Updated July 2021.
I call these three emotional states the “Devil’s Triangle of Triggers.” We can’t handle them on our own, and they’ll often send you looking for porn before you know what hit you.
Trigger 1: Helplessness
Tom is so frustrated he is about to rip the pillow in my office in half. “I’m doing everything I can to earn my wife’s trust back. I am killing myself to look for ways to show her I love her–that I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Every time I look in my wife’s eyes I see the pain I caused. I don’t know what else to do!” Tom’s eyes are bloodshot, and the veins on his neck are bulging.
I met Tom right there, matching his intensity, “You are so frustrated that you can’t see straight. You can’t do anything right now to fix it or to make the pain go away.”
Tom’s eyes lock in mine–we are on the same wavelength and we know it. The tension in the room is thick.
With my next few words, Tom’s whole countenance drops as he realizes what was really driving him over the cliff. “You feel helpless to get her to trust you, or take away her pain.”
With that one word, helpless, Tom fell back into the couch like he had been shot.
The first of the “Devil’s Triangle of Triggers” is helplessness.
We will do almost anything to get away from feeling helpless. Try twice as hard, give up because you know you will lose, find a way to numb out. You get the idea.
Porn comes calling–offering an escape from feeling helpless.
Trigger 2: Hopelessness
Luis slumps down on the couch. “I did it again. I promised myself, my wife, and my men’s group that I was done with pornography. I’ll never get away from this stuff. She will never trust me again.”
“I can’t imagine living this way forever,” his voice trailed off as he stared into space, “it’s depressing.”
The second culprit is hopelessness.
Hopelessness says that things will never change because they can’t change. Hopelessness says that you can try as hard as you want, as long as you want, and you will end up in the same place. Despair. Free-fall. Frozen. Overwhelmed. Guys use these words to describe what is happening inside of them when they feel hopeless.
You can see the 2,000 pound boulder on Luis’ back. Hopelessness is crushing. Porn whispers in his ear–offering to numb the pain.
Hopelessness still takes a back seat to trigger three.
Trigger 3: Worthlessness
Knees on his elbows and his head in his hands, Andrew sighs. “I keep hurting my wife. I am a great provider, I coach my kids’ baseball teams. I teach Sunday School. I keep getting promoted at work,” he pauses, “but I keep going back to this stuff.”
Then it comes out. “What is wrong with me?” Andrew’s eyes bulge. His horrified expression begs for an answer to the question. In that moment, Andrew feels worthless.
You could also say shame–it’s the same thing. Shame says, “I am bad,” versus, “I did something bad.” Shame says, “There is nothing good in here–so I better hide, I better cover up.”
Shame and worthlessness are toxic emotions. In that moment there is no escape. The judge, jury, and executioner have all spoken.
If you already feel worthless, it is easier to go back to porn. That is what worthless or bad people do. At least it will feel good for a few moments, or so you tell yourself.
Related article: Shame’s Massive Role in Porn Use
So there you have it: helpless, hopeless, and worthless. The Devil’s Triangle of Triggers.
What to Do When You’re in the Devil’s Triangle of Triggers
For guys who try to break free from pornography, these triggers are typically at the heart of every relapse. Any one of these is enough to send you over the edge. Combine two or all three of them and it becomes utterly consuming.
Paul wrote in Romans 7:15, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Does this sound familiar to you? And he wrote most of the New Testament.
When the Devil’s Triangle of Triggers shows up, your first inclination is to isolate. Unfortunately, this has the same effect as throwing water on a grease fire. It makes things worse, not better.
The best thing you can do when you find yourself in the middle of the Devil’s Triangle is connect with someone. Not hook up with a woman. Not talk with another dude about football. Talk with someone you know and trust, and tell them what you are thinking and feeling. (Yes, I just used the “F” word for guys.)
Here’s why you need to do this: simply acknowledging your thoughts and feelings to another person actually calms these feelings. It regulates them.
Your brain releases oxytocin–the same hormone released during sex (smaller amount) when you connect in this way. This calms the brain down and pulls you out of free fall.
Just telling someone–not even problem solving–is a powerful antidote for the Devil’s Triangle.
I can’t tell you how often men come back into my office after actually trying this. They doubted me, told me it isn’t their style. Former soldiers, hard driving businessmen, engineers, all of them. They are all shocked at how well this works.
I beg you, I dare you to try this.
A lot of people have lost their lives in the Devil’s Triangle. Don’t be a statistic–pick up that “500 lb phone”–reach out to someone and see what happens.
Related: Trigger Alert! What’s Yours?
What really helped me was the xxx Church accountability software. It didn’t restrict where I could go, but every suspicious site is emailed to my wife or whoever you chose. This actually made me genuinely want it less. Also having a wonderful wife who understands my struggles and doesn’t shame me helps a TON.
Kingdom Works has a DVD program designed to defeat porn addiction. Churches are using the program to set up men’s groups .
I am not affiliated with Kingdom Works. I just get the emails they put out regularly
That series is incredible. Thinks of things nobody else does.
My husband and I have been marred over 25 years. I Found out about his addiction 2 and a half years ago. Sadly, we are currently separated. Sometimes it takes the hard boundaries for change to happen and some men may choose not to change.
I did all I could to read and educate myself about the topic of pornography. I wanted to know the reasons behind it. I have 5 sons, the older ones have already struggled too. No one can make your husband want to change- not even God. We all have free will. But there are things that you can do to help the situation or hurt the situation. The BEST advice I can give is not to ignore the situation. Get professional help from a sexual addiction counselor right away- even just for yourself. The church as a whole, has spoken very little about the topic and yet it is the most prevalent addiction occurring in families today.
Some amazing ministries are New Life Ministries, Affair Recovery (affairrecovery.com), Pure Desire( for husbands) and Beyond Betrayal (for wives). Admit you are powerless to do this on your own. You did not cause this, but you do need to face it. Most men have had this addiction for years (my husband for 36 years. It started when he was 11). It is a long, committed road to recovery. Get the help that you need as the wife too.
Covenant Eyes is an amazing tool- but do not be fooled, unless your husband’s want help, there are ways around everything. Including buying another phone (just for their addiction). The sooner you get help, the sooner healing can begin – even if it is just healing for you!
Thanks, Wendy. You’ve said such important things here. No matter what others choose, we can always choose to be healthy and whole: this is the greatest tool we have!
Could you please provide help for our Christian boyfriends struggling with Instagram addiction? I know he’s lying to me, and I can’t seem to get him to trust me enough to open up and share with me his needs or how I can help him. Maybe he doesn’t want help? He’s godly and loves me.
I am a female, and as his Christian girlfriend, I also struggle with porn addiction, so I understand and don’t condemn him. He says he’s done with all that, but he’s lied ongoingly about getting off Instagram, says he just likes the outfits, but I know it’s the bodies.
Please also help us women, and the men, find out HOWWW to make the man OPEN UP and admit to us what’s going on inside. As his future wife, I want him to trust me enough, but he won’t even admit what he likes or what he needs. I know Instagram is his softer porn addiction BECAUSE I SEE ALL THE SAME EXACT SIGNS – the hiding, the deleting, redownloading, looking at them behind me, saying he’s done with it (really making an effort, removing all girls), then really making a hard effort to search out the same girls and read them again.
I really love him and want to marry him. I want to make him “happy” but I’m afraid anytime we have a separation, he logs on from another browser (even though he’s deleted the app), he somehow manages to put in effort to recover his password through the SYNCING (using email or number or Fb), and he’s got all passwords saved on his phone even if he lost them.
Please help the Christian men learn how to OPEN UP AND TALK ABOUT ->INSTAGRAM.<-
Here’s the deal: there is plenty of help available, but no one can “force” anyone to take the help they are offered. You can’t force them to open up. All you can do is create healthy boundaries for yourself, and follow through. Don’t get married thinking you will change him. He can only change himself. Here, here, and here are some articles on boundaries that should help as you think this through.
You both have to recognized that you both have an addiction that is the first step to a better future. If you go on with out recognizing both of having issues with ciber/porn, you both would be like 2 trains on high speed that will crash. Don’t hide your head in the sand like an ostrich.
You can not make him happy either. Only God and him can make him happy. Only God and you can make you happy. Also what other emotional issues that brought you both to this point? Divorce parents? Broken family? If you Both are broken with out help, you will be unhappy. Make sure you both are mentally healthy before jumping on the marriage train or trust me, you will be heading to a rude awakening.
Kay Bruner
When you say “creating boundaries” what a man will hear is building defensive walls in which he sees you retreating behind them and leaving him isolated and alone. All you’ve done is basically guarantee that not not only is it a sure thing that he will seek pornography again, he will also lie about it and hide it out of a justified fear that you will not understand, or refuse to understand.
Rich,
This is blame-shifting and rationalizing: common defense mechanisms.
Your job is not to dictate to your wife how she responds to your betrayal, or to define how she has to behave in order to create the perfect world so you don’t seek pornography or lie about it.
Your job is to look into what is causing you to make these choices, and to make the changes that will allow you to be a trustworthy person once again. As long as you blame your wife and rationalize why it’s her fault that you look at porn and lie, then you’re not going to get anywhere.
If you would like to build emotional trust in the relationship, Dr. John Gottman has some important tips for you, which I wrote about in this article some time ago. None of it involved blaming yoru wife for your bad choices.
I don’t know what goes on with instagram when it comes to porn type of stuff, but the biggest thing you can do is pray for him, and tell him that he can open up to you without judgement. Let him know how you struggle. He doesn’t want to admit anything going on because he doesn’t want to see the truth himself, so pray for him.
The two of you should not marry until both of you are completely healed from this. If you tried to marry this person and if you try to fix him, or he tries to fix you, most likely it won’t work, and you will wind up with a divorce so, before either of you marry anybody, get the healing first. You wouldn’t want to go into a marriage with somebody who has a drug addiction or alcohol addiction so don’t go into a marriage with somebody who has a porn addiction. You can’t force him to be healed and he can’t force you to be healed. So the two of you probably need to go seek out some courses / conferences and counselors… There are books like every man’s battle, and there are conferences design for men to deal with their p*** addiction. I don’t know if there’s any conferences out there to help ladies with their p*** addiction but you can go science counselors and conferences doing internet searches. I would strongly recommend that you join us with a foreign addiction group bass out of your church and so that you all can start going through the process of recovery. It’s similar to 12 step program for the addicts Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous. I go to Gateway Church in Texas and while I am not part of the porn addiction recovery group, it seems to help a lot of the people who attend that group.
I strongly urge you to watch a large number of videos from Jimmy Evans of http://www.MarriageToday.Com. He teaches a lot about the pain of Life, healthy marriages, healthy dating, healthy courting, emotional health, Etc.
First you have to work on your self. Pray for yourself and ask God to remove the evil desire to watch porn. (Watching it supports human trafficking, abuse to women your age, and may even affect your future children’s life due to your committment to it.) But please FAST and PRAY for yourself 1st to be released from it. The Lord wants to continually he there and help the both of you through it all. Still support him and maybe you guys can try it together. Never ever give up… You can do it!
I’m warring for my husband in the spirit. I want to see the chains broken and him free from bondage.
Porn cost me my marriage of 29 years. After becoming disabled, and no longer the bread winner, I struggled greatly with the Devil’s Triangle. It became all I thought about.
I just saw this on Facebook today. I’m a woman who’s husband was and still is severely addicted to porn. I see ALL of the triggers that were in him. It slowly chipped away at my love for him. He had very bad anger issues as well. We finally divorced after 23 years of marriage. I was done. He’s now in a nursing home in Florida because he was living with my daughter, (his step daughter he helped me raise), and he ended up propositioning her for sex. Second time he offered her money. Third he physically touched her while she was in bed sleeping next to her husband. He’s got early onset Parkinson’s, but every decision he’s made with everything he’s done leaders back to those three things you spoke about. He’s alone and far away from everyone who ever cared about him. Because of the porn and his stubbornness not to want to change.
What a heartbreaking story. Wishing you peace and healing, Kay
I found that when these situations enter, to simply get out of them ASAP. There are two types of ways to deal with conflict: fight or flight. With purity, the only way to persevere I found is to simply take flight, not fight. Fighting will certainly lead to failure (sin) (and many Catholic saints affirmed this). If you are Catholic, think of adoring the Eucharist, which is literally God. All the best, and don’t lose hope!
As a wife who has suffered the affects caused by my husband’s choices, I will state a good thing for a spouse to get in place is a healthy boundaries contract for themselves.
This way they remain safe in the areas specific to thier situation.
If the spouse breaks the contract, the consequences have been predetermined. No surprises, they will respond accordingly.
I will say as a wife, I don’t want to hear details when my husband is struggling. It is not good to put a spouse in the position to be the confidant to thier partner’s adultery.
Johana,
What are some of the consequences you enacted, if they are parson, I apologize for asking. You have a great idea and I was just looking for some guidance.
I agree, it sparks too much pain
What kind if boundary’s and consequences are talking about ?
Hey Deb, if you’re interested in reading more about boundaries, here, here, and here are some good resources to get you started.
I am currently in counseling as a husband and father as a recovering sex-addict and
I know the three things that have helps me specifically are the books “Worthy of her Trust” and “Fierce Marriage”, and the small group study “Conquer” by Pure Desire Ministries.
A huge factor in if a man can escape is if he even WANTS to, but I am doing everything I can to repair my relationship with my wife and daughters.
If a man is willing to admit he needs help and wants to put in the effort, those are three great resources. Also find a healthy Christian counselor.
I never thought I would need it, but after 6 months, I can honestly say it’s been a huge factor in my ability to recover.
In terms of details, my counselor does suggest admitting failure, but never details. Details become something women (or men) latch onto and creates additional triggures that can impede healing.
Johanna, as a husband, I did not take the article to suggest that spouses should discuss the details after-the-fact, but that the discussion should be about the temptation & feelings … BEFORE turning to porn.
My take-away is that when one is weakened by feelings of “Helplessness, Hopelessness, & Worthlessness” and being tempted to look to porn as a means to “feel” better, we should seek others to discuss the temptation to turn to porn in order to ease the pain caused by these feelings. Now that we’ve made a connection with someone else (accountability partner, or better yet, a spouse) without judgement or criticism, we can have open communication to begin exploring the cause of desire to look at porn … the root-cause of those 3 triggers. Who better to connect with intimately, than your spouse?
Now, that being said … I actually tried that & it back-fired on me. I have even approached my wife, multiple times, telling her about feeling emotionally down and have desires to look at porn. Her response was typically that she didn’t want to hear about it & that I should be able to control myself better. Never offering intimacy, affection, or even connection with her. She never looked past the surface to go deeper to talk about the underlying cause of my feelings that were pushing me to seek intimacy elsewhere (even as fake as it is) from porn.
After 19 years of marriage & 8 children later, we are separated due to porn & several other issues. Even though I have been physically & intimately faithful to my wife, porn has had control over me for more than half my life. Shortly after we were married, I wanted my wife to provide me comfort & connection during times that I was burdened with feelings of “Helplessness, Hopelessness, & Worthlessness”. But now looking back, I realize that all I did was give my wife the key to control my feelings & emotions. I clearly see now that my marriage was not about a loving couple that shared in life together, but a means for my wife to maintain control. She wanted more children because they would love her unconditionally and she could maintain control over them. I was a wildcard … she never had full control over me. After explaining to my wife early in our marriage that my feeling emotionally distant from her as a root-cause to my feelings of “Helplessness, Hopelessness, & Worthlessness”, she used my desire for connection through intimacy & affection as means to emotionally control me.
I still struggle with all these emotions, but I should have never expected my wife to fulfill in me things that were never her responsibility in the 1st place. Ultimately, these are things that should be fulfilled by God and my wife’s role was never to “make me feel better” but to come along side me to unconditionally love, support, & assist me in my search for God’s comfort.
As a recovering porn addict, Carl’s words are absolute truth! When I reach out to other guys and/or my wife, the desire to numb out/medicate/comfort myself vanishes. The result is something bordering supernatural, it’s really weird. First the desire and pull to porn is powerful and you think there’s no other way. Then God sends a suggestion, “Maybe you can call so an so.” And that’s the escape route. Once I know how this all works, I know what the escape route looks like and where it’ll take me.
I still struggle with this stuff and I wish it were different. I wish I would never struggle again, but that’s not happening right now. So if I have to struggle, I know I don’t have to do it alone. I include my accountability partner or my wife.
Bob, your honest words give me hope for my husband and our marriage. I pray that the Lord restores you completely and as well as for all man struggleling with this addiction.
Yes, porn is destabilizing to marriage in many ways, but I also would like to add that it’s a sin like so many others. I would urge counseling to couples based on biblical principles of how to find out the root cause of this activity.
Appreciate helpful councel
Hello Carl Stewart, Great article. Confessing porn to another brings healing (see James 5:16, KJV).
Porn is what Ruined my marriage of 20 years. My husband became so consumed by it that the girls were getting younger and the physical and mental abuse at home became unbearable. I hope other men will hear that it ruins families. Our children have nothing to do with their father who was a Christian man. My respect completely diminished as he continued to lie about his problem. Everything we built together became a loss. Unfortunately he isn’t better he bought a Russian online after our divorce and our kids said he is rude to her as well. It’s sad to see a man of God get so tangle in the triangle that he makes a web that will only strangle him in the end. Men love your wives as Jesus loved the church and you will have the marriage you deserve.
It must be nice to have people around you can trust to confide in. I have no one.
Tim, I know what you mean. Too bad we don’t have a way to get in touch and help each other.
Everything I see and read us usually about hurting a spouse,What if your just a single person who does this every now n then?? I really related to this article because I feel all 3 of those things and I always feel guily/mad after watching porn. I hate it!.I wanna stop. I have overcome MANY other obstacles but can’t seem to tackle this.
Hi Brad!
Although you don’t have a spouse, I would still argue that watching porn, even occasionally, is wrong. The good news is that you can overcome this! Do you have a close friend, leader, or mentor whom you can reach out to and ask for accountability! Having someone to walk alongside you in recovery can make all the difference.
Blessings!
Moriah