About a year after George’s porn struggle broke through the surface and sent our marriage into tornado land, I gave him back my wedding rings.
We went out to eat that night and he happened to “see” an attractive girl. No, he didn’t lust. He just saw her and it sent me into an insecure frenzy. You can read the full story here. During our intense argument I told him to leave the house. He did. Apparently that wasn’t really what I wanted, so I put our coffee table against the front door and tried to lock him out. My wedding rings were already on the mantle. He eventually pushed the table over and got in the house.
Our argument was so intense that I’m pretty sure I ended up pinned on the ground underneath of him as I tried to kick the life out of him. All because he saw an attractive woman.
I know many women who have husband’s who refuse to change. Or maybe they believe they are changing, but their wives aren’t seeing the evidence. There’s no trust left in the relationship. He still watches those commercials, still uses the computer without discretion, still glances at a certain store at the mall, etc. There are some husband’s who not only refuse to change, but get worse. Their addiction to self-pleasure and lust leads them to abandon their marriage and have an affair.
Whether a husband changes or not wives are the same. We have the same heart issues to work through. The same insecurities to deal with. The same crushed dreams and hearts. Those things, as I’ve said so many times, can be dealt with beyond our marriages. They can be healed without any help from our husband’s.
However, our marriages themselves cannot be restored unless our husband’s are on the same page. And for many of you, that’s not the case. When George was working toward his own recovery and purity of thought, I still struggled with wanting to be married to him. My vows (I do) quickly turned into, “Do I have to?”
I looked for any excuse I could to end the marriage. There were times I hoped I’d discover an affair so I could run away. And yes, there’s the night I gave him back my rings.
Why?
Well, my pain was intense. The absolute worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life. Ever. Who wants to deal with that kind of pain, right? It’s so much easier to run away, to find something else that will fulfill us, another man who will love us, or — as I wanted to do — stay single because I believed all men were unfaithful and I’d rather have been pain-free and single.
But then I started to look inside of my own heart. One of the questions I asked myself was this: Why does his struggle with unfaithfulness and lust affect me so much?
The only answer I could find was that I was too focused on myself. I wanted him to make me happy, to make me feel complete, to make me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. But he’s not designed to be that for me. Only God is. So, naturally, George failed. And instead of embracing the pain and confronting my insecurities, I wanted to run to something else that would make me feel good. I realized that my self-focused nature was just as bad as his! We were both to focused on our own pleasure to realize that we should have been laying our lives down for each other, loving the other person more than ourselves.
But there’s more. What if he does it again? What if he cheats? What if all of this progress turns into a disaster and he leaves me for someone else?
I’ve learned to stop thinking “what if” and deal with reality. I didn’t have the energy to keep making scenarios up in my head. Whether or not George is faithful is between him and God. If he chooses to go down that path again, if a husband refuses to change … well, that’s his problem.
If he wants to choose momentary pleasures over lasting love, that’s his problem. If he wants to choose lust over love, that’s his problem. If he wants to choose tons of women over growing old and holding hands at 90 years old, that’s his problem.
If our husband’s choose those problems over beauty … will it still hurt?
YES!
Would a wife cry herself to sleep wishing her marriage was pure, beautiful, and untainted my unfaithfulness?
YES!
Would a wife still struggle with anger, bitterness, and regret every now and then?
YES!
But …
That doesn’t mean she has to turn his problem into her own. We can choose not to focus on ourselves, even when our spouses don’t do the same for us. We can choose to keep our rings on and say, “I do, for better or worse,” even if our spouses leave for another person. We can choose to see his problem with lust as an issue deep down in his soul that cannot touch our own beauty or make us feel like we don’t measure up, because to God we do measure up — He created us. We can choose to feel beautiful no matter what anyone says. We can choose to love, even if love means being separated for a time. We can choose to stop asking “what if” about everything he does, and instead pray that God would change his heart. We can choose to stop thinking poorly of ourselves, and see ourselves through God’s eyes.
We can stop using marriage as a tool to make us feel good or feel beautiful or feel validated as a person. We can choose to stop having so many expectations, and instead expect more of ourselves. We can choose to let go of all of our worries, pride, insecurities, anxieties, anger, bitterness, control, jealousy, etc., and focus more on God and His love for us. We can choose to dwell in the beauty of God, instead of the black clouds the devil likes to throw in our paths.
We have so many choices. So many. We can choose to stop looking for an excuse to end the pain, and embrace it. This doesn’t mean we allow our husband’s to walk all over us, in fact, it’s the opposite. A heart that knows its worth is very careful about whose hands it enters. It doesn’t allow people to trample on it and determine its worth or decrease its value. It knows its value and treasures itself.
We can choose to value ourselves more than our spouses who are unwilling to change and seek purity instead of self-pleasure. We can choose love. We can choose faithfulness, even when we’re hurt. We can choose to say, “I do,” because we once promised that we would for better or worse. We can choose to stop running from the intensity of the pain, and instead cry out to God, realizing more and more that He is all we need.
George has been faithful to me. For that I am thankful. But I no longer have to wonder “what if,” because I am choosing to love no matter what he does or doesn’t do. I no longer want to question him when he comes back from the mall, because what his eyes see no longer affect the way I view myself.
It’s so easy, even outside of lust, to be self-defensive, think of our own “rights,” and blame our spouse’s when they do something to hurt us, but they cannot be blamed for our own pride and selfishness. Hosea loved Gomer through it all. He didn’t have to. Job didn’t have to stay faithful to God when everything was taken from him. David didn’t have to let Saul live when Saul was plotting to kill him. Abraham didn’t have to choose to give up the most important thing to him. But … they chose faithfulness. They chose love over themselves, and they were blessed for it.
Take heart. Even if your husband is still hurting you … there are blessings in the fire. Draw near to God. He is all you need. Your husband can ruin the beauty of your marriage, but he can’t ruin the beauty of you, so don’t allow him to. Cling to God in these times and know that those who suffer for Him are very, very blessed. Pray for your husband in pure selflessness, that his heart would be freed of these tainted views and that he will one day know the beauty of purity. Pray for all marriages and porn stars and models and everyone affected by these things. The more you look to God and focus less on yourself, the more you’ll be able to love those around you.
I’m not saying it’s easy. And I’m not saying I did this well myself. But every moment is a moment to choose love over selfishness. Let’s try to choose love more than we choose ourselves.
