This week we’re hitting a very specific moment that is occurring in many marriages; that moment when you discover your husband’s porn habit.
The revelation that your husband is addicted to som...
This week we’re hitting a very specific moment that is occurring in many marriages; that moment when you discover your husband’s porn habit.
The revelation that your husband is addicted to some form of pornography is obviously a huge problem and a real shock to your marriage. But we're going to look at what the research says is the best way to deal with it in the immediate aftermath and how to look towards getting through it. We’re going to help you see what’s going on in his world, and then go through first steps towards recovery. We’ll be coming at that through two approaches: one if he is on board to get help and the other if he is in denial.
One quick preparatory comment: we’re going to be using the word ‘addiction’ quite a bit in this episode. Researchers can debate the definition of this word and Christians even more so. I want to skip that discussion for now simply because this episode is for wives whose world has just come crashing down around them and a ten minute theological diatribe is not going to be helpful.
Discovering a porn addiction is an incredibly difficult thing to experience, often just as devastating as discovering an affair. Even if the problem is “just” online rather than in the real world, that same sense of betrayal, of being lied to, of a breakdown in trust, of repulsion, anger and even fear are felt in response to this horrifying discovery. Wives may well wonder if their marriage can have a future after discovering that their trust has been violated on such a deep level for such a long period of time and angry thoughts of revenge are common.
Defining Porn Addiction
Let me give you a definition that can be used to help understand what’s going on for your husband and will give us a basis for what we need to go over today. I also want to say that while my main specialty is marriage therapy, my second most experienced area of work is with pornography recovery. Also, this problem unfortunately has been a part of the history of our marriage and so Verlynda and I will be drawing out on our own respective experiences too.
Addiction is "when a person compulsively uses sex to alter his or her mood to produce pleasure and/or to provide escape from internal discomfort and is employed [or, entrenched] in a pattern characterized by recurrent failure to control the behavior and continuation of the behavior despite significant negative consequences[i]".
I like that definition for a few reasons:
It identifies why your spouse is engaging in this behavior. Not for the purpose of justifying it but helping us to understand: he’s using porn to alter his mood and/or escape. This is important because there is a valid need and an invalid coping mechanism at play. Your husband has a desire to feel better or escape from the pressures of his life, which is normal, but has turned to a very unhelpful way of meeting that need. If we want the invalid coping mechanism (the porn) to go away, we have to also take care of the valid need in a healthy way.
It also points out the recurrent pattern: this could be daily, weekly, monthly, even quarterly. There’s a recurring pattern here.
And it also highlights the fact that at some level, even on the verge of his awareness, he knows there are significant negative consequences to his behavior. Why doesn’t that stop him? That’s a separate discussion where we would have to look at addictive cycles and come back to that valid need.
Keeping a Healthy Perspective
If you’ve just discovered his porn addiction, it will probably be a real shock and there will be all kinds of feelings going through you. To help you get a handle on the situation there are a few things you need to know.
The first is that you’re not alone. This is a profoundly common problem but also one that carries a lot of shame for both husbands and wives. Because of that, it doesn’t get talked about. Usually couples that go through this go through it feeling very alone and without sharing it...
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