A miraculous cure through Carlo Acutis. The heartbreaking testimony of a wife and mother who discovered that her husband was addicted to porn, and how he broke free from it.

I am now thirty-eight years old… Two years ago, we went through a terrible ordeal as a couple. We were married in church fifteen years ago and I can testify to the wonderful graces of the sacrament of marriage. When I discovered that my husband had fallen into the grip of pornography, I fell apart. “Anything except that!” I can’t explain it but you feel totally devastated and yet it wasn’t me who was searching for those images.

I loved my husband too much to believe that it was true, that he had fallen into this trap. I could see that he wasn’t feeling great. I have to say that there were many extenuating circumstances but I felt terrible about the fact that he was watching these videos. I felt alone. This subject is still considered a taboo, so who can you talk to about it? It is so hard; and it affects our intimacy as a couple.

God is so good that He hasn’t abandoned us. At the same time, the SOSPorn website had just been launched and I got an email about it. I had the courage to visit the website and I discovered the prayer of deliverance through Carlo Acutis’s intercession. So I prayed for my darling husband. Prayer is essential, but I still felt alone. I then took the decision to use the Chat facility and the Lord, in His infinite goodness, put me in touch with the right person at the right time. Thank you!

• Does this affect you? Talk to us via the chat! (There is no charge and you remain anonymous)

I was able to have a friendly chat and discussion. I was also able to confide in a friend who was a priest and who had given us a lot of support. I had a desire to save our marriage, our love and the man to whom I had committed my life and whom I loved. That’s when I moved heaven and earth. You know, when you have a sick child, you do everything to care for them, reassure them and cherish them, even when you are exhausted. Well, that’s what I set out to do for my beloved husband!

A prayer for a miraculous cure through Carlo…

I wanted to fight, to tell myself that it was possible to help him. It was a lot to take in. For sure! I used to cry a lot when I was alone. I got angry too.
Sometimes I said things to him and it was as though he’d been electrocuted. I also tried to continue to love him as he was, with his wounds, and to let myself be loved…

None of this would have been possible without the support of prayer. Thanks to SOSporn and its members, I really felt supported. I can truly say that my husband was miraculously cured through Carlo Acutis and thanks to SOSporn. In fact, during the beatification of Carlo Acutis and the veneration of his body by the faithful, members of SOSporn placed my husband’s name before Carlo, and Carlo’s mother also prayed for my husband. For my part, I prayed to Carlo a lot. He has become my little brother in heaven who watches over my darling husband, our marriage, and our family.

When my husband realized that he was hurting himself and our marriage, he agreed to let himself be helped… by me. I felt so weak but we had entrusted ourselves to each other on our wedding day. I let myself be led by the communion of saints, especially Carlo and Saints Louis and Zélie Martin.

We love the sanctuary at Alençon. We had planned to go and pray in the chapel, where there was Adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, but the sanctuary had to shut because of the Covid pandemic and it just offered an evening livestream. There was no way I could accept that! I explained to the nuns that it was vital that we pray in person at the sanctuary. They told me that they would discern what to do and call me back. In the meantime, I expressly asked Carlo for his intercession because if my husband was ready to let himself be loved by the Lord, we really shouldn’t lose the opportunity! The sisters called me back an hour later to say that they would make an exception for us and that we could go. Thank you Lord! Thank you Carlo!

A few months later, my husband agreed to go on the At the Heart of Men retreat. But then the possibility of a third lockdown started looming. I prayed… I had my family and friends pray… I explained to the Lord once again how vital it was. Thank goodness! The retreat was still on and my husband left with his good friend. His wife said that I really had faith because the retreat was so close to being cancelled. Thank you Lord! Thank you Carlo! He returned from this retreat transformed. Over time, my husband has changed a lot, for the better. We have nothing to hide anymore. We love each other as we are. This may seem easy to say, but it is a daily struggle. I lost confidence in myself and in him, and today I am trying to regain my confidence.

The only thing for me now is that we love each other in weakness. This trial has made me understand how a wounded person can let themselves be fooled. Since then, I have become more compassionate towards human suffering.
The battle is not yet won because temptation exists. We are vigilant. Patience and perseverance make it possible to keep going. I know with a deep certainty that Carlo is watching over us. I ask him to look after my husband every day.

Now, these words are for you, my darling husband. You know how much I have always loved you. You know how much I have always believed in our calling to marriage. Just like the great hero King David, you – the hero of my heart – have fallen. I’ve learned that forgiveness has a price, especially when it hurts a lot. But you can be sure that I have forgiven you. Thanks to you, I understood how patient God is when I walk away from Him. You have taught me patience… You have taught me to forgive. I love you.

Do you too want to receive help from heaven to get rid of this addiction? We are here to pray with you and ask Carlo Acutis for his intercession:

Going further:

• Help! My husband recently disclosed his porn addiction to me.
• What does pornography do to marriages? 
• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis

 

What do you do if you discover that your child has already viewed pornographic images?

If you find out that your child has already seen pornographic images, you must have the courage to talk to them about it and tell them that porn has nothing to do with love and that it defiles them.

Learn to say NO to porn!

Pornographic images are untruthful and degrading. They seriously damage how we see people and how we view love because they reduce a person to just a body and the sexual act to a technique.

You must explain to your child that these images will mark them, that it will be difficult to break free from them and that the attraction of pornography is as strong as a drug addiction.

When you start looking at these types of images, it’s very hard not to keep going back to them, even though you know it harms you and stops you from growing as a person. It will take a lot of willpower and often a lot of help to never fall back into it.

You also need to know how to say to your child:

“You can break free of this, but you have to want it. Do you want it?”

Also see:

• How to stop watching porn: 10 techniques
  

Prevention is better than cure: parents should warn their children about the dangers of pornography as soon as they are allowed to be alone in front of a screen. Then, don’t forget to protect all of your children’s computers and cell phones with effective parental controls.

A teenager may be able to bypass parental control, but they will not “accidentally” come across a pornographic website. It may be possible to appeal to their sense of personal responsibility.  Parental filters prevent children from being unintentionally exposed to inappropriate images, for example, when a teacher asks them to look something up.

We should take this opportunity to ask whether it is a good idea to buy smartphones for our children. Are they really necessary for their development? Don’t they pose a real danger to our children today?

And how about you? What do you think? Talk to us now via the live chat (There is no charge and you remain anonymous):Going further:

• What’s wrong with looking at pornography?
• What are the consequences of porn on your health ?
• François’s recovery from a 25-year porn addiction.

 

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Source: adapted from the book by Inès de Franclieu, Amour et sexualité, comment en parler aux enfants et aux adolescents, (Love and sexuality, how to talk to children and teenagers) Editions Quasar 2016.

Why do i keep falling, in spite of all the efforts I make to get ouf of porn ?

 

Is this a question you’ve asked yourself before? You make all these efforts to stop using porn but it doesn’t work? It’s important to first identify why you’re relapsing and then you can be savvy about reacting where it’s needed.

Do you know why you keep relapsing?

It’s because every time you say to yourself, “I won’t fall into pornography again”, you don’t replace it with another activity, it creates a hole in your schedule, and your body misses it.

It’s important to know that the body hates emptiness, it’s perpetually searching for pleasure, so if you don’t choose to fill this emptiness, your body will do it for you.

And for your body, it’s very simple; you were doing it already and it gave you pleasure, so why stop? Why deprive yourself of this pleasure? And so, it’ll tell you, “Look just once more, it’ll be the last time, this time, take it for yourself, then that’ll be it”.

You’ll find yourself so exposed to thoughts like this that you end up giving in. This is how you find yourself relapsing, time and again. An endless cycle…

What should you do in this case?

How can you strengthen your efforts to stop using porn?

You must fill the hole, for your body to be in balance, so your body doesn’t feel the recurring need or emptiness.

On the one hand there is: “stopping to visit pornography websites and exposing yourself to images of a pornographic nature” and on the other hand “replacing it with other activities to help you regenerate and to break the addiction”.

Concretely, the time you previously used for destroying yourself, you can now use to rebuild yourself, by reading the Bible for example, praying, playing sports, spending more time with your family, your friends, your colleagues, and concentrating on long-term and short-term projects, reforging for yourself a new mentality…

By doing what you’re meant to be doing, you’ll no longer have the time to do what you shouldn’t be.

For there to be a real and definitive change, you must be conscious of the fact you’re still vulnerable, you’ll always face the temptation to go back, so you have to adopt the right attitude, avoiding a maximum, any exposure to pictures or thoughts which could drive you towards pornography again, and most importantly you must point your thoughts, reflexions and your mind in general towards positive and regenerating activities.

Getting out of pornography; here are 10 best techniques.

Don’t hesitate to talk to us via the chat (free and anonymous), and ask us your questions. We’re here for you!

 

Going further:

• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis
• François’s recovery from a 25-year porn addiction
• Prayer for deliverance from porn addiction, what good can it do?

Sir Josaphat Bakajika
@Sir_Josaphat_B