Title: Prefer Porn to My Wife
Name of Questioner: confused - Turkey
Question
As salamu alaykum, May Allah reward you for your efforts. I am in need of counsel, and I pray to Allah that you are able to help me. I'll be brief, although my problems are complex.
First, I am a married man not sufficiently attracted to my wife. At times I am not even able to perform due to my relative lack of excitement. She is not unattractive; in fact she is young and good looking. However, I am diseased. That leads to my second problem.
Second, I am addicted to porn. Each time I make tawbah, repentance, and think I've stopped, I end up going back. The urges are uncontrollable. As a result of excessive porn viewing over many years, I've become attracted to a very specific type of woman and female body type. My wife -- and most other women -- do not fit the bill. This is a tragedy, of course, partly because my life with my wife is not satisfying and partly because it puts me at risk of committing zina, fornication, (which I've been more and more tempted to do).
Third, and finally, my problems with porn have caused me to have very bad thoughts. First, I feel I am a massive hypocrite. I pray and call people to Allah yet I commit these horrible, disgusting sins, and even feel that I am very capable of committing zina, a crime punishable by death in Islam. I am a hypocrite. I am plagued by extremes. At times I make (what feels like) sincere tawbah, and I am overwhelmed with love of Allah and fear of Hell. It is common for me to be overcome with tears at these times. These are great moments. However, most of the time my heart feels dead and I don't feel very attached during prayer and other acts.
Fourth, although I am knowledgeable about Islam, I have become confused about why Allah has not answered my prayers to cure me of my diseased heart, give me fear of Him, and put these problems behind me. I've made these du`aa', supplications, hundreds and hundreds of times over several years -- including crying on mount Arafat during Hajj, pilgrimage, -- yet my problems persist. What can I do about my problem of not being very attracted to my wife? I find myself attracted to women I see at work and in the streets who come closer to fitting my very specific criteria. (I should point out that my wife is just great otherwise.) What can I do about my disgusting porn habit (I should point out that I've tried counseling and even meetings for addicts, which haven't worked.)
Finally, what can I do to avoid being plagued constantly with thoughts of:
a) hypocrisy, and
b) doubts about why Allah hasn't answered my prayers. Please help.
Jazakum Allah khayrum
Name of Counsellor: `Abdul-Lateef Abdullah
Topic: Addiction, Self development, Communication, Love & Intimacy, Marital Obstacles
Answer
In the name of Allah the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. May He bestow His peace and blessings on His messenger, Muhammad, his family, companions, and all of those who follow them sincerely.
As salamu 'alaykum,
Dear brother. I am saddened by the seriousness of your problem and the fact that you have allowed something like pornography to control your life and quite literally become your god = shirk. The Prophet (SAW) said about addictions, that those with addictions in this life will be resurrected as idol worshippers. This is a serious problem that you have, no doubt.
You have opened the door to pornography and now you cannot close it. Pornography has become a major problem among the men in our community and we are getting questions in reference to it by the dozen. It is destroying marriages, families, and the lives of those indulging in it. On the surface it appears harmless because of our ignorance of psychology and how images – especially those of sex – get imprinted in our minds and create a suggestive effect on our nafs, stimulating a desire for something that is of course, illicit. For example, David Morgan (in Marriott, 2003), consultant clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst who counsels men with a history of sexual violence states "… the more time you spend in this fantasy world, the more difficult it becomes to make the transition to reality.” Pornography has thus created an entire other world for you – a fantasy world – that is so strong and powerful that it now has you hearing the whisperings to go out and commit zina! So much for ‘harmless’ pornography! As I said, you have opened a door and let a monster into your life. Now, you have to decide – really decide – if you are going to allow that monster to destroy your life or if you are going to get control of it once and for all.
From what you wrote, brother, there is clearly something missing in your life that you feel pornography is able to fill. There is intimacy and love that is missing and you are trying to fill the void with soul-less pornography. I think you will find that the more you view it, however, the more you become addicted to it and that hole in your heart that you are trying so hard to fill is actually growing bigger. Your emptiness increases, your despair widens, your lack of control over your life runs amok. You have even mentioned in your question this emptiness that you feel most of the time. That’s because you can never fill the need for real intimacy/love with porn! If your nafs have their way and you finally give into your desires to commit zina (may Allah protect you from that!), I assure you that it will not be what you thought it would be. Temporary gratification through meaningless sex is not going to help. It will not make that emptiness go away and you will be right back where you started, having committed a capital crime according to the law of God. Is that really what you want? All because you want to live out a fantasy that exists only in your mind and is not going to make your emptiness go away? You are being ruled – literally – by a mind filled with illusion. You are living an illusion, being taken away from your wife and your life by an illusion. Doesn’t that make you angry? Embarrassed? Ashamed? Well, it should!
You need to find love – true love – which is and can only be love of Allah. When love of Allah is achieved then all one can feel is love, and the hole is filled and there is never any need for resorting to vices for a ‘quick fix.’ Do you feel like that? Do you feel like a drug addict? Well that is what drug addicts do – they seek quick fixes to deal with the feeling of separation resulting from the big hole they have inside. Addiction is just a means for covering up the deep pain we feel inside. That is what you have to address in the long term if you are ever going to really get past this addiction to porn.
In the meantime, however, you need to do everything you can to make porn inaccessible.
If you view it at home on the Internet, get rid of your Internet. Whatever means you use, get rid of it. Make it really hard for you to access it. That’s one.
· Number two is go out and seek not just any counselor, but a counselor of the heart. Go out and do all you can to find someone who can help you find your heart and teach you how to make Allah the center of your world. Only Allah can fill this hole inside of you, but you need to know how to do it.
· Travel to Africa if you have to in order to find this teacher (I’m not serious, but the idea is to make a commitment to do this and sacrifice if you have to). This is not just any counselor, but someone that understands how the heart works and what it needs. This person is rare and not easy to find so it is going to take effort. But what choice do you have?
You have let the monster in and now you need to do something drastic before you destroy yourself, your marriage and God knows what else. Perhaps when you accept the fact that you need to make some major sacrifices to deal with this problem, perhaps then you will see the answer to your du’aa' that you have been asking for. Allah rewards sincerity, remember. Ikhlas is a prerequisite for the answering of our prayers. Ikhlas translates into struggle and sacrifice. Think of the drug addict or alcoholic when they go into rehab. They must first go through a period of detox. Go see how that experience is described – nothing less than a living hell. That is the kind of sacrifice that is required to overcome such addictions. Sometimes, in order to reach heaven we have to walk through hell first so that we can appreciate the gift that awaits us at the end of the journey. We cannot expect Allah to answer our prayers before we have made a sincere commitment to change. Remember, it is only when our hearts have changed that Allah will change our condition. So get to work on your heart and what you need to purify it, to clean it of the idols inside that are taking the form of pornography and keeping you away from a full life in Islam.
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