Personal testimony from a woman who submitted her story to be shared with others.
I am a young woman who met a man in college whom I thought I would marry; I left the relationship because of his addiction to pornography, escalating sexual relationships with other women, and sexual assault of me.
When I met this Christian guy, I believed he cared about treating me well and being faithful to me. Although I think he truly wanted to live his life that way, his habits of sexually exploiting women with pornography use took over this noble desire.
His porn addiction started in the third grade.
No adults in his life guided him in navigating the explicit content available on the internet.
In high school and college, he dated girls who didn’t mind the porn and even encouraged it. I was the first girl who expressed serious concern and wanted him to be committed to a faithful relationship with me. As he put filters on his computer, the desire for sexting conversations with other girls began to grow. These relationships escalated to explicit video calls and then to sexual encounters with these girls in person. Meanwhile, he began to want more and more sexual intimacy with me, but I wasn’t comfortable with that. He begged and pleaded with me to go further, and even though I gave a verbal “no” to specific requests, he did them anyway.
I used to believe that it was my fault I couldn’t keep him faithful – that somehow I wasn’t good enough. I even tried allowing more sexual intimacy between us to see if that would make his porn use stop. I hoped things would get better, but he was never completely committed to changing the way he treated me. He still was unfaithful, no matter what I did.
I chose to leave the relationship in order to protect myself. I witnessed firsthand how the habitual pattern of viewing women on a screen for personal pleasure, without any boundaries or true human dignity and connection involved, can transfer to the same pattern with women in person.
I deserve to be treated with dignity, honor, and respect without hesitation or interference stemming from dehumanizing habits such as pornography addiction.
