Discovering your husband has been watching pornography is one of the most devastating things for a wife. I know this to be true in my own life because my husband watched pornography for ten years before I ever found out. It has been three and a half years since that day. We have been on a long road of restoring our marriage through God.
We have found that there are three essential things that have helped us move closer to God and each other. These are three things that we believe are so important. We try to do them every single day.
Pray
Each night we pray together. We pray over our marriage. We pray for each other. We pray about the struggles we are going through. During our prayer, we get down on our knees, hold hands, and cry out to God on behalf of our marriage. Going through crisis in your marriage is a really difficult road. We realized that we needed the power of God in our life if we were going to make it together.
Read the Bible
Before we pray, we spend time reading the Bible together. It is so important to hear from God each day. After living a life of sin, my husband realized that he was far away from God. We had always believed in God, but we never really sought God out together in our marriage. We each had our own separate time with God. It is essential to have alone time with God, but it is also equally important to have time together with God.
We also started reading other books after our Bible reading. We pick books that are Christ-centered and will help our marriage grow. We’ve used several e-books on the Covenant Eyes website. There are many wonderful marriage books by Christian authors that can help your marriage. I have many listed on my website. There are many truths that we have learned from these wise authors.
Talk
This part of our daily routine was the most foreign to us. We always talked about the easy things. However, we never really shared our hearts with each other. We never talked about our deep fears and hopes. My husband was very prideful and had a really difficult time opening up to me. He dreaded telling me something that happened at work that might have made him look like a failure. This was something that deeply affected his pornography addiction. He kept everything important inside and then he turned to pornography for comfort. We learned that God brought us together to share our struggles.
We start by talking about our days. This has helped us rebuild trust. One thing that I fear is that my husband will not tell me about temptation or sexual sin. He lied to me for so many years, that he had to learn how to be an honest person. This has not happened overnight, but through praying and studying God’s word, he has grown greatly. By providing time to talk to each other, he is able to open up more and more each day. I am free to ask him any questions I want and he has promised to answer honestly.
There have been many times that my husband is able to share something important with me because we have each night set aside to connect. I feel that unless we purposefully make time to talk to each other, important things will be ignored.
This time has helped my husband release the stress he is feeling and know that he can trust me not to judge him. We then bring all things to God in prayer. This helps my husband be victorious over lust.
After going through the crisis of discovering hidden sin in our marriage, we learned that God wants to restore our marriage. God does this when we take the time to seek Him in His word and through prayer. I pray that wherever you are today in your marriage, you would commit to praying, reading, and talking each day. God will see your faithfulness and help you as you seek Him.
Robi Smith is a wife and mother to four wonderful children. She has been married for thirteen years. Robi has a Master of Counseling in Counseling Psychology and is the founder of Hopeful Wife Today. She aims to bring hope and healing to hurting wives from their husband’s pornography use and unfaithfulness. She is continuing to see God’s restoring power every day in her life and in her own marriage.
I always envy those people who’s spouses have a forgiving heart. My wife has rarely if ever had a forgiving heart and in the past often would forgive me with her words but not with her heart and actions.
After she found out about my porn use almost a year ago, she filed for divorce. I have stopped viewing porn, and sincerely apologized and asked her for forgiveness. I know my actions have hurt her, but the outcome she is seeking is not what’s right.
I have been praying and know that God does’t want this for my family. I also know that this isn’t what I want for our family, but this is the path that we’re heading down.
Please keep my family in your prayers and specifically pray that my wife has a change of heart before it’s too late.
Thanks for sharing, C.A.N. So sad to hear. I prayed for you and your family today.
The betrayal your spouse is going through you can only imagine. You can’t expect instant forgiveness. You had fun at their expense. That was selfish. They believed in you. For a long time you were their WORLD. Please buy a book about how your partner feels. This is not about how you want or need to be forgiven.
You’re going to have to do better. Get help. Attend an intensive and join a group. Whatever led to this addiction will not go away without help.
I’m sorry, but this is selfish. Please Get counseling.
C.A.N.
I am praying for you. Keep trusting in God. Only God has the power to change someone’s heart. God bless you and your family.
My initial response to this was to say, “It’s impossible to do any of this when you are separated from your spouse.” But I realized that even when I get to visit my family, I can ask for the permission to talk together and read the scriptures. I hope that the day will come when I can put this into a regular practice in our home.
I pray the same for you, Jeremiah.
Jeremiah,
You’re right- you can start by doing just that. That can make such a positive effect to your family. I’m praying for you.