After talking with many couples suffering from porn or healing from a previous porn addiction I have realized there are key things in this process that can make your marriage thrive or break it to pieces. Today I want to address five ways porn breaks your marriage to pieces after it is exposed.
Self-Centeredness
This is a big one. For men, they believe their wives should heal immediately. They believe they should be trusted again just because they have a filter on their computer and say they will never look again, yet they get upset when their wife has a bad day or an insecure, doubtful moment. They expect her to heal quickly and believe they deserve it since they are working toward recovery.
Women can be even more self-centered during the healing process. When George and I began our healing process I used the words “I” and “me” more than you can imagine. I cried over my heartbreak, but didn’t think about how porn affected his heart. I wept myself to sleep, imagining killing myself to end the agonizing pain (yes, it really gets that bad sometimes), and never once thought about porn stars crying themselves to sleep after being abused. Didn’t even know about the reality of porn at that time. I wanted George to heal, but not for our marriage, not for God, not even for the purity of his own heart — I wanted him to heal for my sake, so I could feel beautiful, wanted, and loved again. I wanted our marriage to be better, not because God loves marriage and I loved my husband, but because I wanted to feel loved and whole again. I wanted the heartbreak to go away.
It’s okay to want heartbreak to go away. It’s okay to hurt and cry and feel pain because of what he did or continues to do, but sulking in our pain, using our pain as an excuse to end our marriage, and refusing to truly feel for others (men affected by porn, porn producers and stars affected) will trap us in a cycle of self-centeredness that will ruin our marriage. We must be willing to feel for others, including our husbands.
Pointing Fingers
So many times I wrote in my journal, “He ruined us. He ruined our marriage, our romance. He ruined ME.” I truly believed George’s lies, his porn usage, his wandering eyes, ruined me as a person. I thought I’d never be the same again. Joy, happiness, love, romance — I’d always be far away from those things. Thanks to him.
He would sometimes blame me for the beating our marriage took, because I would blame him, or accuse him of things constantly. I never let him rest. I always made him feel worthless. So he would get upset at me for our lack of progress or my crazy ways.
But in reality … there is only one to blame. The devil. The husband may have been the devil’s toy and fell for the trap and the wife may be extremely insecure as she heals, but the devil is the only one to blame. He is the offender. He is the one breaking up the marriage. Not your husband’s lust. Not your wife’s inability to heal or her crazy accusations. Just the devil.
When you start to see and understand that the devil is the one to blame you may look at your spouse in a new light. It may help break the chain of self-centeredness and help you to heal together, instead of separately. You can start to fight the devil together, instead of fighting eachother.
Lack of God
Sometimes people email me about this and as soon as I mention God — poof! — they disappear. I’ve often questioned whether or not to hold back from mentioning God right away. And I even considered toning down my usage of God in my novel, Exposed. But how can I do that? Not only is God the center of my life, He’s the center of my healing from all of this. He’s the center of George’s recovery. I can’t talk to anyone about this without mentioning God. I left God in Exposed to show Ally’s struggle with opening up to God about it, drawing near to Him again. I leave God in my emails to people. And I make sure to mention Him all throughout this blog.
Our healing would not have taken place without God. Period. This blog you are reading would not be here without His work in our lives. If I hadn’t focused on God and allowed Him to change my heart (same for George) we’d still be going in circles, blaming each other, wrestling lust and insecurities, and probably ruining our marriage.
Instead, we are thriving today. Our marriage is better than it ever was, something I thought wouldn’t be possible. I thought romance didn’t exist and truly believe we’d never have it again. But here we are, living out a relationship with more beauty than it’s ever had before. And I can’t take the credit for this change in me, for my insecurities and issues with jealousy disappearing so much. George can’t take the credit for his recovery from lust. It was God working through us. The closer we drew to Him, the more like Him we wanted to be. And He helps us, every day, to become more like Him.
The more you love God, the more you will love your spouse. And if both people are putting Him first, it’s impossible to put yourself first, which means … your spouse will become more important to you than yourself. Healing, trust — they can happen for everyone who loves God with all their heart, soul, and mind.
Focus on Negative Thoughts
You know, you have a choice. When a thought pops into your head like, “I wonder if he saw an attractive woman today,” you can choose to linger on it, or you can choose to dismiss it and think of something positive. Same for men. Both men and women have tons of negative thoughts throughout the healing process we go through after porn is exposed. And we can choose to dwell on those thoughts of jealousy, mistrust, blame, bitterness, lust, betrayal, our own pain, etc., or we can choose to dismiss those thoughts and immediately replace them with something positive, something of God.
George would pray and worship God whenever he faced a negative thought or temptation. I would think of the Cross, of what Jesus did for me, and it would help me to remember that pain is a part of love. Loving those who always treat us with selflessness and perfection is easy, but loving when it hurts isn’t. And that just so happens to be the kind of love God gives to us. I would focus on His love and ask Him to help me love like that. Amidst my tears and pain … I would love my husband anyway. I would let him hold me even when I wanted him 1,000 miles away.
Whatever you need to do to dismiss those negative, harmful thoughts and focus on something pure and lovely … do it. Figure out what works for you and do it. Don’t dwell in the black clouds if you want to see the blue sky again. You have to push the clouds away and work to get to the blue sky. It’ll come. Hope is on the other side, just keep pushing those clouds away while holding your spouse’s hand.
Refusing to Sacrifice
You want this all to go away, but there needs to be some sacrifice. Both husband and wife must lay their lives down for each other. The wife has to lay down her pain to feel her husband’s (yes, there’s pain there even if he doesn’t know it), and the husband has to lay down his pride to feel his wife’s pain. Both of you may have to sacrifice a lot in order to see your marriage heal. You can’t hold on to bitterness or pride. You can’t play the victim and cry yourself to sleep every night. You can’t justify your actions and expect something from the other person.
You have to work for this. Both of you. And side-by-side … you’ve gotta sacrifice whatever it takes to lay your lives down for each other and allow God to heal your marriage. It could be something as trivial as a TV, but you’ve seen Fireproof, right? At one point he struggles with lust again and picks up his computer and literally throws it in the trashcan. I don’t think that’s a bad idea. If your wife is uncomfortable with something, sacrifice. The TV isn’t as important as your marriage, no material thing is.
And wife … don’t play the victim. You have been hurt and the pain is unbearable. Don’t hide your pain, but also … don’t play the victim without giving your husband and porn stars room to be the victim too. I can’t say that enough. We are all victims of porn. All of us.
So, join hands with your partner in life and stop allowing porn to ruin your marriage. Stop assisting it and allow God to work a miracle in your life. Push back those clouds and reach for blue skies, both husband and wife, and you will see the light again. Your marriage can be way more beautiful than it ever was. You have a choice right now … to fight together or against each other. Fight together for love, for God, and don’t let porn ruin your marriage. It’s not worth it.
Your marriage is beautiful. Don’t ever forget that.
