As the title suggests, I am married to a beautiful woman of God who is 21 and I am 23. I have hurt her many times with my addiction to lust and have damaged my relationship with Christ. I apologize in advance for the length of this, I have shortened it as much as I can without losing too much context.

I started when I was 12/13, I would curiously look at things on the internet, at first it was out of curiosity searching related Wikipedia articles on certain “anatomy”. It was always set up in a way so I had some kind of an alibi 🙄. Then it eventually became more serious. Embarrassingly enough I believe my first real experience porn was Kim K’s sex tape. I had heard it in the news and looked it up because I was curious.

Unlike a lot of you, I didn’t have anyone in my life to show me porn and masturbation. I lived in a missionary household and my life was very different from a lot of other kids. I went through this process alone, and it slowly developed into a real problem over time.

It became a regular thing for me at 14 when our family again moved overseas. At that point I didn’t know what was happening or why we were there, we were basically stranded for 9 months with no money and no place to go, and I was doing what I could to distract myself from the chaos that was going on around me. At that point whenever I had access to the internet I would experiment with hardcore porn and masturbation. My parents I believe were unaware of this from the beginning, as they were devout Christians and were innocent of how bad things could be. My dad since has told me he has not had to deal with this issue since when he was young and before the internet was really a thing)my parents are old) and I believe him, but that has made him ignorant of my struggles and unable to help me.

This did not stop until I was 17/18 when I developed a real relationship with God. At that point, I wasn’t experiencing any urges whatsoever. It was an amazing time in my life when I truly found a relationship with God. Then a girl came into my life. We never had sex, but it became physical a few times, making out and cuddling a couple of times. I knew we weren’t good for each other, and each time it happened I felt severely chastised by God's Spirit and repented. That prevented me from taking it any farther physically and my repentance surprisingly enough caused her to start her own relationship with God.

At that time i knew I was young in my own faith and she in hers. I knew it would be a bad idea to pursue anything serious in that vulnerable time and I had tried to break things off the relationship a few times with her, I wasn’t man enough to truly end it though, so embarrassingly it was her who ended up ghosting me in the end.

This was a very difficult time for me

as I had very few if any friends, and she was very close to me. It was not healthy. But throughout that whole time, I was not using porn, as our constant communication with each other became my drug.

After she ended things for good, I was devastated, at that point, I realized my sin and idolatry in removing God from the place of most importance to me. I was a hollow shell of a person for months; but no or very little porn usage at the time.

At that point, I made a cross-country move to a school of ministry, where eventually I would meet my beautiful wife. My life would completely change there. I came into it a hot mess and left a different man. I had God as my number-one priority at that time. Surprisingly, this is where temptations became the strongest for me as I adjusted to living on my own in a new state with no support system. I fully relapsed into my addiction at that point while I was attending this school, and it only ever got any better for me the second year I was there and that wasn’t until I opened up about it to other people and became serious about getting it out of my life with God.

There was a specific moment I remember when someone prayed for me and told me in faith to believe I was free and that the following morning I would have no urges to do it. I prayed with him and agreed with my brother and something truly changed and from that point forward I experienced zero desire for it.

It was like that for a while. Sure, I would slip up from time to time, but I went weeks and even months without touching myself or looking at anything. And I was growing much closer to God, to where my daily time in his word and prayer became a deeply blissful time for me where I felt safe.

It was at that time I met my wife. I won’t go into specifics here, that would be a completely separate testimony, but we got married 5 months after meeting each other. This might seem drastic, but I knew with absolute certainty that God had given her to me, as did she, and our becoming one remains the best thing to ever happen to me ever up until this point in my short life here on earth.

She and I would eventually stop attending school and move to a new state where I had a job lined up through my former roommate who also lived there that I intended or use to save up money to move to Hawaii to attend a school of ministry. The work there was tough and we had a few people we knew there to support us, but no real community was there. Slowly at that time as well to my dismay my addiction to lust came creeping back into my life.

There was a three-month period where I was receiving unemployment due to winter conditions making work in my industry not possible. I kicked out my lust for a while and began to seek the Lord again more deeply, but truly I felt far from God as I was considering the fact that it seemed as if I would never settle or find roots anywhere like my parents. I was disappointed with the fact that it seemed like no matter what I did my future was constantly uncertain, and I was tired of having nowhere to call home. I realized that part of me wanted a different life for my family, unlike the one I was already living.

My past pain and trauma from what I experienced as a child living as a missionary kid in not very good circumstances, constantly moving around from place to place, never having any money to do anything other than just survive, etc. all came back to me as I considered what I was setting out to do, and it caused me to reconsider spending all my savings on moving to Hawaii to attend this missionary school.

I was so afraid of admitting all this to myself that I never talked about it with God. I didn’t know how to truly trust Him and I believe it was at that point my whole life began to fall apart. I started to question myself and God’s will for my life.

Why was I pursuing the same path in life as my parents that so damaged me in all the neglect and deprivation I experienced as a kid?

Would God truly take care of me or leave me stranded as he did with my parents a few times, having to go into debt to come back home and rely on my grandparents to let us stay with them to avoid homelessness, would the same happen to me?

Am I to become just like them, broke, with no friends, no ministry to their name, no real accomplishments, just nobodies in life?

I became angry at the thoughtlessness and carelessness I saw in my parents. All in the name of their “faith” they destroyed their lives and my own in the process. They weren’t there when I needed them. They took away my family and the few friends I was able to make every time we would move. I became inwardly disgusted with them and their lifestyle and I realized I wanted nothing to do with it.

After partially realizing this and still being mostly in denial of my true feelings, I moved back to my home my own where my parents reside, and began attending church there with them. The closer the proximity to them, the angry I felt. I got a job to support myself and my wife there in landscaping. That job paid me nothing, and I realized it would not be enough to survive on my own. Eventually, a family friend offered me a job in sales. I did well for myself, but I was working 60-70 hour weeks and had little time to spend with my wife or the Lord as I teetered on the brink of poverty. I developed my habits of lust again, stopped seeking God, and became a man of the world. I sought money to solve my problems, as it always seemed to be the source of my pain. I made over 6 figures that year, but it never stayed in my account. I wasn’t tithing, and I wasn’t focused on the kingdom of God, I was trying to establish my own kingdom to finally build that security I never had access to, and I yet I still struggled with our finances never having the energy or motivation to conserve our resources.

The following year, I got an even better job making more money in another industry where I work now. I got a bigger apartment for nearly double the rent from the one before, some more furniture, and a couple of cats. I picked up golf with a few coworkers. Nothing too crazy.

Despite my new relationship with money, I was not eager to become overly materialistic. I grew up with a different set of priorities and although I grew to abhor the conditions my parents created I respected their commitment to something else besides themselves and their material well-being. I too wanted something more for my life, but I began to let the worry and fear, and pressure of life weigh me down, and I felt like I had nowhere to turn.

This is where the lust gets 10x worse. I began turning to porn again, instead of a monthly thing it became a weekly thing. My wife became horrified and talked about ending our marriage a few times over it. I always remained honest with her about it, never really hiding it from her.

I was stuck though, and continue to be to this day. My relationship with God has not gotten better. I am still dealing with a lot of pressure with work and related to money, as my job is commission-only. I have to perform or else I don’t make a single dime. Last week I nearly broke into the five-figure mark for the week, but it’s not enough. After moving and the holidays and my wife being terminated from her position right before I took this job, there has been a massive financial strain, and all that burden has been placed on me. I am no one to complain, but I feel as if I have no choice but to put my head down yet again and push forwards and ignore my relationship with God yet again because I feel as if I have no choice but to prioritize money instead. I’m beginning to hate this life. I want to solve this issue permanently and if I continue to work I have been assured that I will be able to live a very different lifestyle within the next 5-10 years where money will not be a problem as long as I keep my expenses to a reasonable level and I will not have to work so hard to maintain my income.

I wonder though how long I have to wait to be reconciled with God, as I do love being in His presence and learning from his Word, I feel as if this world and my own sin have spoiled my ability to trust and destroyed my childlikeness. I have this constant sense of guilt over the fact that I prioritize my family through my job rather than just “trusting God”. I don’t even understand what that means but I have been told that so many times and I feel guilty for not getting it. I am so tired of feeling this way. I want a fresh start. I know God has all the answers but I feel as if I can’t approach him seriously without having more time, but I can’t give him the time I want to because then I wouldn’t make enough money.

It feels so pathetic, and multiple times I’ve just wanted to give up on it entirely but I know I could never live with myself until I fully surrender and give myself to Him.

Now I’m it seems I’m fully addicted to porn, swearing constantly, watching a lot of worldly content, and listening to worldly music, there isn’t anything I withhold from myself anymore. I don’t know what to do or how to change. I feel so lost.

But I know I have to, I know I have to get on my knees before God and repent for my family. I can’t let their lives suffer because I can’t manage my own. I refuse to let that happen to them as it did to me. I will be a pattern breaker in my family, and I will serve God with my life.

I will learn discipline in the Lord, and I will learn how to surrender to his mercy and his love which he has in abundance for me. I just don’t know how to receive it. I will learn that this year too. I want this year to be different. I want to trust God as go into this new career. I want to live honorably and not be dishonest in my dealings with others in any way. I want to fear God and live in the truth. I want to get my health in order and not let my body constantly dictate its demands on me. I want complete freedom from pornography and masturbation. I am tired of living in a fantasyland where that’s anything but cheating on my wife, dishonoring God, and destroying myself in the process. I’m going to start waking up every day early in the morning to spend time with him, I don’t care about working out I just want to be alone with God. Until that is done in the morning I will not let myself go to the gym, He needs to be my priority. This is my commitment for the year, pursue and desire God over all else and he will give me the desires of my heart, security, meaning, adventure, etc. without compromising my values or the wellbeing of my family unless it’s to change them completely.

I apologize for the length of this, but I wanted no I NEEDED to write this all out. I haven’t written anything about it all really until just now, I haven’t had the time. I hope some of this has helped someone out there, but really this has been an entirely selfish exercise. If anyone has any encouragement or advice to share I would greatly appreciate it.

Please don’t be like me and get your priories straight. Don’t bring porn or masturbation into your marriage no matter how hard it gets and don’t pursue money over God, it’s not worth it. Trust God with your finances, and you will not experience lack. True lack is not being intimate and one with your Creator.