Rebuild Your Marriage
Rebuild Your Marriage 3 minute read

Sex After Porn – Igniting Marital Intimacy in the Wake of Pornography

Last Updated: August 5, 2021

When a husband brings porn into the marriage, he brings other women to their marriage bed. It’s stained with the images of other people. Who wants to make love on a stained bed? It has to be cleaned first. Husband and wife, together, need to wash the sheets, not obsess over whether they are clean or not, and trust that the stains have been washed away.

There isn’t a clear method or time to come together again. It’s individual for each couple. The husband has to be willing to truly clean the sheets, not just try to rub it off with some water and move on. Making love is the closest form of intimacy we can have with each other, and we shouldn’t jump right into it without falling in love again, holding hands, kissing passionately, holding each other. I know for some people it’s easier to make love and those things will fall into place, but I think sometimes we force the sex part because we feel pressured for some reason.

Sex isn’t a selfish act. This culture can make us believe that sex is about having an orgasm and being pleasured, but it’s about becoming one with your spouse, enjoying him/her, and pleasuring him/her, just like marriage. A husband shouldn’t focus on how much his wife loves him; instead, he should be loving her as Christ loves the Church. And a wife shouldn’t be focused on how much her husband loves her; she should be loving her husband with a true and selfless love.

But what if you don’t trust him? What if you fear women popping up in your head, or even worse, his? What if you feel dirty? What if he tries to make you do things you don’t want to do?

In my book, Exposed, Ally says at some point that she finally understands “the weakness of ‘if’ and the power of ‘faith.’” Sometimes our “what if’s” are true, but there are times they aren’t. We don’t really know the heart of a person, but if our husbands are trying—really trying—to win us back, if we can see his growth, his desire for purity, then who are we to use doubt as an excuse not to make love to him? Yes, he betrayed us and it’s hard to trust. And trust will take time to rebuild on so many different levels of the relationship. But we can’t use his sin as an excuse for our lack of desire to grow and change.

It’s hard to give up our insecurities of our beauty and the insecurities of his faithfulness and purity and devotion to us. But insecurities are nothing more than another word for self-centeredness. They are planted in our hearts and minds to destroy us. And if we give in to insecurities and continue looking inward and feeling sorry for ourselves, it will torture us.

I can’t tell a wife when to have sex with her husband again. That’s for her to decide. But I like to ask women this question: Are you holding back from him (when he is changing and proving his devotion to you) for selfish reasons? I don’t ever recommend people to begin making love again when the bed is still stained and the husband is still having an affair with other images. And if he is changing, I don’t recommend making love either. Why?

Because you have to desire it first. I never tell women to jump into a stained bed (or even a clean bed) when they don’t desire it. It’s not about “releasing” him so he doesn’t look at porn. It’s not about trying to fix your marriage. It’s about love. Loving each other. Becoming one. Enjoying intimacy as it was intended—for only you and your spouse.

So…how do you know when it’s finally time to make love again?

You love. When you love him and desire him enough to give him all of you…you are ready, and vice versa. But the trick is to not hold on to our insecurities, fears, and doubts in order to keep intimacy from our marriage. When George and I went through this I refused to make love to him (even after he truly changed) because I wanted to punish him. Other times I feared my thoughts or his. And still there were times I just plain listened to lies or felt too ugly to be that intimate with my husband. But eventually, I asked God to change my heart. To help me love fully, unconditionally, and through the eyes of Jesus, instead of the eyes of deception.

When my heart changed, my insecurities lessened, my doubts withered (although they were still there a tiny bit), and I stopped listening to lies. Finally, I desired to make love to my husband. I wanted to be one with him again. And we both knew when it was the right time. It wasn’t forced. Neither of us pressured the other. I didn’t make love to him in hopes that it would keep him from looking at porn again.

We made love because we purely loved each other. Simple, beautiful, and real.

I can’t say when the right time for you will be. But you’ll know. Pray for a new heart for both man and wife, and your marriage. Get the lies, doubts, stains, and insecurities out of your marriage bed, look at each other with the love you had when you put those rings on your fingers, and express that love to each other with the most beautiful form of intimacy we can share. Sex is beautiful. When pure, it actually glorifies God.

I know you can get to this point again. It’s just going to take some cleaning. Spend some time with each other cleaning your hearts, your bed, and your marriage. When you are ready…you’ll know.

  1. Francisco

    To give up Porn is hard.

    But I am doing just that. When I am in the situation, I do various things. For starters I think about my wife in the most intimate ways. Other than that, I look at YouTube for testimonies and encouragement.

    It’s working out just great. I’m able to look at my wife without guilt. My confidence is building up. I am doing more to gain her acceptance and trust. I can only kiss her on the cheek. But I at least can touch her and can put my hands on both sides of her waist when I go to work.

    I am not where I want to be. She may not sit close to me when we eat with our daughter, she is at least in the same room. I can list what’s wrong with my bad situation. But I list the good.

    Confessing my sin has started something bad and good. The bad is obvious. The good is that I am being free. I haven’t downloaded the app. I want to, but I don’t want to treat it as my net or crutch. I need to practice it without them.

    So I practice no privacy, time spent with my daughter, cook, clean, study for my future Real Estate license, jam out on my Christian and non Christian metal, and find new things to do.

    I am grateful for covenant eyes, unhooked, marriage helper, focus on the family, YouTube testimonies, Dr. John Gottman and his wife and so much more.

    They say that it takes two years to regain a marriage possibly when doing everything right and living right. I have a year and a half to go. If you are reading this, pls pray for me.

    God Bless,
    Francisco

  2. Kay

    Thank you so much for this! It was just what I needed.

  3. Lori

    Kay, Thank you for responding to me, I truly appreciate it. I will have to order this book!

  4. Lori

    Hello,
    This is my first time to make a comment here, although I’ve read many articles and other’s comments for quite awhile now. My husband has been interested in porn for over 30 years, at first I watched it with him because he really wanted me to watch with him. It turned into having to watch it every time we contemplated having sex, after seeing one movie that involved a girl being tied up with two men threatening her, I told my husband never again do I want to see another film, that was over 30 years ago. Long story short, I didn’t realize my husband had a serious addiction until close to 2 years ago, but for the last 11 years or more he has had almost no attraction to me and lost all desire for me. He blamed it on his medication after a heart attack, and not being able to lose at least 20 pounds, I had no idea that he was watching porn all of these years, because he is so convincing and sounds so sincere, but he was lying. I am now 59 years old and feel that he just isn’t attracted to women in my age group. I still look very nice for my age and I’m not overweight and wear clothes that are flattering on me, I still have men look at me, but my husband has lost all sexual interest in me. I’ve always wanted to have sex with my husband and did most anything he wanted even when it was physically uncomfortable. Sorry to say but at one point in this time I had two affairs. My husband always wanted me back and I stayed with him, I thought he really wanted me, but I think he’s just needs me for emotional, financial, and family stability. He’s admitted that he has for over 30 years that he wanted to be sexual with other women. Right now, I’m physically, and emotionally tapped out, don’t have any energy to get a job and be able to move out, and he knows it. When I talk of divorce he doesn’t like it. He says after the last major confession nearly 2 years ago that he has not watched porn, but it seems to have taken it’s toll on him and he still has no desire for me. I can understand after watching mostly 20 year old women having sex and masturbating all those years why he has lost all desire for me, I will never measure up to the “fun and exciting” sex he has been used to having on the internet. Hard to believe but we both believe that Jesus is our Saviour. Well, I could go on but there’s too much more to talk about and I not normally a person that likes typing for so long. I have yet to read anything about couples in our age group that have this trouble. At my husband’s age of 62, it’s hard to believe he will fully recover from the effects of this life that he’s been living, even though he says he’s given it up almost two years ago. Thanks for this site, bye for now.

    • Kay Bruner

      Hi Lori,

      There absolutely are MANY couples in your age group with this same issue.

      Here’s what I would say at this point. You’ve both significantly turned away from your relationship with each other, your husband in porn and you in affairs. If the two of you want to stay in the relationship together, you’ve got to learn how to turn toward each other, and I don’t just mean sexually. You’ve got to figure out how to have a real relationship with each other that’s got solid some emotional trust as the foundation.

      The very best research out there on healthy relationships is by Dr. John Gottman. I highly recommend his book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.

      Peace to you, Kay

  5. Leann

    Hi, thank you for sharing your story. My husband has taken responsibility for his addiction and has been working on not masterbating and this is extremely difficult for him. He is ea silly angered and frustrated by little things and will relieve himself to feel better. The worse part is that I have never felt connected with my husband in a sexual way. I’ve never even experienced an orgasm. I don’t know what it feels like to have sexual urges. My husband has had an addiction to pornography since he’s was 11 years old. He has been working for the last 3 years to get himself closer to God and on the right track with our marriage. I just can’t be free with him when I make love. I don’t know how, heck I don’t even know what my body likes. We’ve tried everything and my husband feels inadequate when he can’t please me, hence masterbation because he feels unfulfilled. I don’t find sex exciting. I just have sex to make my husband happy. I get frustrated with myself because I think I’ll never get to have that experience of intimacy, love, and pleasure with my husband during sex. It would also be nice to know if my vagina is alive :/

  6. Anne mouse

    My husband and I were married for three years when I found out about his pornography addiction,that he has been dealing with for close to ten years. He found a dirty magazine walking home from school one day. He didn’t know it was anything bad but liked the way he felt…he’s been struggling ever since than to stop. He’s gotten good help from our church and a support group there, but our biggest problem is the sex. Or should I say my biggest problem….I don’t like doing it all anymore. He wants to but its not satisfying in the slightest to me. As soon he orgasms he goes soft. I know I’m probably being selfish..but its been a year now and the first few months I dealt with it and told myself that our sex life would go back to normal soon, but is hasn’t. Most of the time we are good in every other aspect of our marriage but when we have sex I am just reminded of his addiction and get angry with him. Can anyone offer any advice on how to over come this?

    • Kay Bruner

      Hey there. Well, I hear you saying that your husband got good help, but I’m not hearing about any help for YOU. And that’s a pretty common thing, unfortunately. All the attention goes to stopping the porn habit–which needs to happen!!–but there seems to be a real lack of support for women to process through their own stuff. I think you’re seeing the results of that in your own lack of interest in sex, and the anger you’re feeling. I would say this:

      1. GO TO COUNSELING. and

      2. GO TO A GROUP: Celebrate Recovery, S Anon, Al Anon, xxxChurch. Find a safe place to process those emotions. And, your husband should be able to listen to how you’re feeling without being defensive or upset with you. Is that happening?

      3. Finally, I’d say do some work on the marriage in general. The best book I know is Dr. John Gottman’s Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. That is the absolute premier marriage research in the world today, with the best advice about how to have a marriage that really, really works. You can also follow The Gottman Institute on facebook–they put up a lot of great content.

      Blessings, Kay

  7. Carly

    Thanks so much for your help Luke! I’m going to have to dig high and low to find appropriate help in my area. I sure hope this works out for good. I try looking around for groups for both of us. Thanks again, I really appreciate the time you had taken to respond to my concerns! Blessings to you!

  8. Carly

    I should add that the last time I caught him a few weeks ago ws about 1 month after the last time I caught him on his phone. He had promised til he was blue in the face never to do it again. When I asked him why this time, he just said he honestly doesn’t know why… We have agreed to a commitment of 100% honesty, openness, and a commitment to building trust and intimacy.

    • He should seriously consider what radical steps he needs to take to shut the door to temptation. Some men get rid of their phones. Others get Internet accountability on their phones to keep the lines of communication open, avoiding the temptation to secrecy.

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