“My boyfriend and I are Christians. I recently found out he is addicted to pornography. What should I do?”
This page is part of our Frequently Asked Questions section

Author’s response:
I think it’s important to gain a spiritual and practical understanding of what sex addiction is. As you proceed, ask the Lord for wisdom and guidance on what to do. Sex addiction usually involves powerful evil forces that are typically very deceptive. You’ll need the Lord’s discernment and wisdom to see clearly in your relationship with your boyfriend. If you are not walking closely with the Lord, now is the time to get close to Jesus if you want to help your boyfriend find freedom and salvage your relationship. Helping people break sex addiction is spiritual warfare, and you need to be adequately equipped!

To help you learn about sex addiction, we suggest these sources:

  • Freedom Journey: This is my online study about breaking sex addiction and walking with God daily. It will give you an idea of what your boyfriend will need to do.
  • Dr. James Dobson’s Love Must Be Tough book. Dr. Dobson describes the type of love that I believe is most effective in dealing with porn addict spouses/boyfriends.

I usually don’t encourage women to stay with boyfriends who are sex addicts. We receive many emails over the years from people in various stages of marriage breakup over porn addiction. It just doesn’t seem good sense to encourage someone to move forward and marry when they know their loved-one is addicted. I’m not saying that all hope is lost for the relationship, just that it may be good to step back for awhile to see if your man is truly going to seek God for help.

The only reliable path for help I know of is Jesus Christ. I know from personal experience that Jesus delivers people from bondage. Nothing is impossible for Him. Some people are better able to turn to Jesus than others. Some try all the “steps” to freedom and give up when they don’t get free on the first try. It takes surrender, persistence and self control to work with the Lord and walk to freedom.
One of the most beneficial thing you can do for your boyfriend is to pray for him. Pray that God will deliver him; pray that he’ll want to get delivered. Pray that God will lead him to true repentance and empower him to walk in purity.

The devil will probably attack you in any way that he can, especially if you start doing spiritual warfare for your boyfriend. Don’t let the enemy drag you down into depression, despair, suicidal thoughts, low self-esteem and rejection. The enemy may attack you with thoughts like:
“If you act out what he’s seeing in porn, he’ll be happy”
“It’s your fault he’s into porn”
“If you just looked a little better, he’d give up his porn”
“He doesn’t really love you, if he did, he wouldn’t be lying to you”
“He’ll never get free”

Don’t buy into those lies for one minute. You can destroy the lies by reminding yourself of the truth. Invite God to work in your boyfriend’s life every time you get attacked by the enemy.

One final note. As Christians we are called to keep ourselves sexually pure. Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 NIV:

It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God

Being sanctified means to set ourselves apart sexually for God’s purposes. For singles this means that there should be no sexual activity until marriage. If you have been sexually active with your boyfriend it will probably be very difficult to abstain from sex, but it is possible with God’s help. In fact, if you do abstain, you’ll be best aligned with God’s will and purposes for your life and the relationship with your boyfriend.

Here are some links for help along the way:

 

Frequently Asked Questions