If you’re brokenhearted because you recently discovered your husband’s pornography addiction, you may be struggling with your relationship with the Lord. Maybe you’re asking God why He would allow you to feel such intense pain. Maybe you’re angry with God for allowing this crisis in your marriage. Praising Him may be the furthest thing from your mind. Your days may be filled with feelings of betrayal, anger, depression, confusion, and insecurity. I know, I’ve been there.
And it’s ok. These questions and feelings are totally normal when you discover your husband’s secret. It really does turn your life upside down and it’s difficult to find truth among the lies. And the thought to praising God for your crisis may make you nauseous. We sing songs in church about praising God even in the midst of our pain, but when we’re right in the thick of it, sometimes that proves to be very challenging.
Even in the midst of your pain, there are reasons to praise God for your crisis. Looking back over my healing process there are three things (among others) that I am so thankful for that I’d like to share with you:
1. Praise God for the exposure.
Although the truth is very painful, the fact is that your husband would not be seeking help and your marriage would not be heading towards healing were it not for the truth. Exposing sin and bringing it into the light is the only way to kill its power over your husband. For years, my husband had this secret that he kept hidden in the dark. And in the darkness it festered and grew like a cancer. But when he finally confessed it (whether on his own accord or whether I caught him), that secret had no more power. Now that you’ve discovered your husband’s secret, it’s exposed and can be dealt with. So praise God for the exposure and thank Him that through this crisis, your husband can find sobriety and your marriage can be restored.
2. Praise God for the intimacy.
It was my experience that, even though I was hurting, my husband and I were brought to a deeper level of intimacy through our crisis. Where in the past we had a shallow love, based on lies and secrecy, we were now in a position where we were completely open and vulnerable to each other. Our intimacy–physically, emotionally, and spiritually–was greatly improved through the healing process. Not only that, but we were both drawn closer to the heart of God as well. So praise God for the intimacy and thank Him that through this crisis, your intimacy can blossom and you can be drawn closer to your husband.
3. Praise God for the healing. This may not have come yet. Maybe you just found out about your husband’s sin. Maybe he hasn’t been repentant (turning away from pornography and towards Christ). And so for you, you might be thinking, “What healing!?” Healing will come. It takes time. But it will come. With God, it is possible for you to find healing with your husband; that he will remain sexually sober and your marriage can be completely restored. That is worth praise! It’s also possible for Christ to heal your broken heart, even if your husband refuses to stop. Jesus can do incredible things with a heart that turns to Him; and that’s worth praise too! So praise God for the healing and thank Him that through this crisis. You can find healing in Him for your own heart and pray for healing in your marriage.
I know it’s tough to praise God in the midst of a painful crisis. But think of all that is still good and thank God for those things. I do hope that you find healing for your heart and that your marriage is restored. Praise God.
Photo credit: vivekjena
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Kristina Croft and her husband Gavin blog at Isaiah 53 Ministry.
Thank you Kristina. Now days he comes home straight after work. We have dinner, chat and then he gets on his computer and plays poker. I go to bed at 10:30 and then he gets off the computer at that point and reads his bible until he comes to bed. He has not broken this promise/routine. Every morning he talks about what he is learning (and things he had long forgotten) from his studies the night before. His song is now “Holiness” and “Repentance”…and he sings loud and strong.
I still feel shame however…I cannot compete with the world and what is “out there”. I do not know if that will ever change, but it is still a cross that I bear. I do the best I can under these circumstances…I know that if it had not been for Porn ect, my marriage would not feel so vulnerable and neither would I. But he is even more vulnerable than I am as far as I am concerned…since he is the one who has to keep his soul in check daily.
Sex is mechanical…but at some point we agreed that if he would get off the computer (which is now in the living room) when I went to bed, that I would accommodate him as needed. The computer was introduced back into our house upon that agreement. That’s the best I can do as I have no desire for him. He plays poker but does not do the chat rooms. Other than that, he listens to a lot of YouTube preaching which lends itself to hours and hours of conversation between us. We have never lacked for conversation before, but now it is totally spiritual in nature.
Also, I told him that if he could keep his drinking to two glasses of wine each evening, that I find this reasonable. He has never had such a boundary before (Al Anon recommends ignoring the drunk and letting the drink take its toll), but he agreed to try it with the understanding that if he violates this, I will rid our house of it again. He has had to learn to tell himself “enough”, be satisfied with it and live by that just like the rest of us do.
So it appears that my dear husband is now able to be “normal” after decades of dancing with the devil. I cannot speak for how I am though. I do not know what normal is supposed to feel like in this marriage…and do not know if I ever will. He is happy (he says that all the time). I am unable to feel likewise. He is after all, just a man.
Rowena,
I am glad to hear that your husband is making efforts to pursue purity. That is a good sign. However, I am more concerned for your heart. It seems as if you have not been able to find healing in Christ for the pain that you have felt because of this betrayal and it has affected your ability to be intimate with your husband. “Accommodate” is not a word that brings about genuine intimacy. You have bought into the lie (that almost all women hurt by porn do) that your husband was looking at porn because he didn’t find you pretty enough, sexy enough, satisfying, available, etc. In all actuality, your husband’s porn use was not an eye issue but a heart issue. You could be a drop-dead gorgeous, young, flexible woman willing to have sex day and night with him and he would have still looked at porn because his heart was drawn away by his sin. You have to give that over to God and let Him begin to heal your broken heart and insecurities. And as you work through this, begin praying that God will help you desire intimacy with your husband. That it won’t just be an accommodation. Try initiating it with him and asking him to come to bed with you. A healthy sexual relationship with your husband can bring healing to your marriage and will help him as he continues to pursue purity. Please feel free to contact me at my website http://www.isaiah53ministry.org and I would love to help you find resources that might help you work through your fears and insecurities and begin finding your identity in Christ.
Hmm…this is what happened last night….
My husband has a close christian friend. From time to time, this friend stops by when my husband is on line in the privacy of his business after it is closed. This man came right out and asked my husband about his “obvious addictions”….a conversation ensued which I am not privy to. My husband came home last night and told me that his friend pointed out his need to get off of his addictive cycles and tendencies. I used that platform to confirm that this is why I cannot even begin to build trust in him and feel unable to cooperate further sexually. My husband says “I totally get that now…I will give up my computer use after work and come straight home so that you are not living in suspicions on my account and because of taking my freedoms. I remember the Scripture that tells us to “avoid even the appearance of evil”…and I understand that if I dont, we will never be able to gain any ground to trust again”. I am shocked…hoping this is genuine and not a ploy to get me subdued…and I suppose time will tell by if he keeps his word.
That is a GREAT start! I had NOTHING to do with his friend going to his store and confronting him, as I never see him or talk to him…I see this as a leading and divine intervention of God. While this does not complete the strategy of what needs to happen (confession, repentance, accountability and educating himself) it does go a long way so that I am able to meet him on more stable and common ground.
I truly pray that as my husband goes through his withdrawals, that he will get strength from the Lord as he turns to him for help…I will try to make it easier for my husband, so his struggles are not unnecessarily so intense. :)
Wonderful news! I hope this is a new beginning for the both of you. He has a long road ahead of him, but if this friend can stick by his side, he has a fighting chance.
Rowena, I just got through reading the comments you posted and Luke’s responses. I just wanted to say that I am happy to hear that God orchestrated an intervention for your husband and that he may be on the road to recovery. Don’t lose hope and know that nothing is impossible with God. I pray that your husband would come to full repentance and that you both would find healing and restoration through this.
He is steadfastly on his platform telling me that what I am now doing is wrong and unscriptural…that we are called to suffer (meaning that continues to be solely MY place rather than his).
I do understand Scripture…the principles behind them is to ensure a level of safety from the onslaught of the devil. However, I have always yielded to those principles for my husband’s sake…he was simply too immature to consider the suffering I had already been baptized into…he just wants his way.
Now, however, he is in a different chapter in his life. Reading the Bible (at first, to find reasons to condemn me for removing the booze/computer)…but that posturing turned out to be unfruitful and he did manage to yield to that…perhaps seeing the need for proper use/boundaries of those things if he were honest with himself.
Over the last 7 months, he has softened his posturing…to the degree which he no longer is verbally combative and reviling. Maybe he is finally positioned to consider a deeper walk…but right now, he is not liking the landscape laid out ahead of him. Part of his willingness to yield to my “edicts” is because we bought a house and it is spectacular. We invested ALL we had to buy it and remodel it and furnish it with exquisite things. He says he will live and die here. For years, we rented a dump to be able to save for a house…in retrospect, walking away from me would have been very easy for him to do during that time if I had said or done anything to “rock his boat”. There is a lot on the line for him now…now he has to face loss on a different level…especially since I am not even a consideration since he is disconnected from me anyway.
My needs are now going to be taken into consideration…and there I stand.
This man is very intelligent and can talk the stripes off of a zebra hahaha! I have to wade through the rhetoric and determine if what he is saying is of God or of the twists of the flesh (however valid they may be)…it has become easier to do given what has been transpiring thus far.
I could write a book…but until I see the ending, there is no point.
Thank you for your help…I will watch and wait to see if the Lord will rescue us.
I tried to enlist our Pastor for help. My husband minimized everything and denied the nature of this beast. Pastor said God will take care of it…and that the issue was far above his “pay grade”. He even told me to submit to anal sex when I clearly express my stand on that. So no help there. My husband does not respond to others when it comes to his sins.
After watching him drink hard liquor (half a bottle each night for years)…and stay up the entire night on the internet, I was led by the Spirit to get rid of both (liquor and computer) from our home. This led to two weeks of complete silence from him and then finally, to him reaching out to the Bible. He is deeply into the Bible now (seven months later). So I suppose at some point, that God will bring all this darkness to light…in a way that speaks to his need to come clean and repent.
My husband thinks that this plague is something he will always have since he is a man. My God says Christ died to set us free from sin…both now and hereafter. So that is a complete cop-out.
One day a couple years ago, I was in the shower wondering to myself why my husband could not get “victory” over this…what I heard in my spirit was astounding. The Lord said “he does not get victory because he loves being in the battle too much.”
Wow…I was under the impression that men really hated their sins…not mine. He loves the action, excitement, danger and titillation apparently. I wonder how he will handle the consequences.
Sounds like the pastor gave no real advice.
That still small voice in your spirit was speaking the truth. Your husband needs to repent not just of looking at porn but loving it. This is easier said than done, but that is the fact of it.
In the end, your husband needs to reach out to others and get help. He needs accountability, guidance, and for other men to speak to him like a man.
Good move getting rid of the sources of temptation. Purging your home was a necessary step.
I’d love for him to stop by our blog here and get some resources that could really help him, but I’d hate for you to be the one to spoon-feed him the things he needs. He needs to take ownership of the problem himself.
That said, if I could recommend only a couple things, here’s what I would tell him…
1. Watch this free series of videos by Christian counselor Brad Hambrick, “False Love.” Better yet, find a good friend to watch the videos with him and talk to him about what he’s learning.
2. Read The Porn Circuit. It looks at why porn is so addictive, the fact that porn literally rewires your brain, and how men are not doomed to be like this forever because our brain can change back.
As for you giving your husband sex, let him know that sex without intimacy is hollow. You want to have a mutually satisfying sexual relationship with him, but it needs to be built on a foundation of trust. He must demonstrate to you that he loves you, and in time real intimacy can be built.
He said he confesses to God and THAT is sufficient. I told him that there are several places in the Bible that instruct us to confess to those we hurt deeply also…so that they are not left holding the “bag” and can begin the process of reconciliation. He conveniently glosses over those Scriptures. It is one thing to take care of the vertical relationship with God…quite another to take care of the horizontal relationships. Failing to do that leaves the door open for the devil to keep suspicion and fear alive….the imagination can be a terrible thing…especially when you have a husband who stays well over two hours after work to “play online poker”. How do I know that he is “only” doing that?
I have done all the policing and snooping that I am willing to. Always found something, so what is the point? Now I protect myself and live in my own world. After a couple of years of using Covenant Eyes…I had seen enough…confronted enough. He refused to allow CE on his work computer because it blocked too many sites of interest. Okay, have everything your way…it is as you say: a person can take care of the sin problem (white knuckling, hiding deeper ect)…or they can endeavor to take care of the HEART problem. THAT’S what I am waiting for…but that is a work of the Holy Spirit.
Meanwhile, I cant give myself to him anymore. Time will tell how this all unfolds.
Have you brought others with you to confront him before? Matthew 18 instructs us that when someone else sins against you to confront that person personally. When that proves unhelpful, bring others along who can confront him. Have you done this before?
I completely understand your lack of willingness to have sex with him. Sex is a matter of intimacy, not just physical release. When he has betrayed you and spat in your face so many times, it is no wonder you can’t see yourself having sex with him.
I truly do wish my husband would come clean and lay it all on the table…that would be something refreshing and to give thanks to God for. Married 8 years and he has been using porn and lust for others the whole time…he flirts and has had affairs…he is 61 years old…lost his prior 20 year marriage to the effects of that life style. She did not know of his immorality…she DID suffer his mental/emotional abuse…probably brought on by guilt coupled with dissatisfaction…and that was enough.
He gets caught from time to time…then wonders why finally, at this point 8 years later, I can no longer bring myself to have sex with him???
The devil has infiltrated our marriage bed too often. I live in shame and suspicion…I get dressed in the closet and shower with the door locked. I am just not enough in his eyes…and now, now I am at the end of what I can offer to him. I am just a warm hole rather than a wife that he finds the least bit desirable…that is, until it is time for him to “relieve” himself…no doubt his libido was already sufficiently sparked by others.
I KNOW what the Bible says about women having to “put out” to guard their husbands from temptation…however, I hardly see the point once they have been swimming it sexual sin for decades already. No amount of sex from me (or his ex wife) has ever quelled him from the next lust for another. NO ONE says what we wives are allowed to do when that has already been breached to the point of our own shame to even be seen naked by our husbands. Do they really think there would be no impact…nothing felt on our end just because they felt nothing for us???
I have come to dread his advances…don’t know why he bothers going through with those mechanics when he expresses so much disappointment because he lacks things he cannot have…like anal sex ect.
Everyone speaks of the dangers of sexually refusing…no one speaks of the humiliation that a wife has to endure to keep her husband “satisfied”. But he is never satisfied really…the devil already had him from the get go…now the devil has me too…I no longer am able to perform in this charade. Good job.
I asked my husband over the years for a complete transparent confession of his sexual sins in our marriage…told him that it would be a good starting place to build trust. It would serve to go a long way, especially being that I already know some of it. I WANT him to feel vulnerable…and I want the devil to no longer enjoy the secrecy at his advantage…that’s a good beginning. But something tells me that the Holy Spirit must take my husband to that point and willingness. And my husband will likely never go there as long as I am willing to play the sexually submissive wife game. Nothing changes when nothing changes.
I am long beyond angry…I am quite simply undone. I do not care what will be lost. I am prepared to lose everything at this point. I have already lost myself and my God given human dignity by yielding to him while he went consequence free.
The rain falls on the just and the unjust…has been for years. I see a drought in the forecast. Hope he is able to weather it. The weather can only change when he does.
He says: “Well, what about simple affection…can we still have that?” “I am okay with no sex from you…but we have so much going for us as a couple aside from sex”.
Sure. I like you…I do love you…just please, stay out of my garden…it was never good enough for you anyhow.
We will see how all this goes. Most women are too afraid to draw these kinds of lines, they would not dream of withholding sex as if they had any power to thwart off this evil as long as they keep having sex. I am here to tell you that you are all fooling yourself…playing into the devils hands and being used and humiliated by both.
When my husband becomes serious about repenting from his sins…I will then be able to become serious about enjoying his advances.
Meanwhile…the gate to my garden is locked.
Hi Rowena,
I’m so sorry to hear about what your husband is doing to you.
When you asked him to disclose his sexual sins to you, what did he say?