I have hope for every marriage and person affected by lust. But I know it’s not easy, nor is it common for people to heal from this stuff. Especially the woman, even after her husband has sought and kept purity at the forefront of his mind.
What I’m going to say to you is something you have to pray about and either dismiss or heed. I can’t be the one to tell you that I am right, because I don’t know. I only have my opinions about this. But many women say, “I don’t know if I can keep going this time.” I say, “Yes, you can.” And I say that because first of all, you said … I don’t know. That means you haven’t said NO yet. And if you haven’t said NO yet, then you haven’t given up. You still care. You still love him. You still want your marriage to work. And it’s possible, but you can’t give up.
I think your husband has been the reason for many problems in your marriage because of porn, but not your own heart. He has contributed to wounds already there, deep wounds, that’s why it makes you feel crazy inside. That’s why some women commit suicide over their husband’s porn use. Because it rips open a deep, deep wound that has been there for years. The wound of “not being good enough.” The wound of “being unaccepted.” A husband is the only person in the world who can rip open that wound from our past and make it bleed to the point where we feel like we will die. When he brings porn into his home … he rips open this wound and the wife starts to bleed to what she thinks is her death.
But it can get better. There is so much hope on the other side of these clouds. But you have to be willing to search your own heart too and realize that he isn’t the cause of every problem in your marriage and he isn’t the cause of your own heart issues and insecurities. In fact, if you really get down to the truth … he’s not the cause of any of it. The devil is. Your husband just allows the devil to use him as a tool when he lusts or lies or betrays you. But you know … a wife allows the devil to use her too, when she is insecure, angry, upset, bitter, and negative. Just because a wife’s negative behaviors are in response to the husband’s initial offense, doesn’t make her actions right or loving.
If you feel cheated out of so many years of life and resent them all … stop. Stop resenting your husband or those years … and hate the devil for it all. Put your hate where it belongs, aimed directly at the offender of your life. Satan. Don’t attack your husband when the devil attacks your marriage or you. You need to fight together. If your husband is working toward healing in anyway, even baby steps, then you have to be willing to walk beside him
If you want to find sunshine and live happily with your husband at any point, you need to walk with him and not in front of him or behind him or on a completely different path. Stop blaming him and blame the devil. And don’t allow yourself to believe that your marriage can’t come out on the other side of this, because it can. Give your marriage the grace to heal.
As for the healing process of your heart. It’s going to take a lot of time. Both of you need to realize that your heart (being a wounded woman in the worst way she could be wounded) is going to take a long, long time to fully heal.
See, you have insecurities. You’re a woman. A lot of your insecurities revolve around beauty (outer and inner) and acceptance. I know that you struggle with this because every woman does. Some just hide it better than others. We struggle with these things even before our husband’s come along. And we live in a world that reinforces our insecurities by making us want to dress and be a certain way. Do you know how many women and teenage girls refuse to stop wearing makeup? What does that say about us? We are hidden under masks, dying of insecurities, unable to truly live in freedom and find our real beauty. I think we hide for so long (just like our husband’s looking at porn all throughout their teenage years) and it becomes something we don’t realize we’re doing. We don’t realize how much we cover up our insecurities and try to be “better” or “enough” in our own eyes or someone else’s. We just do it because that’s what the world makes us think is normal (just like lust). But this is far from God’s plan for us.
He wants us to be free in our beauty and who we are. He wants women to realize that they are beautiful regardless of this world and its opinions. He wants us to stop caring so much about the physical and care more about the inner beauty He is growing in us every day.
But we get lost in it. I’m 3 weeks post-partum after my third baby in three years. My body is not what it once was. And I have no “pretty” clothes that I feel good in. I’m stuck in this in-between stage. And George went to the mall to get a power chord for my broken computer. Only place he could go. I felt so insecure, wondering what he’d see at the mall as I was home feeling ugly and depressed. But I didn’t let myself dwell on those thoughts like I used to. I realize now that I can harm our marriage (and my own heart) further by allowing myself to spiral into negative thoughts. I can try to imagine something he might have seen … or choose not to believe him … or compare myself to women in my head … or feel sorry for myself because I don’t look like I once did … or … or I can choose to think of things that are pure and lovely. I can choose to focus on God and realize that physical beauty, sexiness, masks, makeup, fakeness — those are not things I want to spend my like seeking or desiring or coveting. I want beauty that lasts for eternity … I want to be free from those traps. I want to live! I want to BE. And I can have that when I choose to start thinking positively.
Please pray about and ask God to address your own insecurities (which can’t be fully blamed on your husband) and trust (which is going to take a lot of time and actions on his part to show you that you can trust again). Both of these things will take time. Lots of it. You need to think positively and purely and ask God to help rid your insecurities and allow you to live in freedom. And your husband needs to have a major change of heart, look at women through God’s eyes, and do anything he can to show you that he has truly changed.
There can be a point in your own heart where you are so secure in who you are (and what you look like) that it would NOT shatter your world if your husband left you for another woman. It really is possible to live in such freedom and security in God. It’s possible to be joyful and love an unfaithful husband. But it’s not easy and it’s a daily thing that every woman will struggle with until she dies (like a man with lust). The fight may get easier, but that doesn’t mean we put down our armor.
I have a project for you. I want you to sit down and write a list of every moment since you were 5 and up that you have felt not good enough, unaccepted, unattractive, like you wanted to hide, all the times you’ve covered over an insecurity with something (makeup, lies, cleaning the house before guests come over even when you aren’t a clean person, etc.) And then I want you to write down all the ways your husband has contributed to this list. Show him. Let him see your pain and your heart. Let him see why his struggle with lust is so damaging to you. Because you have a past too. Then, give the list to God. Get rid of it, let it stay in the past, and choose to never dwell on those things again. Allow God to transform your heart into a beautiful, thriving heart that is confident in who she is.
Please don’t let yourself believe the lies. That you are doing something wrong. You are not saying or doing anything wrong. He is the one in the wrong here. There’s nothing you can say or not say to make him change, he has to do this on his own. It wouldn’t matter if you were a mean wife who never had sex with him or the perfect wife with no flaws — he’d still do it (hopefully that is now in his past and he is truly moving toward recovery). It’s so engrained in him that he probably doesn’t even realize just how wrong this is. Obviously if he’s feeling some sort of remorse he knows that it’s not right, but men really have to go through A LOT to stop. And they have to be willing to help their wives heal, which can be tiring because we take a long time to trust again and truly heal. We question them a lot, we want them to stop doing certain things that make us feel uncomfortable… and often men feel justified if they are “stopping” that their wives should be healed and trust again immediately, but it just doesn’t work that way.
The devil definitely hates marriage though. He’s the one breaking apart all of these beautiful relationships over selfish things, like lust. I can’t believe how many marriages are broken to pieces and how many people are so willing to remarry. I always say that the only way I’ll get a divorce is if my husband divorces me and I’d never sign the papers or take off my rings, ever. Just because he’s unfaithful doesn’t mean I have to be. Ultimately, I love God and I am here to please Him more than I’m here to please my husband or anyone else. So if that means suffering in marriage, that’s okay. I know my reward in heaven will be worth it. Thankfully George has changed. I don’t think I’d ever have to worry about that.
But that’s beauty to me. To love when it hurts. It’s so easy to love when everything is perfect. Love when it hurts. That’s what really counts.
At the same time … pray for your husband to have a change of heart. Pray for him to be as faithful to you as you are to him, and don’t pray this for your own sake, pray this for the sake of your marriage. Marriage is so beautiful. It means so much to God. Pray that things will get better for the sake of your marriage and not allowing the devil to destroy another beautiful bond. Marriage is so sacred. I really think we often forget how sacred it is, but the many, many assaults from the devil should make us realize this.
I really hope you keep in touch with me and let me know how your heart is, especially with drawing closer to God. He will take care of you through this. This is probably one of the most difficult things you will go through. For a woman… the marriage is so important to her, it can break her to pieces if things aren’t right … and I don’t think there’s a relationship in the world that can do as much damage to our hearts if we let it. But don’t let it. Work on healing even if your husband is not choosing the same path as you. Please don’t let his actions pull you down, keep climbing for God, keep your heart thriving in Him. I know it’s easier said than done, believe me.
It does get easier, but there will always be a scar. It’s learning to see the scar as a blessing (like Jesus’ wounds) instead of … a non-blessing.
