My ex-husband has done porn since he was 9 years old.
We got married and I had no idea what he was doing and when he had his first affair, the church told me it was MY fault he left me for another woman. Wait…what?! 😮
“If only I had been a better wife,” they said, “he wouldn’t have left.”
So, when he came back and in the meantime of his absence, I had given my life to the Lord and became a genuine believer, I errantly thought it was MY fault, so I took him back.
I thought that since I’m a good wife now, it’ll never happen again.
Since I’m a Christian now, he won’t leave.
I’m good now. I’m a good person. He wouldn’t leave a good person, right?
The very opposite happened…
My Husband Won’t Stop Doing Porn and It’s Ruining Our Marriage
Each and every day, I was striving SOOO hard to be a better wife, the Proverbs 31 wife. I took one verse at a time and really tried so hard to become the perfect wife. If I were the perfect wife, he wouldn’t leave.
So I thought.
So I was told.
About a year later, he asked me to have a threesome with him. He wanted me and another girl at the same time.
I said no.
A couple months later, he asked me to swing partners. He found a girl he wanted to sleep with and they were married 16 years. He’d have sex with her and I’d have sex with her husband; that was his plan.
Since I wouldn’t have sex with him and another girl, he figured if *I* had someone, maybe I’d be okay with it.
I wasn’t.
Over time, he kept trying to get me to do bad stuff like that and I kept on refusing.
A little while later, he came to me out of the blue. Told me he didn’t like how I was being. Didn’t like I was being a Christian. He thought that it was just a “phase that I’d grow out of”. It’d last a couple months and it would be over.
But I wasn’t growing out of this newfound faith. I was becoming better and better and he liked his sin and wanted to continue in it. Wanted to do other things (like swinging, threesomes, etc.) and I wasn’t going to.
I told him, I still wasn’t willing. I gave my life to God, I wanted to live for Him, but even if I weren’t Christian, I’d never want to do the things he kept wanting me to do.
Finally, his idea, a little while later was that he’d have a mistress and take a traveling job and then have me as his wife at home. He’d work in another state and live in a different state so that he could accomplish this (and this is something he still does to this very day, always working in a different state to have a mistress and then have the wife at home so they both don’t know).
When I said no again, I knew divorce was inevitable. He wasn’t going to back down and stop, and neither was I. I didn’t want his sin, I didn’t want to participate, I didn’t want that lifestyle, in any form of it, whether Christian or not.
He came to me and told me he wanted his sin, didn’t want to not do it and told me I had a choice. Gave me an ultimatum. Either I give up God, give up my new church in Idaho, give up being a Christian and do these nasty things with him or he’d leave me and the kids high and dry.
I told him that I’d never give up God for him or anyone else. The conversation ended pretty quickly.
The next day, he cashed out his pension at work, around $5,000, and I didn’t hear from him again.
At least he was honest.
But so am I.
This behavior is never acceptable. Not in God’s kingdom, and not even as a married, unsaved woman. Whether saved or not, it’s deplorable behavior, period.
I understand where you’re coming from that your husband is doing porn and it’s wreaking havoc on your marriage.
I understand how it feels.
I understand the pain, the misery, the torture, the hurt feelings, the anguish you’re experiencing…because I’ve been through it too! And I will say this. In my particular case, it was the best thing my ex-husband ever did for me- to leave me.
Because I was finally free of him. Finally I could live a holy life, set apart FULLY for Christ, no hindrances, no constant fighting, no more baiting me to sin, no more trying to get me to sin.
I could just be ME and I felt FREE!
He wasn’t going to change and so for me, I felt like this was God’s way of escape (1 Corinthians 10:13) and it was truly for MY best (Romans 8:28). While not a pleasant thing to go through at the time (I was instantly a single mom, etc.), and I never preferred divorce, I’ve also never regretted choosing God over him.
It ruins your marriage
When your husband does porn, it ruins your marriage. It taints it, poisons it. His mind cannot differentiate between having real sex in real life or fantasizing about it in the mind. So over time, it sears the conscience and little by little, things begin to become okay to them.
Affairs start to become okay.
The things they are watching, the things those people are doing in the videos, start to become okay to your spouse. And he wants to do them. Bad things. Things not honorable to God or to you as a woman.
His mind becomes corrupt. His loyalty becomes divided. He starts to cheat more and more in various ways. It’s a slow fade.
It’s an addiction
Much like drugs or alcohol, pornography is an addition. Men who begin to do porn, find themselves not able to stop, and the pleasing effect becomes a less and less, more dull sensation after a while, so they have to do more, see more, see more nastier stuff in order to satisfy themselves.
They go deeper and deeper down the rabbit trail with no intention of coming back.
Their addiction can become your sin. Pretty soon, they want YOU to start doing bad things with them too.
They want you to watch things with them. They want to get ideas from what they’re watching and try them out with you. The more innocent things they once wanted no longer satisfy them and their hunger for disgusting things becomes more prevalent, needed even, because of their lack of self-control.
Singles
To all the single ladies out there I say to you very clearly, before you even date a man, make sure he is NOT doing pornography.
And I would say even this: make sure he turns his eyes away from bad things, even when you’re not around.
How do you know if he’s holy in this way? How do you know if you should be with him?
Don’t just take his word for it as men can and often do lie about it. Rather pray about it and seek God to be absolutely sure! Get to know him a while first. See how he lives his life and what he does. Pay attention. Watch him. Pray about it. Ask God if he’s into porn or acting holy.
I personally refuse to date a man who will not guard his eyes of his own accord. That’s my standard, and it should be yours too.
But if you expect HIM to be having that level of holiness, you likewise, must also be holy. And I tell you, women can be just as bad as men. Course talking, desiring strippers, man hunts (yes, those happen today; I’ve seen it with my very eyes, women acting deplorable in such ways), looking at men with their shirts off, praising muscles, talking about those things with other single women, with their older daughters even, allowing the lust of their flesh to be contagious.
If you expect a man to be godly, you have to be godly yourself. Whatever you require from him, you must also possess. Purity is something to be greatly desired for both male AND female.
Definition of lust
But before we go around accusing innocent men, we must REALLY understand lust. What is it, how it is played out, what it looks like in a scenario. So let’s talk about it because not everything you think is lust is actually lust.
Let’s walk through the process.
Pretend that a man accidentally sees a woman who is dressed in an enticing way. Most people errantly think that’s lust if he looks at her. It’s not. If you look at someone else who’s naked or dressed provocatively, that’s not sin.
The man could very well go on his way, saying no, not being enticed, not developing thoughts. Turning his head and looking away.
This is a godly man.
But if the man sees this and then starts thinking about sex with the person he just saw, THAT is lust. THAT is sin.
So it’s very possible, to see something that entices but be without sin. It’s the thinking of that person sexually, having sex with them, that is lust.
That doesn’t mean we go around looking at things that entice us purposely because we never want to tempt ourselves, but it’s always a part of society and we can’t do anything about that.
You’re walking with your husband, hand in hand down the mall corridor and there’s sexually explicit ads/a billboard. A godly man will turn his head, not look, not be enticed, keep his pure thoughts, keep his mind on you. A sinful man will continue to look, continue to develop thoughts, think about sex with her, etc.
How can you look at a woman and not lust?
- Immediately start thinking of something that is off-putting to sex in your mind. A good one I tell a lot of men is to immediately start thinking of their mom when they see something explicit. I promise you, thinking about your mom is going to KILL ANY sexual desire you have instantly!!! High-five to all the moms out there! 😊 You can choose to focus on anything you want, so long as it will crush any sexual desire you have immediately. Think about baseball, think about God, whatever you think about, make it your go-to thought when you see something that may entangle you. This is the principle of putting off and putting on. Put off sin, put ON something good (Ephesians 4:22-24).
- Put your head down immediately. Stop looking. Be quick. Don’t look for any amount of time, be self-controlled and stop looking. Turn your head away or start blinking really fast (this is what I do), so that I don’t even see the image but for a millisecond and it doesn’t have the chance to become enticing to me. The longer you look, the longer it entices. So if you’re in church, for example, and a woman is looking at you who’s enticing you (it happens, believe me!), put your nose in your Bible. Don’t look at her, stay far away from her, read your Bible, focus on God. As you’re reading your Bible, pray. Pray that God will help you say no to the enticement. The next week, sit far away from her, stay far away from her and if she continues, honestly, bring it before the Pastor so he can handle it. Women shouldn’t be acting like this, and you’ll find that some do! Remember that it’s better to cut off your right hand than to go to Hell (Matthew 5:29–30). That’s how serious God feels about sin.
- Don’t hang around places that entice. If you are enticed by a woman in a bathing suit, don’t go swimming at the pool or lake. Don’t go to places that are known to be enticing. It would be like an alcoholic going to a bar and trying to say no. Avoid it altogether. (Proverbs 5 with emphasis on verse 8)
- Keep your mind pure. The more you read the Bible and fill your mind with pure and godly things, the less you’ll be tempted by worldly lusts. Don’t watch TV shows that entice, sexually explicit songs, read romance novels that evoke passion and desire, etc. Keep your mind clear, focused on God. Walk in the spirit and you’ll be less entangled by the world. Learn to hate the world, learn to despise those sins, as God does. Learn to love what God loves and hate what He hates.
- Control your mind. A little trick that worked for me when I was first starting this path of not wanting to lust anymore when I became a Christian, was to tell myself I’m not interested in that. Over time, I kept telling myself that I wasn’t interested, and it became true. If you tell your mind something enough times, you will start to believe it. We do have power over our minds.
- Be prayed up. Think of your heart like a gas tank. You need to fill up your heart with things that truly satisfy you so that you’re not going around looking for things you THINK satisfy you, but don’t in the end. Fill up your heart with God. Drink Living Water daily. MAKE time for God, prioritize your relationship with Him. Make love with your wife (for those that are married) as often as you can (Proverbs 5 with emphasis on verses 18-19), in order that you’re not tempted. While it doesn’t completely curb all feelings, it does help (1 Corinthians 7:5). Likewise, pray for your purity and for your spouse’s purity. Pray (daily) you and they are not tempted, and always be prepared to act quickly when temptation comes (turn your head quick, for example).
- Learn self-control and discipline in other areas. While you CAN eat that last scoop of ice cream, tell yourself no. Learn to discipline yourself in more easier areas, so that areas such as lust will become easier to say no to as well.
- Be wise. Learn how sexual sins affect you, your marriage, your body, God, and why it’s so important to say no every single day. Here’s the best sermon on the topic.
- Learn to see women as God’s daughters and not sex objects. The more you are walking in the spirit, lining your life and heart up to His, the more you are seeing the world and it’s people through GOD’S eyes and not through worldly eyes. When you see the opposite gender through His eyes, you won’t see them as lust objects, but as people, broken people in need of a Savior. Your heart and mind toward the opposite gender changes. You no longer look at people the same. You don’t look at people and think: sex. You look at people and think: God’s children, depraved, unsaved, hurting, suffering, joyful. It’s a whole different way to look at people and the best thing you can do for your eyes. Pray that God show you how HE sees people.
How wives can help their husbands not sin
While it’s not your fault if your husband sins, be sure you are being physically intimate a LOT. There’s no command for how often but keep 1 Corinthians 7:5 in mind. Unless you’re praying, have sex. 😆 Obviously if you’re physically unable to do so, I’m sure there’s grace for that, but don’t make it a habit and don’t use it as an excuse.
Some women will use the excuse, “Not tonight honey, I have a headache”. If your wife tells you that, you know it’s depriving. Why? Because sex is the best remedy for a headache. The blood is rushing to your head, you get a headache. When you are physically intimate, the blood rushes to other parts of your body, taking it away from your head, thus killing the headache.
Listen, I’ll be blunt. Women only need sex once a week to once a month, depending on your libido.
Men need sex daily, period end of story.
Men’s desire also runs hotter. For a woman, sexual desire feels like an electric stovetop burner. It gets warm all over the burner, but not hot. For a man, it’s a much more concentrated (middle of the burner only), much higher boiling point. It’s a more intense burning sensation than women. Women’s is warmer, men’s is scalding hot.
Women think men are just being pigs because they want sex all the time, but you don’t understand their desire. It’s not like ours. It’s much more intense and much harder to control and say no to. They’re not trying to be pigs, they’re just trying to get through the day!
Women’s desire is a small little fireplace steady fire and men’s is a whole forest fire that is hard to contain. It’s just way different and we need to understand their needs more in order to help them.
If you’re only making love once a week, it’s not enough. Make time for the relationship, prioritize it. Your relationship with your husband is the #1 relationship on the planet outside of your relationship with God. Your marriage comes first, right below God.
Sometimes that can be difficult as a mom, and we get that, but it can still be done. Your children, as lovely as they are, are NOT to be more important to you than your husband is, in God’s design for the family. Your husband is a priority over your children. That’s how God created the order to be.
You are, as a woman, literally created to be a helpmeet for your husband. You were given to your husband for his pleasure and that includes sex. That’s not to be perverted or twisted, controlled or manipulated, but part of our inborn desire is to make our husbands happy.
Dress up for him, daily, wear makeup (here’s how to balance that with being comfortable). Wives, after a while tend to stop wearing makeup. They get lazy, they stop trying. You think to yourself, “Well, he’s already seen me without makeup, so it doesn’t matter now.”
Your husband is nice and polite. He’s not going to mention it, so you coast and don’t try anymore, but while he might not be saying it, I promise you he’s thinking it!!! And that applies to ALL men. 100%.
You can’t change him
There’s nothing that we, as women, can do to change our husbands. All we can do is to pray for him daily and encourage him not to sin. If he’s willing to listen, have him read this post, listen to this sermon together, talk about how it’s affecting you and what you’re experiencing. Tell him it hurts you deeply, that it cuts you like a knife.
Explain to him that it takes 2 days (48 hours) for a women’s brain to heal and forgive EACH porn offense. When she catches porn, she is not turned on. There is a bitterness inside of her, hurt and pain and she doesn’t want sex because she feels betrayed, cheated on. So if a man is continually doing porn, he’s really robbing himself of the joy of having actual sex with his wife.
Above all, bring your requests to God (Philippians 4:6) and cast all your burdens upon Him (Psalm 55:22). Pray your guts out because while YOU can’t change your husband, God IS fully capable to do so!! The power lies within Him.
Can I divorce my husband if he’s addicted to porn?
The simple answer is no, but it will most likely lead to a physical affair and at that point, in God’s grace, you are able to divorce your husband. We should never SEEK to divorce but because of sin, for your good and to keep you holy, it is permissible in that instance of a physical affair.
Here’s a few articles that go more in-depth on the topic:
