The post is developed in partnership with BetterHelp.
There is significant research that shows that pornography addictions can ruin relationships. The unattainable and unrealistic standards it sets for beauty, love, and sex make relationships boring or disappointing in comparison.
But what about the rest of the family? Does a pornographic addiction affect children too? Yes, it seems that no one is unaffected when someone in the house is addicted to pornography.
Read on to learn about how the adverse effects that a pornography addiction has on the entire family.
Decreased Intimacy
Pornography promotes unrealistic beauty and sex standards. These videos can make normal sex boring and less enjoyable. Furthermore, the user’s spouse may seem less attractive to them since they cannot possibly live up to the edited appearances of the actors in porn. All of these factors often make sex less appealing, so intimacy in marriages and relationships often declines as a result.
Emotional Disconnect
Someone who is addicted to porn may withdraw from their partner and family to spend time in their pornographic fantasies. If this behavior is consistent, they will begin to disconnect from their partner and children.
In addition, individuals who are addicted to porn often become bored by real life. Therefore, they may not be interested in spending time with their family and maybe too addicted to their pornographic fantasies instead. Without making an effort to spend time with their family, the emotional connections between the family members disintegrate.
Insecurity
If an individual becomes aware of their partner’s porn usage, they may become insecure about their looks or sexual abilities. They know they can’t compete with photoshopped images and edited videos, so they may struggle to make their partners happy. This can have damaging consequences on their self-esteem and further damage the relationship.
Furthermore, if the parent using porn avoids the family to partake in this habit, the children may blame themselves for their parent’s emotional absence. Therefore, they may become insecure as well, thinking that their parent doesn’t love them or that they did something wrong.
Creates A Bad Influence For The Children
If the children in a porn user’s family become aware of their parent’s habit, they may partake in porn use themselves. This can be extremely problematic as children are much more impressionable than adults. They will be highly influenced by the unattainable beauty and sex standards that are exhibited in porn videos and believe that these apply to real life. Therefore, they may develop great distress or hurt potential future relationships by upholding themselves and others to these standards.
Furthermore, many porn videos encourage dangerous and harmful behaviors such as violence, rape, or incest. Children may think that these acts are normal and try to harm others in these ways. This can have obvious devastating consequences and may put their future partners in danger.
Separation Or Divorce
If the pornography addiction is not treated and little effort is made to repair the relationship, then a couple may get separated or divorced. The unrealistic fantasies can make the relationship unappealing and cause a great strain between the partners. The emotional disconnect, insecurity, and decreasing intimacy may be too much of a strain and can cause the relationship to deteriorate.
Final Thoughts
Porn addictions rarely affect just the user. Due to the harmful behaviors and unrealistic standards it promotes, pornography can significantly affect the mental health of the loved ones of the person using it. Without awareness of these issues and treatment of the addiction, a porn user may lose their partner and family because of this habit. To learn more about pornography’s effects on the family and how to treat a pornography addiction, head on over to BetterHelp for more information and advice.