Warning Signs:

How do you know if someone in your home is addicted to pornography? The answer can vary greatly. Does your spouse or child spend a lot of time alone in a room with a computer? Do you feel like your physical relationship with your spouse is superficial and with an absence of heartfelt love? Is there a strong feeling of possession regarding their computer passwords and e-mail? Does your older teenager not want to be engaged in a relationship? Does your spouse or child find excuses not to go places with you and the family and “retreat to the cave”?

While there are many signs that there might be a pornography addiction the ones just given may not necessarily mean that there is such an addiction. Perhaps the older teenager may be just involved in studies and not ready for a relationship, or the lack of a physical relationship with your spouse might be another reason all together. The point is we need to connect the dots to bring about real change. If you stumbled across rolling papers in your son’s bedroom, wouldn’t you look to see what it being rolled in them or would you just leave the room and assume it was tobacco and not marijuana? Pornography addiction is just as serious and demands your involvement!

Ask yourself this question: Are you engaged in the simple activities of your spouse? Do they exhibit openness when it comes to opening mail, finances, and their computer? Or do they show a deep control that keeps you out of the way? If you recited those marriage vows again about no longer being two but being as one, then every aspect of that marriage should be open to both of you. A spouse should promote openness instead of “mine” and “yours”. If you are not allowed access to certain things in your spouse’s world, it may have nothing to do with a pornography addiction. However this attribute usually winds up being on the top of the list for such an addiction.

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." Ephesians 5:31 NIV