Crushed. My dreams of romance, my dreams of a beautiful marriage, my dreams of everything I ever wanted — He crushed them when he told me he looked at porn throughout our engagement, wedding, marriage, and my first pregnancy. Actually, crushed doesn’t do the feeling justice.
My essence was stripped from me. I didn’t know who he was, who I was, or what our marriage bed rested on for all those nights together. Lies. It felt like we rested on a bed of lies for so long.
George worked toward change. He hoped for a better future. He wrote me beautiful letters, poems. Everything he could’ve done to prove his love for me … he did. But I didn’t believe him. I didn’t want to. He killed my spirit, my heart. All I wanted was to leave him, to find someone who would love me for all of me, someone who didn’t need to look at other women.
There were nights I told him I hated him. Nights I set my wedding rings in the moonlight on our kitchen table and told him to leave me alone. He cheated, after all. Lust is adultery. I had a valid reason to leave and find someone to cherish me.
But what I didn’t realize was that George did cherish me.
Looking back it’s hard to imagine those words as truth. He didn’t cherish me. He cheated. He lied. He looked at other women for so long. How could I ever compare? I didn’t want to spend future nights with him imagining other women. I wanted our marriage to be what I thought it was all those nights we rested on lies. I wanted it to be …
Do you see the pattern here? I wanted.
Me. I had expectations.
You see, when I married George I had a lot of insecurities. He didn’t create them. Other people did. The world did. I listened to lies for so many years. You need to be this, Ashley. You need to be that. You aren’t good enough.
So many years of not being good enough will wear on a woman who wants to be loved for who she is — at rest. No performing. No living up to expectations that can never be met. Just living and being loved for all she is.
I wanted that. But I never got it. So … I thought the man I married would be that person. He would be the one person to love me, everything about me, and make me feel like enough. Right? Isn’t that what he should have been? That’s what our vows were for. That’s what all that romance in the beginning showed me — that I was his everything and he was mine. We would be faithful to each other always. Our marriage would be the best thing that ever happened to me.
I placed expectations on my husband that were unrealistic. I wanted him to validate my beauty and worth — to show me that I am enough. But he showed me the opposite. His actions made me want to run to something or someone else. I wanted to leave him because I wanted the validation he couldn’t give me. He failed me. He ruined me.
But he didn’t really.
I only thought he did. I was ruined before I met him. That’s why I placed these expectations on him. That’s why his struggle with porn caused me to become the craziest, meanest woman in the world. It shook me to the core, made me question everything about myself. His unfaithfulness wasn’t the only thing that hurt me. If it were … I would’ve been able to heal much quicker. I wouldn’t have lingered on images and thoughts of what he did. Instead, I lingered. My insecurities were not created by George’s porn struggle and lies … they were there before him.
And I lashed out on him when I discovered his lies. He took the beatings for every person who ever made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. As he tried to climb upward, hoping for our marriage to become something better than it had ever been … I plummeted and took his hope with me.
I wish I would’ve seen that my deepest pain came from a history of insecurity — not just his betrayal. I wish I would’ve known that I was everything to him — he just carried a history of lust like I did insecurity. We came together with flaws, baggage, and wounds. How could I expect a perfectly flawless romance? How could I expect another flawed human to prove my worth in this world? How could I expect him to be perfect if I wasn’t?
I’m not sure, but I did. George’s actions were not right. He cheated. He lied. He marked our marriage bed with unfaithfulness and other women. But he was hurting too. He was a victim too. Not just me. His battle with lust raged since the age of thirteen. He wanted to stop so many times before me. He thought marriage would end the battle and he could be freed of guilt. But lust is an addiction. It didn’t end at marriage. I thought my insecurities would end with marriage too. I thought he’d validate me and make me feel like enough. But those insecurities didn’t go away. Then, porn came to the surface and I was crushed, bruised, and stripped to nothing.
Many tears, fights, and I hate you’s later … we are here. There is a light shining on our marriage now. I know I am not perfect. George knows he is not perfect. But we rest knowing we are perfect for each other. We have fought for each other through the mess of lies, porn, betrayal, and insecurities. He has seen my at my worst and I have seen him at his worst. But we are here, holding hands, and able to look at each other with more love and romance than I ever imagined.
Getting through this trial has shown me one thing. God is amazing. He uses the worst experiences in life to bring so much good. Because of all this pain … I am a new person. I am still flawed, still insecure, but growing. George is growing, too. We’re growing together. Without the struggles we endured my insecurities would still gnaw at my soul, telling me I’ll never be good enough to anyone. Now … I know that I am me — imperfect little me — and my husband loves me even though I’ll never be perfect. Now … we look at each other without foggy lenses and know that although we are never going to be perfect … we are perfect for each other. I don’t need to look like those images to be perfect for him. He doesn’t compare me — I won’t either. I don’t need to wish I were someone else, someone who looked prettier — because my husband loves me just the way I am.
His struggle with lust gave him an impure view of beauty and sex, but not of me. I am not fantasy to him and never have been. I am real. And he loves me. He loves me so much more than the eyes love a body. And this love will triumph as our bodies age and wrinkle. It’s so much stronger than lust.
I no longer need him to validate me … I just need him to love me. I don’t want him to lust over me, I want him to love me. And he does. He has proven that by fighting for me, by no longer lusting over other women after a decade of addiction.
In our marriage … we are not perfect. He still makes mistakes. I still make mistakes. But we are in love with each other and it’s so much stronger than before. I have this struggle with porn to thank for our new marriage. Without the pain … we would’ve never found this beauty.
I want you to find this beauty, too.
