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Why Porn & Secret Sex Grab a Man so Tight - Part 3

“Your marital crisis is not about your marriage. Your dabbling in porn is not about porn. And your secret sexual encounter is not at all about sex. It’s first and foremost about one thing: Your heart. To be more specific, a lack of watching over your heart and what it was designed for all along.”

Most men just stare at me. After a few seconds of total silence, they first ask a one-word question with an exclamation mark: “What?!” Then, before I can answer, the question turns into a phrase: “What in the world are you talking about?” More than once I've had a man look straight at me and be totally blunt as he exclaims, “I don't want to hear that. That’s not why I came here! I came here to get this thing fixed.”

Then comes the whammy when I say, “It can’t be fixed. It’s done. But it can be redeemed!”

You talk about a deer in the headlights! Why? Because most men never even think about their heart much less talk about it with other men and especially with their wives. And they never relate it to the one thing all men want the most: Intimacy. Why not? Because we men don’t have a clue what it means to “watch over” our hearts in the first place. Why? Because we don’t have a clue about what our hearts need the most and were originally designed for all along. So as a result, we lose heart. And when we lose heart, we go find a replacement. No matter what it costs. Just like Solomon said centuries ago: "He does not know that it will cost him his life" (Proverbs 7:23). What will? Going to a woman to get his question answered. 

Once again, author John Eldredge brilliantly clarifies this very issue:

…to lose heart is to lose everything. And a "loss of heart" best describes most men and women in our day. It isn't just the addictions and affairs and depression and heartaches, though, God knows, there are enough of those to cause even the best of us to lose heart. But there is the busyness, the drivenness, the fact that most of us are living merely to survive. Beneath it we feel restless, weary, and vulnerable.

Indeed, the many forces driving modern life have not only assaulted the life of our heart, they have also dismantled the heart's habitat…

All of us have had that experience at one time or another, whether it be as we walked away from our teachers, our parents, a church service, or sexual intimacy; the sense that something important, perhaps the only thing important, had been explained away or tarnished and lost to us forever. Sometimes little by little, sometimes in large chunks, life has appropriated the terrain meant to sustain and nourish the wilder life of the heart, forcing it to retreat as an endangered species into smaller, more secluded, and often darker geographies for its survival. (The Sacred Romance, 3-5)

Notice, I put two words in italics and bold at the end of John’s insights: darker geographies. In other words, porn and secret sex. They grab us so tight because they temporarily provide a tiny taste of the real thing we are desperately looking for. But they always wear off. So then, we decide to begin searching for a new counterfeit.

Or, here’s an idea. Maybe we should begin searching for the real thing? An intimacy that lasts for a lifetime. 

It all begins when a man is willing to start watching over his heart. To do that, he must do three things: 

1. He must stop thinking that all of this is "sissy" stuff and psycho-babel. 

2. He must stop thinking that this is "no big deal."

3. He must stop thinking that "no one will ever know."

Notice how I began each of those three phrases? They all begin with: He must stop thinking... Why is that so important in getting set free from the tug of porn and secret sex? Let's ask Solomon again: "For as a man thinks, so is he..." (Proverbs 23:7). Note two observations. Number one, the key word in the verse is thinks. Number two, the chapter and verse reference is the exact opposite of the one I used above. Did you notice? Proverbs 7:23... Proverbs 23:7. Just a coincidence, right? Nope. Don't think so. What I think is that this was designed so men who read very little and remember even less won't forget where to go when they decide to begin a whole new path. It all begins with my "thinking." What does? Whether or not I will pay a huge price for dabbling in porn and secret sex. 

Allow me to be very clear on what I'm about to say. Permanent, lasting change doesn't begin with some new program. It begins with new perspective. There are no programs anywhere ("5 Steps", "12 Steps", or even "29 Steps") that will ever begin to help me dump porn if I don't first change the way I think about this issue. No offense, but much of psychiatry and psychology (and even the church) has it backwards. In other words, they usually tell me to first work on changing my emotions (with pills), then my behavior (performance based "behavioral modification"), and then, maybe, just maybe, you might finally have a change of mind and get healthy. Sorry. That doesn't work. In fact, the solution is just the opposite. Here it is in one sentence: Changing my thinking changes my behavior and eventually results in a change of my emotions. You see how we have reversed the whole process? With more seminars, sedatives, and sermons than ever before, we can't seem to get it straight. Like Solomon did. You know how? He knew The Physician who wrote the original prescription. 

Why don't we just call and get an appointment with him?

That's precisely what we are going to do in Part 4.