Guest post from anonymous husband. 
I have to say first that I am a Christ follower, and I have survived and been healed of porn addiction by God. I found Ashley’s website back in approximately December or so of 2009. I was on a search for healing and understanding what porn addiction was about, how it affected my wife, my marriage, and how my wife and I were going to recover from my sin. Ashley contacted me and asked me during 2010 if I’d be interested in writing a post or two for her website. I told her I’d do it. I believe telling my story will help others and I knew it could help me recover as well. I also want to help her and George because they’ve been such a help for me and my wife.
My first question is, how do you cook a frog? You put him in the pot and turn up the heat slowly. By the time he figures out what’s going on, it’s all over. Basically for me, that’s how porn snagged me and pulled me under, but that’s not how God ordained the end of the story.
My story is nearly the same as all the statistics that have been published on porn use for children, teens, and adults. I lived in a home where my parent’s had me in church every Sunday and Wednesday night. I observed at an early age (but didn’t understand) that my father was a porn addict as well. I was introduced to porn slowly but surely. I estimate that I was snagged around age 10 or so when cable TV became the norm and I had a TV and cable box in my room. As technology grew, so did my addiction.
The year before I went to college, AOL and dial-up connectivity was ramping up and we had our first computer in our home. With AOL, a new world was opened. I was already sucked in. But now I had a resource that was unlimited. This lifestyle continued while I was in college. I was truly spiritually and emotionally sick. God was nowhere to be found in my life. This beginning resulted from a life of religious activity, a father who was an addict as well, and a home where no discipleship occurred. I lived in a home that is considered the toxic family. A family that doesn’t share, doesn’t feel, and doesn’t love. Once that foundation was set, I was looking for love and what I perceived as love in any place I could find it. Surely TV had it right, didn’t it? I was so clueless and lost as to what love really was. And to be honest, I’m still learning.
In March of 2003, I moved home for a job opportunity. I could feel God tugging on me and pursuing me but I didn’t quite get what all of that meant. All I knew was that I was lonely, and felt unloved. Before I had moved back home, a friend suggested to me that I attend a certain church. She had been and said it was great. The following January, I attended for the first time. I wanted God to take control of my life. At the time, I wasn’t fully ready to put Him in His proper place as my Lord and Savior. While I was going to church, I met the most amazing girl that would knew was the one. I pursued her and a year and a half after we met, we were married.
It’s at this point that I should reiterate some things about porn that probably most readers here are familiar with. One thing that helps a porn addict persist in this illness is distance and darkness. No one knowing what is really going on behind closed doors when you’re alone perpetuates the cycle. To the porn addict, the worst thing that could happen is that someone else would find out who we really are. If they did, surely they wouldn’t love us. In fact, they’d probably run the opposite direction. Loneliness and emptiness to me are huge factors that dominate a porn addict’s thinking. They look at the porn to feel good. They continually run the cycle of the buildup, acting out, shame, swearing it off to never do again only to find themselves doing it again. It’s nearly a hopeless struggle less God reaching down into the muck to pull us out. For my wife, part of the issue was what I was doing. It was wrong and disgusting. The bigger issue was the lying. I lied to her about who I was and what I was doing. That was the absolute trust killer.
I pick up the story here to explain that my wife didn’t know what a total jerk and fraud I was. She had bits and pieces of the story of my past, but not the total honest, truth about who I was. With that we began our marriage. It was a rocky start filled with other rocky moments due to my acting out. I betrayed her trust, defiled our marriage bed with porn, and destroyed her spirit. For that, I am truly sorry and saddened.
During November of 2009, she was out of town and I had an acting out episode. When she came home, God had basically told her that I was guilty. She asked if I had looked at anything and all I could do was come clean. That began our recovery. I won’t go into the details of those first few weeks and months. Suffice it to say that it was a total nightmare. And at the same time, it was a total blessing. The following day, I called a friend from our small group and confessed (just like James 5 says) what I had done. He listened and prayed for me. He wasn’t judgmental. For that I am very thankful. It was at that moment that I was freed of this sin. I can’t explain it other than it felt like a jail break. I was finally free. It was like the shackles came off and I could finally run. And run I did. I began counseling and installed Covenant Eyes on everything I had that was electronic and connected to the internet. I would have installed Covenant Eyes on our microwave if I thought that would help. I read everything I could get my hands on about porn addiction. Day by day, I began the slow task of my part of restoring my relationship with God and wife. I finally had hope and could see probably the most tangible fruit of God in my life through my healing. Let there be no mistake, I didn’t get out of this because of what I could do. I got out of the life of porn because I did what God said I should do. That makes all the difference. Before that November, I’d prayed a million times to be healed. I’d sworn off porn a million times. If praying and swearing alone were enough, I would have been free. The issue was that no one else knew. The minute I confessed my sin to another follower, I opened a door to healing.
In the months that followed, God pointed me to George and Ashley and some other people I’ll let remain nameless. George and another friend gave me some of the best advice that has helped since I began this journey. I called George one day and asked when he had some time to talk. He gave me a ring back and really helped me put some things in perspective. The thing that had the most impact on me was when G told me I’ve got to want to get better because I’m doing it for my relationship with God, not because I’m doing this for my wife. The byproduct of my focus on God would be a better, stronger, trusting relationship with my wife. That was a hard pill to swallow. When I was looking at the idea of losing everything, all I could think about was just fixing me and my wife. G really helped me refocus what I was doing. For that, I am very thankful. I also received other advice from another friend.
He told me that I had to quit defending myself and to apologize. Just keep apologizing. It didn’t matter that my wife kept asking me why things would be different. I needed to keep on apologizing, quit defending, and explain to her as many times as it took why my life was now different. That was hard too. That was part of establishing trust again. Day by day. Minute by minute. Doing what I said I was doing was huge. I’d spent over 5 years not doing what I was saying I was doing. I was lying. Now I had to begin by closing that integrity gap and being who I said I was. Basically, my wife was now married to a totally new man. She didn’t even know me. Of course there are some things that she knows. I’m messy. I’m not near as skilled a planner as she is. I like to talk in the morning and I’m ready to go when I get out of bed. But overall, I was very different to what she was used to. That took and is still taking time for her to get used to. Less understanding that God is in the miracle business, it really is hard to believe that someone could live nearly 25 years in the mess of porn and all that entails and then suddenly be changed in an instant. It doesn’t make sense without God in the mix.
In the end, when everything is quiet and I’m alone, I know that I have God’s spirit living inside me, guiding me and my every step. He is the one that helps me honor my wife and my marriage.
