This post is a little embarrassing to write, but I’m all about exposing weaknesses to help others realize they are not alone … so, here goes!
When George’s porn struggle first came to the surface of our marriage I became the most insecure person walking this earth. Every time he walked out of the door my heart raced. My thoughts bounced all over the place. I imagined him staring at billboards, girls in short skirts, magazine covers, and so on. I imagined things that were outrageous and nearly impossible, then I’d accuse him of having done something the second he walked in the door.
Maybe I can explain the craziness of this situation with an excerpt from my novel, Exposed. This isn’t a true story, but it is similar to (embarrassing and immature — on my end) experiences George and I went through. The married couple (Ally and Jessie) are on their way to her pre-natal appointment. Here it is:
Normally I would’ve turned to the right and stared out the window, but I had a paranoia about him seeing a beautiful woman or a sexy billboard. I wanted to make sure I saw what he saw. Maybe I liked torturing myself. Not sure why. Pencils shoved in my eyeballs would’ve been more bearable than the emotional charley horses I gave myself.Jessie parked in front of the office building adjacent to the hospital and held my chin. “You excited?”
I allowed myself to smile amidst one of my emotional spasms.
Jessie rubbed my cheek with his thumb and gave me his eyes?romantic, hopeful eyes. For a moment, I bathed in the sunshine of his love without thinking of rain. His eyes, his hand on my face, the tiny baby growing inside of me?I longed to be sodden with the present and not swept away by a flood if Jessie looked at something again.
We walked inside, signed in, and sat in the waiting room until smooth blonde hair walked across the room. Jessie looked at his hands and fidgeted with his keys.
“Allyson Graham? You can follow me.” The blonde said.
You have got to be kidding me, I said to God in the privacy of my head.
Jessie’s eyes darted everywhere but the pretty little blonde’s body. We followed her down an off-white hallway covered in pictures of moms and babies. She weighed me. 123lbs. I wondered how much she weighed.
“Is this your first baby?” she asked Jessie.
He stared at the ground and nodded.
She showed him our room and told me to go pee on a stick and test my something-something levels. I didn’t listen. I went in the bathroom and looked in the mirror. After waiting a few seconds, I flushed the toilet I never peed in and went to the room where Jessie. His eyes were fixated on his shoes.
Miss Gorgeous asked questions. I answered.
“Your midwife will be in soon.” She smiled and left the room.
Jessie pressed his lips together and refused to look at me. I hopped off the exam table and stood in front of him. He stared at my feet.
Thump. Thump. Thump. My heart. In my throat.
Jessie tilted his head and scratched it.
“More beautiful than me, isn’t she?” I said.
He huffed.
“It’s obvious. You were acting so weird.”
“I didn’t look at her.”
“No?” I laughed. “Well, you sure had fun trying not to look at her. Was she that pretty? So gorgeous you had to fidget with your keys the entire time and stare at your feet.”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. I just didn’t want to make you think I looked at her.”
The door opened. My heart flopped around my chest like a fish yearning for water. Jessie looked down.
As you can see, Ally is hyper-sensitive. I’ve been there. Being sensitive to lustful images, porn, content in movies, and magazine covers is a good thing. Both men and women should be sensitive to these things. But hyper-sensitive?
Hyper-sensitive will ruin your marriage. I’ve stopped talking to George simply because he noticed an attractive woman. He didn’t lust, didn’t linger on any thoughts, nothing. But I accused him of doing what I imagined him to do and refused to believe that he could “notice” an attractive woman without lusting over her.
But when a husband spends so long covering up his lust and lies and porn addiction … it’s hard to believe anything he says. So, we make things up. We believe the worst about him and the world. We think there are girls in short skirts on every corner of the street (and sometimes there are!), but in reality we are letting our insecurities get the best of us.
The devil uses a man’s lust to break apart a marriage, but he also uses a woman’s insecurity. In my last post, 5 Ways to Find Healing for Your Heart, I talked a little about overcoming insecurity even when your husband or boyfriend refuses to change his ways.
I think women are 5,613 times more insecure than men. I really do. We probably compare ourselves to other people way more often than men do. It seems like there are few women in the world who haven’t struggled with the I’m not good enough insecurity. We are fed images, mentalities, and standards daily by people who want to change us for some reason.
It’s possible to change, but it’s not easy. And it’s possible to be secure, but it’s not easy. I’m nowhere near secure. I still compare myself to other women. I still linger too long at a magazine cover and wish I could look like her. These days are less frequent because of the choices I’ve made in my life (outlined in this post: 5 Ways to Find Healing for Your Heart), but they still hit me.
About a year after I discovered George’s secret I would’ve been labeled hyper-hyper-hyper-hyper-sensitive woman. One day when he was on his way home from work I checked the mail and found a Victoria’s Secret magazine. I threw it in our trashcan and over the next few minutes I became paranoid that he’d find it. So, I dug it out of the bottom of the trashcan and ran out of our apartment door, down the steps in the front lobby, and dropped the magazine at the top of the steps. I figured I’d get it later when he wasn’t home and throw it in the dumpster, outside, far from us.
Just my day. He decided to come up those steps that day and saw the magazine I desperately tried to hide. He promised he didn’t lust, but I didn’t believe him.
Oh, boy.
Hyper-sensitivity will damage you and everyone around you. How can your husband change if you don’t give him a chance to? How can he stop lusting after images if you are constantly accusing him of things he’s not doing? How can you become more secure in a lustful world if you try to cocoon yourself from everything in the world?
You need to let go. Remember, it’s good and wise to be sensitive about what you watch, look at, and let into your heart. It’s healthy to be sickened by lust, skimpy clothes, and magazine covers. But … it’s unhealthy to take your sensitivity to the extreme and let it tear you apart. Be sensitive to sin because it is evil, but realize that some things in this world hurt and we cannot always avoid them.
You’ll have your days, just as I have mine. But there is still hope. You can be better tomorrow than you are today. So can I. We can believe we are beautiful and deeply admire inner beauty more than physical beauty. But first we need to be willing to let go of our craziness and breathe. We need to find freedom to live and let our husband’s live, even if that means they are hurting us.
We can’t change our husband’s heart and we can’t change another person’s heart — we can only change our own hearts.
That’s what’s important.
That’s what we need to focus on.
So, let’s allow God to change our hearts, to rid our hyper-sensitivity and fill it with a deep sadness over sin and lust, and to become a woman of true beauty. Beauty that doesn’t let insecurity damage its existence. Beauty that steps over the devil’s schemes with grace, love, and security in Jesus.
Beauty that transcends time.
