Whenever a wife catches her husband looking at porn it crushes her heart and she responds in one of two ways. She either accepts it as “something men do,” or she lets her heart break into a thousand pieces, as it should.
Porn shouldn’t be considered a normal part of marriage. People get caught in this trap. Oh, it’s not a big deal. All men do it. Some women even do it, whether it’s erotica or the same stuff her husband consumes. And this is exactly what the world wants you to do. Otherwise how would they continue to make money off of you?
But underneath of all the lies, porn isn’t supposed to be a part of marriage. Porn is not “spice.” And it corrupts faithfulness, loyalty, and yes, monogamy. If you don’t have a ring on the person’s finger you are fantasizing about you should consider Jesus’ words about lust and adultery. And then consider how much the ring on YOUR finger actually means to you.
Porn is a cycle of corruption. It eats away at the hearts of people all over the world, from the people making porn to the people consuming it.
And when a wife finds out her husband is consuming it… she has a right to be devastated. She should be.
But that doesn’t mean she’s the only victim.
As a wife of a now FORMER addict, I can definitely admit to making myself the “victim.” This all came to mind when I read Christina Berry’s post today where she said, “I’ve seen people fight to be the victim as a marriage ends. I humbly offer that even if you are the victim, acting as such merely serves to further victimize you.”
Immediately I thought of the wife of a porn addict. How easy it is to blame the marriage problems on the porn addict. How easy it is to have thoughts of self-pity and why me? when HE’S the one with the problem. I’ve been there. I know.
But as Christina said… that’s only going to further victimize you.
Yeah, your husband might have a problem, but the problem doesn’t start with him, it starts with a seed someone else planted. And that someone else – eh, em … the devil – plants it in us with his best tool: deception.
Porn isn’t a big deal. Every man does it. I’m not lusting after REAL women. I need to do this so I don’t have an affair. It’s harmless. It’s normal. I’m a healthy sexual creature. Men are men. Women are too sensitive, they need to be more confident. You can look at the menu, just don’t order.
Lies.
And these lies are fed to us in more than one way. Through ads, TV shows, movies, the internet. We’re constantly being fed lies that make us believe in Satan’s view of marriage, love, and life.
And that’s what a wife does when she forgets that her husband’s struggle with porn isn’t ONLY hurting her, it’s hurting him too, and the girls he drools over, and the men behind the camera, and… all of us.
We’re all victims of porn, even the people who claim their power and worth is in how good of a porn star they are, or the director’s that get paid big bucks to film hurting hearts. Some porn stars don’t want to admit that they are a victim, but they are. We all are.
We’re victims of deception, of believing we need someone we don’t have in order to be loved, valuable, or satisfied.
The husband’s (or wives) who consume porn are hurting too. It’s a different kind of pain than a spouse who’s been betrayed, but it’s still pain. It’s still a lie planted inside that makes you believe that you need something you don’t have in order to be satisfied. And more than anything, porn tears us from the heart of Jesus. Anyone who looks at porn knows that their relationship with Jesus isn’t where they truly, deep down under the trash, want it to be.
We ALL desire Jesus more than anything in this world, some of us just don’t know it yet, so we spend our lives filling the desire with porn, sex, money, clothes, vacations, fun, parties, alcohol, dreams, fame, etc.
But the truth is…we already have Jesus. He’s right here, waiting for us to realize that He’s all we need. The other things in life, the true pleasures (like seeing a child with cancer smile), those things are pleasurable, but He’s still all we need. Porn and sex and gratification… those aren’t true pleasures, they are selfish pleasures that kill our hearts.
There is a cycle to all this porn stuff. And we’re all buying into it. The lies… they will never go away, but we can choose to believe in truth.
Truth, that sets us free, is not afraid to say that porn tears people apart. It’s not good. It’s not edifying. And although it may seem pleasurable to your body, it’s damaging your heart and relationships and your idea of how valuable you are.
We are valuable. Otherwise Jesus wouldn’t have died for us. And porn and lust and false sexual ideals… those things prove that we don’t see ourselves as He does. If we did, we’d value ourselves too much to believe the lies and be a victim of porn.
