Did you ever look at the word “Mistress” and sound it out like an kindergarten student would? It would be “MI – STRESS” or “My Stress” – sounds about right….
originally posted on: http://porntopurity.com/blog/2013/05/07/are-you-detached-from-your-mistress/
Guest blogger Tom Daniels has over a decade of experience leading groups and working with guys struggling with sexual sin. Tom returns to share another blog with us.
Check out his previous blog from last week called “Compartmentalizing, Getting Caught and Consequences”
Just as we need to connect the devastating consequences to our acting out, we need to detach from the bonds we have established with our “mistress”, our “drug of choice”.
When we engage in sex, we bond with whoever or whatever we are connecting to. Our neural pathways don’t know the difference between a healthy relationship and an unhealthy one. Our brains reach to repetition and create bigger pipelines for the flow to that area. It’s like adding lanes to a freeway to accommodate more traffic.
We who struggle with sexual sin have developed an affection for our mistress. Whether your mistress is an actual person, prostitutes, or porn, our mistress has been there whenever we needed her. When we’re stressed, lonely, bored, horny, feeling rejected or unloved, misunderstood, unappreciated, unaccepted she is always available. With open arms she gives me the illusion of comfort, acceptance and love.
YOUR SPOUSE CAN’T COMPETE WITH YOUR MISTRESS The contrast to our spouses can be dramatic because no woman, regardless of how wonderful, could possibly hope to match the availability of our fantasy “mistress”. I say fantasy because even if it is a real person it is still an unrealistic relationship. You are not raising kids with this person, not paying bills, dealing with pets, school, housework, in-laws, yard work, etc., you just get together and have fun and resent that your marriage isn’t like this.
- How come my wife isn’t as understanding as my “mistress”?
- How come she doesn’t desire me the way my “mistress” does?
- How come it is so much work to have a relationship with my wife when it is so easy with my “mistress”?
It is because your wife is a real person and you have a real relationship with her. You are sharing your lives together, not merely an afternoon or a few minutes here and there.
The bond we create with our “mistress” is real and it is something that must be broken if we are ever going to be truly free from bondage.
DELIVERED FROM YOUR MISTRESS Many times I have seen men prayed for and delivered from addiction only to go back to it within a relatively short time. Were they truly delivered? I believe they were, but they chose to go back to their “mistress” because they still had affection for her.
Being delivered is only part of the healing, we need to break the bonds and connection in order to truly be free. Jesus will not override our ability to choose, it is up to us to do that, but the Holy Spirit will help us if we will take the steps necessary and turn our back on our idols. God will not share us with any other “gods”.
The most important step in breaking the bond of affection to our “mistress” is to recognize that she never loved us or cared for us in any way at all! She hated us and set out from the start to destroy us! The Enemy used her, whether in the form of prostitutes, affairs, porn, lingerie, sex toys, or even just fantasy, to set us up for destruction.
Satan’s goal is to make us ineffective for service to our Lord, to eliminate us as warriors, to wreck our marriages, to set our children up for failure because we are not the men of God they need as Dad, to cause us to worship created things rather than the Creator, and he uses sex to do it.
Sadly, I am not the only one fooled by this “mistress”, many men are caught in the same trap and I pray that they can see the illusion for what it is and how the Enemy has used them and break free from its terrible grip before any more devastation takes place.
Recognizing the “mistress” for who and what she really is, is a key step to full recovery as we will never cut her off completely unless we see her as she truly is, deadly and deceitful.
“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Rom 7:24-25