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How I deal with my relapse

This post is copied from Reddit in a forum about fighting porn addiction.  Because Reddit is not considered a safe place for some in recovery, the link has not been included.

139 days was my streak. It’s about 29 days more than my last record. Currently, I’m back to day 1 of the counter because I felt lonely in a motel room with access to porn on television while out of town.

What I have to do now is not to think about getting back to the 139 days and beyond but getting through the first 24 hours. My porn brain have tricked me and will trick me again to watch porn. I have to be much more vigilant during this time period around all electronic devices.

I’m not going to shame or guilt myself because I relapsed. Instead, I’ll simply accept that it was something that happened and that I can learn from this experience to avoid this mistake again. For example, when I find myself in a situation like this again, I’ll proceed to immediately meditate or if the urge is too strong, to leave the room and go for a walk instead.

I have built upon the setbacks of the past to go beyond being 4 months free and I trust in myself to do it again. After all, the achievements of my latest streak still remains. I still lead a very social, fun and meaningful life. Among family and close friends, I speak openly about the dangers of porn addiction and how it affects me. I’m working with my psychologist to push myself further on my career path and getting out of my comfort zone.

The streak may have ended but the journey continues.

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Goals and Rewards

This post is copied from Reddit in a forum about fighting porn addiction.  Because Reddit is not considered a safe place for some in recovery, the link has not been included.

Day 29. Something that’s been really useful for me is setting goals and giving myself a reward for completing those goals. I have often thought something along the lines of ” I’m just two days away from my goal. I’m not going to let myself relapse.”

For me, each reward has been some kind of favorite food, because that’s what motivates me. But you might find other things that motivate you better and fit your situation better: -A favorite movie -A favorite song -A favorite game -A hike -An escape room Whatever motivates you

What goals could you set? What rewards could you give yourself?

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Her Cheating Heart: Understanding Why She Cheated on You | Psychology Today

First things first: If you’re female and reading this wondering why I’m only writing about women who cheat, know that a post I published a few months ago — “13 Reasons Why Men Cheat” — has become one of my most widely read, with over 1 million views.

But now it’s time to look at female infidelity.

There is a common misperception that it’s only men who step out on their partners, and that women are always faithful. To that, I say: Who are all these men cheating with exactly? Do heterosexual men only cheat with single women and each other?

The simple truth is that approximately as many married, heterosexual women cheat as married, heterosexual men. Research suggests that 10 to 20 percent of men and women in marriages or other committed (monogamous) relationships will actively engage in sexual activity outside of their primary relationship. And these numbers are likely under-reported, possibly by a wide margin, thanks to denial and confusion about what constitutes infidelity in the digital era. For example: Are you cheating if you look at porn? If you flirt on social media? If you have a profile on Ashley Madison that you check regularly, even though you never hook up in person?

To help couples answer these questions, I offer you my fully functional, digital-era definition of what it means to cheat:

Infidelity (cheating) is the breaking of trust that occurs when you keep profound, meaningful secrets from a committed primary partner.

I like this definition for four primary reasons:

1. The definition speaks to the most basic element of what happens when we cheat on our partners. We betray their trust. In such cases, even more than our sextracurricular activity, it is the lying and the secrecy of betrayal that wounds a beloved and unknowing partner (male or female).

2. The definition encompasses both online and real-world sexual activity, as well as sexual and romantic activities that stop short of intercourse: everything from looking at porn to kissing another man/woman to something as simple as flirting (now commonly referred to as micro-cheating).

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3. The definition is flexible depending on the couple. It lets couples define their own version of sexual fidelity based on honest discussions and mutual decision-making. This means that it might be just fine to look at porn or to engage in some other form of extramarital sexual activity, as long as your mate knows about this behavior and is okay with it.

4. The definition helps the cheater understand that the problem he or she created occurred the moment he or she started lying to accommodate or cover up his or her infidelity. The harm is not a spouse finding out the bad news — the harm is that it was covered up.

None of that, of course, explains why women cheat. Nor does it address the fact that women and men often cheat for very different reasons.

So Why Do Women Cheat?

Typically, females step out on a committed partner for one or more of the following reasons:

  • They feel underappreciated, neglected, or ignored. They feel more like a housekeeper, nanny, or financial provider than a wife or girlfriend. So they seek an external situation that validates them for who they are, rather than the services they perform.
  • They crave intimacy. Women tend to feel valued and connected to a significant other more through non-sexual, emotional interplay (talking, having fun together, being thoughtful, building a home and social life together, etc.) than sexual activity. When they’re not feeling that type of connection from their primary partner, they may seek it elsewhere.
  • They are overwhelmed by the needs of others. Recent research about women who cheat indicates that many women, despite stating that they deeply love their spouse, their home, their work, and their lives, cheat anyway. These women often describe feeling so under-supported and overwhelmed by having to be all things to all people at all times that they seek extramarital sex as a form of life-fulfillment.
  • They are lonely. Women can experience loneliness in a relationship for any number of reasons. Maybe their spouse works long hours or travels for business on a regular basis, or maybe their spouse is emotionally unavailable. Whatever the cause, they feel lonely, and they seek connection through infidelity to fill the void.
  • They expect too much from a primary relationship. Some women have unreasonable expectations about what their primary partner and relationship should provide. They expect their significant other to meet their every need 24/7, 365 days a year, and when that doesn’t happen, they seek attention elsewhere.
  • They are responding to or re-enacting early-life trauma and abuse.Sometimes women who experienced profound early-life (or adult) trauma, especially sexual trauma, will re-enact that trauma as a way of trying to master or control it.
  • They’re not having enough satisfying sex at home. There is a societal misconception that only men enjoy sex. But plenty of women also enjoy sex, and if they’re not getting it at home, or it’s not enjoyable to them, for whatever reason, they may well seek it elsewhere.

As with male cheaters, women who cheat typically do not realize (in the moment) how profoundly infidelity affects their partner and their relationship. Cheating hurts betrayed men just as much as it hurts betrayed women. The keeping of secrets, especially sexual and romantic secrets, damages relationship trust and is incredibly painful regardless of gender.

If a couple chooses to address the situation together, couple’s counseling can turn a relationship crisis into a growth opportunity. Unfortunately, even when experienced therapists are extensively involved with people committed to healing, some couples are unable to ever regain the necessary sense of trust and emotional safety required to make it together. For these couples, solid, neutral relationship therapy can help the people involved to process a long overdue goodbye. But cheating doesn’t have to be seen as the end of a relationship; instead, it can be viewed as a test of its maturity and ability to weather the storm.

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Unrealistic Expectations Almost Destroyed My Marriage

SOURCE:  Taken fromThe Unveiled Wife by Jennifer Smith/Family Life

In the midst of my pain and self-centered complaining, I exhausted my husband and saddened God.

I had a plethora of marriage expectations that were formed as far back as early childhood. Many of those expectations were veiled, hidden in the deep places of my heart. For years I justified my notions of life and marriage, unaware of the devastating effects of those expectations if left unmet.

Entering marriage with such high expectations set my husband and me up for ruin. For example, trusting in my husband to be my everything was one of the most detrimental ways I hurt our marriage. I set my husband up for failure when I expected him to fulfill me completely.

When I wanted to feel worthy, I sought my worthiness in my husband. When I wanted to feel loved unconditionally, I sought love from my husband. When I wanted to feel comforted, cherished, validated, or encouraged, I sought those things in my husband and only in my husband. However, because my husband is human and prone to sin, inevitably he let me down and could not fulfill my needs completely. And in those times, I felt unworthy and unloved.

While some expectations are good—for example, I expect my husband to be faithful to me—when they move into unrealistic and unattainable places, they become destructive. My expectations were so lofty they hurt him. Aaron could never be my everything—he was never designed to be! And whenever I tried to make him fit that role, I unintentionally placed him as an idol above God, believing that he had the capacity to do more for me than God Himself.

With the strain Aaron and I were experiencing, we tended to be overly sensitive to conflict. It did not take much for us to offend each other, and I am embarrassed to admit I took advantage of retaliating when I felt I deserved something I was not receiving. When I became aware of any opportunity to point out fault, I didn’t hesitate to blame him. I complained about our living situation, about not having enough, about having only one car, about our finances, about our sexless life, about my husband’s flaws, about work, about anything I deemed worthy of complaint. Those unmet expectations flowed over into discontentment, which too often I nursed in my heart.

Not only did discontentment grow, but pride did as well, which grew into a sense of entitlement: I deserve better than this. And that mentality seeped not only into my marriage, but into my relationship with God. Unmet expectations of God’s role in my life lit a fire of anger within me. I believed being a daughter of the King meant that I would receive the best of everything. When it seemed as if God didn’t intervene, that anger spread like wildfire, consuming everything inside me, including my faith. I had high expectations for God to do the things I wanted, unable to grasp that God was more concerned about my character than my comfort. But in the midst of my pain and self-centered complaining, I exhausted my husband and I believe I saddened God.

After I spent several years repeating this same offense and suffering the consequences, God opened my eyes to the destruction of unmet expectations. God needed to transform me. He could do that only as I humbled myself and let go of my unrealistic and unmet expectations. Each time God humbled me, He used that experience to mold my attitude and character to reflect that of Christ and to shape my expectations to more closely align with His, which in all honesty are better than what I could ever dream of.

The transformation I underwent didn’t happen immediately. Rather, the process was spread out over time as I sought to know God and make myself known to Him—a process that continues to mature me every day.

Joy and contentment defend me from the barrage of unmet expectations. If I don’t have joy, those notions wreak havoc in my heart, turning it against the ones I love. I know because it happened countless times. It took me years of suffering and loathing in self-pity, guilt, and brokenness even to begin to understand the power of pure joy.

Joy springs up where contentment thrives, and contentment is produced through sincere thankfulness. The greatest constant I have found to help sustain me and give me strength and hope, no matter what the circumstance, is to cling to the joy of the Lord. God’s Word tells me, “Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!” (Nehemiah 8:10).

God taught me how to be thankful by sharing specific things I am grateful for with God and with my husband. As thankfulness fills my heart to the brim with contentment, I find myself living with extraordinary joy, regardless of unmet expectations or circumstances or past hurts.

God showed me the value of being a wife of faith, a wife who trusts Him wholeheartedly, who is confident of her worthiness and purpose. I choose to be a wife who believes she can change and believes her husband can be transformed into the man God designed him to be, and I choose to strive to affirm him in truthfulness.

I desire to be a wife of faith who can persevere no matter the circumstance because she is full of hope, which is the foundation of her motivation. I believe as I choose to walk in the Spirit, love will pour out and bless my marriage. With God’s help I can endure. I can have a thriving marriage. But it requires faith and hope.

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Depression: Trapped in My Own Mind

SOURCE:  Sarah Walton/Desiring God

Three Lies Depression Loves

“I can’t live like this anymore!” I cried through sobs. “I just want to die!”

I sat on my bed and tried to make sense of what was going on inside. I was tired of the chronic pain, the frequent bouts of illness, and the weariness of dealing with my kids’ struggles. But what broke me was the torture of being a prisoner in my own mind. It took everything in me just to keep breathing, while part of me wished my breathing would just stop.

Oh, how I longed to be with Jesus — free from my aching body and broken mind. But I knew deep within me that my life was not my own and that the Lord must have a purpose for these days.

Constant Cloud

Zack Eswine captured my own inner reality — the constant cloud of depression — in his book Spurgeon’s Sorrows,

Painful circumstances . . . put on their muddy boots and stand thick, full weighted and heavy upon our tired chests. It is almost like anxiety tying rope around the ankles and hands of our breath. Tied to a chair, with the lights out, we sit swallowing in panic the dark air.

These kinds of circumstances . . . steal the gifts of divine love too, as if all of God’s love letters and picture albums are burning up in a fire just outside the door, a fire which we are helpless to stop. We sit there, helpless in the dark of divine absence, tied to this chair, present only to ash and wheeze, while all we hold dear seems lost forever. We even wonder if we’ve brought this all on ourselves. It’s our fault. God is against us. (18)

Depression can cloud our view of God, weigh down our spirits, distort reality, and tempt us to question all that we’ve known to be true. Sometimes, our depression is due to circumstances that have pounded us, wave upon wave, until we can no longer hold our heads above the water. Other times, it comes as a result of illness, as Charles Spurgeon writes, “You may be without any real reason for grief, and yet may be among the most unhappy of men because, for the time, your body has conquered your soul” (“The Saddest Cry from the Cross”).

In Good Company

If you have experienced this kind of darkness, you are in good company. Job, after initially responding with faith in the immediate aftermath of his loss, suddenly found himself walking in the valley of despair as his suffering continued:

“When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’ then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones. I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.” (Job 7:13–16)

I thank God that he gives us a glimpse into the darkest days of Job’s life. Job’s story assures us that we aren’t alone in our battle with despair, and it offers us perspective when we struggle to feel God’s presence on our darkest days. Whether we are battling depression or trying to encourage someone who is, we must remember three truths in the face of depression’s lies.

1. Depression does not mean God is punishing you.

It’s easy to believe that our despair is a sign of God’s displeasure. Though at times we may feel the heavy hand of God upon us in order to draw us into repentance (Psalm 32:3–4), depression often fills our minds with lies, tempting us to believe that our feelings are an accurate reflection of our relationship with Christ. If we feel unlovable, we must be unloved. If we feel sadness and hopelessness, we must be hopeless. If we feel lonely, we must be alone. And if we feel shame, we must be unforgiven.

For a time, Job believed that God targeted him out of anger. “Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be past” (Job 14:13). But in the midst of these bouts with despair, God planted Job’s feet firmly on the truth of salvation. “Though he slay me,” Job confessed, “I will hope in him” (Job 13:15).

Like Job, we must keep the hope of the gospel in front of us in order to fight back against all that bombards us from within. Though we may struggle to digest much Scripture, and though the words of a hopeful person may bounce right off our hardened shell of depression, we anchor our feet firmly in the truth that we are forgiven and loved by God in Christ, not in our ability to feel his love.

2. Depression does not mean God is absent.

Similarly, depression can cause us to feel an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Not only do we feel as if the world is going on without us, but we can even feel estranged from ourselves — as if we have lost our former identity. This loneliness can also cause us to feel, as Job did, that God has abandoned us. “Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him” (Job 23:8). But as Eswine writes,

Depression of spirit is no index of declining grace. It is Christ and not the absence of depression that saves us. So, we declare this truth. Our sense of God’s absence does not mean that he is so. Though our bodily gloom allows us no feeling of his tender touch, he holds on to us still. Our feelings of him do not save us. He does. (Spurgeon’s Sorrows, 38–39)

3. Depression does not make you useless.

Though we may feel useless under the cloud of despair and depression, nothing could be further from the truth. When despondency strips from us our natural ability to see and feel hope, joy, and purpose in our sorrow, we realize that Someone greater is holding us up. And when others witness our dependence on Christ for the endurance to press on in darkness — especially when we have no earthly reason to — we become a picture of Christ’s sustaining grace, flowing from the Father to his children.

Once again, consider Spurgeon. He battled deep depression through the majority of his life, and yet God used his suffering for the good of multitudes that he never met. And then there was Job, whose life became a cosmic display of God’s power and worth for our comfort. If we are God’s children, then even our depression will display his glory and purposes as he holds us secure in his unfailing love.

Suffering brother or sister, lift your heavy heart. As Spurgeon once said, “We need patience under pain and hope under depression of spirit. . . . Our God . . . will either make the burden lighter or the back stronger; he will diminish the need or increase the supply” (“Sword and Trowel,” 15).