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An Open Letter to the Wives of Porn Addicts

Last Updated: May 18, 2021

On behalf of myself and the other husbands addicted to porn, I am sorry. We have given your place to another and it is wrong. You knew some men struggle with this; you just didn’t think it would be your man. There are no justifications for our actions. We try to justify, but these are only excuses.

I am sorry we’ve blamed you for our addiction. Instead of owning our actions, we have gotten defensive and angry. In time we may realize how far away this is from the truth. You’re not to blame. It is not your fault. We chose to turn away from you and God to follow the lust of our hearts.

I know this is painful for you. The person who stood before many people and professed his faithful love at the altar has betrayed your marriage through porn, lust, and lying. You did nothing to deserve this behavior, no matter what he tells you.
We lied, thinking we were protecting you from a situation we couldn’t handle on our own. Always thinking we’d get clean, we just needed a little more time. But the lies still hurt and the problem still grew–and damaged–like a cancer.

I am so sorry for how you found out. Maybe it was expected, but you really didn’t think it was this bad. And when he told you, or more likely, when you found out–he turned it back on you. He started talking about your sex life or your appearance or something else—anything else—to distract you from his sins.

Even our confession is a double-edged sword. We feel better, but you feel worse, because now you know. Our burden is lifted, and we act as if we did something great in telling you. However, you just got buried by our garbage.

You are shattered and bleeding from a thousand cuts—and then we ask, “What’s wrong.” We are blind to the pain we caused you. How many times have you stood by us when we were hurting? Why can’t we do the same for you?

And while you try to recover from this, we get impatient.

  • Why are we still talking about this?
  • Why don’t you trust me?
  • When are you going to let me off the hook?
  • How much am I going to have to suffer?
  • Aren’t you over that yet? I said I was sorry.

It hasn’t even been a week or a month, but we want you to get over it, because we are still concerned with our image. We don’t like looking bad. We tell you to see the good in us and stop focusing on the parts we don’t like. And if you don’t get over it according to our time table we make subtle threats as if to say, “If you don’t get over this soon, I may have to turn to other women again.”

We have abused you through our actions. We have made you doubt who you are. We have turned your reality upside down and made it all seem like your fault.

If any other man had treated my wife the way I did, I would have hurt him—I would have hurt him badly. But I did disastrous things to cover my sin and protect my image.

In the midst of this, you feel like you should have known. The questions haunt you: “How could I not know? What did I miss?” You are being crushed under a weight of questions and self-doubts with little hope of relief.

In some ways, it is even crazier than before we confessed. So we give the ultimate slap in the face, “I guess I shouldn’t have told you!” again making you wrong for your reaction, proving we’ve missed the whole point of confession—of healthy love.

And when you take the risk to ask us how we are doing in our sobriety, we get more defensive and impatient. You don’t know if you have a right to ask. You are being told, “You just have to trust me,” even though we haven’t done anything to rebuild your trust.

And you shouldn’t trust us. Our actions have shown you in big bold letters, “We are not safe.

Yet many of you carry the weight alone, afraid to tell anyone what you’re going through. “What will they think?” and “How will they treat me?” loom over you like a black cloud.

We’ve done things no one would believe if you told them. Or will they just stare at you, with a hand covering their mouth, thinking:

  • How can you stand it?
  • Why did you stay?
  • Are you that stupid?
  • What’s wrong with you?

And you really don’t know why you are staying. Sane people wouldn’t stay to deal with the insanity of contradicting confessions and denials.

I also want to apologize for those other people who have told you, “It’s no big deal. All guys watch porn,” or “Boys will be boys!” It is a big deal. We made you a promise. We told you we would have no one other than you. But we did, maybe in the physical form of an affair or just through our lust over women in porn.

It may be difficult for you to hear my apology over all the voices telling you it is your fault. I know my wife heard it from pastors, counselors, and therapists how she should have more sex with me or have more faith in God. They never sat with her in the pain of my betrayal. Even though they were well-meaning, many of them had no idea how to respond without blaming her indirectly. I am so very sorry. We have become a tool in the hand of the enemy to destroy you, our marriage, and our family. We thought we were better men than this, but the truth is we are selfish beyond reason. You deserve to be treated so much better.

I am sorry for how long this process will take. It will take years to undo this damage, and you will continue to have doubts. It’s not fair. At times, you will feel like all of the cards are stacked against you. Many of the resources available to you will tell you how you’re co-(something), another way of saying you’re to blame.

You will work really hard to fix things, to heal yourself. It will feel like pushing a boulder uphill: really difficult work with the constant fear it will roll over you on the way back down.

I cannot apologize enough for what we’ve put you through. We lied to you. We gave into our lust and replaced you in our hearts. We dumped all of our sins on top of you. We blamed you for our actions. You, our beloved brides, are victims of terrible betrayals. My words aren’t nearly enough to express the sorrow I have for our actions–our choices.

I am sorry. I am so sorry for what we have done.

  1. Barbara

    This post is from 2017, yet the goodness from it is still reaching people like me who are new to this issue. Thank you so much for writing this. I wish my husband had been the author, but I still greatly appreciate the words. I believe marriage is a sacrament and that means that God is asking me to be strong. I don’t want the badness to win or get any stronger than it has – it could get stronger through divorce by creating more heartbreak in my life and in the lives of my children and extended family. I was so happy before I found out his secrets….I thought I knew him. But he was influenced by badness decades ago. It ends here.

  2. Jayne

    I have been stuck in a marriage for 34 years with so many cycles of finding porn, husband repenting and then doing it all over again. I don’t even have a desire for intimacy any more. Last year he yelled at me and told me to stay off his phone, and not to expect him to stay away from it. Now he’s into it again, I care but I don’t really care…just so long as he keeps his hands off me. Then I read that its the “wife’s fault”. Or that porn is okay. If its okay why do I feel destroyed inside?

    • Moriah Bowman

      Hi Jayne,

      First, I want to say that I am so sorry that you have been going through this trial for so long now. I imagine you are feeling a wide array of emotions, including hurt and betrayal. I hope you know that this article is not saying in any way that this is your fault. What it does say is that many times, men trapped in porn addiction will say that it is the wife’s fault, but this could not be farther from the truth. We also do not believe that porn is okay. Again, for someone trapped in addiction, they may try to justify their porn usage by saying that porn is okay, but this is so so false.

      It is normal for you to feel destroyed inside. You are enduring a tremendous trial, and this is made even more difficult by a spouse who doesn’t seem to see that he has a problem. Have you ever involved counseling or mentoring for yourself as an individual and as a couple? If your husband is blinded by his addiction, it may take outside involvement for him to see his need to change and quit. This can come from a church leader, a professional therapist, or even someone trained in sexual addiction rehabilitation. If you are feeling alone in this struggle, I highly recommend you reach out to someone you trust who can approach your husband about this and encourage him to quit porn. Unfortunately, it sounds like your husband isn’t willing to listen to you and your concerns, so an outside influence is needed.

      Also, have you checked out the resources at Bloom for Women? I think you will find them to be comforting and healing. I am praying fo you! Be strong. You are beautiful and worth fighting for!

      Blessings,
      Moriah

  3. Heather L

    I cried this morning, tears i needed to cry. I needed these words more than i realized.
    Thank you

  4. Terri Otto

    I can’t thank you enough for writing this letter. This letter speakS to everything that I have been feeling and going through for the past 24 years. When I started readingthis, I was ok. However, with each passing sentence one tear became 2 tears to 3 tears then I just starting sobbing. This is all I ever wanted to hear from my soon to be ex. I never will. Thank you for helping me close that chapter in my life. I truly believe I can now begin to heal. Thank You

  5. Kayla T

    Thank you so much for this. Everything in this is everything I’ve always wanted to hear. God bless you for giving you these revelations into our grief + for taking the time and care to touch all of the women who are struggling alone. We are so very alone in this struggle, even if we aren’t. Nobody can be there everyday like a husband should to care for our hearts and hear what’s inside of us. This made me feel a little less alone for now. And gives me hope that it’s possible by God’s grace for him to see what you’ve seen, too.

  6. kenneth leong

    Thank you for your letter. It resonates deeply in my heart. It is exactly what I’ve been saying to my wife of 40-plus yeas since she found out my addiction year and a half ago. It ruined her completely. Overnight she changed from a ever-smiling sweet outgoing lady to a quiet stay-home woman. Many times I find her sobbing in the middle of the night and my heart bleeds. But that also greatly motivates me to get over my addiction. I have not watched any since the day she found out. I show my affection and pay attention to her a lot more than before. But my remorse and apology don’t seem to help. The wound in her is so deep that it’ll take a long time to heal. I haven’t seen her smile since. I really don’t know what else I can do. How I wish I could help she get over it quickly!

  7. SuzyQ

    Lord, thank You for allowing me to find and read this. Thank You for instilling in me the wherewithal/courage/conviction/means to end it. I know You forgive my sins and for that I am so grateful. Please help me feel my purpose/meaning in Your world and in this next phase, even if I remain uncoupled, to build the abundantly joyous life You have for me. Please help me remember that we are all just people and that You are love. Amen

  8. It’s been 20 years since my previous marriage ended in divorce as a result of my ex-husband’s addiction. I’m an author writing a novel based on a family destroyed and in doing research came across this letter. Thank you so much for this. This book has been hard to write because in spite of the abundance of healing God has done in me, and a current marriage of ten years to a man I adore, the 16 years of that marriage left an incredibly deep wound in my life and the lives of my children. So even now, as I read this, I find new areas of understanding, release and healing through my research, writing and reading your letter. I can’t thank you enough. You’ve written everything here that was said to me, and never acknowledged by my ex. I will include the link to this in the end notes of my book because every wife needs to read this. May God bless and keep you and your wife.

  9. Vanessa

    Thank you so much for these words, this means so much to me right now. I know that I will be sleeping in peace tonight after reading this. I needed this. Thank you!

  10. M

    Thank you for saying exactly what I wanted to hear from my husband. We have been married 11 years and I just found out that he’s continued to lie and gone back to porn. This isn’t the first time and now it’s feeling like I don’t know if I can keep trying. I love him but I don’t think I could ever trust him again. It pains me that I feel like I can’t bring myself to be physical with him because I’m worrying if he is imagining the porn or worse the girl he used to work with that he confessed he thought about while masterbating. I was told by my priest that I need to hold my anger to help him. That I should put my pain aside to help him. It’s hard when I feel like he is not really trying. I feel so alone. I don’t know where to go from here.

    • Kay Bruner

      Boundaries. Here, here, and here are some articles to help get you started. A therapist, a group, the online resources at Bloom for Women. There’s lots of help available, and you don’t have to be a victim of his bad choices. Peace, Kay

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