We live in the strange age of the ubiquitous Internet, and for me, this strangeness reared its head initially with a decided impression back in the late '90s. Angie and I had only been married for a few years. We'd endured her terrible bouts with the mental illness of anxiety disorder and the subsequent panic attacks throughout our newlywedding. Therefore, at this time (we were married in the mid-90s), things were beginning to settle down some as we learned to live life reasonably well as DINKS (double-income no kids).
And then this thing called the Internet showed up, thanks to a laptop she'd been issued by her employer. It didn't take long at all for me to "take my turn" at the laptop [*wink, wink*] and get my first look at what it meant to be online, and from there, I found pornography as I'd never imagined.
Keep in mind that growing up here in Mississippi offered few, if any, opportunities to look at smut. Know too that Angie was privy, prior to our marriage, to my obsession with porn. She and I had traveled to NOLA on a few occasions and it was there in The Big Easy that I fessed up (at the time NOLA was one of the only reasonably close cities to Jackson where print porn was available at the magazine stands).
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When you grow up never seeing professionally shot photos of beautiful naked people posing and sexing other beautiful naked people, your life is certainly not waning in that particular "culturally necessitated" experience, but when these images are thrust upon you, particularly considering a certain season of life, its impact is not unlike the detonation of an emotional atomic bomb. At least that's how it was for me.
Having come off of this rough initial marital season (as I described above) combined with being a massively visual individual (architect intern), I found myself helpless to combat the allure of Internet porn. This neverending resource for smut of every ilk. So much so, in fact, that I went to my wife (eventually) and asked specifically for help in the form of quarantine by saying, "Keep me away from your work laptop. If you don't, the Internet will likely kill me". And whilst looking back, there was some truth to that statement.
But that smart confession move didn't occur until I'd partook in a major binge session on the eve of Thanksgiving, and for this, I was given a regret that I'm sadly not likely to ever forget.
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Thanksgiving Eve, Angie hadn't been sleeping well and made a comment to me that she'd likely need a Tylenol PM in order to assist her that evening. I took it upon myself to coerce her into taking two. And I did this in order to ensure that once asleep, she'd stay that way throughout the night.
From there, I crawled out of our bed and jumped online via her laptop (which I'd discreetly left turned on) on the opposite end of our apartment. I then binged on online images as the hours waned 'till eventually I realized dawn would soon be approaching. And, my goodness, what a moment that was realizing I'd spent the entire night using Internet pornography, and that I'd have to face my very well rested wife (as well as her family) throughout the rest of the Thanksgiving Day.
I climbed in bed for an hour or two of sleep before being woken up by Angie at my side. She'd slept well. I cannot begin to describe how regrettably I attempted to go about getting prepared to Thanksgiving with all of her family. But, I did, and life marched on.
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What came out of this binge session was threefold:
1. I got away with it but with a sizable amount of what I've now dubbed "newlywed regret".
2. I realized just how infinite the abyss of the Internet truly was / is.
3. There aren't that many exceptionally beautiful people on planet Earth. Great looking people, yes. Exceptionally beautiful, no. But, there are plenty of people on the planet who're willing to pose sans clothing for a salacious photo in order to make a buck.
Let's break these down in an effort to close this out.
1. The first three to five years of marriage is a critical time relative to seeding / fertilizing the element of trust between husband / wife, and those seeds start with the individual being able to trust themselves firstly. One of the biggest issues my wife was confronted with as she dealt with her aforementioned mental illness "outbreak" was not being able to trust herself as my wife. Hence, she experienced intense seasons of mental anguish as she wrestled with what I'll call "wife self-doubt". It was as if the very fabric of whom she'd set out to be as Angie Turner was coming unraveled right at the start. I microcosmically experienced the same whilst hiding out Thanksgiving Eve in our apartment's TV room with my underwear down around my ankles. Other new husbands might have had similar self-doubts relative to engaging in an anonymous sex encounter or paying for telephone sex, but for me, it was this deep Internet porn dive I took, behind my wife's back, that brought on these intense negative feelings.
As most new husbands (Christian or otherwise) set out to be, I wanted to be faithful through and through to my wife, and I had been, up to that point, in spite of her ongoing struggles with her mental unhealth. But those pornographic images also opened a Pandora's Box of doubt within my own mind, and unfortunately, I became convinced that more and more exceptional was out there to be found / used. Therefore, this pursuit in turn was far more gratifying than a newfound DINKS lifestyle situated in suburban Jackson, Mississippi. Not to mention the unexpected season of anxiety I'd just endured with Angie.
Let me reiterate a point I mentioned earlier. When young husbands use online porn, they're arguably doing exponentially more damage to themselves firstly, and typically they're not even realizing it. The damage runs counter to his need to believe in himself and his ability to lead himself and his new bride as head of household. Too, if he's honest with his spouse relative to his smut consumption, that will undoubtedly sow seeds of doubt as well from his helpmeet. It's a very poisoning experience, yet the elixir tastes so sweet and refined.
I'm convinced a marriage lead by a husband who doubts himself internally is prone to being vulnerable to Satanic attack, and those attacks will focus on promulgating mistrust between both (& inside of) parties.
2. When I'd used print porn, the quantity of smut was finite. Typically, I'd hold onto the material for a few days prior to tossing it into the trash. Of course, this is not so with Internet porn, and too, there's so many sites online where like-minded sickos put their digital smut on display in the form of blogs, etc. Therefore, given enough time, one can connect with these, and therefore participate within a community of sinners, bound together by salicious material. This is arguably the most destructive usage of the Internet. Who would argue against the notion that mankind's sin nature seems to be amplified online. The supposed anonymity ramps up this illusion, and it's terribly wicked to take part in. No amount of warnings can proportionally make up for what's out there to "sow one's oats" within. It is unfathomable to behold until you've seen it firsthand.
3. My qualitative threshold for erotica is up there within the 99th percentile. Most of this exceptionally "high-quality" material is behind a paywall, therefore that wasn't where I was interested in going (using one of our credit cards would have certainly served to expose me). But, I absolutely LOVED THE THRILL OF THE HUNT (for "free" exceptionally high-quality porn)! And this cannot be emphasized enough. For years and years, I returned to the www for the sole purpose of scratching that curiosity itch. What could I possibly find today? This was the question that lingered and lingered within the back of my mind.
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