I once thought that lust was just a normal appetite and, therefore, once I got married, the addiction would be satisfied and go away. I learned, mainly through the experience of others I have met in the 12-Step groups, that this is a false assumption. Most addicts I have talked to end up returning to these addictions within a few weeks or months of getting married.
The reason for this seems to be that lust is never satisfied and it gets bored with the same thing. That’s why a 12-year old boy doesn’t get one pornographic picture and keep it – never looking at anything else for the rest of his life. He must always have something different. His wife becomes his next piece of pornography and then he must move on to something else once his lust is no longer satisfied by her.
Lust is unnatural and must be replaced by love. Love is connected to just one person at a time, forever, and it is completely satisfied with that person. Lust can be transferred from one person to the next. Love is giving and lust is taking. Lust is an act of hatred. Repeatedly conditioning myself with lust decreased my ability to love, but in sobriety and recovery, my ability to replace lust with love is increasing, and it’s infinitely better!
So while marriage by itself didn’t fix this addiction, it has given me opportunities to make huge improvements in surrendering lust and fostering love. Some people later in recovery have found that periods of abstinence in marriage, with agreement with the spouse, can actually help get rid of some of the hidden lust that can sneak into marriage and can help separate lust from love.
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