We’re insecure and it bleeds into our marriages. Our husbands struggles with lust would hurt our marriage if we were healthy and secure, but they would not damage our hearts to the degree they often do. But since we aren’t secure and healthy most of the time (I know I wasn’t) … they completely shatter our hearts, break us to pieces, and make us feel like even God could never find all the pieces and heal us. Hopeless IS what we become, because we place our validation in men for so long (from daddy on) that we end up feeling like our lives are over when we realize we will never be enough to the eyes of men or the world.
But this can also be a liberating truth for women. We can choose to see it as freedom from our pasts, our wounds, and our insecurities … or we can choose to see it as a devastating, hopeless, depressing, life-shattering, heartbreaking truth.
I choose to see it as liberating. God is my only god. He is the only one who has the power to make me feel wanted, valued, and loved fully. Others can make me feel loved to a degree, they can make me feel special, but they will always fail at some point if I have expectations of them. Just rearranging the cabinets without asking for my input can make me feel like I’m not valued if my heart isn’t in the right place. But my husband’s actions should not determine my true worth and value. Only God can do that.
If your husband is on the road to recovery and you are having trouble moving on and forgiving him, here are a few thoughts for you to think about:
Let Go
Many of us women try to control our lives in order to feel safe. This seeps into the porn issue. It’s something that is out of your control and you don’t like it, so you panic, you retreat, you go away in your head to a “safe place” where you don’t have to deal with the issue. The avoidant thing you said. And your analytical personality only makes this worse. Instead of giving your past to God … you cling to it and analyze it and reopen the wound whenever you are hurt.
For me, personally, I did this. It killed me that I couldn’t know what George saw every five seconds of the day. And if I got upset about something I’d retreat in pain, then think and think and think to the point of exhaustion and depression. I wallowed in negative thoughts for so long.
It’s okay to analyze, but you have to let go and give the negative to God, be willing to trust Him even when you don’t trust your husband (or others), and focus on the positive. Focus on how YOU can love, instead of how people can better love you.
2.) Believe the Truth — I can completely relate to you when you say you are angry that this makes you question not only him, but everything about “us.” I went through that. Sometimes I still have those thoughts, because George’s mother doesn’t like me and thinks he married the wrong person. It makes me wonder if that’s true, then I choose to do something that is often difficult … I believe the truth. I hush the lies in my heart, even when it seems like they are SO real, and I choose to listen to the truth. To know that my husband may have lied about porn and lust, but he married me because he loves me. Lust is nowhere close to love. He loves ALL of me, even my aging, baby-delivering body. He loves ALL OF ME. Not just what I look like. He didn’t even love the women he lusted over. He USED them. Like drugs. Think about that. He could care less about them, but HE LOVES YOU. Choose to believe the truth.
Face Your Fears
Stop avoiding him because he hurt you. There were so many times George apologized and tried to hug me, and I pushed him away. I remember sitting on the couch desperately in need of his embrace, but I feared his touch. When his hand touched mine I imagined other women. The pain haunted me. So I wanted his touch, but at the same time often hated him for what he did that I couldn’t bear to let him touch me.
Let him hug you, even though it hurts, even though it brings more pain, even though you don’t want him to. Let him hug you. He is your husband. The more you push him away, the more the devil is going to use that space to deteriorate your marriage. Do you really want that? Of course not! Face your fears and deal with the pain, instead of suppressing it or trying to figure it out or analyzing or whatever it is you want to do to avoid it. You have to face your husband. You have to allow him to love you even though you don’t feel or believe or even want it sometimes. You can’t push away his love or you’ll end up pushing it away for good.
Let The Past be the Past
I remember all the times George looked at other women when we were dating. I remember everything he ever did to make me feel like I wasn’t good enough. You’ll always remember, but let the past be in the past. You are in the present now. The lies have been exposed and some may even continue to come up. Live in the present pain, not the pain from your entire history together. That’s over. Forgive him for the past. Forgive him for lying, for lusting, for betraying you. And give him a clean slate, no record of wrongs. Remember them, but do not ponder them, do not let them be part of the pain you are currently feeling.
The past is over. You are hurting. Your heart is broken. Your marriage is suffering. But it can get better. You have to look toward the future and live in the present. Be hurt, because you are. But be willing to be on the same page as your husband. God has a lot of changing to do in your husband’s heart. It sounds like your husband is willing, so be willing to let him change. Don’t be a rock in his path toward healing with your insecurities and pain. Let him change. Be willing to believe him as he walks forward in truth and don’t keep a record of his wrongs. He can’t change if you are pulling him back into the world of negatives. Hold his hand, walk with him.
It’s Not About You
Don’t just glaze over those words. I read them so many times, but it never helped. No one explained to me what that really means.
Your husband is hurting too. Lust hurts men just as much as the wives they betray. They are spiritually hurting. And the women they use as objects are hurting. Women don’t dress immodestly when they are secure. They do it for attention from men because that makes them feel better about themselves. Porn stars are very, very hurt in every way (even when they don’t admit it) … spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically … they are dying inside (and sometimes outside). It’s not just about the wife. This cycle is huge. There isn’t a man and woman in the world unaffected by it in some way or another. We all are. But we can choose to step up from being victims of porn and become (through God’s grace) overcomers! There is victory here. Victory waiting to be grasped by every person and marriage. You can grasp it too, but it starts with realizing that you aren’t the only victim. And although your husband’s issue with lust (and lying) has betrayed and hurt you … he is hurting from porn and lust too.
Healing is waiting for you. Hope. Restoration. But you have to choose it. You have to choose to stop dwelling on the negative. You have to allow yourself to be hurt and not hide. You have to let go of the past and move forward, truly. You have to choose love even when it hurts. Jesus wore a crown of thorns, yet we often except a crown of jewels. We forget that suffering is such a huge part of our lives with God … it’s not about us. It’s not about earthly comfort. It’s about loving and laying our lives down for others, like He did.
When I first saw The Passion I saw Simon pick up the cross and help Jesus carry it. He didn’t choose to, but when asked … he didn’t run away. He chose to help Him carry it. He chose suffering for the sake of Christ. He may have had other motives, but I prayed in that moment that God would create in me a heart that is willing to carry the cross with Jesus out of no other motive than pure love for Him.
That is the life I want to live in my marriage, my motherhood, my friendships, my business relationships, everything. I want to lay my life down for others and carry the cross with Jesus because I love Him so much. I don’t want to ask for a crown of jewels when He had a crown of thorns, because I know the victory AFTER the pain. Jesus, of all people, proved that there’s beauty after rain. He proved that the worst suffering can be used for the best good.
I want to live in that truth.
And I want that for you too.
