Giving Up Porn for My Future Marriage
Big thanks to Seung Kook for sharing his story! Way to live a High Noon life!
How did porn impact your life?
Porn use for me was always linked with masturbation. The impact on my life was terrible. Growing up with a religious background where purity was cherished, I felt like trash after every session. The more and more I failed at trying to quit, the more and more helpless and defeated I felt. I was not in integrity with myself or my beliefs and because of that, I hated myself.
I was also staff for my local youth ministry and felt like such a two-faced liar being there. Looking all noble, volunteering to help my younger brothers and sisters during the day, and at night retreating to a dark corner of my house to do the dirty deed.
I became scared that people would find out, I grew timid in the gym locker rooms and near the urinal. Scared that somehow people would know I was a porn-user/masturbator.
At what point did you decide enough was enough?
For me, the most important thing I wanted to do in my life was to have a successful marriage and I knew that a porn/masturbation habit would kill that dream. I knew that if I wanted to have any chance of realizing the already incredibly difficult dream to achieve, I would have to break free. So when I was 19, getting close to betrothal age, I started getting serious about quitting.
What helped you quit?
What made the difference for me was having more drive. I was entering marriageable age and this time I had a strategy that I learned from all the times I had failed before.
This time, I ended masturbation cold turkey without a last hurrah. Previously when I would try quitting, I would always fantasize about that last hurrah and how good it had felt which did not help me abstain.
This time, I made sure to try to limit how pleasurable to masturbation was to ease my way out of the habit. And I even slapped during to disassociate pleasure with the action. Less and less pleasurable as I got closer to quitting day.
And I ran a lot! That became a helpful habit.
What does life look like now?
Life is awesome. I am living a purposeful life and building my dream every day. I have a beautiful wife that I am free to love unabashedly with all of my heart. I do not have the useless negative distraction that porn is and I can use all of my time to focus on creating a life that I want. I have confidence in who I am, knowing that I am now in line with my integrity.