Porn Addiction: What My Husband's Battle Taught Me
He turned his face to the wall and cried when I discovered his pornography addiction. In our 11 years of marriage, those were the first tears I ever saw him shed. They were tears of shame.
It happened after I came home late from work one evening. He had fallen asleep in bed with his laptop on. Instead of waking him up, I decided to shut down the device when I noticed a naked woman. Initially, I assumed it was a pop-up, but there was another, and another, which prompted a brief search through his viewing history. There, it was revealed that he had indeed been looking at Internet pornography.
I stood there in disbelief, silently crying, and staring at images of impossibly perfect women with perky breasts, small waistlines, and tight behinds. They were seducing my husband and to me, they represented everything I was not.
When I awakened him and revealed what I had already seen, at first, he feigned ignorance, like he didn’t know how they had gotten there. That hurt even more that he would lie to me. But after some time, broken and embarrassed, he relented and apologized through heaves and sobs.
I sobbed too. And I sobbed and sobbed some more.
I felt so betrayed, like he had made a fool out of me. I thought, “How stupid was I to believe he really thought I was perfect?”
He tried to explain himself, but there were no words that could patch up that hole.
I didn’t talk to him for a week. I just cried every time I thought about it. When I finally did break my silence, my first words were, “I always thought I was enough for you. Now I feel like I’m not enough.”
That discovery cut me deep and I knew both he and I needed professional help to heal properly.
Eventually, we went to two Christian Sexaholics Anonymous (SA) groups, which was so hard to do. He went to one for husbands and I attended one for the wives of husbands with a sexual addiction. There I learned so much about his issues as well as mine.
All my self-esteem was tied to what he thought of me, because I had never learned to love myself. I was so destroyed over his secret pornographic addiction because I felt like I didn’t measure up to those other women online. I was convinced that he couldn’t honestly think I was attractive with all my imperfections.
From the time I was very young, I have always been somewhat self-conscious about my body. I was an early bloomer, so I was much more buxom than all my grammar school peers. I started my menstrual cycle at 9, which was right around the time my breasts began developing and my hips started to spread.
I was well endowed to the point where I looked to be about 14 years old before I actually hit puberty. When I would complain about “hating my body” my mother, aunts and older female relatives chuckled. They told me I was “blessed” and would appreciate my curves and fuller figure as I got older.
But I never quite outgrew my body image issues. I didn’t like all that extra flesh that set me apart from my much more petite schoolmates. I wanted to look more like them. Even after high school and well into my college years, I had difficulty accepting myself. But when I met a cute guy in a micro biology course who seemed completely smitten with me from the moment I said “Hello,” everything began changing.
Each time he told me I was beautiful, I believed him a little more. As we grew closer, I began feeling better about me. He told me how gorgeous I was all the time. He said he was proud I was his girl and he showed it too. He had a certain twinkle in his eye when he saw me—the same sparkle that was evident when I walked down the aisle on that July day at Hopewell Baptist Church.
But after 11 years of marriage, when I accidentally discovered pornography on his computer, instantly, my confidence took a hit.
Thank God I realized, with prayer, training, and help, of course, that I needed to separate his personal struggles from my own. My self-esteem could not be based solely upon the actions, reactions, or behaviors of one person—not even if he is my husband.
In some strange way, pornography taught me to deal with my issues first and eventually, out of the experience came major growth. I now know that I am enough… more than enough.
Here are five other lessons learned that I want to share with you:
1. His shortcomings are not your fault: Whenever sexual addiction or infidelity—emotional or physical—comes into play, as wives, we can blame ourselves. Though we should always look honestly at how our actions impact our marriage and constantly work to improve, we must never carry guilt on our back for what he chose to do. We all make decisions and must accept responsibility for our actions. He chose to do wrong. His choice is not under your control.
2. You must be whole as an individual: Any broken areas in us will be brought into our marriages. Our spouse is unable to “complete” us or heal our hurts. He is not God, nor is he solely responsible for our happiness. Whatever difficulties we face or left over baggage we have from past hurts and open wounds need to be taken to the Lord in prayer. Only through spiritual deliverance and practical work to grow in these areas, will we be made whole. I had self-esteem issues when I said “I do,” and my husband’s pornography addiction only highlighted and exacerbated that. My troubles didn’t begin with him. I had to do the work.
3. Forgiveness is a must. No matter what your spouse has done, harboring bitterness, resentment, and anger does nothing to promote healing. Although holding a grudge in the moment might feel good, it really destroys you inside and keeps you stuck in a perpetual state of “replay” where the offenses are on repeat in your brain, constantly taking you down that painful road. To really break free, you have to release the offense so the hard work of rebuilding trust can begin.
4. Trust God to keep him. You cannot drive yourself crazy trying to keep tabs on your husband. You will go nuts trying to figure out whether he is doing everything right. Who has the time to go through his phone, computer, or figure out his every move? At some point, you have to stop worrying and obsessing, and begin trusting God to keep your husband and to reveal to you anything that needs to be uncovered. So live your life, do your best, and leave the rest up to God. Many marriage counselors say trust your husband. That’s good advice, but I think it’s even more important to pray for your spouse and trust God to keep him on the right path.
5. Decide to move on. A lot of people say they forgive, only to harp on the issues and bring them up in a later argument. A big part of getting back on steady ground and making true progress toward joy and stability again, is making a decision to let it go. Leave it in the past. Just like Lot’s wife in Genesis 19:26 looked back and became a pillar of salt, when we keep looking backward, we become frozen and stuck in the past. We can’t move ahead and make strides. As the saying goes, “You can’t go forward always looking backward.”
Any type of breech in a marriage hurts. But with God’s help and the willingness of both parties to make it work, restoration is possible.
About the Writer: Cynthia Lyles is a marriage advocate and fierce proponent of a porn-free Internet. She holds small groups to teach accountability online and assist others in breaking free from pornography addiction through programs like x3Pure. For more information, click here. Cynthia lives with her husband of 17 years and their 3 children.
8 Comments
Reader Comments (8)
Thank you for writing this piece. A lot of women and men are ashamed to talk about how pornography has impacted their life. I'm so glad you have been courageous enough to share. Beautiful! God bless you and your husband.
This is the kind of truth that will set the body of Christ free. There are so, so many couples that struggle with this issue but they are silent about it. We need to be open and honest and get the help needed to overcome. I know personally from seeing a family member go through this. There is help redemption and restoration. But you can't seek help and refuse to admit the problem.
Wonderful words of wisdom Cynthia. I'm sharing this. God is receiving glory through it and ministry is being accomplished.
Pornography is a snare from the enemy. But freedom is possible. #TrueStory
God is to be glorified. 3 years ago my husband and I went through a similar struggle. Almost broke us up BUT GOD. Our pastor connected us with a good friend who was also a Christian counselor. It took a lot even with help. But I know God is able.
Thank you for sharing this. I am newly married to a man, who I knew struggled with this addiction. Now that we are married and physically intimate, the idea hurts so much more. Like you said, automatically I feel like I am not enough. We have already had a talk about it, there were tears and there was forgiveness. I'm still trying to get over the suspicious side of me though. I am constantly checking history, i've set parental controls and enabled safe search - though i know porn is EVERYWHERE and easily accessible on other sites. Even when I am home alone on the laptop, if I see an ad with a woman's perfect butt showing it gets my heart going, it really makes me mad - at the person in the photo. WHY is this stuff allowed? These girls are showing themselves to the world, my husband included. It disgusts me so much that I consider it to be cheating. If my man is finding pleasure in someone else, i feel like he is giving part of himself to them, even though they are on a screen. Yes, I can say that I am insecure and get ridiculously jealous and upset when I see the gorgeous bodies...I don't know how to believe that I am beautiful. I'm told, but then the enemy reminds me of the images i've seen, that I know he has seen and I don't believe it.
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