Wednesday – Maturity

By JP

Day 3 and I am going to write about my maturity. I was a full grown adult man so why wasn’t I mature? Once the fog of my of my addiction was lifted and I got to the root cause, I realized the truth. My early exposure to porn stunted my maturity. Instead of maturing in a normal manner, I became stuck at about 13. My body changed but my mind did not.

Instead of facing my emotions and learning how to deal with them, I chose to escape. I retreated back into my head and sought the feeling that gave me a moment of relief. Some of my behavior over the years didn’t make any sense to me until I looked at it through the eyes of 13 year old boy. I continued to repeatedly do stupid things knowing the consequences. Why would a full grown man lose his livelihood by doing something stupid? A mature adult man would not, but an immature 13 year would. I’m not excusing my behavior in any way. I made a choice to stay where I was and I kept doing stupid things to hurt my marriage.

At this point in my recovery I am still maturing. I’m in a better place now, but 40 years of being stuck takes time to undo. I have my moments where I let my anger get the best of me and I say something hurtful to my wife. I’m getting better about catching myself and seeing it for what it is. I apologize and work through it to hopefully not repeat again.