Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - So here's the million dollar question. How are men like us who work hard, have good motives and a God given purpose supposed to fulfill the calling on our lives and the dreams in our hearts, all while establishing sexual integrity, thriving relationships, and a meaningful connection with God? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Sathiya Sam. Welcome to Unleash the Man Within. Yo, yo, what is up, my man? It's Sathiya Sam here. I'm your host. Welcome to Unleash the Man Within. And I'm so glad you're here. And I'm super honored that you would take a little bit of time to listen to our podcast. I promise we will make it worth your while, especially today. We're talking a little bit about your romantic life. Bow bow wow. No, for real though, we're going to talk about how porn interplays with romance and your romantic life. And I can tell you that if you take some of the tips I'm going to give you tonight.
Speaker 1 (00:01:05) - Tonight? I don't know why I went to night all of a sudden. I just got super sexy. Like, if you apply this tonight, trust me, I know that's not. That's not where I was going with this. If you if you apply what we talk about today, you should see a pretty good shift in your romantic life. Now, before I do that really quickly, we are big on giving away free resources to the listeners of this podcast. And so if you go to Cynthia slash resources, you can check them all out for yourself. I just uploaded a couple of trainings on how to handle triggers. I teach my Trigger Digger framework, which I'm telling you, like if you want to really learn how to master temptations, that thing will set you free. How to heal your brain from porn. Nice guy recovery course. My book The Last Relapses. There are five day Bible reading plans there. You can get all that stuff for free at Cynthia. Com slash resources. My gift to you.
Speaker 1 (00:01:57) - Now, before we go any more into that, I think I'll just say that you guys might be one resource away from recovery. Like you literally just could be one resource away. All you need is that final piece and you've just been waiting for it. And so I would go check it out. You can just skim through, see if anything there that you like and if there's not, no big deal. But I would hate for you guys to miss out on really valuable free content. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about the interplay between pornography and romantic life. And this is a really interesting conversation because there's there's a lot of camps out there that would suggest porn is actually better for you and for your romantic life. It's a great way to spice things up. And you hear all these stories of couples who, you know, felt a little stagnant in their sex life. And then, you know, one of them suggested, well, you know, why don't you try some porn or, you know, whatever.
Speaker 1 (00:02:52) - And, you know, the other one was kind of resistant and, oh, I don't know, I've never really done it. I feel a little bit weird, but, you know, if you're cool with it, okay. And then they try it and it's amazing and they have the most incredible experience together. And it's like, wow, we've we've never done that before. That was amazing. We got to keep we got to keep watching porn as part of this. And and there's even studies that show sexual satisfaction increases when couples view pornography to a certain extent for a certain length of time. But what happens at some point along the way is people realize, hey, wait a minute, this is changing the dynamic here romantically. And if you follow these couples over longer periods of time, the longer cohorts would suggest that actually pornography causes a significant plummet in reported relationship and sexual satisfaction and all of it. I'm leading with this today because it illustrates so beautifully what pornography is really providing for us, which is fake intimacy, pseudo connection, and temporary relief.
Speaker 1 (00:04:04) - So the reason that porn is killing your romantic life is because porn is conditioning you to be aroused by pixels rather than people. Porn addiction is an intimacy disorder. If you can learn how to experience healthy intimacy, you essentially do not need pornography any longer. Porn is fast food intimacy. We've said this before, right? It it temporarily satisfies the cravings, but it ultimately leaves you hungrier. That's what porn is. Healthy romance is when there is physical, emotional, and spiritual connection between two people. My wife and I have had the most romance in our marriage. When we are clicking on those three cylinders spiritually, emotionally and physically. And the interesting thing is that if the spiritual and the emotional connection are preserved and kept intact, the physical connection naturally follows. So let's think about what porn does on each of these fronts. Emotionally, porn numbs you. Nobody got more, became more sensitive, and got more in tune with their feelings by watching pornography. Number two, porn deprives you of a sense of purpose.
Speaker 1 (00:05:36) - Most people who watch porn have a sense somewhere deep in their conscience that this is wrong, but they do it anyway. So there is misalignment spiritually. Porn erodes people's confidence, especially when you want to quit and you try and you can't. It it it elicits this feeling of helplessness of I can't do it. I don't know how to do it. Something's wrong with me. So it becomes soul crushing spiritually. Let's let's not even forget the most important spiritual element, which is your relationship with God. Porn totally decimates your fluid connection with God, and you can still be connected to God and struggle with porn. I'm just saying that without porn, your connection to God is a lot stronger. And if your connection to God is a lot stronger then your connection to others, your romantic partner included, will also be stronger. Physically. Tomorrow I'm going to do an episode about the physical symptoms of porn addiction, but let me tell you, they are rampant. You know, you have porn induced erectile dysfunction on the rise, you have performance anxiety.
Speaker 1 (00:06:44) - You have guys who cannot. Be intimate with another person because porn is deconditioning them to be aroused by overproduced, stimulating. Pixels on a screen instead of a person in real life. So that's why porn is killing your romantic life. So if you want to have healthy romance, this is really hard for guys because it's spiritual, it's emotional and it's physical, right? Romance is those three components. And as I stated before, the the physical part takes care of itself when the spiritual and the emotional are looked after. So if you want to reverse the damage that porn is causing on your romantic life, you have to start making investments spiritually and emotionally into your romantic relationship. What I mean by that. Pray together. Read the Bible together. Worship together. Talk about what God is teaching you. Listen to what God is teaching her. Have have meaningful conversations that are robust about the Bible and Scripture and how to make sense of it and what God is speaking and saying and what God's teaching you. The sermons that you may be taking at church, like be the leader.
Speaker 1 (00:08:11) - Lead the charge or she's not interested. Find a way to get her interested. If you communicate it to her the right way, she will be interested. If she's not interested, it might actually be your fault because you're making it boring. Or you're not. You're not making. You're not framing it in a way that feels inviting and comfortable and safe for her. Emotionally. Guys, this is huge, right? When when we have a healthy emotional connection, this goes a really long way for basically everything in our in our lives, including the romance. So very, very important. And as I stated before, porn will suffocate this area of your life. So it's very important that you put in the effort. You have to be intentional because nobody's going to clean up or strengthen this area of your life for you. And when you do these two things, the physical naturally comes into place. And so I want to encourage you guys, I want to remind you that, again, at the heart of all addiction is connection.
Speaker 1 (00:09:09) - At the heart of porn addiction is intimacy. And if we can learn to strengthen our capacity for intimacy and we can have more healthy, fruitful in-person interactions or experiences of intimacy, then you and I as we know it, you and I can walk into greater levels of romance, greater depth of relationship in our marriage and connection, and ultimately live as God designed us to live. If porn persists, unfortunately, the opposite will be true. You will feel less confident. Your body will continue to feel weird and uncomfortable. It will be difficult to really feel connected, and you will probably live with a degree of misery, of misery. The guys that we work with, many of them, their marriages are in shambles. And sometimes it's because the wife is devastated by the porn addiction. Sometimes the wife doesn't even know when the marriage is in shambles. Why? Because porn naturally suffocates the romance and the relationship spiritually, emotionally and physically. And sometimes the wife knows and she doesn't care. But the marriage is still a wreck for all the same reasons.
Speaker 1 (00:10:23) - So I want to see you thriving. I want to see you healthy. I want to see your marriage in a good place. It's time to quit porn. Porn. You have to get porn out of the equation for you to have a shot at those things. So this is a reminder today, guys, that there's some easy things you can do. Lead spiritually okay. Lead spiritually. Take an interest in her emotional life. Listen to her. Ask good questions. And then number three, the physical part of it. Now when we talk about intimacy, we always think about sex when I say physical, but sometimes it just means being physically present. Sometimes it means that, you know, when you've had enough of your wife and you just need a break. Fine. Go take your break and breathe and do what you got to do. But come back. Be physically present. Be around. Do not abandon. Do not escape your responsibilities. That's not the time or the place to do it.
Speaker 1 (00:11:17) - Pursue these three things. And guys, I'm telling you, you will see a difference and obviously quit pornography. All those things go a very, very long way. In the meantime, that is everything for today. Thank you guys so much for listening. Appreciate you. We'll talk soon. Bye bye. Hey, everybody, it's Sathiya again. Thanks for listening to Unleash the Man Within. I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about a free e-book that I wrote for you, called The Ultimate Guide to Porn Recovery. It provides a basic framework for the recovery process and a few of my top tips completely free of charge. You can get it now at WWW Recovery guide.com. That's WWW Ultimate Recovery guide. Com. Now if you've been impacted by the podcast and you want to show some support in less than 60s, there are three ways you can do that. First, you can leave a rating or review on your podcast platform. This lets people like you know that the content here is valuable.
Speaker 1 (00:12:17) - Secondly, you can share this episode with someone in your life that might benefit from the content. If you're passionate about helping other people experience freedom and success in their lives, this is one of the easiest ways to do that. And lastly, you can subscribe. I personally only listen to the podcast that I subscribe to. If you're seeking daily encouragement, guidance and insight in your recovery journey, I highly recommend subscribing to Unleash the Man Within. Thanks for listening. I look forward to connecting with you very, very soon.
Speaker 2 (00:12:47) - The information, opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast by Sathiya Sam and his guests are for general information only and should not be considered medical, clinical or any other form of professional advice. Any reliance on the information provided is done at your own risk.
