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.”
Hi Everyone, I just read some stories and honestly tears came into my eyes like water fountain just turned on. I am so sorry for what you ladies have been going through. I would like some advice because I just don’t know what to do. Today is the horrible day that I also found out my husband has been watching porn. The sad part is that all this time, I thought he was religious and loved me. I trusted him so much. The worse part is that it has been going on for more than a year. Since I found out, I’m only thinking about divorce apart from crying. I feel very veryyy confused. I don’t know how to deal with this. Usually I share everything with my sisters, or family, but I feel so embarrassed to tell anyone. He’s searched up porn sites, viewed youtube, porn sites, and images of actresses. I just can’t believe him. To me, porn is very similar to cheating on your wife. THe only difference is that you are not touching that person with your hands, you are touching the person with your imaginable “hands” or your desires. It feels just like he slept with someone. I have only loved him and can’t even imagine him loving someone else. Maybe he doesn’t love them, yet imagines to have sex with them??? How gross and hurtful? I just can’t live with the thought that my husband would do such a thing. I always found him calm, gentle, loving, and respecting me. How can he do this then? If he had done it before our marriage, maybe I would have understood. But even after marriage? It makes me feel like crap. I have always made myself available to him. I don’t understand why he would do such a thing to me. and it didn’t happen only when I was not available. Sadly, he’s been doing this even when I was available. I don’t know how to confront him. I always found my self pretty, and had confident. This just made me lose my self esteem. I feel like crap. I would like to offer some advice to males who watch porn and are reading this:
My entire purpose of sharing my feelings was for Males WHO WATCH PORN. Please don’t destroy your relationship, and don’t lose your loving wife over some internet crap. It is hundred times better to stop right now before its too late and she finds out. I don’t know if I will be able to forgive my husband. Because addiction is hard to quit, and porn does get addicting. Save your relationship if you can, while you have time. If your wife found out already, beg her til she forgives you and make it up to her in every single way possible. and NEVER disappoint her again. Thanks for reading.
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for writing. I do hope men stumble on your words and take them to heart, because they need to be heard.
You said you were looking for some advice, so I’ll try as best I can to reply…
1. The reason why watching porn feels similar to cheating is because it is a type of unfaithfulness. He has been unfaithful to you with his eyes. You are right to feel betrayed because that is exactly what he had done to you.
2. Your marriage is not beyond hope. Countless couples have stared this unfaithfulness in the eye and chosen to work through it, chosen to forgive, chosen to rebuild trust. I do not know what is in store for your marriage, but I do know your marriage is not beyond hope. (You can listen to interviews from many couples on our blog to give you hope: Darren and April, Chris and Cindy, and Traylor and Melody.)
3. Your questions are very common for a wife who is facing this problem. I highly recommend you read this series of posts by Ella Hutchinson. She addresses many of these issues.
I too am in the same boat as most of you. It has crushed me every single time I have found that my husband turns to porn and it has sickened me to the point where I am ready to divorce him so he can be free to watch whatever he wants. I hate the way he is making me feel. I feel not good enough, ugly, fat, boring and many other things that I know I am not. I don’t even have any desire to touch him anymore because I feel like every time we have sex, he is thinking or imagining someone else he wants. I don’t even know anymore if he really wants me or something else. Of course he says he wants me but how am I supposed to know if he really means it or is just saying it to make me feel better? It absolutely does make me feel cheated on and I feel like I want to cheat on him. And if I do that, whether he finds out or not, I know this marriage will be over because I will not be able to stay with him if I am going to be dishonest. It happened before when we were together 20 some years ago. He was giving a girl at work a ride home sometimes and I was convinced he was cheating with her so I decided to cheat on him and eventually was not able to live with the idea of being dishonest so I broke up with him. I found out he wasn’t cheating with her but it was too late. I never told him until we got back together in 2005 and he didn’t take it very well even though it happened 20 some years ago. I just don’t know what to do anymore. I always have the feeling he is secretly looking at something or someone and I can’t take this feeling anymore. He gets mad when I catch him or he says the same thing other guys say… all guys do it and I know that’s not true. We end up in screaming matches over this which I can’t take at all anymore. He always says he won’t do it but I just feel like that’s what he thinks he needs to say to make me feel better. I do have to admit that he doesn’t do it very often but that doesn’t make me feel any better about it. This is affecting everything in my life and I need to do something to change this immediately or I am going to go crazy.
I had a chat with a psychologist/social worker a while ago, and she has a saying : “if you spot it, you’ve got it”, meaning if you see something in someone that upsets you, the issue causing the frustration is actually yours, not theirs.
There’s a recurring pattern in your post : “I can’t”, “I feel like”.
I don’t want to generalize and I’m not close enough to your relationship to contextualize a lot of this accurately, but it seems the two big issues you guys are/were experiencing are deeper than pornography : insecurity and dysfunctional communication. You said yourself that you’re boyfriend didn’t cheat on you, but insecurity made you do something horrible. They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So is its opposite. You can be looking at the most beautiful flower, but if you’re eyes want to see it as a dried up cactus, that’s what you’ll see.
In the same way jealousy and insecurity can ruin everything you look at.
Hello,
I want to first say that I’m married to an amazing man of God that has my heart. We have a beautiful eighteen month old daughter, and are now 4 months expecting from a planned pregnancy. We are going on four years of marriage and for the first two years had a very plentiful and healthy sex life. My first pregnancy with our daughter however did bring about some marital problems. Even though I am a woman of God I was experiencing a lot of things spiritually alarming. Our sex life came to screeching halt. I felt worthless, shameful, and undesirable. I had always had problems with self esteem prior to my marriage. He started becoming friendly, and very familiar with women in his workplace. I felt threatened by these women, but I held it inside for so long because I thought I was just being jealous. I did find a candid picture of two of the girls ay work in his phone, which was a little peculiar. I finally did talk to him about it later and we prayed together about it and he told me that my feelings were not unfounded, since these women did mean to cause our marriage harm. He since then promoted to a manager and is now working at a different store. Praise God. Though since we are now expecting again I just recently found that my husband had looked at pornography. I confronted him about it, and we talked very peacefully about it. I told him I wasn’t angry at him, I know this has to be embarrassing and I realize that it is a real struggle for men. I just feel really hurt. Especially because of the pain I went through for our first pregnancy. It is important to me to exhibit grace, not be the victim, and not feel maliciousness towards other women. Though I can’t shake the feeling of hurt. The only reason i know is because I went to look on his ipad to find some shows on a netflix app for our little girl and there was a page open that read “free porn.” I calmly addressed him about it and I had to explain, which made me feel that if he could have denied it, he would have. What really hurts me is that day he let me nap and put the baby down, he came to bed sometime after wanting sex. Only for me to find that he looked at porn beforehand. It makes me wonder about our previous sexual encounters. He often stays up late and plays video games, and sometimes will come to bed and want to take me very quickly while I’m asleep. Which I don’t mind because in my little pea brain I feel like “He loving me!” But now, I wonder if I was just a conduit to his arousal from the pornography. I honestly do not know how often he frequents those pages, I don’t want to ask because I don’t want to nag, and poke, and prod. I honestly don’t know what a porn addict is, or if he is one. I do feel very fearful. A part of me just wants to initiate sex more, in hopes that it aids in preventing temptation, but the other part is afraid to bear my pregnant body to him. Especially since from here to six months I am only going to get larger, gain more, weight, and feel less desirable.
Hi Callie. So sorry to hear about this discovery of your husband’s porn problem.
Of course, it is good and healthy for both of you to initiate sex often in your marriage, but he has to be intentional about not looking at pornography as well. He has to see it as a problem himself.
This book might be a big help to you. It’s called Porn and Your Husband. It’s a free downloadable book that will walk you through some of these tough questions.
Porn has always been an issue in my 5 year relationship with my bf we have 2 kids and the reason I haven’t married him is because of this. Hes a freelance arist & says that he does it for refrence/art only but I know that may not be true because he would hide it from me and delete it. So just last week I decided to allow him to do what he has always wanted draw cartoon/anime pronography with certain rules in place but he has failed to abide by them. I have never.seen him put this much effort in anything which really hurts he doesn’t even put as much effort in gigs that pay but yet he will view porn and draw for hours on end yesterday he was up until 10-4am which really upset me because he has never worked on a paying project this much ever! The only.reason I allowed it is because he’s always wanted to draw this but he just told me about it about 2 years ago & always says how much money he would make and even though I always said no I always found he would look at porn so that’s why I finally said yes but to be honest it hurts me how much he is into this shit having him stare at women’s private part all open and there huge breasts and beyond explicit images of them hurts a lot. I don’t know what to do I feel like if he does not do this he will be miserable for the rest of his life and regret it.
Jen,
Don’t feel as if you are trapped and unable to do anything about this. For your situation, I’m going to recommend you download this e-book and read it. It will help to bring you some clarity. I know you aren’t married to him, but your relationship is much like a marriage and has the same dynamics. I hope this books helps.
My husband watches rape porn, even though he knows I’ve been raped and abused throughout my childhood, and he is the only man I’ve ever been in a relationship with and slept with.
When I found out I confronted him and he said he was sorry and would stop, but a year later, I found he had still been watching it the whole time. Again I confronted him and threatened to leave, I was so upset. But again he promised to stop. Now he doesn’t seem to get that just because it doesn’t say rape in the title it’s not rape, the videos he watches are just so degrading to women. I mentioned this and now he still watches porn but I haven’t seen anything bad though I know it’s just a matter of time. He watches it every time I’m out of the house even if we have just made love, how is that supposed to make me feel? He says that all men watch porn, that he can do whatever he wants with his body. I said yes he can, but I don’t have to put up with it. He says it’s just fantasy and he wants time to himself where he doesn’t have to worry about pleasing anyone else, but there’s more productive things he could to with time to himself, something that doesn’t cause the woman he loves so much pain.
He tells me all the time that I’m beautiful and sexy and he tells me he loves me but how can I believe it when he watches porn all the time? If I say outright it’s porn or me, what if he chooses porn?
That is a critical question, isn’t it? Are you willing to put your foot down in a way that means you might lose him?
I’m so sorry to hear your story, Kana. It is terrible what your husband is doing, both to you and to the women who are being abused in those videos. His endorsement of that material only further enslaves those women and only harms his marriage.
He is right: many men watch porn, and it is a cultural norm. But that does not mean it is right. There are many things that are common activities, but just because something is common doesn’t mean it is healthy or good.
It sounds like your husband has changed his tune over the years. Before, he said he would stop. Now, he defends his actions as normal.
I highly recommend you read this series, especially part 3. It will help you to take some next steps.
What is the reality that these men actually change? I’m 40 years old and have been married for almost 20 years. My husband is a good man and father. He’s a leader in our church and always willing to help others. Everyone loves him.
We’ve been dealing with his pornography use for our entire marriage. Although I didn’t know it until about 5 years in. The first time I found out he was very angry. Reluctantly went to therapy to pacify me. We went through this every few years.
After the birth of our daughter 11 years ago I found more stuff. This time he was truly remorseful. I was heartbroken and in tears. He voluntarily spoke to our pastor and a few other men, became part of an accountability group and really saw how it was damaging our marriage.
That brings me to now. We are 3 months shy of our 20th anniversary. He is in our praise band at church. I find these sites he’s been visiting again. He said he was ashamed and had already been trying to put them behind him. That’s why he recently joined a new Bible Study.
At this point I’m just tired. It’s the same thing over and over. I wonder if he can ever change. He’s so good at lying I wonder if he’s lying about other things. I think of leaving but then I wonder if all men are like this. Would I just be going to put my trust in another man only to be lied to again. Also I don’t really want a divorce because they are messy. My own parents divorced 3 times and it was awful. Plus my kids love him. It would break their hearts,especially my daughter, if I left him. They do not know about his secret life. So a divorce would be a shock for them.
I am just so tired of trying. Do I just accept that it will always be this way? Do I hope one more time that he will change and be honest with me? Or do I just leave and stay alone? At least I would know that someone isn’t betraying my trust.
Hi Numb,
What your husband is struggling with is sadly common among Christian men. There are, of course, many men who sin in this way year in and year out. Others find freedom (I’m one of them, as have many other men who’ve written on this blog).
It is impossible to say (not knowing your husband’s story) what more he should do. If I was sitting across from him, I’d ask him a series of questions.
1. Do you have regular (weekly) accountability with another godly man or men about pornography, lust, and the thoughts and intentions of your heart?
2. What have you done to sever access to the pornography?
3. What have you done to avoid the rituals (i.e. getting on the computer late at night, etc., etc.) that often lead to toward temptation?
4. Have you cried out to God for help? (I mean, really. Not just thinking about it or feeling bad about it.)
5. Have your sought out discipleship in the church to help you get to the root of the reason why you look at porn in the first place?
As for you, Numb, many would tell you to ditch your husband. Many wouldn’t blame you for doing so. But you are no fool if you stick around and watch the transformation that could take place in him. I encourage you to do that.
Your husband definitely needs to rebuild broken trust. This is his job, not yours. Your job is to spell out for him what rebuilding broken trust looks like to you. What does he have to do and continually do to rebuild your trust (beyond just the porn stuff)? What can he do to demonstrate that his heart is changing?
I hope this helps.
The comments I read about it’s not sleeping with other women is a lie! Looking at porn you are sleeping with everyone one you see including the men. Your masturbating to it is seed falling on barren ground. Open up the word !! It would be better to pluck out your eye than to let it lead you into sin!. It does not matter the excuse or the reason is is an evil thing that is driving marriages to hell!. If you loved your wife would you die for her? Many would say yes but seeing this killing her in front of you has not stopped you. Get Christ get in the word listen to only christian music talk to her pray together get accountability partners turn your back to it and reach out to other men! Let the sin become a tool to reach other souls your destroying you your wife your family! Get scriptures print it out place it every where With Christ you can do all things. God help us God help this country.scripture says in the end times we will do right in our own eyes.
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My heart hurts for these wounded women and children that are all part of the seed planted by porn. I have been married 22 years the last two I have stayed after catching my husband in porn I stayed letting him get help to work through this. It has been two years of my waiting on him to talk to me two years of my reaching out to him two years of his continued lusting which he has done for years, friendships with women pet names ect at work and masturbation.First I will tell you as women, let Christ be your groom now. He will show you what a husband is meant to be. Let Him help you with you. God will not change your husbands heart no matter how much you pray i have done that for years, He is not a God that forces Himself on any one. What I have learned is we can pray for a softening of there heart, laborers across his path and a hedge of thorns around him. Scripture says we can ask for that and I do. Pray for there eyes to see. There is no situation that is exactly the same but he pain disbelief betrayal fear and death of a marriage is common ground. I have stood and God promised me in the word He would never let me be deceived by him again. Let the Holy Spirit lead you. I knew when my husband was still into the lie and sadly he was. As long as the evil is left to linger in your home the seed of it will continue to impact us. I am done. I am so many things that there are no words for but I have fought for this marriage for years to no avail but what God has raised up in me through it is amazing. This is past hard but to live with such a horrific sin is an insult to God and a horrible witness to my family. My story is long with many twists and turns to long for this site. So I kick the sand from my shoes and ask God to lead me as I have him leave.
Hi everyone. Thought I would post my story, its kind of long so I apologize in advance. I will start by saying that YES the majority of “stuff” has happened in the past. That being said, I started dating my husband when he was married (I know horrible I know). But I didn’t give him sex, we hung out and flirted alot, kissed. I knew he was into porn then and when his wife finally divorced him and we became exclusive and moved in together. It bothered me but I bought into the whole, I have needs and I’m a guy and hey I didn’t want sex all the time as I had endometriosis and alot of pain. In fact remembering alot of the sex way back then, it hurt! So yes, although it made me feel like crap, what could I do, let him have his fun. Fast forward to when I was in my late 20’s and two kids later .. we got our first computer.because I didn’t and still dont drive so I wanted to find a job I could do at home. Well a little while after we got the computer I still had no job, my husband had made complaints about that since “that is why we got the computer” aside from him looking at porn and camgirls and what he says .. searching women who look like me lol but I’m right here! Ok anyway, One day he throws it out there that he thinks I would be good at being a camgirl and shows me a couple of websites. If ya can’t beat them join them you say? Thats exactly what I did. For 10 years no less I was taking naughty photos, having livesex on camera and appearing on shows like Playboy channel and Howard Stern. We even met up with one of the owners of a site I worked for for a hotel photo shoot that just turned into sex which was videotaped. He whacked off to that tape for years. I stopped all adult sites and appearances when I was 37. Then I hit 40 and it felt like a ton of bricks hit me in the stomach. I’ve guess I had gotten so used to the high of what I used to do and sex being all around us during our intimate times (of course at night while the kids were sleeping) that after a few years of feeling like I was living an honest “good” life working customer service on my computer .. that I started noticing my husbands wandering eye and it hurt. He was still in porn mode especially since he has a vasectomy and had to get rid of stuff before his check up to see if he was sperm free. He would whack to porn behind me as I took calls and tried to work (my office is in my bedroom). And it just felt bad to me. His cousin would send him naked photos and of course he had his own sites he got to see what he wanted to see on also .. it just made me feel so diconnected from him and created one hell of a grip on me that I can’t release. Even if he looks at another woman I feel sick because if feels always about sex. He has erection problems and has for a long time with me. There are a dozen excuses for it that some of should have cleared the air .. I love sex now. I want to do it all the time well I did .. thats starting to diminish as I just dont feel sexy enough for him. It really wasnt about porn for the past two years its just about his need to see sexy or half dressed women and really make it known from his facial expressions that he was mentally tearing that up. My kids are grown, one moved out. I’m bored. And Im terrified that this will be the rest of my life. My husband sneaking admirations of women whenever Im not around and when I am, how blatantly obvious he makes it when he pretends not to look .. but he really is. I have software on the computer so he happens to run into a hot celeb once in a while because of course they are on the sites he has to go to for his email or all of his other fantasy crap. I like to call them time wasters. And all the while, I feel cheated and I feel my kids were cheated growing up because their daddy stayed up half the night entertaining himself and slept the day away on his days off. Leaving me to be the one who did MOST of the housework and most of the raising the kids. And our son has Aspergers, what a difficult child he was. I got through it. Now he is making changes, he calls them adjustments. I feel like what that word means is he doesnt pull up junk o the computer anymore because he knows I will see what he has seen. He does come to bed with me now because I stay up half the night with him and we have much more sex now. But if Im not around he still claims that hes not looking and he loves me and doesnt want to hurt me but I dont feel like I can trust that at all, nor do I really know why its killing me. And he hates hearing about the past since he is trying so hard for me. Thats how I got this way. ALL of my life with him had came to a head, all we have been through, all that I felt I’ve been through alone. Like I said, hit me like a ton of bricks when I hit 40!
What I want to know is, if there are so many women out there who are going through this … where can we come together? Where can we form an alliance or free support for each other. I cant afford to pay for counseling and I thought if we all got together .. heck even just to go our for lunch, dinner or drinks once a week or so .. that would really help all of us to let it all out and feel part of something at the same time. I know if would help me. Girl power! lol. Im 43 btw but I still like to have a good time. I have no girlfriends but one who lives far away from me and I dont see her as often as I’d like to. Since I dont drive, I’d love to know whats local and what other ladies would like to form a bond. Can email me at my email address listed. Thanks for listening to all of that. I feel better for a couple of days once I get that all out .. then boom something else happens and Im sure its more ME than my husband at this point .. but I simply cant trust, have caught too many lies. Thats what happens!
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for sharing your story with us.
I don’t know many places for women to gather to talk about these issues. There are groups that are designed for partners of sex addicts, like POSARC and S-Anon. There are also church groups that are broader in focus, Celebrate Recovery.
There is, of course, a great irony to your situation. For years you helped to produce material that led the lusts of men, many of them married. Now, you are experiencing more of the hurt that comes when your husband doesn’t “have eyes for only you.” It sounds like you’ve talked about all of this with your husband, but what has he said in reply? He obviously doesn’t believe lusting after other women is wrong, but what has led to your conviction that it is? Have you told him why you are hurt by it?
Hi. I found porn on my husband’s phone and it felt like a brick hit my heart all I could think was is this what he wants? Is he thinking about these perfect woman when we are together? He rarley wants to make love to me and blames it on stress. We do have very stressful lives but if his sex drive is so low why would he be looking at these sites? I confronted him and probably not in the best way but I was hurt. He said its normal and it’s a man thing and to let him be a man. He drew a comparision to the fact that he doesnt cheat, doesnt go to strip clubs, doesnt go to bachelors parties. I don’t understand this? Should I feel watching other real woman have sex a small thing compared to what he could be doing? I have body images issues from having 3 kids but I dont want him any less and he has never said anything poor about my appearence but just the fact that I do consider this cheating. I don’t know what to do. Should I just be grateful he isn’t having sex with this women just watching? He’s so quick to tell me he doesnt love me and would be better off without me because I dont talk to him the exact perfect way he would like and offers me no slack for being hurt or stressed out myself. I don’t know. My exhusband use to look at porn ALL the time and then when that wasnt enough he DID cheat.
Hi Sad in Florida,
Your husband is justifying his behavior. It may be “a man thing,” but it doesn’t make it a good thing. It is, sadly, normal, as your husband said, but that doesn’t mean it should be normal. Yes, he isn’t doing more outwardly destructive behaviors (cheating on you, going to prostitutes, etc.), but that does not minimize the damage he is doing looking at porn.
Chances are his low sex drive is actually related to his porn use. Heavy porn use will decrease a man’s desire for actual sex. This is something you husband needs to understand: you aren’t against porn because you’re against his sexual pleasure, but because you are for it. Is this really the kind of man he dreamed he would become: sneaking off alone to masturbate to pixels on a screen rather than making love to his wife? He needs to understand how porn is robbing him of real pleasure.
As for you, it would be great for you to find some support: friends or mentors or counselors who can help to reaffirm you and give you good advice. It sounds like your husband is a bitter man and I would highly recommend both of you have some kind of marital counseling. I pray your husband will see the damage porn is causing him and his marriage, and I pray he will wake up and start treating you right. I pray also for you, hoping you find the face-to-face support you really need.
Dear Sad in Florida;
First of all, let me say that I am sorry that this has happened to you. Your reaction is normal and warranted. Furthermore, your husbands behavior is not “normal” as he puts it. It is typical of men but not normal. The lies in our world have taught us that seeking sex and pornography is a normal male thing. The truth is that he is really seeking true intimacy and love. (believe me, I was there just a few years ago). Despite the world views, sex does NOT equal intimacy. Your husband has an emotional and spiritual hole in his heart that he is desperately trying to fill and he likely doesn’t even know it. His methods (typical methods by men) of trying to fill this hole through porn, affairs, prostitutes etc. are ineffective and leaves one empty thus creating the insatiable urge to do it again, and again, all while being totally blind to the devastation we cause to those who really do love us. Our focus is on us and our needs. We are focusing inside rather than outside. If your husband is like me, and like most men looking at porn or worse, he is afraid of true intimacy, afraid of really “being known” even though that’s what he truly craves inside his closed heart. Porn is safe, it will never reject him, it will never criticize him. But on the flip-side, it will never truly accept him, it will never know him, and it will never really fulfill him and give him what he really and truly needs. He needs a wake-up call as to what he is really doing and how he is affecting you and his family. The destruction that he his causing not to mention the ultimate damage of this sin to his soul.
You should not accept his behavior and say that “at least hes not doing worse”. Lust is lust, sin is sin, rejection is rejection. It still destroys your marriage and your family. Years ago, i used to say horrible things to my wife about her being overweight. Today, I truly feel that my wife is beautiful. I see her inside, I see hear heart and the beautiful person she is. And that true love makes me want to be close and intimate with her. Even though sex between us does happen, I crave the true intimacy not the sex.
If your husband is willing to take accountability and do the hard work of looking inside himself then both of you can turn your marriage around.
If your interested, I wrote a candid book on my addiction and my recovery. Its called “From One Addict to Another”. I would be happy to mail you (for your husband) a free copy of the book. You can contact me through my website at addict2addict.org. If your husband reads my whole story, he may just get what hes doing and how its effecting you as well has what he is actually looking for.
I will pray for you and your husband.