Things You Must do if Your Husband Uses Porn
1. You Must Grieve Your Husband’s Porn Use
It’s going to come as a major sucker punch. You’ll feel betrayed, and dirty, and angry. That’s natural. Likely you knew something was wrong, and you suspected something, but you couldn’t put your finger on it. Now you know, and very likely the feelings are overwhelming. People often arrive on this blog the night they discover their husband watching porn, and they find posts talking about pornography use and pour out their hurt in the comments. That hurt is raw and very real.
That’s okay. Give yourself some grace to be upset. Give yourself some time to yell at God about it, to wrestle this through, and to cry. You don’t have to fix anything overnight, and sometimes if we try too hard to fix it right now we do more damage. At times, when we first find out something so devastating, we’re tempted to say, “it’s okay, I know you didn’t mean it, let’s just forget it and go back to normal” because we’re afraid to face what this means.
But we need to admit brokenness. If we don’t admit it, it can’t be fixed. And it could be that what God is going to make out of the pieces of your heart and your relationship, will be different from what you started with, but that doesn’t mean it won’t also be beautiful. Grieve, and give God time to work. Don’t deny the gravity of the hurt. And don’t deny the gravity of the effects of porn on a marriage, either!
At the same time, if I can offer some reassurance, so many marriages have emerged on the other side. And one thing that helps is that, after that initial grief is over, you realize that you are on the same page, fighting an evil together.
Don’t let porn come between you; instead, decide to fight together to defeat your husband’s porn addiction.
Most Christian men desperately want to stop watching porn. They don’t want to be doing this. It enslaves them. If you can be an ally, rather than an attacker, you both will move forward so much more easily.
2. You Must Live in the Light and Not Keep His Porn Use a Secret
Porn thrives on secrecy. In her book, Vicki recounts the words of one woman, married 45 years, who discovered her husband’s masturbation habit two years into this marriage. “if it ever got out, I’d kill myself,” he told her. And so she didn’t say a word, and lived with it. For 45 years. Can you imagine?
Vicki doesn’t believe that staying in darkness is the answer. As I’ve said before, you need to bring these things to light.
As a church, we need to bring this to light.
There is so much ignorance around the whole pornography problem. It truly does ensnare people, making it almost impossible for them to function normally sexually with a human being. What becomes arousing is an image, and they become so focused on masturbation and pornography that a relationship isn’t sexy anymore. And it’s too much work! Once you start using porn, too, it rarely stays with the tame stuff. People will seek out more and more hard core stimulation. Eventually, they may even act things out. This isn’t people just looking at something to get their jollies; this is something that can all too easily turn into an addiction.
And that’s why you must bring light to it. You can’t let it stay a secret. Your husband needs help, but so do you. You will likely need someone to walk through this process with you, and that’s okay. More churches need to provide support for couples going through recovery from a porn addiction. And most pastors have dealt with this at length. So talk to your pastor and find out what support your church offers.
3. You Must Get Help
It is not enough for a husband to apologize and promise never to do it again. You wouldn’t accept that of an alcoholic; you would ask him or her to go to AA meetings. The same goes for porn use.
There’s such shame involved with pornography because it’s sexual, but the admonition from...
1. You Must Grieve Your Husband’s Porn Use
It’s going to come as a major sucker punch. You’ll feel betrayed, and dirty, and angry. That’s natural. Likely you knew something was wrong, and you suspected something, but you couldn’t put your finger on it. Now you know, and very likely the feelings are overwhelming. People often arrive on this blog the night they discover their husband watching porn, and they find posts talking about pornography use and pour out their hurt in the comments. That hurt is raw and very real.
That’s okay. Give yourself some grace to be upset. Give yourself some time to yell at God about it, to wrestle this through, and to cry. You don’t have to fix anything overnight, and sometimes if we try too hard to fix it right now we do more damage. At times, when we first find out something so devastating, we’re tempted to say, “it’s okay, I know you didn’t mean it, let’s just forget it and go back to normal” because we’re afraid to face what this means.
But we need to admit brokenness. If we don’t admit it, it can’t be fixed. And it could be that what God is going to make out of the pieces of your heart and your relationship, will be different from what you started with, but that doesn’t mean it won’t also be beautiful. Grieve, and give God time to work. Don’t deny the gravity of the hurt. And don’t deny the gravity of the effects of porn on a marriage, either!
At the same time, if I can offer some reassurance, so many marriages have emerged on the other side. And one thing that helps is that, after that initial grief is over, you realize that you are on the same page, fighting an evil together.
Don’t let porn come between you; instead, decide to fight together to defeat your husband’s porn addiction.
Most Christian men desperately want to stop watching porn. They don’t want to be doing this. It enslaves them. If you can be an ally, rather than an attacker, you both will move forward so much more easily.
2. You Must Live in the Light and Not Keep His Porn Use a Secret
Porn thrives on secrecy. In her book, Vicki recounts the words of one woman, married 45 years, who discovered her husband’s masturbation habit two years into this marriage. “if it ever got out, I’d kill myself,” he told her. And so she didn’t say a word, and lived with it. For 45 years. Can you imagine?
Vicki doesn’t believe that staying in darkness is the answer. As I’ve said before, you need to bring these things to light.
As a church, we need to bring this to light.
There is so much ignorance around the whole pornography problem. It truly does ensnare people, making it almost impossible for them to function normally sexually with a human being. What becomes arousing is an image, and they become so focused on masturbation and pornography that a relationship isn’t sexy anymore. And it’s too much work! Once you start using porn, too, it rarely stays with the tame stuff. People will seek out more and more hard core stimulation. Eventually, they may even act things out. This isn’t people just looking at something to get their jollies; this is something that can all too easily turn into an addiction.
And that’s why you must bring light to it. You can’t let it stay a secret. Your husband needs help, but so do you. You will likely need someone to walk through this process with you, and that’s okay. More churches need to provide support for couples going through recovery from a porn addiction. And most pastors have dealt with this at length. So talk to your pastor and find out what support your church offers.
3. You Must Get Help
It is not enough for a husband to apologize and promise never to do it again. You wouldn’t accept that of an alcoholic; you would ask him or her to go to AA meetings. The same goes for porn use.
There’s such shame involved with pornography because it’s sexual, but the admonition from...
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