It seems like the marriage business is blooming more than ever. Wedding locations are being prearranged even mouths ago and every girl’s white-gown dream finally comes true.
But as young couples and hopeful newlyweds rush to make the “till death do us part” step and reveal the eternal secret of preserving intimacy as well as sustain marital bliss, there is one piece of advice that often makes its way unnoticed. The same issue is making divorce lawyers raise the alarm.
There, at the end of the of the list, around every conflict and wound accumulated throughout years of marriage, divorce lawyers started noticing a trend: Porn is ruining marriage.
The American Academy of Matrimonial in 2002 through informal meeting survey 350 divorce attorneys and found that around 60 percent of them reported how pornography played a valuable role in the divorces, with the accent on online pornography being responsible for more than half of the cases.
John Mathews*, Family Law and Divorce Attorney, has also found that porn is a serious issue which might be influencing marriages. Mathew explains that general practice has shown that, in most cases, spouses deny indulging in porn.
However, after discovery, the process in which every spouse is given a list with questions to answer under oath, and during digging back and forth between various complaints, Mathews has clearly seen that pornography plays a significant role in destroyed marriages.
He also stated that porn is often mentioned in complaints of “Constructive Desertation”, or better known as leaving the marriage as a result of withdrawal from sexual intimacy. Mathew explains that he dealt with several cases in which husbands couldn’t stop engaging in porn, which in turn induced withdrawing from quality intimate time spent with his wife.
“I have had many cases where the husband won’t even touch his wife and several cases in which the spouses have not had sex in three or four years,” Mathews says.
Moreover, Mathews explains that indulging in porn takes its toll by creating unrealistic expectations for physical intimacy and the sexual intercourse itself.
But apart from lawyers being highly involved in this trend, there are also few others who are concerned with this particular field.
In 2005 Dr. Jill Manning a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in sexual addiction, pornography, or betrayal trauma, brought her research in porn and its connection before the Senate. As Manning stated, 56 percent of the divorce cases showed one party having an obsessive interest in pornographic websites.
On the same topic, Dr. John Gothman, a renowned professor in Psychology and well known for his work on marital stability, addresses the readers in 2016 through an open and heartfelt letter in which he explains the varying theories on how to manage porn usage in a marriage.
According to Dr. Gothman, many marriage therapists more than often recommend the use of porn, especially by men, as a natural and harmless way to get in touch with their sexuality. He admits that in the past, he recommended the same to struggling couples in order to increase intimacy after childbirth.
But, in his letter in 2016, Dr. Gothman corrected himself and now stands by the research that indicates porn is indeed causing marriages to come crashing down. His years of analysis through scientific observations align with the same thing lawyers have been witnessing for the last fifteen years: Porn usage destroys marital intimacy and eventually increases the chance that your marriage will end.
So, for all of us hopeful Millennials who look with content and satisfaction to tie the knot with the love of our life, this warning couldn’t have come urgently enough. The chances are your partner won’t stop watching porn. It’s a fact that it’s addictive. According to a study in 2006, 84 percent of people at the age from 18 to 49 view porn. That will basically include every other person you know in your life.
So, no, we shouldn’t shame and accuse our partner of watching porn, but when it comes to maintaining a healthy relationship, couples who communicate about all its benefits or disadvantages and create boundaries to protect their marriage are the ones who’ll eventually manage to survive the unavoidable marriage crisis.
What do you think? Is porn really affecting the course of a relationship? And more importantly, have you ever tried discussing this matter with your partner?
*Attorney’s name was changed, at his request, to protect the privacy of his clients.
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