There are many types of abuse related to pornography addiction. Sexual abuse, gaslighting, manipulation, verbal abuse, emotional abuse.
A lot of times the abuse that goes along with pornography consumption is just that, abuse driven by addiction. We will talk about the differences in abuse driven by addiction vs narcissism in another blog post.
The one I want to discuss right now is manipulation.
ma·nip·u·la·tion
/məˌnipyəˈlāSHən/
noun
the action of manipulating something in a skillful manner.
"the format allows fast picture manipulation"
2. the action of manipulating someone in a clever or unscrupulous way.
"there was no deliberate manipulation of visitors' emotions"
Those with an addiction to pornography are well versed in this skill. They have to be in order to continue to hide their activities. Often those being manipulated don't even know it is happening. Unless it is pointed out to them or revealed to them Divinely.
I remember a couple of different instances of being manipulated though I didn't know at the time that was what was going on, I just knew how it made me feel.
When we were dating, my former spouse and I, one time he told me, "If something happened to you or you broke up with me, I would kill myself." The feeling I had hearing that was yucky, sinking and stuck with me.
It worked though, I didn't break up with him even when things felt weird. I tried to talk to my mother about what I was feeling but didn't have words for it, so couldn't describe it to her.
This next example could also fall under emotional abuse.
Another way he manipulated me and a minister is by saying that his pornography addiction was my fault. I didn't want to have sex with him so he turned to pornography, never mind that I didn't want to have sex with him because he had raped me several times, but that is a story for another blog post. I carried that for so long until one day a light bulb went off in my head (I believe that Yahweh revealed it to me). At one point he had said that he had looked at porn since he was 12, yet here we were years after that and he was saying that his porn use was my fault. We didn't meet until we were 18, got married at 20. WHOA, hold on! His pornography use had nothing to do with me!
The weight I felt fall off of me was huge. And I never picked that belief up again!
Being aware can be so freeing and empowering, it doesn't stop them trying to manipulate you. What it does do is make it so that you recognize it and are harder to manipulate.
Being empowered when in relationship, no matter what kind of relationship it is, with a pornography addict is important for emotional and mental health!
What caused you to recognize when you were being manipulated?
What did you do about it?