I started watching porn when I was in high school, but this was before the age of the smartphone. So, while the seed had been planted, my exposure to porn was very limited. I did not start watching daily until I purchased my first smartphone in 2012, and that opened the floodgates.
I was in the Marine Corps and had no parental oversight. The stresses of work, combined with my immaturity and lack of accountability, led to unrestricted and frequent porn usage. I did not consider, at all, the short-term—and especially the long-term—consequences of porn, even though I knew in the context of my Christian upbringing that it was immoral. For eight years I built a terrible habit of watching porn every day without restraint.
Not until I started dating my future wife in 2020 did I make any attempt to stop. So, naturally, when I tried to stop, I could not. I repeatedly tried and failed, made promises and broke them, and experimented with different techniques for quitting. The guilt continued to build the closer we got to our wedding night. For a few weeks before and after the wedding, I had managed not to watch at all, and I believed that perhaps the excitement of marriage helped me overcome my addiction.
I was wrong.
After the honeymoon phase of marriage ended, my staunch dedication to abstention began to wane. I felt the urge come back to life, and this time it was worse than before. I remained strong for about a week, despite the relentless “pangs” at work and at night. Then, one day, I gave in, and thereafter I found myself in a weekly cycle of successfully not watching for six or seven days but then finally giving in on the seventh or eighth day. I deceived myself into believing that I could defeat porn on my own without ever letting my wife know. But this, of course, led to isolation, deception, and guilt.
Every Sunday that we attended church, I felt the Holy Spirit convict me more and more to confess to my wife, but I did not have the courage. Multiple times I tried forcing myself to tell her, but my cowardice resulted in my silence. Fortunately, my wife got us connected to a couples’ small group at the church, and the second week in, we split into all-male and all-female groups for “accountability.” There, I was exposed to what true freedom looked like and how confession led to healing. One by one, each of the men not only admitted to watching porn but discussed how they and their wives were working together to resolve the issue. I was completely thrown off and found myself jealous of these men and yet hopeful. Collectively, they had confidence and freedom that I knew I could get that night, and their example led me to confess everything to my wife after the meeting.
To my surprise, she responded graciously and empathetically. She primarily just felt sorry that I was wrestling with porn by myself for a year, and she immediately volunteered to help however she could. When she asked what the next step was, I told her, “Covenant Eyes.” I discovered Covenant Eyes shortly before our wedding and considered getting it. However, when I realized that the app required an accountability partner, I looked for other, more “discreet”, options. Of course, none of them worked since I remained unaccountable and had full access to everything any time I wanted. And so, every now and then I would reconsider Covenant Eyes only to convince myself that I did not need an accountability partner.
However, now that I told my wife (among others), I readily jumped on Covenant Eyes because of its strong reputation. It took us a period of trial and error to figure out which devices needed protection, but ultimately all the devices that I had independent access to received protection. This was the first time in my life that I could go on a computer knowing that someone I loved was watching—not to condemn me but to help me heal.
While no program is perfect, Covenant Eyes succeeded in helping me live an accountable life to my wife and my fellow Christians. The accountability aspect of Covenant Eyes, while seemingly scary, is freeing. The more honest one is to themselves and others, the better and more precise everyone involved can tackle the addiction.
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