Standing in a dark Las Vegas hotel room with my ear cupped to the bathroom door, I heard a voice that I had never heard before. It was the voice of a man “chatting with” and making arrangements to meet with a prostitute later that evening. This was not the man I married eight years ago! Immediately fear seemed to strangle me. My body shook uncontrollably at just the glimpse of the depth of darkness my husband was entangled in.
This moment became just the beginning of the unveiling of my husband’s secret life of sexual addiction. I was finally seeing that his “little problem” with pornography wasn’t such a little problem at all. The next few days and weeks became his horrendous unveiling of a lifestyle of infidelity, beginning with pornography and spiraling into a limitless pit of sexual sin.
Although there were specific things Michael did that helped rebuild my trust, each action would have been meaningless apart from a foundation of true brokenness and repentance. I had seen lots of tears over the years, but genuine repentance looked very different than anything I had ever seen in him before. No longer was he just sorry he got caught or that he had to face consequences, but he was literally sick over where this addiction had taken him.
Of course, I could have forgiven Michael without continuing a relationship with him, because forgiveness only requires one. However, rebuilding trust requires two. It requires a relationship and at least the start of reconciliation.
Related: How to Tell If Your Husband Is Really in Recovery
As I worked on forgiveness, he worked on doing anything necessary for rebuilding trust in our marriage. Here are five of those things.
1. Commitment to a Full Disclosure of the Truth
Initially, there were three major dump-truck-type confessions of “junk.” But beyond that, he made a commitment to being a “truth-teller” every time a memory was triggered.
I got to where I hated the words, “Micah, I need to tell you something.” It was odd. Even though I hated hearing it, those moments of truth were also somehow rebuilding trust. We both knew that if he never disclosed those things, I would’ve never known. Yet he made the continual choice to wipe the slate clean and repair the foundation that had been cracked with lies.
2. Took Full Responsibility
His lifestyle cost us a lot. It nearly destroyed our marriage, small business, finances, reputation, friendships, family relationships, and testimony—pretty much everything that was important to us.
Previously, he was the king of excuses. After real repentance, however, he no longer tried to minimize, deny, or justify his actions or their consequences. He didn’t try to shift the blame to someone else. Instead, I saw him consistently take ownership of his actions by humbling himself before others and me, admitting his wrongs, and asking for the opportunity to make the wrongs right.
3. Willingly Set Up Boundaries
Initially, I gave him a list of practical things he could do that would help me see that he was sincerely striving for purity. I never had to enforce or nag about these issues. He willingly put up boundaries in his life, and then set up others on his own. Boundaries will look a little different for everyone, but some of the boundaries looked like this:
- Being accountable to other godly men.
- Submitting to godly marriage counseling and cooperating with anything asked of him.
- Installing Screen Accountability and not being on an unprotected computer.
- Changing cell phone number; getting rid of old contacts.
- Having no unaccountable time.
- Giving me a list of all e-mail accounts and passwords.
- Going to bed at the same time I did.
- Not watching anything that could trigger lustful desires.
Related: Boundaries for Couples Facing Porn Addiction
4. Pursued Other Forms of Intimacy Besides Sex
After our separation, Michael initiated a 90-day abstinence period in order to work on building emotional and spiritual intimacy back into our marriage.
That time was both fulfilling and draining. It was draining because issues surfaced that we couldn’t gloss over with sex. We had to deal with them.
But it was fulfilling because it took the pressure of physical intimacy off the table. It allowed us to actively pursue rebuilding our relationship with physical intimacy as the overflow of our emotional and spiritual intimacy. It also helped to “reset” his brain chemically and prove to us both that sex was no longer going to be an idol in his life.
Related: 10 Ways to Build Intimacy Apart From Sex.
5. Passionately Pursued God
Without a doubt, the most important thing he did to rebuild my trust was to passionately pursue God. In his own strength, I knew that I would never be able to trust him again. He’d tried in the past to quit viewing porn on his own. The results were always a deeper spiral of degrading sin. I determined that as long as I saw an active pursuit on his part, and I saw evidence of the Spirit’s work in his life, then I was going to choose to trust. I may not be able to trust him, but I could trust the Lord in him!
This may be a good start, but it’s just that…a start. I can still hear my counselor saying, “Trust is lost by the bucketfuls, and gained by the dropfuls. The only way to rebuild trust is by consistency over a period of time.”
To anyone looking in, we were a hopeless case. The sin was just too extensive. It took no less than the supernatural power of God and two willing hearts to do the tough work of obedience. That was six years ago. Despite near destruction, our marriage continues to flourish as Michael continues to walk in purity and submission to the Lord.
I have a question for Micheal. My husband is the most loyal and committed pastor and gap year facilitator who has been in ministry for 18 years. He admitted his sex addiction to me about 7 weeks ago during an “in-house” separation that I initiated. He has struggled with porn and masturbation since 14 ( he is 51) and done everything possible to break free. On the morning the Lord spoke to him, and he admitted the dreaded word ADDICT, he came broken and repentant and suggesting the 90 abstinence period. Of course, I am delighted at his determination and effort and am doing everything possible to support him. The porn is not really the issue, but masturbation and anger. Rejection, fear of deprivation, abandonment are the roots. He has been faithful to do the 90 days but has had to start 3 times over. First after 6 days, then he made it to day 8. The pain was just too much for him. His body orgasmed spontaneously on day 10 of the 3rd round during normal (now very frequent) urination . We considered this a natural slip – not wanting to be legalistic, and continued without starting from day one again. The pain is almost unbearable and his aggression and increased adrenalin is not making it possible to build new intimacy pathways/ rewards. We have had a difficult and highly reactive aggressive complicated second marriage and I withdraw at any aggression now. Is this helpful in the long run? We both believe he needs to do this. I feel like I need to just stay out of his way until it’s over, but that is hardly helpful toward building a friendship and intimacy. Will this pass? Is this healthy for the prostate? today is day 14. He is cycling almost everyday and doing everything everyone has suggested including vitamin supplementation.
We live in South Africa and search as we may, cannot find any support group or even counceler that agrees with the 90 abstinence program. He has an accountability friend who is wonderfully supportive, kind and loving but even he finds it a bit extreme and has no experience with neuro-pathways and their strength. Any advice?
I found out about my husband’s pornography use about a month ago. I only felt like something was wrong for about a month and starting looking at his phone history but it was always clear. I’m like Only4Him in that my pastor is my husband. This article so hit on the nail what I am longing for and am trying patiently to see come from my husband. He seems to struggle with the wording addict. He says he does not feel compelled or drawn to porn at all since my discovery of it. I’ve tried to express that I am uncomfortable with his self-assessment and I desire a deeper look at the underlying issues that led to such dishonoring, risky behavior for so long. He has admitted to on and off porn use for the entirety of our 30+ years of marriage. I don’t know how to trust someone who marginalizes it and blames me and our marriage problems it. He seems to go about his days without any change while I bear the consequences of his unfaithfulness and sin. I was initially calm and willing to supportively work on whatever issues that were needed. I recognize there is deep marital hurts and problems but I hoped we could get support and victory through God and His servants. After the numerous ways I have been blamed by him and his expectation that I will just move forward and work on our marriage by being nice to each other, my anger and fear is becoming overwhelming. By my insistent, he did confess the issue to an overseer. They met once and now that individual receives his Covenant Eyes report. I expected and feel there should be more and have shared that with my husband. He thinks it’s all that is needed because he doesn’t have an addiction problem. I don’t understand why God let this go on for so long and even now seems to bring so little support and correction.
Oh, I’m so sorry. I think pastors using porn is so much more common than any of us are able to admit. I recognize so much of my own story in your story! This is such a sticky situation, because if people knew, he’d lose his job and you’d lose your whole life, right?
We were missionaries overseas when I discovered my husband’s addiction. There was nothing in the literature about our situation. So, I wrote a book about it. It’s at Amazon if you’re interested.
A good bit of what I do now as a counselor is with women who’ve been in similar situations. I hear stories like this all the time: the church or organization knew, and provided some initial support which proved over time to be inadequate. I think churches and ministries are probably so overwhelmed by the number of cases that there’s a tendency to minimize the seriousness of it, if the man is willing to say nice words and go along with accountability software. When I hear a story about a good, healthy church that supports the wife and holds the husband accountable, that’s the rare exception.
The burden of this does end up falling on wives, and we have to decide what we’re willing to do about it. You might like our free download, Hope After Porn, where several women talk about their struggle and what got them through.
I think you are seeing the relational symptoms of his addiction: he minimizes and blames, and doesn’t take your emotions into account. This is, I think, one of the very common things that happens with a long-term porn problem where women are simply objects to be used for his own gratification: you end up in that same category of person. Perhaps not sexually, but definitely emotionally, he’s incapable at this point of really considering you. It sounds like he’s still got a major case of porn-brain even if he’s not looking right now. And the real test of whether he’s really in recovery or just a dry-drunk (not looking, but the problem is still there) is whether he becomes able to turn toward you emotionally.
Unfortunately, I think religious work can provide a lot of the same kinds of distractions as other addictions.
The terrible thing that happens (aside from a lot of men not getting the depth of help they really need) is that the victims–the wives–are ignored. Many, many women who face this situation meet the clinical criteria for PTSD. So I would tell you this.
GET HELP FOR YOURSELF.
Find a therapist in your area, and get yourself some support. This is not marriage counseling! I think marriage counseling only works if he is actually taking responsibility for himself and his addiction, and I don’t think he’s there yet. But you can do a bunch of good work in therapy without his participation. He is responsible for himself, you are responsible for you. So get help for YOU.
And have a good knock-down, drag-out with God over this while you’re at it. He can take it. Blessings, Kay
thank you all for taking the time to respond and help me. i am thinking hard about all that you have shared with me. Your prayers and scriptures and the time you took to respond are precious to me.
We have been dealing with this all our marriage, more than 30 years of forgiving and thinking he was done with it. Years of hoping for better only to realize it was a farce. I am realizing that I have not been seeing repentance, only shame and temporary regret. He is full of anger. I have told him for years that he must deal with this, even for the destruction it will pass on to our children. Sure enough, it is on the way to that. He is not taking responsibility for what it has done to our marriage and family and wants me to “deal with my sin” because this time I have said no more! Yesterday my son, in front of his father said I was responsible for why dad did porn and if I had been different… His dad agreed. The counselors we have been seeing don’t really get it. Does being married to a porn addict mean that you are inherently sick too. I have spent these years clinging to and serving the Lord. I don’t understand how my kids can blame me. I tried to keep them from having to deal with it but my sons are computer savvy so they know and he told one of my daughters. We use covenant eyes and open DNS. I would talk to my pastor but my husband is my pastor. He is reading Pure Minds and has started attending a men’s group. Are they going to tell him that he needs to quit blaming me??? I am very angry and I am not going to put up with it anymore.
For your sake and his, I hope reality slaps him across the face. His addiction to porn is not your fault, and he needs to get that.
Often people, and Christians especially, have this confusion. Coming from the assumption that we all sin (which is true), we gravitate towards models of counseling and advice that say the wife is a “co-addict.” The co-addict model essentially says, “There is something profoundly broken in you as a woman, and when you met your husband, his brokenness and your brokenness were magnetically drawn to each other. You were like two heat-seeking missiles, bound to find each other. Your brokenness exasperates his brokenness, and vice versa.”
Now, I do believe that many women do enter into marriage with sexual and relational baggage of their own, but what’s incorrect about this co-addict model is it presumes too much about who is responsible for which person’s sin. Let me draw a worst-case scenario. Let’s say a woman was particularly odious to her husband—sharp, critical, mean-spirited, accusatory, vengeful, withholding forgiveness, withholding sex, insecure—you get the picture. Then let’s say her husband looks at porn. Who’s guilty of looking at porn? The husband. Did his marriage create stress in his life? Yes. But who went to porn as the release valve for that stress? The husband.
If you are guilty of sinning against your spouse—and we’re all guilt of it—own your own sin, not his.
I’m so sorry this has been in your life for over three decades.
I wrote a post about this, and perhaps your husband would enjoy it. Since it went out in our Pure Minds Online newsletter, he might have already seen it. It’s called, “Husbands Who Watch Porn: 12 Ways to Reassure Your Wife.”
Only4Him, I cannot adequately express to you how grieved I am to read your story of the potential destruction of your marriage, family, children, and church body. I can’t imagine why the Lord has allowed him to continue in a position of church leadership while living in such blatant sin for so long! However, I do know that the Lord will not strive with him forever. Actually, I fear what it may take to get his attention. I tried to “protect” my husband and his reputation for years by dealing with it alone. Eventually the Lord abruptly got me out of the way of shielding him from consequences, and his sin was very publically exposed. I hated every moment of that mortifying time, yet God used it to bring brokenness into his life (and even mine). God may be preparing you for such a time. He may be giving you His heart on the matter and preparing you to set some firm boundaries with him. I recently wrote about dealing with an unrepentant spouse that may be of help you.
His addiction is NOT your fault! There may be areas in your life that you need to work on (we all have them), but his sin is HIS sin. Would I have been justified to commit adultery in response to my husband’s extensive adultery just to punish him and make him feel what I felt? Of course not! Yet that’s the type justification your husband is attempting. My response, your response, and his response to dealing with our spouse’s sin should be to turn to the Lord for the answers and let the Lord deal with him, not take the role of vengeance into our own hands by sinning ourselves. Vengeance is the Lord’s. It’s our job just to follow and obey Him whatever that looks like. Your husband has no excuse for his behavior! He knows the truth and has turned a blind eye to it. You need to find a counselor who doesn’t perpetuate his self-justification and encourages him to take ownership for his own sin. You may want to check a few websites for some Christian counselors in your area.
1) The AACC (American Association of Christian Counselors) has a very useful tool on their website that could help you locate some counselors in your area.
2) Also the Focus on the Family website has a database of counselors they recommend as well.
3) Restoration Path is also an incredible ministry that helped my husband. The Founder, David Jones is so very wise and full of truth. They have distance counseling that they do for both husbands and wives by way of Skype.
Also, do y’all have some other pastor friends/couples whom you could enlist to help you confront and hold him accountable? At this point, he’ s deceived in thinking he’s king. He’s king of the church, king of your home, and king of all his sexual fantasies. Scripture tells you to take it to the church once you’ve confronted him. In your case the church includes the wider church body as a whole, not just your own church.
As for your children, I want you to know that I’m praying that the Lord of Hosts will surround your home and protect your children on every side from the plague of pornography, and grant them the discernment to understand the truth and see it from His perspective without you having to defend yourself. As I prayed for you this morning the Lord led me to Is. 44: 1-5 which I prayed for you and your children.
Thus says the Lord who made you and formed you from the womb, who will help you, ‘Do not fear, O Jacob My servant; And you Jeshurun whom I have chosen. ‘For I will pour out water on the thirsty land And streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring And My blessing on your descendants; And they will spring up among the grass like poplars by streams of water.’ “This one will say, ‘I am the Lord’s’; And that one will call on the name of Jacob; And another will write on his hand, ‘Belonging to the Lord,’ And will name Israel’s name with honor.
I will be continuing my prayers for you and your family, Only4Him!
Love and hugs, Micah
Only4Him – My wife, Micah shared with me your comment. My heart is wrenched. I hurt for you, for your children, for the body of Christ, and for your husband. I not only hurt for all involved and affected, I am also angry at sin, not at your husband and the decisions he is making to blatantly sin, but I am angry at the enemy and his cunning, sly ways in helping your husband (as well as countless others) justify their actions to worship false gods! Pornography is an idol. . .a false god! Your husband according to Romans 1:22 is claiming to be wise, but becoming a fool for he is exchanging the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man. According to Romans 1:25, He has exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and he is worshipping and serving something created instead of the Creator.
Galatians 6:7-8 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. God is just, He will not allow your husband to go on in sin without true repentance! Pornography blinds you to reality! Pornography is all wrapped up in fantasy and is not real! 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or anyone practicing homosexuality, 10 no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom. I can speak this truth because I used to be this man, deceived into thinking my sin only affected me, deceived into justifying my sin to look at pornography because my wife, Micah wasn’t meeting my selfish expectations. This verse, 1 Corinthians 6:11 describes me, “And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” Notice above in Gal 6:7 and 1 Cor 6:9, God”s word says DO NOT BE DECEIVED! Satan is good at deceiving us into justifying sin. Right now he is like the blind leading the blind. The body of Christ is looking to him to open the word of God and say, “Thus sayeth the Lord.” He cannot with authority and power preach the word of God while living in unrepentant sin, justifying his actions, and continuing in an immoral lifestyle.
May the Lord soften his hard heart, open his blind eyes and deaf ears and break him. Hebrews 12:3-13 talks about Fatherly discipline. My fear for your husband is he may not truly be a son. He is like the blind leading the blind. In Hebrews 12:8, it says But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. That’s pretty stout language, but it’s so true! Is the Lord disciplining him for his sin? If not then he needs to be very worried! He may be a bastard and not a son! My plea for your husband is to repent! His repentance should look different than others though, for he has willfully led a congregation while living in sin. He should not only seek God’s forgiveness, your forgiveness, and your children’s forgiveness, but he should ask the congregation to forgive him.
My prayer for your husband is this that if he is a son, the Lord would discipline him because he is a son, BUT if he is not a son that the Lord would discipline him and make him a son. Job 36:15 says “But by means of their suffering, he rescues those who suffer. For he gets their attention through adversity.” That’s my prayer for you’re your husband as well as others living in unrepentant sin. Suffering because of sin is gracious. You see, I was deceived into thinking that I was a son and that I could sin at any time I wanted because I have grace. Man was I wrong! I was deceived! I wasn’t a son when the Lord disciplined me. Neither was Paul on the road to Damascus when he was blinded, but the Lord disciplined him and mad him a son through his suffering. The Lord did the same to me. I lived a sexually immoral lifestyle behind closed doors, but I began to become more bold and didn’t care any longer about my sin being exposed or who I was affecting. The Lord got my attention. He broke me by taking everything away from me that I cared about. . .my wife, my children, my business, my reputation. Though I wasn’t a son when the Lord disciplined me, he disciplined me and made me a son! By God’s grace I repented. It was God’s goodness that led me to repentance, Romans 2:4. Once I repented, He restored all that I had lost and all the locusts had eaten.
I am so sorry you are suffering because of your husband’s sin. I am praying Psalm 34 over you and for your family. I want to encourage you more than ever before to seek the Lord, allow Him to be your husband during this time, and lastly surrender your husband to the Lord. I pray that the goodness of God would lead him to repentance, Rom 2:4. Bless you my sister.
Dallen, I totally agree with my wife, Micah.
I want to encourage you as she did in #2, pray to the Lord and beg Him to bring a Paul in your life. . .and older man in the faith full of grace and truth, willing and able to pour his life into yours, sharpening you and challenging you to live up to God’s call on your life.
In addition to what Micah said, in Romans 7:18 Paul says “For I know that NOTHING good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is NO ABILITY to do it.” Living in freedom from pornography and lust is SUPERNATURAL! You need to rely upon the Holy Spirit and not yourself. You, my brother, have no power. This battle is impossible to win in your own strength and flesh, but it is HIMpossible!
Lastly, I want to recommend a valuable person and resource I found VERY HELPFUL for me. His name is David Jones with Restoration Path. Here is a link to his website, http://restorationpath.org/. David Jones is one of my heroes. He is a man full of grace and truth and I believe he would be very helpful to you as well. He would offer some professional advice in addition to the local man recommended above. One of the great services David offers is Skype counseling.
God is for you brother! Rely on him!
Hi Micah. This article is very important and I deem it totally helpful for each couple. I’m still young and student but I do know that pornography destroys families. According to the statistics I did, 90% of men I questioned said that watching porno decreases intimacy, and consequently many couples split up.
During our conversations, I realized one important thing: God must be at the core of each couple.
I thank God you and Michael made it big! The success of your couple is also a great lesson for your children.
So tell me, what advices would you give to the youth, who used to watch porn (I am among them), who are still struggling with it, so that their future won’t be ruined by those demonic flicks?
Too much thanks!
Dallen, You are absolutely right. God must be the center or true victory is impossible. Will power will only go so far, and then the stronghold comes back with vengeance. Pornography is actually sexual idolatry. There are only two things that Paul said to “flee” (or literally run away from) and they are sexual immorality and idolatry. Pornography use encompasses them both! So…
1) A young man must pray for a heart like Daniel who determined in his heart not to defile himself with the Babylonian culture. That means that he would be willing to say no to those places, movies, music, TV shows, websites, or anything that might lead him into temptation. Much of the problem with Christians is that we aren’t willing to root out those areas of defilement. We believe the lie that we’re strong enough to deal with the temptation on our own. We want the victory of Christ, but we want to live like the world. It just doesn’t work that way. The world says “indulge yourselves,” but Christ says “deny yourselves.”
2) Eph. 5:11 says, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” Be willing to expose the sin and temptation to a godly man whose walk you desire to emulate. A young man should pray and look for a spiritually mature man who can hold him accountable and disciple him into a deeper walk with the Lord. When the greater addiction is Jesus, no longer does anything else even compare in satisfaction. My husband became so satisfied with Christ that the “fruitless deeds of darkness” just didn’t seem so appealing anymore. Not to say that he’s beyond temptation, on the contrary, he’s capable of any temptation (as am I), which is precisely what keeps him (and myself) walking closely with the Lord.
3) Get into the habit of spending time in prayer and studying the Word at the beginning of every day. If you’ve never read the Bible all the way through, I would recommend the One Year Bible and just start trekking through it. Don’t wait until January. Just get one, and get going.
4) Install filtering/accountability software such as Covenant Eyes on all your internet capable devices. Gone are the days of passive Christianity. If a young man wishes to keep his ways pure he must be proactive in “foreseeing the danger ahead and taking precautions” Prov. 27:12.
5) Get busy with kingdom work. David fell into sexual sin because he was at home lazing around when he should’ve been with his men in battle. There is a great war going on for the hearts and souls of men, women, and children. Find an area where you love to serve and get busy giving your life away.
Thank you, Dallen, for your comments and desire to walk righteously in an unrighteous world. Praying for victory over every temptation, and that the Lord would use you as an example of holiness and purity among your generation. Blessings!
Gee-
Get your head out of the sand. You did not push your husband on porn because you were gone for a while. He most likely was doing it long before you were married and you only just found out about it. Men are really good about covering it up because they don’t want to have to give it up!! Yes, this IS the man you married!!! You can confront him, but he will just get better at covering his tracks if he is not truly ready to surrender to God! Until HE wants to truly change, YOU can’t make him. If men really believed that their wives were DAUGHTERS of GOD they would be on their knees begging for His mercy because of the way they treat their wives and other women.
Perfectly said!
Hi, thank you sooo much for all the very helpful articles in your website. And to everyone who has shared their story, thank you for giving me hope. I stumbled on this website while looking for solutions to my marriage challenge. I have been married for four years and have recently observed my husband has been viewing porn sites (3 months ago). This was after I returned home from studying abroad so I felt terribly responsible for this new development, i felt my absence pushed him to porn. I did not know how to deal with it and I did not know who to talk to (I am not comfortable discussing this issue with any of my local church pastors). So, I reassured myself he will stop since I had come back home for good. Unfortunately, he has continued viewing these porn sites. I was most horrified to see a porn video on his phone despite the fact that he knows our little 3 year old daughter frequently plays with our phones and loves to watch music videos on our phones. I am not angry with him because I know that isn’t the man I married and an evil spirit seeking to destroy my marriage is responsible for this. I have noticed a serious lack of interest in prayer and family worship from my hubby and I am afraid of the possible dangers this can bring to our home. Please how do you suggest I handle this issue? I am skeptical of confrontation because the only time I confronted him concerning my suspicion of infidelity, it didnt turn out good. If confrontation is the best way, kindly tell me how to go about this because I may have got it wrong the first time. I want deliverance for my husband, marriage and young family. I thought it might be helpful for you to know I am based in Africa, that should help in guiding the suggestions you give me. Thank you
One: Download Porn and Your Husband. Most of the advice in it will be relevant, regardless of location.
Two: Don’t blame yourself for his porn problem. Chances are good that he was exposed years ago.
Three: Remember, as you confront him, the goal is restoration, not accusation, but he does need to move toward repentence. In fact, in Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus actually commands that if in a one-on-one loving confrontation, the person doesn’t repent, then we are to bring in progressively more people. If not the pastors themselves, don’t be afraid to bring in another trusted church elder to lovingly confront him and hold him accountable for his Internet use.
Wonderful article.
Pornography these days is one of the biggest problem societies are facing.
I too wrote an article addressing the correlation of Human Trafficking and Pornography and common myths about it.
Our Ironical Passion against human trafficking http://srivastavapallavi.blogspot.com/2014/05/image-courtesy-httpblog.html
Have a look and share it as much as we can, because we all know how crucial it is to spread awareness.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for this article. I’m 31. I’ve been struggling with this issue since I was 11 or 12. The insatiable hunger for pleasure lead to the use of porn which lead to unbearable guilt which weakened my resistance. This cycle happened for 20 years. My wife found out ONE MONTH after our wedding. (What a honeymoon!). I was sure that I had kicked it. So, it wasn’t a lie when I told her that it was in my past. But, when it reemerged, I didn’t tell her. I didn’t tell anyone. I was so ashamed. It has come and gone. I’ve never been able to kick it for more than a couple months. At the time of writing this, I’ve been clean for 8 MONTHS! But I wasn’t free from guilt.
We’ve been married almost 8 years. Last week, my wife found in my YouTube history, a video that I had clicked on. I hadn’t searched for it, or for anything untoward, but it was present in a page of various water cooler type viral videos that I was viewing. It wasn’t “porn”, but it wasn’t something that I should have been watching. And, to be frank, I was wracked with guilt simply for clicking on it and I clicked away almost immediately.
After she found that though, I knew her trust was shaken. On Saturday evening, we were having a moment of closeness and vulnerability. It started with a trickle. Then the dam broke. Then we didn’t sleep. Then we met with our pastor who suggested we check out covenant eyes.
Today, Monday, I met a councilor. I’m going back tomorrow. I’m going to attend a meeting of celebrate recovery this week. THIS TIME IT’S OVER! 20 years of lying and hiding and feeling ashamed and being emotionally absent. 8 years of marriage not being able to get close to my wife who is the most beautiful and kind woman I’ve ever met. 8 years of not being the man that God intended me to be for her.
I can’t wait to see what God has in store for me and for our marriage!
After the confession, I spent a lot of time on my knees because I’ve been shunning God all this time. He’s been at my door, but I’ve been holding it shut for want of him not finding out what’s in my house…like he doesn’t know…
I cried out to God. “I’M FREE. PLEASE COME IN!”
Hi Steve,
Thanks for sharing your story with us. I hope the addition of Covenant Eyes, a new-found commitment to community and honesty, pastoral counsel, and solid accountability will help you overcoming this habit!