Editor’s note: The following blog is from an interview I had with a dad struggling with pornography that he graciously allowed me to write from my notes and share with you anonymously.
When I first discovered pornography, I was only four or five years old. It was my grandfather’s porn. I was playing a game of hide-and-seek at my grandparent’s home, and as I crawled deeper and deeper into my grandparent’s closet, there I uncovered page after page of barely dressed women. I went back many times, and I continued to hunt for his stash whenever I was back to visit. When I was eighteen, I remember the feeling of buying my first Playboy—I drove as far away from my parent’s home as I had time to, and then I spent an hour parked in an abandoned lot, masturbating and longing for the women in its pages.
Sometimes I felt some shame, but it became less and less the more I used. I had been raised in a Christian home. I didn’t go “all the way” with a girl until college, and I mostly respected the girls I dated during my twenties. All along though, there was always porn. Whether or not I was having sex, I still longed for it and sought it out. By the time I was married, I had become mostly numb to its presence in my life. My once a week thrill became a once a day need. I would even sneak away from work to flip through a magazine or look at naked pictures of women to masturbate to.
I mostly kept my relationship with pornography a secret, but once we started having children, I was shocked when I walked in on my five-year-old son flipping through the pages of a hardcore magazine he had found under my bed. I backed away from the situation and said nothing. As soon as I had the chance, I moved my stash to my workroom where the kids weren’t allowed.
It’s been a few years now, and a lot has changed. For one, my wife and I started going to church and we started working on our marriage. I had been acting disinterested in her for a long time, and I was surprised to learn that she knew I was sneaking out of bed every night to be with the women I could find in magazines or online. I knew I needed to change for her to save our marriage, but even with that knowledge it wasn’t enough. Then my oldest, my daughter, checked our computer’s history and actually clicked on some of those same links that I had been visiting every night. She was so upset, and I have never felt more ashamed. How could I explain that the man she loved as her father had a hidden dark struggle? Why had I been so careless about leaving the history of where I had been? Later, my son found my stash in the workroom.
My addiction had directly exposed my own kids to content that I wish they had never seen. I can still remember those images that I first saw in my grandfather’s closet all of these years ago, and the content that my own son and daughter saw as a result of my sin was much, much worse… much, much more graphic. Now, all of these years later, I realized that pornography set a terrible example to my kids. It taught my daughter that her mom wasn’t good enough, and through her exposure to my porn, it opened her up to all sorts of questions and struggles—things that no twelve-year-old girl should be asking and dealing with at her age. I find myself struggling with the lust and the longings for pornography even when I am with my kids at the mall, and then I see my own daughter staring at me as I stare at the barely-dressed women in those storefront advertisements. She is starting to feel like she will never be good enough for a man, and her understanding of what is desirable has changed dramatically because of my struggle. My son, too, has changed because of my addiction. I think I sparked the fire in him for pornography. I think his understanding of me and of what it means to be a man has really changed, and I know I’ve sent a really messed up, mixed-up picture.
In addition, I think of all of the time I’ve missed—all of the sleep I’ve missed and therefore the energy that I haven’t had for my kids(and my wife) because of porn, and it makes me so sad. Even at ball games and ballet performances, I know there have been so many times I’m lost in a fantasy, and I haven’t been present. I’ve set a poor example as a result of porn, and I’ve opened up the little ones I most love to the lies and darkness that porn offers.
Editor’s note: If you need help with your porn addiction, please check out our resources for men and women struggling with porn addiction, and consider joining one of our workshops to help you in your recovery. Additionally, I would strongly urge every parent reading this blog to use parental controls and filters on all Internet-enabled devices to prevent exposure for you, your spouse and your kids online.