A Man’s Information to Overcoming Temptation

February 25, 2025

Final week, I posted about the sacredness of sex. 

So this week, I’m impressed to proceed with the subject of intercourse, specifically, the potential cheapening of it.

If you happen to’re a lady studying this, particularly should you’re a married or soon-to-be-married lady, chances are you’ll not wish to tune out. It’s necessary to know what goes via a man’s mind if he occurs to be doing the vast majority of his pondering with that particular organ, which you’ll quickly discover out isn’t essentially the case. 

If you happen to’re a man, then positively preserve studying. It may prevent quite a lot of bother sooner or later. 

Intercourse & The Touring Businessman

Right here’s the factor: I journey a LOT for work. 

Whether or not educating diet at a yoga clinic in South America, blasting onto a stage in a packed Vegas convention room, or (as is the case whereas I’m penning this) visiting 9 cities in twelve days throughout India for entrepreneur well being teaching, one of many main methods I carry dwelling the bacon to feed my household is by spending loads of time in airplanes and lodge rooms.  

For a lot of that journey, I’m 100% solo.

Meaning I’m a married man touring alone—with no spouse, no wingman, and almost nonexistent accountability—whereas additionally, on account of my standing as a public determine perceived as wholesome, highly effective, and influential, ceaselessly encountering a plethora of enticing, aggressive girls who make their intentions clear, whether or not via Instagram booty calls, not-so-subtle touches, or outright propositions to “get in my pants,” so to talk. And that’s not even contemplating the limitless entry to pornography on my tv and smartphone, obtainable anytime with out the necessity to sneak away or disguise. In any case, as I discussed, I’m normally alone.

As you possibly can think about, fixed sexual temptation is one thing I’ve needed to be taught to cope with gracefully and virtuously, particularly by preserving my pants on and my tongue in my very own mouth. 

Admittedly, there was a time after I didn’t do a very good job coping with all of it. The flattery, the short-term pleasure, and the justifications to myself {that a} one-night stand isn’t actually an emotionally connected or a long-term relationship left me coming dwelling a number of occasions to my household having been sexually untrue and having to cover my very own lack of ethical excellence for concern of being shamed. 

It’s concerning the worst feeling on the planet to take your spouse out on a date after a bout of journey escapades and attempt to shut down the psychological scream inside your head that you simply’ve cheated on the harmless and trusting life accomplice sitting throughout from you. It’s additionally shattering, as a hypocritical father, to lecture your sons about faithfulness whereas imagining them rising as much as be identical to you—violating their relationship with their very own wives and households. It’s necessary to notice that the few seconds of delight derived from a short-term hookup are by no means, ever, ever value it. You mainly hate your self afterward. It’s horrible, and it’s by no means fulfilling. Ever.

Contemplating it is a huge downside that tears households aside, destroys legacy, and implodes dwelling life, it’s one thing that you could deeply care about should you’re a married man or future married man studying this, particularly should you journey typically like I do. I think I can’t be the one married man on the market who has to navigate this path.

However, should you’re nonetheless studying at this level, you most likely already know that the basic infidelity of the touring businessman is an enormous downside.

Whereas it’s definitely necessary to know the chaos that unfaithfulness, whether or not in analog or digital kind, wreaks upon your closest, dearest relationships, it’s simply as necessary to know what precisely to do about it.

So, that’s what I’m going to share now: seven sensible ideas, from the trenches, on how I’ve—by the grace of God—developed a thick-skinned resilience to sexual immorality, how I’ve remodeled my relationship with my spouse via over a decade of devoted faithfulness, and how one can too.

1. Pray 

God doesn’t need you to cheat. 

Whereas Romans 5:3-5 says that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance, character, this doesn’t imply God is haphazardly tossing temptations your method with no method of escape, all whereas rubbing His arms collectively and ready so that you can succumb to inevitable demise. The Bible says that God is not going to tempt you past your potential and that He will present a method out of temptation. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “No temptation has overtaken you besides what’s widespread to mankind. And God is trustworthy; he is not going to allow you to be tempted past what you possibly can bear.” 

Moreover, Matthew 26:41 says, “Watch and pray that you could be not enter into temptation. The spirit certainly is keen, however the flesh is weak”

It’s painfully apparent, isn’t it? Remember and pray when you understand temptation is coming at you.

That is simpler mentioned than achieved. You’ll be able to’t precisely drop to your knees at a cocktail celebration when a stunning lady in a slinky, quick skirt is stroking your arm—telling you along with her lips how a lot she admires what you’ve completed whereas telling you along with her eyes that she’d like to perform one thing for you herself.

I’ll let you know precisely what works for me in a state of affairs like this: I excuse myself to a nook of the bar, duck behind a curtain, or slip into a toilet stall and say one easy prayer that simply works. It’s referred to as “the Jesus prayer.”

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

This works like magic. You’ll be able to nearly really feel the sexual demons slipping away while you say it. Jesus understands. He’s been there. Hebrews 4:15 says, “He was tempted in each method that we’re, however he didn’t sin.”

And certain, it is best to preserve a continuing state of prayer that goes deeper than only a single sentence. However while you’re in a pinch—your lust accelerating to full velocity, your physique betraying you, and also you want a determined name for Christ who strengthens you—that is the prayer to have memorized. I exploit it typically.

2. Empathize

Anytime I’m tempted to ask a lady into my lodge room or pull up porn on my laptop computer, I think about how I’d really feel if I walked in on my spouse doing the identical factor. Put your self in her footwear.

The subsequent time you’re feeling like masturbating to porn, ask your self how you’ll really feel should you walked in on her within the bed room pleasuring herself to some random dude on the display of her smartphone together with his pants pulled down.

Or let’s say a lady on the lodge bar, or possibly two, asks what you’re as much as later and what your room quantity is. Certain, this feels like a improbable time, however how would you’re feeling should you acquired dwelling and walked in in your spouse with one man beneath her and one other behind her?

I throw up in my mouth simply desirous about a dude or two banging my spouse. So how is it any completely different for me to entertain the concept of doing the identical factor with girls?

It doesn’t should be as excessive as that. For instance, do you have to need your spouse speaking to an alpha male at a convention afterparty the identical method you’re standing in actually, actually shut proximity to that lady batting her eyes at you? Would you need your spouse getting a rub-down from a heartthrob male therapeutic massage therapist? Would you need her giving facet hugs, bear hugs, and again rubs to random dudes when she’s off on a visit?

So don’t do to her what you wouldn’t need achieved to you.

By the way in which, though I do favor the tender contact of a feminine therapeutic massage therapist, I at all times select the ugly or actually previous ones if I want some deep tissue work after I’m on the street.

3. Sleep 

Generally you simply gotta get your ass to sleep. The later you keep at an after-party, the crazier it will get. The later you hang around on the bar or restaurant, the extra determined and aggressive the other intercourse acts. The later you keep awake in your lodge room, the extra interesting free porn turns into.

In terms of each morality and productiveness, I dwell by the mentality that ‘extra good issues occur within the morning than within the night.’ Within the morning, you learn, pray, work, stretch, train, and drink espresso. Within the night, you eat, make small speak, devour leisure, lounge round, or sit an excessive amount of—and infrequently, you drink alcohol.

So fall asleep, already.

Once more, it is simpler mentioned than achieved, proper?

Right here’s how I paint myself right into a nook: after I stroll into my lodge room, even when there’s FOMO brewing in my mind to go hit one other celebration or an interesting textual content on my cellphone from some hottie I met a number of hours earlier, I instantly implement sensible sleep hygiene rules, specifically:

• Flip the temperature down as little as it goes.
• Put your cellphone and laptop in night time mode and/or airplane mode.
• Pop your sleep cocktail of selection (to not get all commercialized right here, however I do Kion Sleep + Component Well being Max Energy CBD + a whopping sledgehammer of Mitozen Melatonin).
• Play some actually enjoyable sleep noise or a white noise sleep app.
• Get the room as darkish as potential, and I imply actually darkish.
• Pull on a sleep masks, curl up in mattress, and say your prayers.

Sure, I do know if I had been an actual robust man and a extremely robust Christian, I ought to have the opportunity to withstand temptation via sheer prayer and a contact of willpower, with out inducing a near-comatose sleep state.

However I’m simply sharing what works for me.

4. Porn

You most likely raised an eyebrow at that one, proper?

No, I’m not endorsing that you simply whip out your bank card and whip down your pants whereas justifying to your self that at the very least you’re not dishonest with an actual human. The great of turning down analog intercourse doesn’t justify the ugliness of turning to digital intercourse.  

I’m speaking about wifey-porn, guys.

You already know that “hidden” picture characteristic in your cellphone? It’s not only for storing a financial institution assertion picture or Bitcoin passphrase screenshots.

Contemplate politely asking your spouse to do a photograph shoot for you. 

A extremely soiled one. 

Inform her your favourite poses, positions, and fantasies, then let her go to city and textual content or Airdrop you every little thing. Be happy so as to add a bit extra to your partner’s spank financial institution arsenal while you’re making love along with her (tip: use a tripod should you don’t wish to kill the vibe by cradling your cellphone in a single hand and her within the different). In case your spiritual or non secular convictions make you query whether or not wifey porn is correct, check out the softcore poetry within the Bible’s Song of Solomon for some inspiration.

Then, the following time you’ve been on a street journey for a number of days and have blue balls, or you could don’t have anything in your thoughts however her, open that hidden picture folder and proceed to have a extremely, actually good time with your self.

And to not be painfully apparent, however should you use this technique, please don’t share your cellphone passcode along with your children. You do not need them attempting to erase these photographs from their reminiscence whereas mother is making them breakfast within the kitchen. 

P.S. Do share your cellphone passcode along with your spouse. She ought to have the ability to see all of your texts, calls, browser historical past, and many others. each time she likes. That too will assist preserve you behaving.

5. Train

Certain, your pure testosterone ranges when away out of your partner coupled along with your pent-up sexual vigor is usually a potent mixture to make you ultra-horny.

However that doesn’t imply that further power must be directed in direction of intercourse or jacking off. It additionally doesn’t imply it is best to attempt to tie a rubber band round your testicles or search out some sort of libido-decreasing herb. 

As an alternative, there’s nothing like a very good exercise routine, particularly a soul-crushing, death-defying bout that leaves lactic acid bleeding out of your ears, to make you a bit extra calm and higher behaved afterward.

As a matter of reality, my exercise routine on the street is very devoted and actually laborious. I by no means skip a beat as a result of it serves as a cathartic rigidity launch—and from expertise, I can let you know that it significantly turns down the lust dial.

For instance, on a mean street journey, I’ll alternate between:

• Push day (overhead press, bench press, push-up, squat, leg press, and many others.).
• Pull day (pull-up, pull-down, row, deadlift, and many others.).
• Core/cardio day (rowing machine, treadmill, bike, planks, leg raises, and many others.).

I like to recommend having an in depth plan like mine put collectively earlier than you even arrive at your last vacation spot. Paired with making issues as frictionless as potential by having your exercise garments and footwear laid out for you subsequent to the mattress and a robust cup of espresso inside arm’s attain, you’ll have the ability to direct a few of that “life power” in direction of muscle-building as a substitute of home-wrecking.

6. Name-A-Good friend

Generally, issues get actually robust, and it appears like you possibly can’t deal with it alone with simply you and God. Generally, you want a pal to step in and warn you earlier than you cost headfirst into catastrophe—sort of like a rutting male elk, so pushed by intuition as a substitute of knowledge that he doesn’t understand he’s about to stroll straight right into a looking blind.

It’s these occasions for which you want a digital wingman from afar—a man pal with whom you possibly can share your most embarrassing ideas and weak tendencies. 

That is the pal who you possibly can textual content or name everytime you want and who understands you and will get it while you name him at 11:18 pm on a Saturday night time sweating bullets since you nearly made a mistake that might price you half your property and no extra Christmas along with your in-laws.

You assume that’s too humiliating?

Look: all of us guys undergo the identical struggles that you simply do. The issue is, we simply don’t speak about it with one another. However we’ve all thought and skilled the identical issues, besides possibly that Ned Flanders-esque pal who looks like he by some means left his libido in sixth grade. 

Guest Emeal Zwayne on The Dad Edge podcast eloquently described this concept of males being embarrassed to share their sexual struggles and temptations with different males. His guide, Fight Like A Man, goes into way more depth on this subject than this temporary article and is value a learn, particularly should you want a extremely detailed, well-written handbook for private purity. 

So, confide in a buddy. Be weak—whether or not it’s asking him to hope so that you can give up happening the slippery Instagram softcore-to-Web-porn-hardcore rabbit gap or to verify in on you daily till you’re again dwelling to be sure you keep trustworthy. Belief me, he’d need you to do the identical for him, and this sort of uncooked, trustworthy, radical transparency is what deepens the bonds of male friendship.

7. Construct Legacy

This final tip is by far essentially the most highly effective for me.

Two years in the past, whereas in India, I was interviewed by entrepreneur Mukesh Bansal. The dialogue turned to anti-aging, longevity, and—as such discussions typically do—finally progressed into the concept of whether or not I believed human immortality was attainable.

I mentioned “Sure.”

And I didn’t imply that I figured we’d finally decode cryopreservation of our brains and repeatedly implant them right into a contemporary new physique again and again, in perpetuity. Nor did I imply that I anticipate that someday quickly we may mainline designer medicine into our bloodstream to show again the clock perpetually. Nor was I even referring to the immortality attained via Christian salvation. 

As an alternative, I described how a person’s offspring permits that man’s rules, philosophies, targets, goals, and needs to be carried out by subsequent generations who occur to bear his genes and final title.

That is one cause legacy is so, so necessary within the Greenfield dwelling. We’ve got a family mission statement, a family set of core values, a family logo, a family crest, and a family constitution. Heck, we even have the Greenfield household flags flying proudly exterior the entrance door, the Greenfield household brand on the large signal on the finish of the driveway, and Greenfield household pickleball paddles, pepper grinder, cup coasters, throw pillows, hoodies, and hats we put on for an evening out in town. Woven into our yearly traditions and day by day comings and goings is the sense that we’re a robust household unit with a shared perception and goal and that by working collectively as a cohesive pack we will truly have an effect on long-term optimistic change on the planet.

Perhaps for this reason men who become fathers experience a slight decrease in testosterone. It’s as if we now have a built-in braking system on our pure propensity to sow our seeds far and broad in order that we will as a substitute deal with offering for and defending our household—in order that we will, in a method, dwell on perpetually via our lineage. 

Clearly, nevertheless, there’s nonetheless greater than sufficient testosterone within the common household man to make sexual sin a tormenting actuality. However when there’s an urge to cheat, to weaken the bonds of a spousal relationship with porn, to surrender and stroll away from household life as a result of it’s simply too complicated and difficult, or to fly free like your sexy inside chicken generally desires to, there’s nothing like a robust sense of legacy to maintain your ft firmly grounded. 

What do you select, and what appears extra interesting? The long-term reward of this sort of “immortality” constructed via generational legacy…

…or the short-term pleasure of a thirty-second orgasm?

Don’t fret in case your youngsters are already youngsters, you don’t have a household structure, and goal and legacy don’t really feel like they’re a remotely vital a part of your loved ones. In any case, the very best time to plant a tree is twenty years in the past, or immediately. If you wish to be taught extra about constructing generational wealth, listen to my podcast interview with Rich Christiansen or learn my guide Boundless Parenting.  

Abstract

OK, a fast assessment right here.

First, pray. Pray lots while you journey, however have some quick prayers memorized for when the blood movement appears to be getting directed away out of your mind and in direction of your crotch. 

Second, empathize. Put your self in her footwear. 

Third, know tips on how to induce your self right into a comatose-like sleep state. 

Fourth, have your spouse provide you with some actually attractive images and movies of her, ideally express sufficient to depart nothing to your creativeness. 

Fifth, train. Redirect power. 

Sixth, have a wingman.

Seventh, and most significantly, construct the sort of legacy that makes dishonest appear to pale compared to generation-building.

So there you’ve gotten it. 

That’s how I don’t cheat after I journey.

After all, I’m not excellent. I’m no know-it-all. There are issues I don’t do but that I most likely ought to and issues I ignored of this text I most likely shouldn’t have.

So, what questions do you’ve gotten, and what ideas do you have for the fellows on the market who wish to keep trustworthy?

Moreover, listed here are a number of different nice assets you possibly can dig into on the subject on intercourse, intimacy, and connection:

• Best of Intimacy and Biohacking Sex: Optimize Libido, Orgasm Enhancement, Thrust In Time, Better Erections Naturally, Breathwork & More.
• How to Improve Your Sex Life: 12 Biohacks for Better Orgasms, Sexual Health & Intimacy
• How To Biohack Your Sex Life — Ben Greenfield
• How to Optimize Your Brain, Sex Life, and Body with Ben Greenfield
• How to Make “Sex-Enhancing” Ice Cream
• Ben Greenfield On How To Raise Your Libido & Solve Thyroid Issues
• The Best Sexual Biohacks, Can Vasectomies Decrease Testosterone, Foods & Supplements For Boosting Nitric Oxide & Much More.
• Multiple, Mind-Blowing Orgasms, The Best Sex Toys, Clitoral Pumps, Yoni Genital Steaming & Much More With “Sexpert” Susan Bratton.Biohacking Sex: The Best Tips, Tricks, Supplements & Food To Optimize Libido, Desire & Arousal.