Sexual temptation should scare the hell out of a married man. There is a reason why St. Paul says there should not be even a hint of sexual immortality among the brethren (Eph 5:3), and that even a little leaven (of false teaching) works its way through the whole dough (Gal 5:9). Once you open that door, it's hard to shut.
We have a conscience for a reason, and it should be well-formed. When it is, you know when certain actions are appropriate or inappropriate. We cannot always avoid temptation from besieging us, but we can use prudence to discern the situations we put ourselves in. Even then, the mind does not always rest. Thoughts and temptations that enter the mind that are not accented to are not sins, but temptations. And temptations are to be resisted. "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (Ja 4:7)
Or are they? In his second letter to Timothy, St. Paul notes that we should be the ones fleeing such temptations and desires: "Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." (2 Tim 2:22).
So, when does one stand and resist the Devil, and when does one recognize that their best defense is to flee?
When it comes to sexual temptation, we only have the upper hand insofar as we refuse to engage the temptation, whether in thought or action. Once the seed has taken root--and that may be lingering a few seconds too long on an image or memory, or purposefully knowing where to look or who to call, etc--it is slippery, wily, seductive...and much more difficult to leave alone. In this case, the best course of action is to flee the scene, as Joseph did from his master's wife (Gen 39:7-9).
When we pause to entertain the possibility, even for a split second, we have the potential to lose our resolve. In fact, because of concupiscence, it is not that we hate what offends God, but that we are in fact attracted to it, pulled by it! The fruit of sensuality is sweet and intoxicating, and keeps temperance smothered in a nearby closet as it speaks. A man is undone by his member.
It's not only our members, though, that will cause us to fall. It starts with the eye, the window to the soul. And even before that, thoughts arise from the mind. If I am entertaining memories of wistful times with an ex-girlfriend during the doldrums of my marriage, eventually that split second of thought turns to two. The next thing I know, my heart rate is up, I'm excited, discontent with the present and maybe even looking them up online, "just out of curiosity." Then you have situations like this, which are more common than you might think:
"Karen* was just going about her day when she logged into her Facebook account and saw a private message from Richard*. They casually dated back in high school and he wanted to catch up.
"At the first email contact," says the married mother of three, "he was a completely insignificant person from my high school past."
After weeks of exchanging emails and catching up with each other on life experiences, Karen asked Richard to call her. When she hung up the phone after an hour-and-a-half chat, Karen’s world came crashing down.
"By the time we ended that first call," Karen says, "I was sobbing because I knew I was in deep trouble with an attraction to him and realized [my] marriage was in deeper trouble than I had admitted to myself."
Her husband accused her of unfaithfulness by having these conversations and developing these feelings. She insisted she was driven to these conversations out of feeling emotionally stunted in the marriage. Although Karen and Richard never met face-to-face, her 16-year marriage eventually came to an end."
I actually had an incident come up in the past year which was maybe innocuous, but had the potential to defray. A female friend from college had reached out to me via LinkedIn because she had seem one of my articles. I hadn't spoken with her for years, so it was kind of exciting to reconnect, since she was a faithful Catholic as well. I gave her my number and told her to give me a call sometime.
It was nice to catch up about the faith and our current lives, and she asked if it could be a weekly phone conversation. I was okay with a one-off conversation, and even a follow up one, but this felt a little...dangerous to me. Although there was a part of me that liked the idea, and I could kind of rationalize that it was innocent enough because we were talking about religious things, and she was in a different part of the country, the part of me that wasn't comfortable with it was enough to cast doubt on the wisdom of such engagement. If I continued on, I would be hiding it from my wife. So I brought it up to her (my wife), and deduced I would have to just be frank with my friend and tell her I couldn't continue with these kinds of conversations, innocent as they were. My wife concurred. I had to run away.
After I told my friend I couldn't have regular conversations with her, I didn't hear from her again, and that is probably for the best. I'm both a weak man and a naive one, and that's not a great combination. Were I to "resist" these attractions while still subjecting myself to them, the potential to be undone by them would be ever present. Best to just flee the scene, even if it is embarrassing or gruff. Apart from my faith, my marriage is the most important thing in my life. Even a hint of threat to it is too much.
If your conscience is well formed, you know when there is a threat. I do have female friends who I speak with, but my wife knows them, and we have an "open phone/computer" policy. When my conscience tells me I have nothing to hide, I am at peace. But when I get that sneaky feeling, like "I don't want my wife to see this," that's a red flag. That's when you throw fire on that flame, stomp it out asap or run away like a little girl. Embarrassment or losing your coat is a small price to pay for a clean conscience.
We do need to resist the Devil, so that he will flee from us, as St. James says. We don't need to be afraid of him when we are cloaked in the mantle of the Lord and our Lady.
But we need to be smart--sometimes digging our heels in and fighting is not the best tactic. Fight when you need to fight, run when you need to run, and learn in prayer when to know the difference. Keep everything in the light, keep nothing secret from your spouse. The moment you start to feel excitement, tingling, anticipation, etc at the prospect of something that has the potential to turn into sin, you are playing with fire. And fire can spread quickly, and get out of control before you realize what's going on.
Our first parents were not overtaken by brute strength in the garden, but a smooth tongue. And we are still paying the price of that fall. Don't make the same mistake! "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths" (Prov 3:5-6).
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