Be careful to not make comparisons that don’t compare.
The danger is that you are going to stir up memories each time that common “temptation” besets your spouse. The crime, meaning the level of hurt, of pornography doesn’t have a fair comparison in a marriage where the other spouse has been faithful and pure throughout. Unless the other person has committed the same kind of betrayal, there is no comparison to help your spouse understand your choice to do it.
I’ve now heard this comparison frequently enough to warrant a post on it:
Falling to pornography is like you falling to sugar. You know it’s bad but you eat it anyway.
This is dangerous.
One, you are taking the pure heart of your spouse, searching for their Gravest temptation, which is technically not a sin, but an allowable treat, and comparing it to the raw and filthy nature of falling to the temptation of pornography with all its insinuating circumstances. To have to reach as high for a temptation to compare yours is unfair. This shows how sweet, don’t mind the pun, your spouse is that their greatest temptation is eating sugar.
Again, there might not be a suitable comparison so don’t try to compare it.
Secondly, now every time your spouse goes to eat sugar guess what they are going to think of? Not to mention satan will take the opportunity to barrate them with strong words like, see you are like him. See your character is flawed. You fall to temptation. And so on. I have felt this personally and for brief moments, until I recognized the liars voice, I felt deeply crushed by my flawed nature. Not to mention the thoughts of his betrayal that surged my memory.
Then recently, rod made another comparison wih sugar that was equally as distasteful.
I threw away the idea of godhood to pornography because I still believed that somehow things would get worked out in the end. I always believed but I guess I threw it away for those moments. It’s like when you have a diet but then buy a box of donuts and throw away your diet for the day.
My mouth dropped and my heart sank. I couldn’t understand how he could logically make this comparison. That is not the same at all!
Nothing compares to giving up godhood. It is the ultimate aspiration.
And there it was, sugar being what he compared it to. And then he clarified and made me understand better what he was trying to say and it made all the difference. He cried, however, once he realized what he was saying.
When you are in pornography, falling to it seems like nothing more than falling to sugar. That is the lie. But in your mind the sun isn’t any greater than that: failing at a diet. It doesn’t hurt anyone but you and not all that much. You can just get back on the diet tomorrow.
How blinded satan can make the hearts of men to make it seem as trivial and light as falling to a simple temptation to eat something sweet.
I won’t get hung up on what would have been a better way to say something. That doesn’t solve this. I think it is best to just analyze what we say, if it hurts dig until you know why because maybe Therein lies a negative belief, or truth that needs to be uncovered to heal that part of your understanding and ultimately your soul.
I’m just very cautious now of comparisons at all. Something’s are better explained from your perspective, how you perceived it while in the throes of it rather than comparing it to the current struggles of the other person, because maybe there is not true comparison. If there is then that conversation will probably take place with an understanding and compassion that only you two can share and it won’t feel like you are throwing that in the other persons face.
My sympathy for what Rod has gone through is full of love. I hope he has sympathy for me. In our suffering we have empathy that rivals that of the other and is truly comparable.
Still it is unmatched to that of the suffering Christ endured for every soul who has ever lived, lives now and will yet live. I understand now what it means to be swallowed up in his love. The immensity of his love is so great that there is no comparison for it. In that I am satisfied and my grief is swept away. And all of this, even the pains of careless conversation are carried away into the infinite seas of his atonement. I hope Rod is feeling this too, because I realize in writing this post that I was hurting from the things he was saying. And while it is good to recognize those parts that were still sensitive to this subject, it is even better to let them go once I’ve processed them. And they are…gone. Christ is so good to me and to everyone who believes.