Husband Material

Should I Tell My Parents I Struggle With Porn?

March 30, 2020 Drew Boa
Husband Material
Should I Tell My Parents I Struggle With Porn?
Show Notes Transcript

Learn how to decide whether to tell your parents about porn—and a formula for EXACTLY what to say to them.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the husband material podcast where we help Christian men quit pornography so you can change your brain, heal your heart, and save your relationship. My name is drew boa and I'm here to show you how let's go. And today we are talking about yo parents. Yes, your parents. Because sometimes getting free from porn means moving toward your parents and reconciling with them perhaps and talking with them about the struggle and even receiving help from them. And other times it means moving away from your parents. And every situation is different for me. I've experienced a lot of reconciliation with my mom and she's opened up to me about her sexual brokenness, which has been healing for me. But when I was growing up and for the first 10 years of my journey to freedom, I did not feel comfortable talking with them or with either of my parents. And now I've had a lot of reconciliation with one of them. You know what? You can't control how they're gonna respond. So no matter what your situation is, at the end of this video, I'm going to help you become more confident about how you relate to your parents. Whether that means moving towards them, away from them, telling them, not telling, whatever. Here are two concepts that can help you figure this stuff out. Honor and honesty in the Bible. God commands us to honor our parents and hold them in high regard, to respect them and to submit to them, especially when we're children. And in order to follow Jesus, we need to have a healthy separation from them. We need to have boundaries and we need to leave our father and mother in other ways. So this can make it hard to know, okay, how do I relate to my parents? And as you decide whether or not to tell them you struggle with porn, this attitude of honor and honesty is super important. Some of you were thinking, my parents loved me, I had awesome parents. What are you talking about? I never experienced any kind of childhood wounding or trauma. I'm sure that if you're saying that, that you did have awesome parents, and if you're struggling with porn, you have to be able to name their contribution. I'm not saying it's their fault. I'm not saying you should be a victim in order to really heal and understood what happened to you as a kid. You need to name, here's the contribution that I made with my choices and here's the contribution of my overall environment that I was living in, and part of that was my parents and whether they were never open about sexuality and they never talked about it with you, whether you were emotionally abandoned or abused, maybe even sexually harmed your parents, affected you in positive and negative ways. So it's important to be able to name those and honor them in the middle of it as you're deciding whether or not to tell your parents about your sexual struggles. Here are three questions you can ask. Number one, do I feel safe? Do I feel safe telling them about this? And if the answer is not a strong yes, then you might want to reconsider telling them because that could actually retraumatize you. It could reopen some of those wounds and actually make things worse in the end. So be sure you feel safe with them so that you know you can trust that when you tell them they're not going to try to solve it or try to fix it or reopen some of those wounds. The second question you want to ask is can they help me? You know, if you want to go on a healing journey to permanent freedom from pornography, that's probably going to require a financial investment. Whether that's for resources or programs or working with a professional, your parents might be willing to financially sponsor you. So ask yourself, can they help me? And if you feel safe and you think they can help you, there's a good chance it might be helpful to talk to them about your struggle. And the third question you needed to ask yourself is, could they know, is it possible that you think you've been keeping this a secret for them but they already know. So consider that. You know, maybe you're not going to give any new information to them, but just start a conversation that needs to happen. Those are three questions. Do I feel safe? Can they help? And could they know? If you make the brave decision to tell your parents that you struggle with porn, here's my formula for exactly what to say to them. Start out with these exact words. I was exposed to pornography. Tell them when I tell them how, tell them with who, and this removes all shame and blame from the conversation. You're not saying it's all my fault. I'm a horrible sinner. You're not saying it's all your fault, parents, you set me up for this. You're just telling them what happened to you so that you can have a productive conversation moving forward and this can be healing. The second thing that you gotta say to them is, Hey parents, here's how you can help me. You know, if you're willing to support me, give them a list of things they can do and not do. Maybe you don't want them to ask you about it. Maybe you don't want them to offer advice, or maybe you could really use some financial support to invest in resources and programs and working with a professional, you know, tell them what they can do to support you. Whether that's listening, whether that's loving you in the middle of it or asking you about it, or even financially supporting you. Let them know, Hey, here's how you can help me move forward out of this. In any case, be clear with them about how you want them to relate to you moving forward. And if you're curious about what kind of resources they might help you be able to afford, I've included a link in this video for my top 10 tools to quit porn in 2020 all of these are Christ centered resources and programs. Maybe your parents can help you afford them. In any case, always remember my friend, you are God's beloved son and in you as well. Pleased.

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