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Rebuild Your Marriage 10 minute read

Straight Talk to Husbands Who Watch Porn

Last Updated: February 29, 2024

Shelli remembers well the day her husband John called her up to confess his secret obsession with pornography. Years of guilt, shame, and wasted time had finally taken its toll on John, and the emotional dam broke. He knew he needed to tell his wife the truth.

“It took me by complete surprise,” she says, “I didn’t have any clue that it was even an issue.” But after the shock came the hurt. “There was definitely a death of all that I thought was real,” Shelli says. “Everything that we had had prior to that felt artificial…that I was believing a lie, that I didn’t know him, and I didn’t know who he really was, and the way he felt about me was a big lie.”

John and Shelli Mandeville share part of their story on the documentary Somebody’s Daughter: A Journey to Freedom from Pornography. Sadly, John and Shelli’s story of a marriage nearly destroyed by pornography and addiction is all too common. In 2002, at a meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the divorce attorneys present said over half (56%) of their cases involved one party having “an obsessive interest in pornographic websites.”

Do wives need to lighten up?

In a presentation given at the Witherspoon Institute, Dr. Jill Manning spoke about the impact pornography can have on wives. “It has been troubling and intriguing to me,” reports Dr. Manning, “how many times I encounter derogatory beliefs about this group of women, beliefs that dismiss the magnitude of the issue and the legitimacy of it, by framing them as pathological, overreacting, and frigid women who need to lighten up. ‘After all, he’s just looking?’”

Some women, in fact, have “lightened up.” Not all wives react negatively to their husbands using pornography. Ana Bridges from University of Arkansas’ psychology department says in her own research she has met many women who have justified their husbands’ behavior. “All guys look at porn.” “It’s better than him having an affair.” “At least he’s not always coming to me to get his needs met.”

Bridges labels these rationalizations as “permission-giving beliefs:” things we tell ourselves that make certain behaviors seem normal or healthy. Ironically, it is pornography that often teaches and reinforces these beliefs in the first place. If we receive a steady diet of media that portrays illicit sex as the norm, it is easy to get the impression that “boys will be boys.”

How a woman reacts to her husband using pornography is based in part on what she believes healthy sexuality and relationships should look like in the first place. So, what if, just for a minute, we asked ourselves how our relationships could look if we didn’t live in a pornified culture. What if, for a brief moment, men turned their eyes away from the fantasy images—the airbrushed photos, the clever video editing, the breast enhancements, and the thumbnail images that portray women like dogs in heat—and instead focused on what pornography is really costing them and their wives? Before we quickly label distressed wives as overly conservative prudes, what if we peeled back the layers and instead saw women who were mourning the loss of something they should rightly expect from their husbands: intimacy.

Who says porn is bad for marriages?

John and Shelli certainly understood what porn was costing them. “Accept an impossible appetite and an impossible standard, and it steals from the true beauty of what marriage is supposed to be,” John says. “It’s the perfect theft of growing old together. Who wants to grow old together in a culture where all we honor is what’s young?”

Consider how the research bears this out. Pornography doesn’t teach men to serve, honor, and cherish their wives in a way that fosters romance. Pornography trains men to be consumers, to treat sex as a commodity, to think about sex as something on-tap and made-to-order. As Dr. Mary Anne Layden writes, “It is toxic miseducation about sex and relationships.”

  • In Dr. Gary Brooks’ book, The Centerfold Syndrome, he explains how pornography alters the way men think. Because the women in porn are only glossy magazine pictures or pixels on the screen, they have no sexual or relational expectations of their own. This trains men to desire the cheap thrill of fantasy over a committed relationship that requires them to connect to another human being. Pornography essentially trains men to be digital voyeurs: looking at women rather than seeking genuine intimacy.
  • According to a study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, after only a few prolonged exposures to pornographic videos, men and women alike reported less sexual satisfaction with their intimate partners, including their partners’ affection, physical appearance, and sexual performance.
  • Another study that appeared in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy found similar results. When men and women were exposed to pictures of female centerfold models from Playboy and Penthouse, this significantly lowered their judgments about the attractiveness of “average” people.
  • Dr. Victor Cline’s research has shown that sexual arousal and excitement diminish with repeated exposure to sexual scenes, leading people to seek out greater variety and novelty in the pornography they view.
  • French neuroscientist Serge Stoleru reports on how overexposure to erotic stimuli actually exhausts the sexual responses of healthy young men.
  • Dr. Dolf Zillmann reports when young people are repeatedly exposed to pornography, it can have a long-lasting impact on their beliefs and behaviors. Frequently, men who habitually view pornography develop cynical attitudes about love and the need for affection between partners. They begin to view the institution of marriage as sexually confining. Often, men develop a “tolerance” for sexually explicit material, leading them to seek out more novel or bizarre material to achieve the same level of arousal.

Dr. Judith Reisman summarizes it well: Pornography causes impotence—an inability to function with your own sexual power. “If he can’t make love to his beloved,” says Reisman, “If he has to imagine a picture, if he has to imagine a scene, in order to actually reach the heights of completion with this person, then he’s no longer with his own power, is he? He has been stripped. He has been hijacked. He has been emasculated. He has, in effect, been castrated visually.”

We might say the real problem with pornography isn’t that it shows us too much sex, but that it can’t show us enough about what real sex is. Porn treats sex one-dimensionally, packages it in pixels and rips it from its relational context. It titillates with images of sex but cannot offer the experience of real intimacy.

Am I not enough for him?

“It’s not because you’re not enough, not beautiful, and that he doesn’t find you attractive,” Shelli Mandeville says. “It’s so important that women get that.”

Easier said than done. One has only to glance through online forums and blogs on this topic: many women feel his porn use is somehow their fault. They feel they have failed their partners sexually. They feel if they were only more attractive or more available he wouldn’t rush to the porn to get his fix. Researchers have found that wives and girlfriends often feel a loss of self-esteem in these situations.

However, comparing marital intimacy to pornography is like comparing apples to oranges. “The type of pornography that’s available now was never available in human history,” says Dr. William Struthers, author Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain. “If you can get on a 50-inch HD television a picture of a woman engaging in a sexual act, the brain’s not wired to expect that kind of thing, because there aren’t women who have 50-inch-HD-TV bodies out there.”

Even the tabloids show us that the so-called picture perfect women can’t possibly compete with fantasy. Why would Tiger Woods cheat on his swimsuit-model-wife Elin Nordegren? Why would Peter Cook spend $3,000 on Internet porn when he could come home to Christie Brinkley? Why would Charlie Sheen be drawn to a digital harem, being married to Denise Richards?

The answer is that a mind trained for fantasy will find reality dull, no matter how supposedly stunning that reality is. Many men have conditioned their brains with this “digital drug” (as Dr. Struthers calls it). Some men train their minds to be turned to viewing sex from certain camera angles. Others train their minds to be turned on by certain physical characteristics. Others train their minds to expect variety: many images, many women, many physical types. And this toxic training begins for most men at a very young age.

Take John and Shelli, for instance. John remembers seeing porn for the first time when he was 10 years old. That’s when his habit began. “So when you’re 12 and 13 and you’re not married, you think when you become married, that this whole habit you’ve created for yourself will just go away because now you’ll have a sex partner,” John says. “But the problem is, it’s not actually a sexual experience, it’s a fantasy experience that your body gets trained for. So now, the reality of the marriage isn’t the fantasy.”

Feminist author Naomi Wolf puts it best. She believes the onslaught of porn doesn’t increase but deadens male libido, leading men to see fewer and fewer women as porn-worthy. “For how can a real woman…possibly compete with a cybervision of perfection, downloadable and extinguishable at will, who comes, so to speak, utterly submissive and tailored to the consumer’s least specification?” No woman can compete with this. “Today,” Wolf writes, “real naked women are just bad porn.”

Steps for Guilty Husbands

John Mandeville offers his words of advice to men: “You’re either going to give in and go for it, and sacrifice everything for pixels on the screen, or you make a commitment to what’s real—what’s a real human sitting next to you, and commit to whatever it takes to make that work.” And turning to Shelli he says, “And we had to make that decision together.”

Where do men start in making that commitment?

Accept responsibility. Men often blame their wives for not being attentive enough. Certainly, an inattentive wife can be frustrating to a man, but using this as an excuse for virtual adultery is nothing but cowardice. Counselor Joe Dallas writes, “The wife who is inattentive, indifferent, or downright abusive is responsible forher sins, not his. No woman, no matter how odious, makes her man commit adultery, so if a wife sins, let her account. But let her account for her sins alone.”

Many times men are putting the cart before the horse when they use this excuse. It may not be her inattentiveness that has been the catalyst, rather it may be a sign of him not initiating real romance and true intimacy in the first place. And, of course, other issues affecting intimacy may require professional counseling.

Talk is cheap. Fred Stoeker, author of Every Man’s Battle, says, “You must give your wife every right to play a role in defining what ‘trustworthiness’ means to her in your marriage.” What does your wife need from you? She needs more than an apology. She needs to see you are making every effort to change. Ask her what she needs to see from you so trust can be rebuilt.

Be patient. Remember guys, your wife may not understand your attraction to or struggle with porn like you do. And if she has just found out about your struggle, she may be dealing with a whirlwind of confusion and hurt. Just as you desire patience from her as you distance yourself from pornography, give her the same patience. Allow her the freedom to express the hurt she rightly feels.

Get accountability. The late psychologist Alvin Cooper believed that there are three main factors that draw people into the Internet porn: Accessibility, Affordability, and Anonymity. He dubbed this the “Triple A Engine” that drives the digital porn market. Like a three-legged stool: kick out one of the legs and it will fall.

The leg of anonymity is the easiest one to remove. When you remove the secrecy of your Internet use, you eliminate much of the temptation. We do this through accountability: we make ourselves willing to account for where we go and what we see online, allowing trusted friends and colleagues hold us to task on our commitment to stay pure. Use Internet accountability software as a tool in your commitment.

Make real intimacy your end goal. The goal is not simply “quitting pornography.” That, of course, is admirable, but it only leaves a void. What pornography attempts to imitate is what, in the end, we really desire: intimacy with another human being. This is what husbands must strive for in their marriages.

Reclaim what pornography has stolen from you. Choose to break the cycle. Choose to stand for intimacy in a culture drowning in illusion. “So we’re drawing a line,” John Mandeville says, “and whatever it takes, the generation that grows up behind us is going to run where we stumble.”

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  1. Ron

    All of you “christian” woman should repent! The marriage vows say death do us part. The bible says God hates divorce! You need to Love your husband as Christ loves the church. Divorce is of Satan! No Christian woman should ever think about it. Most countries in the world don’t even alow divorce! I believe Jesus would say who ever can cast the first stone can get divorced!

    • Lisa Eldred

      The Bible permits divorce in two situations: adultery (Matthew 19) and unbelief on the spouse’s part (1 Cor. 7). When a husband is unrepentant in his use of pornography, it definitely falls in the category of the first situation, and quite probably reflects the second situation.

      That being said, the goal of separation and even divorce should be, ultimately, reconciliation. In fact, we’ve heard stories where separation has been the wake-up call the husband needed to stop using pornography.

      By the way, the verse you paraphrase, Ephesians 5:25, actually reads “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her…” Perhaps if husbands did a better job of following this command, their wives wouldn’t need to consider divorce as an option.

    • Cgreen

      Whoah! Jesus also said if you look at a woman and lust after her you have commuted adultry in your heart… if you repeatedly cheat on your wife then your are GUILtY of adultry. You would be blessed to have a wife stay with you after adultry. My husbands porn addiction has freed me to live and love a man who does not cheat on me. I am choosing to stay because I know God hates divorce…. However, if the porn stays or comes back… I GO. I will leave. I am young and beautiful and I would rather live alone than to live with an adulterer. Don’t ever repremand a woman if she chooses to leave an adulteress man!

    • Kay Bruner

      God hates divorce–BECAUSE divorce at the time that Jesus spoke those words was actually a way of abusing women. Only men could instigate a divorce, and they could do it for the simplest reasons. Once a woman was divorced, she would be outcast from society with no means of support–she would literally die of starvation. Jesus was making it harder for men to abuse women with that statement, so it’s highly ironic to me that the church today so often twists it to force women to stay in abusive situations! I agree with you, Jesus is on the side of victims. Never on the side of abusers. When we put ourselves on the side of abusers, we’re setting ourselves up against God. Thanks for speaking up here.

  2. mm

    I am currently on this situation atm.. my partner and i have been together for 3yrs, we have a baby boy and sex isnt there all the time cause im usually tired from watching our son, working and doing home duties… I caught him watching porn before which made me feel so ugly, not giving him enough and betrayed as I have just recently given birth to our son that time. He said he would stop and promised me.. He said he only did it to release as this is something ‘men’ do. but it made me feel so insecure and lost trust in our relationship… I thought he’s finally changed as our sex was starting to become more often… although some days i get really tired from work and watching our baby. then when i had a look on his ipad i saw that he’s been currently watching porn but he tried to delete the history but he left one out by accident.. I felt soo betrayed and ugly that he would still go watch porn eventhough im making all the effort to have sex with him every now and then. I want to leave him but its not that easy… i want my son to have a father. sometimes when we have sex i feel like im being used as a tool so that he can release watever urge he’s got…he does all this weird things youd get from porn and i feel like there is no love in our sex except using me as the girl that would do anything. I feel so used, ugly and betrayed that when i see him all i picture is a perverted man. that i cant trust him with anyone because i feel like if hes doing something that hurts me and ive clearly spoke to him that it hurts me and make me feel less.. he still doing it.. later on he could just get someone or anyone to just do it with. or just give in to temptatns gecause he has no self control now… i dont know what to do and it seems as if no one would ever understand me when it comes to this matter…

    • Lisa Eldred

      You’re definitely not alone!

      I recommend two things. First, go read Porn and Your Husband. It will give you some suggestions for next steps for your relationship. Second, go find a good counselor or pastor for advice. Make sure it’s someone who treats porn as a real issue, not just “a healthy or normal behavior” (it’s normal, but it’s not healthy). They’ll be able to give you tailored advice for what to do next.

    • subtle pain

      Hey mms I know how you feel. My husband watched porn 4 weeks after I had our baby. Though is been almost a year I still have very raw pain that comes up sometimes. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that a year into our marriage he “cheated” on me with porn. After I had our baby. I often feel ugly and unattractive. .. but I gave it to God and forgave him. I often meditate on scriptures that show me I’m precious in God’s eyes. .. this makes the impact from my husband less hard. ..he can’t take that away from me. .although he seems to have changed I still have suspecting times but I won’t allow it to make me crazy. . Hang in there there is more to us women than bring “attractive” enough. I think the problem is in the man who chooses to do this.

    • Caroline wanjiru

      I hear you, we sail on the same boat, I think the thing to do is leave, run for our dear lives

  3. milly

    the first time I learned about my husband’s porn was a year & a half ago three weeks before we got married. As I was leaving him, his parents stopped me, and like a pendeja, I stayed. My husband hasn’t made love to me in over six months. Worse, when he does want it, he treats my body like the BS that he watches on porn. It’s humiliating and I can’t compete with it. I am a beautiful and loving latina. I am a homemaker, which makes it difficult for me to get up and leave because I depend on him financially. I just recently sold my car to help his business from a financial fiasco. He tells me he is too stressed to be intimate.

    Instead of being intimate with me, he would rather watch porn. I have had it. I want to leave tomorrow. My problem is that I made a promise to God that for better or for worse…. My husband refuses to stop and has told me to deal with it or leave.

    I’m forty. He’s 39. He works, I have MS and minor disabilities.

    • Hi milly. So sorry to hear about your abusive husband.

      Do you have a support network? Anyone you can talk to about this?

  4. susan

    Been married a little over one year. Found that my husband looked at porn after telling me he had no desire to see other women like that. The women looked nothing like me. He lied at first then said he sid not look to masterbate but looked because he did not feel like I found him attractive. He said when he looked he felt attractive. We have had a very active sex life. He says I don’t have to worry that he will not look again and that he only thinks of me and wants it to only be between us. I can’t seem to let go and afraid that lack of trust will make it worse since he was honest about his feelings. He also said it was extreme ly hard to admit to me why he looked. It is hard for me ro believe that he dis not look for a sexual reason.

    • You say your husband looks at porn because the women staring back at him make him feel attractive. Whether or not he classifies that as a “sexual reason” for looking at porn is of little consequence. The real question is whether he is making strides to gain your confidence, to make you believe that he is looking to you for his sexual satisfaction.

      It is very common for men to look at porn because the fantasy world makes them feel attractive. That is, I imagine, one of the main reasons men look at porn. The fantasy world is a place where he can feel like he is the center of another’s sexual universe.

      It would be good to know what he means by you not finding him attractive. It is great that he has been honest with you so far, but my prayer is that he will really be more honest with himself and find out why, in a sexually active marriage, he enjoys the buzz he gets from watching porn. What about the pornographic fantasy does he like? The attention? His wife gives him attention? Is there something about what the girls in porn say or do or look like that makes the attention so alluring to him?

      Speaking as a man who used to be addicted to porn, I know exactly why that fantasy world drew me: I was the center of attention from women that I considered “trophies.” These were women who looked like the cheerleader I could never have in high school, so porn supplied me with a fantasy world that made me feel like a “real man” who could merit the sexual attention of such beautiful women. I am happily married today, and have no doubt in my wife’s attraction to me, but the world of porn will forever be an alluring thing — not because I don’t get attention from my wife, but because the attention I get is not on my terms. Marital sex is wonderful, but focused on mutual giving. Pornographic lust is also pleasurable (and empty), but driven by selfishness. There’s no other person to please. The porn is all about me.

      I can’t say whether this is your husband’s experience; this is only where I am coming from.

      As for building trust in your marriage, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of an e-book I edited a while back called Hope After Porn. It is written by four women who’ve been in your shoes.

  5. Willow

    Words are difficult. My thoughts are like leaves blown to and fro, in a blustery wind that doesn’t allow me to focus on one mere leaf, but the swirling myriad …

    My daughter told me about Covenant Eyes, which is to say that her father’s addiction to pornography has been a problem for so very long and had such an affect on her that in her own, young, marriage she has asked her husband for more than just promises, but guarantees. He’s made himself accountable to Covenant Eyes then, for her, to help assure her that what happened between her parents won’t ever happen to them. He loves her too much to ever see her so demeaned. I’m grateful to him for that, and for his willingness to understand how her father’s addiction shattered the marriage and the family, as well as her fear of having the same happen to theirs.

    The matter of Covenant Eyes wouldn’t have come up – which is to say, she may never have told me, had I not told her that I suspected her father of sexually abusing our youngest and disabled child. He who cannot speak for himself. I made it clear that I have no proof – only suspicions, but that these suspicions, along with her father’s frequent accessing of “teen” porn sites – sometimes twice a day – have prompted me to seek the means to end our 30 year marriage. Counseling is out of the question. We’ve been there and done that. Due to his inability to be honest and assume responsibility for his actions he continued to blame me. Many of you who have posted here know how it goes – “If you were woman enough …” “If you took better care of me …” “There must be something wrong with you…” No counselor could break through. He was raised by a man who taught him well that there’s nothing more to life than sex, and that sex is love and love is sex. Aside from a sexual relationship he knows nothing about relationship, which is why he’s never had a relationship with either his daughter or his sons.

    I say this about his father knowing the family dynamic as well as I do. His younger sister, and quite brokenly, confided that her father had sexually assaulted her when she was young. Though I was the wife of his son, he attempted to sexually assault me too. When I slapped him, my husband’s father, for his advances, my husband became angry – at me – insisting that his father was a “harmless” drunk and I should just let it go. I couldn’t, and no longer allowed him into our home, or around the children, alone. It’s been a problem, and it has to end now. Right now.

    Tonight, though, I struggle with what to do in the here and now. My first inclination is to take the logs I’ve obtained of all of the porn sites, to include the teen sites, my husband has accessed to the State Attorney. I have more than 20 pages full going back 3-4 years, having only recently happened upon them when a virus came down on all of of the computers (wireless/network) and I had to try to figure out why. Now I know.

    I don’t want to access the sites my husband has been frequenting in an effort to determine if the involvement of the State Attorney might be called for, depending upon the age of the teens he’s been watching. I do have the logs of the sites, as aforementioned, printed from his Google account. He accesses the porn now via his android cell phone and cable TV. I wouldn’t know if he could access child pornography via DirectTV. I think not, but am not certain.

    Might there be someone at Covenant Eyes to whom I could send some of these logs to see if the teens he’s watching are underage, so I know better how to proceed?

    None of this is going to be easy. But, I’m just going to put one foot in front of the other and trust God to see us through.

    Thanks for your time. Also, all of you here who have posted know that my greatest of all hopes and prayers are with you.

    • Hi Willow. We’ll get in touch with you via e-mail to address this concern. Thanks.

  6. I am 27 and unfortunately grew up watching porn. I have realized and admitted I have a problem to both myself and my fiancé. I was around the age of 13 when I first discovered the relationship ruining pornography. It has caused so many problem within my relationship/family! The biggest problem being: I love my fiancé T*****y more than anything in this entire world….if only she could see, or believe that. Porn has made her feel our relationship is fake or fraudulent. I know my love for her is strong and real, but she does not. Pornography has indeed ruined my life! I hope and pray there is time to rebuild and fix what porn and I have broken….trust, respect, compassion and love.
    I NEED HELP, ADVISE, COUNSILING, ANYTHING….PLS I don’t want to lose her!

    • Hi Jacob. Thanks for your comment. I sense your desperation and I challenge you to take big steps to regain your fiancé’s trust. I would ask her specifically what rebuilding trust might even look like. It will probably involve steps taken to cut off your relationship with pornography and steps taken to build intimacy with her. She may not even be able to answer your question easily, and if she doesn’t know what to say, then make an action plan yourself. Cut off all porn access points. Tell her you plan to get to the bottom of your addiction to porn and then take steps to get that help. Tell her you will do this because it is the right thing to do, regardless of if she is ever able to give you her trust again.

      I encourage you to listen to this story from a couple I know who nearly lost their marriage over this issue. I think you’ll resonate with Darren’s story. I hope it speaks to you in a fresh way: “Dealing with Porn in a Marriage: Darren and April’s Story.”

    • jesus lives

      If you loved your wife you would stop. If you love porn you will not stop

    • Rachael

      I’m a wife of a porn user. We are on the verge on divorce. I came into the marriage knowing of his past and we had God at the center. All I can advise is that you give it up 100% right now and love her. She is worthy and she is real. Porn will rob you of everything you love, it will destroy your family. I have 2 children with 2 men and both were users. I feel regretful for this because I want to take the blame. Porn ruins lives. In my case it ruined my husbands life, my life and my children’s lives. Save your relationship. Love her. Truly. Love God. That’s all I have to say.

    • Kay Bruner

      Blessings to you, Rachael. May God bring healing, hope, light, and peace to you today. There is restoration and redemption, because that’s Who our God is: a Redeemer. And his Love never fails. Kay

  7. Leigh

    Great article. Thank you. Very informative. As i have been looking for answers why my partner of 7 years is quiite addicted to porn or anything that has to do with sexy / flirtatious women in their bikinis etc. For years i have been looking for answers…i was under the impression that i am the one with a problem, he told me i had to chill out and stop being so insecure. This is not an issue of insecurity. I told him one day…he should just be on his own so he can do al the things he wanted and make all those fantasies come to reality. He is in his 50s but he like very young women ..those women in the porn/mags etc.

    I am ready to move on anytime, just waiting for the right time. If i am destined to be on my own..so be it . rather than be with a man who gets excited or amused by looking at other women porn or not.

    • Hi Leigh. Glad you found it informative. I pray your husband comes around soon.

    • Caroline wanjiru

      Am 26, your husband sounds like mine, 4 years I feel I should run for my dear life.I delivered my second baby two months ago, I didn’t heal well & had to go back to work, I still am bleeding & caught him watching porn, when I was 4 months pregnant I saw on his Facebook messages to another woman telling her how he can’t stop thinking of her & they need to be more than friends,,am sick of it

    • Kay Bruner

      I think it’s so, so important to consider what healthy boundaries would look like in a situation like this. Here’s a basic article on boundaries that might help. You might also appreciate the book, Boundaries in Marriage, by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. Have a look at those things and let me know what you think–Kay

  8. Lane

    Thank you for the encouragement in this issue and the article! I have almost been married a year. We got married very young but have been together for about 6 years. I found out he watched porn when we were a good four and a half years into our relationship and it bothered me then. It was an unresolved issue because it fell on me that I didn’t “want it” enough for him I guess. He has been enlisted in the military and been away from me for a good six months last year. We got married and I now live with him away from all family and the back home friends. I came home from workearly one day to only catch him in the aftermath. Porn gives me a bad bad feeling in my stomach and grosses me out. I feel degraded as a women because I would never ever do the things he watches. He told me he wont watch it anymore but it was just to make me feel better. He hasn’t quit. He is going to Guam in October for 6months and I know for a fact of will be part of his life there and it not only angers me but makes me feel so so uncomfortable. I’m so thankful that I never have to worry about him cheating but I guess his trained fantasy is more than I can compete with let alone control. I’m at a loss…. any feedback would be appreciated, I’m definitely going to keep searching for more information!
    Lane

    • Luke Gilkerson

      Hi Lane. Yes, I encourage you to look around more and see if you can find any other helpful information. I recommend you download the e-book mentioned above for starters. You are right: “his trained fantasy is more than I can compete with let alone control.” He has trained his mind for a fantasy experience custom-tailored to his own desires. But the fact is no one, especially him, should make you feel as if you have to live up to the unrealistic fantasies created by the airbrushed, acted, and edited world of pornographic media. He is the one who needs to escape the fantasy trap and come back to reality.

      I don’t say this to make it sound as if reality is somehow a dull experience. Real marital intimacy can and should be passionate, personal, fun, and joyful. Unfortunately, so many men (myself included) have spent years feeding themselves on the fast food of porn. We’ve become “sexually obese.” Conditioned on this, men don’t recognize the pleasure of sitting down to a fine meal of marital intimacy. Their libido is exploited by this kind of media. Porn makes men into terrible lovers.

      If this is something that bothers you (and I believe it should), then first talk to him about how you know he hasn’t stopped. If he said he would stop and hasn’t, he needs to be confronted about this. Then I would talk to him about why him watching porn makes you feel the way you do. I highly recommend these two articles by Mark Gaither on our blog. They will offer you some insight about how to talk to him: “What’s wrong with a little porn?” and “Is Porn the Same as Adultery?

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The first 8 years of Troy and Melissa’s marriage were horrible because…

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Rebuild Your Marriage

How To (Biblically) Lament Your Husband’s Pornography Use

After I found out that my husband had been viewing pornography, I…

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Rebuild Your Marriage

Rebuilding Trust in Marriage Through Boundaries

In situations where a marriage has been affected by pornography use, it’s…

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Rebuild Your Marriage

From Secret Addiction to Full Transparency

After being married for eight years, I came home unexpectedly one afternoon…

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