“I'll quit when I get married”

This lie is tricky because it seems to make sense. You'll be having sex with a real person, so the craving to watch porn will go away, right? Nope. The craving won't go away because, at their core, sex and porn are opposites.

Real sex is a together experience — you and your beloved. Porn is a screenful of novelty, one different person after another. Real sex is about seeking your partner's gratification before your own. But porn is all about gratifying yourself.

Real sex is part of a relationship, complete with good things to enjoy and problems to overcome together. Relationships are built through time and effort. So what happens when you've argued with your spouse, or someone is too sick or busy for sex? Will you escape to porn?

Getting married does not make you a different person. If porn is how you cope now, you'll do the same thing when you're married. People do not quit when they get married — they too often find that porn has harmed their ability to be sexual in healthy, bonding ways with their spouse.

Marriage doesn't fix a porn habit any more than moving cities fixes alcoholism. Freedom requires doing the work now, not outsourcing it to a future relationship. Every day you start the work, you're building toward something real.