bookstores/theatres, and other sex-driven environments.
  • Paying for (or being paid for) sex, sensual massage, eroticized domination, etc.
  • A pattern of unsafe sex—unprotected sex, sex with strangers, sex in public, etc.
  • Consistently seeking sex without regard to consequences—damaged relationships, financial issues, arrest, etc.

This listing of typical sex addict behaviors is wildly incomplete. That said, at least one or two of the activities listed above are nearly always among the behaviors that any sex addict struggles with.

Sex Addiction is Not About Sex

Interestingly, sex addiction is not about sex. It’s about “numbing out” and escaping from stress and other forms of emotional discomfort, such as depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, the pain of unresolved early-life trauma, etc. Sex addicts are hooked not on the sex act, but on the emotional intensity and escape produced by their sexual fantasies and patterns of behavior, including the endless search for the perfect video, the perfect sex partner, the perfect sexual encounter, etc. Often, sex addicts spend many hours, sometimes even days, in this elevated state—high on the goal/idea of having sex—without ever engaging in any concrete sexual act. They even have a name for this escapist, dissociated condition, referring to it as either “the bubble” or “the trance.”

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When Is Porn Use a Problem?

“We have a distorted view of our fantasies … because we don’t talk about them enough.” —Sxxxx Gxxx, actor and former porn performer

Pornography is becoming ubiquitous and ever more sophisticated. Long gone are the days of erotic wood carvings. Gone are the days of XXX cinemas in seedy neighborhoods with furtive and lurid shapes in the fog. Gone are the days of print magazines and pin-up girls. Pornography plus the internet equals a “sexplosion” of erotica — prerecorded, real-time, virtual reality, and more — confronting flesh-and-blood interpersonal relationships with compelling alternatives, which for some prove more desirable, ultimately superior, and equally, if not more, clandestine. I predict that by the end of the 21st century, sex will finally come out of the closet — and fundamentally change what being a human being means.

In their recently published work, Daspe, Vaillancourt-Morel, Lussier, Sabourin, and Ferron (2018) investigate important questions regarding pornography use, which is going up in frequency and plays an increasingly significant and pervasive role in society. Setting aside questions of morality and direct and indirect harm, pornography use is seen by many relationship experts as being potentially healthy or potentially destructive to individuals and couples.

How Do Relationship Circumstances Shape Pornography’s Impact?

However, up until now the research on pornography has not looked at how overall relationship and sexual satisfaction affects the frequency of pornography use, or the extent to which pornography users experience distress associated with pornography use. More abusive and violent pornography also shapes attitudes about gender and sexuality, and can negatively affect relationships and contribute to harm, though men reporting both positive and negative effects from pornography attribute greater positive effects overall, and young men greater negative effects than older men (Miller et al., 2017). Studies have also shown that pornography use may mis-wire reward circuits, causing sexual dysfunction and reinforcing dependence on porn (Park et al., 2016).

Daspe and colleagues note many points which are now common knowledge. Pornography use is on the rise and diversifying. When it becomes destructive, it leads to distress and loss of control, and negatively impacts relationships. For some, internet pornography use becomes persistent. According to researchers, 17 percent of pornography users are compulsive (Cooper, Delmonico & Berg, 2000), leading to distress and dysfunction. In other work (Grubbs et al., 2015; Blais-Lecours et al., 2016), feeling out of control is only partly due to a higher frequency of use, with correlations between the two ranging from weak to strong.

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But we don’t know why that is, or what factors connect frequency and perceived loss of control. It’s easy to understand why someone who uses porn more than they want to, or who feels conflict about it or fears consequences, would perceive losing control even with relatively low levels of porn use. On the other hand, someone who doesn’t have any problem with pornography may be a frequent user and be as happy as can be. In the research review here, the role of relationship and sexual satisfaction for couples is examined as a factor in determining how frequency of use and perceived lack of control connect.

Zoom in on Pornography, and Relationship and Sexual Satisfaction

To better understand how these factors interact, Daspe and colleagues (2018) recruited people in relationships to complete an online survey about pornography use, relationship and sexual satisfaction, and other factors. They surveyed 1,036 people, about 50 percent women, mainly between the ages of 18 and 35. Most had been in a relationship over a year; 30 percent were going out, but did not live together; 54 percent lived together; and 15.6 percent were married. A third had children, and the majority were male-female couples.

They completed measures including: internet pornography use; frequency of use; type of pornography used; perceived lack of control over pornography use; relationship satisfaction; and sexual satisfaction. The data were analyzed first to look for significant correlations, and then in more detail to understand the complex moderating effects among factors of interest.

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In terms of basic results, they found that 73 percent of women and 98 percent of men reported internet porn use in the last six months, for a total of 85 percent of respondents. For porn use within the last week, the numbers were lower: 80 percent of men and 26 percent of women. Prerecorded videos were the most common type of online porn used. For both men and women, those who reported using porn more often noted a greater perceived lack of control.

For men, lower sexual satisfaction correlated with greater frequency of porn use, and perceived lack of control was associated with both lower relationship and sexual satisfaction. There were interesting correlations for relationship duration — for women, longer relationships were associated with less porn use. For men and women, longer relationships were associated with decreased relationship and sexual satisfaction. Importantly, men reported higher frequency of use, higher perceived lack of control, and lower relationship and sexual satisfaction. People who cohabited said they experienced both lower relationship and sexual satisfaction. Finally, people with kids also reported lower relationship and sexual satisfaction, but having children did not affect the relationship between frequency of porn use and feeling out of control.

When they dug into the data more deeply, there were several useful insights. In the presence of lower relationship satisfaction, frequency of use was more highly correlated with perceived lack of control. This suggests that using porn to compensate for relationship issues as a maladaptive coping strategy is more likely to become distressing. For men only, having no children enhanced perceived lack of control in the presence of both lower relationship and sexual satisfaction. This suggests that having children “protects” against excessive porn use, as accessing porn is usually more difficult with children in the household.

Good relationship satisfaction, for both men and women, reduced the connection between perceived lack of control and frequency of use, suggesting that porn use is not as likely to be destructive for satisfying relationships. Lower sexual satisfaction predicted more frequent porn use, as well as greater perceived lack of control.

Working with Pornography in Relationships

What can we do with research findings to improve relationship quality and sexual satisfaction and limit the damaging effects of pornography, while enhancing arguably constructive pornography use? When pornography use is problematic, it can damage relationship and sexual enjoyment for both partners, worsening problems already present. For both partners in a less satisfying relationship, pornography use is more likely to feel out of control, suggesting major relationship issues are being avoided. When children come into the picture, women may find satisfaction in providing care, as women are still more often the primary caregivers, and the couple’s relationship may suffer if additional steps are not taken to prevent that from happening. For many couples, children draw partners closer.

Women may end up having fewer resources available for the couple, expending more time and energy with children. Men may turn to pornography, further widening the intimacy gap and potentially causing sexual dysfunction (Park et al., 2016). Pornography may also stabilize unhappy relationships by providing an alternative to infidelity. Porn use tends to be kept secret, a source of fear and shame (perhaps echoing childhood attitudes about self-stimulation), making it even harder to talk about relationship and sexual issues. In addition to sexual frustration, pornography may also be used to cope with other stressors in life, both within and outside of intimate relationships.

When couples decide to work on their relationship issues, pornography needs to be approached thoughtfully. Couples need to understand each other’s beliefs and attitudes. If there are major gaps in how they view pornography, it is going to be difficult to discuss sexuality and the relationship in general without coming to some consensus about those conflicts; if there is an absolute moral prohibition, it may even be a non-starter. Partners may also differ in whether they see porn use as infidelity. One person may see themselves as being innocent of any transgression, while the other feels betrayed. That betrayal then becomes the main issue, especially if it is already a theme in the relationship or part of the either partner’s past (e.g., a personal history of cheating, or being cheated on, and/or a parental infidelity history).

Partners may also hold different views on the morality of pornography. One person, for instance, may believe that pornography actors are generally abused and coerced vulnerable young people who are possibly fleeing problematic home situations; women being taken advantage of in a male-dominated industry. The other may argue that porn actors are aware of their choices and able to give full informed consent. It varies from person to person, and people who make porn vary in how they select actors. The meaning of being viewed as complicit in abuseby virtue of pornography consumption is a recurring theme for many couples, a discussion which often doesn’t go well.

Being clear about what constitutes infidelity and betrayal is also at the heart of the conversation. To complicate matters, people may be unaware of how they really feel about something until it happens. We could agree in principle, for example, that it’s OK to use porn, and that it isn’t cheating — only to find out we feel very differently when we catch our partner with it. This can lead to confusion and conflict, as each sees the other as culpable in different ways.

Getting clear with one another about porn is part of a larger effort to improve relationship and sexual satisfaction. Talking through sexual issues improves both sexual and relationship quality, and can include a detailed discussion of partners’ sexual wishes, which is shown to enhance women’s pleasure. It can also help to include close other couples in relationship conversations as well. Individual factors, such as attachment style and sexual self-concept, are additional important factors to consider. When couples are avoidant and/or don’t have the tools, they should strongly consider whether they are ready to make a serious commitment to dealing with their issues and seek appropriate assistance.

References

Blais-Lecours, S., Vaillancourt-Morel, M.-P., Sabourin, S., & Godbout, N. (2016). Cyberpornography: Time use, perceived addiction, sexual functioning, and sexual satisfaction. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and SocialNetworking, 19(11), 649–655. doi:10.1089/cyber.2016.0364

Cooper, A.,Delmonico,D. L., & Burg, R. (2000). Cybersex users, abusers, and compulsives:New findings and implications. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 7(1–2), 5–29. doi:10.1080/10720160008400205

Daspe M, Vaillancourt-Morel M, Lussier Y, Sabourin S & Ferron A (2017): When Pornography Use Feels Out of Control: The Moderation Effect of Relationship and Sexual Satisfaction, Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, DOI: 10.1080/0092623X.2017.1405301

Grubbs, J. B., Stauner, N., Exline, J. J., Pargament, K. I., & Lindberg, M. J. (2015). Perceived addiction to Internet pornography and psychological distress: Examining relationships concurrently and over time. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 29(4), 1056–1067. doi:10.1037/adb0000114

Miller D, Hald, J, Martin & Kidd G. (2017). Self-perceived effects of pornography consumption among heterosexual men. Psychology of Men & Masculinity. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, May 8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/men0000112

Park BY, Wilson G & Doan AP. (2016). Is Internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysfunctions? A Review with Clinical Reports. Behavioral Sciences, 2016 Sep; 6(3): 17.

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Ten (10) Truths Every Christian Needs to Know About Marriage

SOURCE:  Leslie Vernick

1. God designed marriage to be a loving and respectful partnership, not a slave/master dictatorship where one person dominates and controls the other. When one spouse seeks to gain power and control over the other and bullies or intimidates using words, finances, physical force, or the Scriptures, he or she is not only sinning against their spouse but also against God’s plan for marriage.

2. Every healthy adult relationship requires three essential ingredients to thrive. They are mutuality, reciprocity, and freedom. Mutuality means that each person brings into the relationship honesty, compassion, and respect. Reciprocity involves a give and take, where both people in the relationship share power and both people in the relationship share responsibility. Lastly, a healthy marriage needs freedom to express one’s thoughts, feelings and needs without fear as well as freedom to respectfully challenge someone’s behavior or ideas. When any of these three ingredients are missing we may be in a relationship with someone, but it is often difficult, unhealthy, and sometimes destructive.

3. All marriages experience angst, disagreement, and struggle. When a conflict arises mature people engage in conversations where they discuss, negotiate compromise, as well as respect one another’s differences, feelings and desires. They work on problem-solving, not attacking one another.

4. When a person is seriously sinned against, Jesus understands it fractures relationships. He provides instructions for relationship repair in Matthew 18. First, we are to go to the person who has sinned against us and speak to them about it. However, when that conversation does not result in repentance, no reconciliation of the relationship can take place, even if one-sided forgiveness is granted. Relationships are damaged by sin and are not repaired without repentance and restitution. Joseph forgave his brothers long before he saw them again when they came looking for food in Egypt, but he did not trust them or reconcile with them until he saw their hearts were changed (Genesis 44,45).

5. When a person or spouse respectfully speaks up against injustice and oppression in a marriage (or anywhere else for that matter), God is with them. When a spouse speaks up against the abuse and injustice in her marriage, Christians need to come alongside her, hear her, and provide church support and help. In practicing Matthew 18, she is seeking true reconciliation and is attempting biblical peacemaking. The church must not pressure her reconcile without any evidence of repentance or to be a peace at any price peacekeeper.

God does not care more about the institution of marriage than the safety and sanity of the people in it. .

6. If the abuser refuses to listen, refuses to repent or change, the blessings of a close marriage are impossible. Unconditional love does not equal unconditional relationship. God loves humankind unconditionally but does not offer unconditional relationship to everyone. Our sin separates us from God and repeated unacknowledged and unrepentant sin also separates us from one another. Marital intimacy, trust, fellowship, and warmth cannot exist where there is fear, threats, intimidation, bullying and disrespect of one’s thoughts, feelings, body, or personhood. A marriage with no boundaries or conditions It is not psychologically healthy, nor is it spiritually sound

7. One person in a difficult/destructive marriage can make the relationship better by not reacting sinfully to mistreatment, not retaliating and not repaying evil for evil, but one person in a difficult marriage cannot make a bad marriage good all by herself. It takes both people working together. Sometimes people helpers place an inordinately heavy burden on one spouse to somehow maintain fellowship and intimacy in a relationship while they are repeatedly being sinned against.

8. If the couple desires biblical change, Christian people helpers (pastors, Christian counselors, well-meaning friends) must not attempt to heal the couple’s serious marital wounds superficially by pushing premature reconciliation or promising peace when there is no true peace (Jeremiah 6:14) A Biblical peacemaker knows there is no quick fix to these difficult situations and walk this couple through the counseling stages of safety, sanity, and stability, until they reach security. There is no mutual counseling possible without first establishing some history of safety, not only physically, but emotionally and financially.

9. When trust in a marriage is broken (through deceit, infidelity, abuse, or unfaithfulness in various ways), the marriage is seriously damaged. The gift of consequences[1] can be a painful but potent reminder that the wrong-doer will not reap the benefits of a good marriage when they continue to sow discord, sin, and selfishness. Consequences may include legal ramifications, church discipline, and/or loss of relationship through separation when warranted.

10. Church and pastoral support and accountability are critical for a couple to heal from a destructive relationship pattern. Secrets destroy. An atmosphere of loving accountability and support along with zero tolerance for manipulation, abuse, or power and control over another individual, is the optimal environment for biblical peacemaking and relationship repair to take place.

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10 Facts You Need To Know About Emotions

SOURCE: Rachel Fintzy, MA, LMFT /PsychCentral

Do you tend to feel things more deeply than do other people? Or are you more on the intellectual end of the spectrum, more in touch with your thoughts than your emotions? What are your beliefs about feelings? Do you fall prey to any of the following myths?

  1. Myth: Emotions are irrational/silly/a sign of weakness. Truth: Emotions allow us to express to ourselves and to those around us what we are experiencing. Also, emotions provide important clues to what we might need to do next. While it’s optimal to meld emotions with reason, do listen the next time you feel a depletion of energy, a sinking feeling, or a burst of anxiety when in a particular situation or have spent time with a specific person.
  2. Myth: Trying to manage my emotions will make me feel like a robot. Truth: There’s a difference between suppressing feelings and regulating them. The goal is to have a healthy and full range of emotions without allowing our emotions to function as the sole barometer of what is true or to lead us into destructive behavior.
  3. Myth: I should feel differently. I’m wrong to feel the way I do. Truth: You have a right to your emotions. True, sometimes your feelings may be based on a misinterpretation of your current situation, but you are always entitled to your feelings. For instance, if you are woken up in the middle of the night by a loud noise, you believe that an intruder has broken into your home, and your heart starts beating quickly, this is understandable. If when investigating the matter you realize that the noise was due to a harmless thunderclap outside, this doesn’t mean that you were wrong to initially feel anxious.
  4. Myth: Venting will make me feel better. Truth: Yelling, punching a wall, or keying someone’s car will just intensify your anger. Going on at length about how terrified you are about an upcoming plane ride or surgery is likely to magnify your anxiety. There is a difference between talking with someone about your feelings, which can be helpful, and going on for an extensive length of time, with the intensity of your emotions escalating to a 10, which can just fuel the fire.
  5. Myth: Other people make me feel certain ways. Truth: You are the guardian of your emotions. While other people’s behavior may be annoying, threatening, or draining, you are responsible for how you react. If you find yourself consistently feeling a certain way after interactions with a particular person, you might talk with them about your relationship or choose to spend less time with them. Do be open to examining your own part in the nature of the relationship, rather than assuming that the other person is entirely to blame.
  6. Myth: My emotions just happen to me – I can’t control them. Truth: While it wouldn’t be advisable or possible to put yourself in an emotional straitjacket, you definitely can learn to modulate the intensity of your reactions and to see the world, other people, and yourself in less threatening and more positive ways. Choose to change the way you think and behave. Consider how your best possible self would behave. Hint: “Best possible” does not mean perfect.
  7. Myth: This is just the way I am. Truth: While there is almost certainly a genetic component to being emotionally sensitive (which, by the way, is not necessarily a bad thing), there’s a lot you can do to manage your feelings while still having a healthy range of emotions. When left to their own devices, some people just instinctively react more extremely than do other people. Similar to how some people’s immune systems may be overly sensitive. Why are some people allergic to peanuts, and other people aren’t? Let go of self-judgment, accept your nature, and then work to refine your reactions, so you are most effective. While there is almost certainly a genetic component to being emotionally sensitive (which, by the way, is not necessarily a bad thing), there’s a lot you can do to manage your feelings while still having a full and healthy range of emotions.
  8. Myth: I can’t handle uncomfortable feelings. Truth: This belief is likely to lead to your avoiding situations that you associate with feeling a certain way, which usually results in your feeling less able to cope with this situation and possibly other situations in general. The way to build the belief that you can tolerate discomfort is to let yourself experience it (if need be) and learn that you can weather the emotional storm. Doing so would be an example of what is called “building mastery” in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and is a powerful antidote to despair.
  9. Myth: If I feel that something is true, then it is absolutely true. Truth: This is emotional reasoning, one of the most common cognitive distortions. For instance, let’s say that you tossed and turned all night and are thus sleep-deprived. As a result, the amount of work waiting for you at the office seems insurmountable, although in general you perform well at your job, and you feel that your professional skills are inadequate. It’s likely that your fatigue is contributing to your feelings and consequent belief – so remember how your beliefs and actions can be skewed by your being Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired (in other words, HALT).
  10. Myth: I will never stop feeling the way I currently do. Truth: It can sometimes seem as if our present emotional state will go on forever. The absence of a sense of hope that things will ever change can feel devastating. If you feel this way most of the time for two weeks or longer, you may want to consult a mental health professional regarding the possibility of your being in a depressive episode. However, sometimes life is just rough. Do believe (even if you don’t “feel like it”) that your feelings are likely to shift, either through your taking action to address uncomfortable circumstances, accept unavoidable disappointments or tragedies in your life, connect in meaningful ways with family and friends, or just the passage of time.

Be your own best advocate and do what you can to be proactively self-compassionate, mindful, and non-judgmental about your feelings. Ask yourself:

  1. Do my emotions fit the facts of the situation?
  2. Would acting on my feelings right now be in my best interest?
  3. Would acting on my feelings right now create an additional problem?

When experiencing painful, unexpected, or intense emotions, accept that you feel a certain way instead of beating yourself up, and recognize that you have the ability to choose how to respond to that feeling.

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Adultery: Where Dead Men Lie — Letter to a Would-Be Adulterer

Source:  Greg Morse/Desiring God

Dear Husband,

If you value your life, if you cherish your manliness and honor, if you love your family and your God, listen to his voice. As she whispers in your ear, as her lips yield the sweetest honey, as her speech soothes and excites, listen to his words instead. Drown her lies in wisdom.

She entices, “Come, let us take our fill of love till morning; let us delight ourselves with love” (Proverbs 7:18). She says that she can satisfy your longings. She says that no one will know. She makes you feel desired, dominant. She crowns you a king.

And she can provide some of the promised pleasure — for a time.

But mark these three words: in the end.

“In the end she is bitter as wormwood.” In the end she is “sharp as a two-edged sword” (Proverbs 5:4). In the end it would have been better to sleep every night embracing a Japanese Katana or a motion sensor grenade.

In the end you will realize that what you mistook as harmless pleasure, as “true love,” as the path to lifelong satisfaction, was the coffin where your reputation, your honor, your family’s flourishing and trust and — if unrepentant — your very soul goes to die. Her chamber of secrets is a chamber of death (Proverbs 7:25–27). Her bed is a graveyard where dead men lie.

Suicide of the Senseless

She will never lead to life (Proverbs 5:5). She does not even know where to find it (Proverbs 5:6). She gives no thought to Christ, to everlasting joy, to the narrow way. If you follow her, you go as an ox to the slaughter. You will end life with an arrow protruding from your liver (Proverbs 7:22–23).

If we could exhume the tongues of her dead victims, they would warn you, as that anguished rich man in torment, to avoid their fate (Luke 16:19–31). She lied in wait for each (Proverbs 7:12), seized upon their lust with kisses, and ferried them into Sheol.

The dead would cry, Adultery is the suicide of those who lack sense (Proverbs 6:32). None who touches her will go unpunished! (Proverbs 6:29).

Place your head on her pillow, and you write your name on a headstone.

Stay Far Away

And now, O husband, listen to me! Keep your way far from her. Do not go near her bed or even near the door of her house (Proverbs 5:8). Don’t fool yourself: you’re not strong enough to harmlessly chat via email, text late at night, meet up for a friendly drink. Stay away! Can you embrace fire and not get scorched (Proverbs 6:27–28)?

In the end — oh, that dreadful end — you will realize that it was not ultimately her fault, but your own. You will groan for your lust, when your flesh and body are consumed. You will wail, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! I did not listen to wisdom’s voice! I did not heed my best friend’s warning! I slowly muted my conscience and cast God’s word aside in my madness. And now I am at the brink of utter ruin in the rubble of a broken existence” (see Proverbs 5:11–14).

In life, you will be a shell of a man, a skeleton. The jagged pieces of shattered hearts will be your bed. If you have any conscience left, it will become an enemy. Old relations will cringe at your name. You will be a man worthy of contempt and dishonor (Proverbs 6:33).

And in death, if you have not been washed and made new in the blood of Christ, you will not enter the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9). You will forever be the adulterer. A man who, by living for himself, lit his family on fire. A man who, in the end, will himself be lit with an everlasting flame.

Your Wife, Your Choicest Wine

Rather, “drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well” (Proverbs 5:15). Rekindle the passion that carried her across the threshold.

Drink deeply from her springs to refresh your love. Has your love proven feeble? Have grand promises now hushed into a whimper? Gird up the loins of your affection and play the man! You who would wrestle every challenge to the ground, and die in battle before conceding, will you now fall to fluttering eyelids? No. Rejoice in the wife of your youth!

She is a lovely deer, a graceful doe (Proverbs 5:18–19). Look at her — she sits with a thousand more reasons to love her than when you vowed to forsake all others for her. Rejoice in her! She still is that doe, that deer. Do not trade the doe for the skunk.

“Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight” (Proverbs 5:19). This includes the first time you brought her into the bedroom, the second time she bore your child, and the anniversary where you celebrated your third decade of marriage together. At all times. Be intoxicated always in her love (Proverbs 5:19). Get drunk in her passion, be inebriated with her smile, let the room spin as she walks in. She is your choicest wine.

Choose Life

Be not intoxicated with the forbidden woman.

Why? Because all your ways — no matter how dimly lit the hotel room — are before the eyes of the Lord (Proverbs 5:21). Your wife may be away, but your Lord is not. The Judge of all the earth watches. He is there with you. And there will be a reckoning for the heinous deed — either at Calvary or in the lake of fire.

He invites you even now to choose life, choose peace, choose obedience.

Be not intoxicated with the forbidden woman.

Why? Because the iniquities of the wicked ensnare the man who is, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin (Proverbs 5:22). You will get caught in your own web. Your family will be torn. Your name will be tarnished. And you will be bound by your own mischief.

Even the mighty Samson could not break such chains.

Be not intoxicated with the forbidden woman.

Why? Because you will die for lack of discipline (Proverbs 5:25). God will not be mocked. Because of your lack of discipline, your lack of earnest limb-cutting, lack of genuine repentance and faith, you will be led away into hell (Matthew 5:27–30).

Dear husband, forsake not your precious wife. Forsake not your honor and manliness. Forsake not your witness. Forsake not your God. Let Christ’s fidelity and love win your heart afresh to your wife. Be intoxicated with your bride. And with our Groom.