Thejoyfilledwife's husband had an addiction to pornography as she shared with us HERE. She told me that her husband won't read what she writes because it hurts him to read how much he hurt her. He wants her to share their story, however, in hopes of helping other women. Here is her story of how she won her husband with some very wise counseling ~
When I was a little girl, a family member with severe anger
issues tried to strangle me to death. I was not the cause of their anger…I was
just in the wrong place at the wrong time and was an easy target. By the grace
of God, He gave me the strength to break free and run away from my aggressor.
From early childhood all the way to my pre-teen years, I was
the target of very hateful bullying by other girls. Not one specific group of
girls, just girls in general. When you’re an adult, being slim is considered
desirable, but it’s not such a popular thing when you are in your adolescent
years. The bullying got so bad that I attempted suicide at age 11. The Lord
stilled my hand seconds away from taking my own life and whispered to my heart,
“It’s not your time. I’m not finished with you yet.” That was a turning point
in my walk with God and I made the decision to dedicate my life to
accomplishing His will.
As a teenager, I was frequently pursued by men, but their
pursuits often turned to ridicule and slander when they found out that I was
saving myself for marriage and refused their advances. I was known as a “goody
two shoes” by most everyone who knew me, so they were all too eager to spread
the rumor around when one of the men whose advances I refused convinced
everyone that I had spent the night with him. I had a deep desire to honor the
Lord and represent Him well, so these false allegations wounded me deeply.
Years later, I would suffer the same slander from
co-workers, who insisted that I was lying about my virginity. They constantly
attempted to ruin my witness with their lies and slander, but by this time I
was a bit older and wiser, knowing how to combat their lies with my attitude
and heart to obey God in all circumstances. I won many people over this way and
it caused my enemies to be exposed. They hated me for refusing to participate
in their gossiping and perverse humor. In the end, though, even the
“ringleader” of the group admitted to me privately, “I really can’t stand
you…but, for some reason, I can’t help but respect you.”
I could go on and on with stories of horrible things that
happened to me throughout my life, but I’m not sharing these things to give you
a sad story. The point I want to hit home is that, because of all of the terrible
things I experienced throughout my life, one of the characteristics God sowed
in me all those years was “longsuffering”.
I know what it is to live most of my life loving others, in
spite of their sin against me, and continue to love them regardless. Looking
back on my life up until this point, I think I must have spent at least half of
my nights crying myself to sleep as I prayed for God to just wrap me in His
arms and mend the places of my heart that have been wounded by others. I
learned early on that God was the only one who could heal the hurt and give me
the strength to keep loving others when my flesh told me to hate them for how
much they hurt me. I never understood why God allowed me to go through so much
suffering at the hand of others, but I can’t help but be reminded of what a
friend said to me once: “God knows He can trust you with trouble."
Before I met my husband, I prayed that the Lord would bring
me a Godly man who I could serve. Yes, serve. Those were my exact words.
Marriage consists of lifelong servitude and, although I wanted to live happily
ever after like every other woman, I had a very realistic view of what a
Biblical marriage looked like. The Lord answered that prayer in a big way, as
you can imagine.
After I gently confronted my husband about his addiction and
he opened up about it, we immediately sought out a godly counselor. Our
counselor challenged us in all areas of our mind and heart. He didn’t minimize
any sin or take sides. The process of reconciliation and recovery was
challenging for my husband, but truly painstaking for me. The counselor told me
that if I wanted to help point my husband back to Christ, I had to be willing
to do things that I didn’t want to do. Things that wouldn’t always seem fair.
Since I had no part in provoking my husband’s addiction, the
advice was not easy to hear, but it worked. I remember crying once after
reading an email regarding how I should respond to my husband’s anger, lies,
and control issues he had developed through his addiction. He was an almost
unbearable man to live with during that time and the constant barrage of
temptation I was facing as a result of his harshness toward me and depriving of
any kind of intimacy for sometimes 3-4 weeks at a time, I felt like I lived my
life in constant inward mourning. Although I never considered divorcing my
husband over his addiction, I remember one night, when his outpouring of anger
was at an all-time high and he seemed to not even see me as a person of value
anymore, I sobbed quietly in my pillow and told Jesus that I wished I had never
married in the first place. The pain of constant loneliness in marriage was far
more painful than singleness had been for me.
I asked God that night why He didn’t bring my husband’s sin
to the surface before we got married. We took all the precautions before
marriage, including lengthy pre-marital counseling, in which all topics were
covered thoroughly, including pornography. I had even asked God to reveal to me
if there were any red flags in my potential husband…but His voice was silent at
that time.
That night, when I asked God why my husband’s addiction
hadn’t been revealed to me before marriage, He showed me something that I think
is seldom understood in marriage. You see, we have often heard the saying,
“Marriage is not meant to make you happy, but to make you holy.” What that
looks like in action is to sometimes forsake your own desires or “rights” in
order to help your spouse turn back to the Lord.
I am not advocating putting up with physical violence or the
like, but I think we make the mistake of thinking that, if our “rights” are
infringed upon, we have an automatic “out” in marriage. The problem with this
is not only that it isn’t Biblical, but that it doesn’t achieve the outcome of
refining each other and helping our spouse become more like Christ. What the
Lord revealed to me that night is that the reason my husband’s addiction wasn’t
shown to me before I married him was because I wouldn’t have married him if I
had known about it. God had chosen me to be my husband’s wife because He
cultivated within me specific character traits of Christ that were to serve as
an example to my husband and help Him come to a place of deliverance.
God fully intended, from the beginning, to use the
longsuffering He developed in me over the years to win my husband without a
word as he gradually overcame his addiction. I only wish I had realized that
when I began this brutal, but worthwhile, journey over a year ago. When God
choses our spouse for us, he puts two people together who are best designed to
help refine each other and become more like Christ. I think we often get so caught
up in the fact that our spouse is not meeting all our desires that we lose
sight of the fact that our spouse’s shortcomings, and even sins, are often what
God plans to use to help us overcome our own sins and struggles.
Some of the practical, day-to-day ways I won my husband
without a word were very difficult to put into action. I did all of them based
on the guidance of our counselor and pastoral approval. Here are some of the
actions I lived out daily, while in constant prayer for my husband’s recovery.
Pornography brings about a desire to control and dominate.
To see people as objects to conquer or devour, instead of people to love and
value. To say that my husband became micromanaging over every area of my life
would be a true understatement. I remember a specific incident when my husband
became angry with me for eating a slice of bread. I had eaten lunch 4 hours
prior and he didn’t think I should be eating again so soon.
My counselor explained to me that my husband felt like his
life was out of control and that rebelling against his unreasonable
micromanaging would serve no purpose but to feed the desire to control more.
They emphasized the importance of me always checking my heart and that I needed
to remain as “behind the scenes” in my habits that angered him as much as possible. If
I insisted on putting up a fight, even though he was unreasonable, it would
only serve to drive him further away out of feeling like he also was losing his
authority in his marriage. I decided to keep snacks in my bathroom drawer and
my purse so I could take a few bites while I went out to get the mail or was in
the other room. Was he unreasonable to become upset about me eating a slice of
bread 4 hours after my last meal? Yes. But my counselor helped me see that I
needed to avoid being a distraction as God worked on my husband’s heart. My
husband apologized to me later that night for being controlling about the
bread.
Because my husband’s addiction caused him to become a man he
wasn’t proud of, he would often take his inner frustrations with himself and
project them verbally onto me. He would blame me for things I had no part in,
would become angry that I didn’t meet an expectation he had failed to
communicate to me, and, on one occasion, belittled me in front of our guests
for not having dinner completely ready when he walked through the door with
them, even though he had failed to call me and let me know they were heading
over, as agreed upon.
My counselor explained to me that my husband was projecting
his feelings of failure and inadequacy onto me because he was not happy with
himself and the choices he was making. Pornography addictions are built upon a
foundation of selfishness and it was easier for my husband to shift blame than
to own up to his own failures, when he already was overwhelmed by the shame of
his failure to resist his sinful addiction for so long. The counselor guided me
to not respond to my husband in front of others or to fight with him when he
lashed out at me. Instead, I was to calmly and firmly explain to him,
privately, that I was not responsible for the failure he was angry about and
how it made me feel when he belittled me in front of others. After that, I was
not to carry on or get into an argument, no matter how much he wanted to fight.
The counselor warned me to keep my heart and spirit in the right place in these
situations, so the devil would not gain a foothold with me and perpetuate the
situation further. I was to be an instrument of peace. Not a doormat to walk
all over, but a wife with inner strength that uses her tongue to impart peace
amidst the war within my husband’s heart.
My husband was very unhelpful with our children during the
time of beginning to overcome his addiction and would gripe if I asked him for
even a small favor. I did not ask him often, but there were times when I was
incapable of accomplishing two things at once and he would refuse to help out.
My counselor showed me that taking care of the children was my God-given
responsibility and that I could show my husband respect and build him up as a
husband by taking on all of the responsibilities in this area and thanking him
for how hard he works to provide for us.
I’ll never forget the counselor’s first words to me when I asked
what I should do when my husband refuses to help: “Don’t fight a battle that’s
not worth dying for!” Those words rang over and over again in my head. God had
bigger things to work on in my husband’s heart than unhelpfulness. I did not
need to dwell on the smaller things and make them as big a priority as the
serious stuff. The small stuff would be ironed out over time after the Lord
refined my husband and helped him break the chains of his addiction. We are
currently at the place where God is working on the medium to small things now
and it has been such a blessing to come home now from running errands to
children that have been bathed and put to bed!
During the progression and height of my husband’s addiction,
I was denied sexually almost every single time I asked. There was always an
excuse made why he couldn’t do it. Usually he would say that he was too tired
or in a bad mood, even though he would stay up for hours afterward doing other
things. I tried not to nag him about this, but did come to him several
different times and let him know that I was struggling greatly with temptation
from lack of intimacy in our marriage. He would simply respond, “Maybe in the
morning.”
My counselor explained to me that, while my husband was
clearly sinning by defrauding me, the selfishness that comes from porn
addictions, as well as the fact that he was already meeting his sexual needs
through that outlet, was responsible for his sin in refusing me. He had trained
his mind to mentally “dispose” of images that no longer excited him in search
of a more exciting image. When you train your brain to become aroused by two
dimensional images, it’s a lot harder to be interested in your real life
relationship with your wife. It had nothing to do with my value as a person or
my physical attractiveness, but he literally trained his brain to seek arousal
and fulfillment from things that will never satisfy.
When he had just met his own sexual desires in sinful ways,
he no longer felt a need for intimacy with me. As hard as it was to do, my
counselor told me that when I felt temptation coming on, to go into the other
room after my husband falls asleep and work out as hard as I can to release
excess energy. Once I finished that, I should spend time in the Word and in
prayer for myself and my husband. I needed to memorize Scripture and inundate
my mind with the Truth. That was the only way to resist the enemy.
It’s hard to explain just how trying the battle has been for
me, but I’ve seen so much growth come about in my walk with God as a result.
There were some strongholds of insecurity that I had struggled with throughout
my whole life as a result of some of the traumatic things that occurred in my
adolescent years.
God used this trial to bring me to a place where I have been
freed from that stronghold and now see myself through His eyes. God used my
husband’s sin to help me overcome the struggles in my own life. There was a
time when I almost lost all hope that I would ever be delivered from my
strongholds, but I found that I really can do all things through Christ who
strengthens me. He is so faithful.
My husband is a drastically different man today than he was
even a year ago. Although there are still sinful habits that he is working to
cast aside after all those years of addiction, they are on a much smaller scale
than the big things he was facing every day. I see my husband viewing me as a
woman of great value and showing me a vulnerability and tenderness that I had
never known before. He is doing more to serve me, initiating sex daily, and
even asking me if I am in need of intimacy, even when I can clearly see that he
is tired.
Recovery truly takes time, but I couldn’t be prouder of how
incredibly far he’s come and the steps he’s taken to be completely honest with
me and seek my accountability in his struggles. I feel like I’m getting to know
who my husband is for the first time and I cherished the moment when he said to
me, “I feel like I’m falling in love with you all over again.”
When my husband got to a place where he was right with God
again, I felt the Holy Spirit prompt me to ask my husband to disciple me in
some areas. This was very difficult for me to do because I had been the
spiritual influence in our household when my husband was living in sin and it
was very hard to ask him to teach me. The Lord revealed to me that if there was
one thing that would heal my husband more than anything else, it was time in
the Word. If my husband were to agree to disciple me, he would inevitably be
spending more time in the Scriptures as he prepares to teach me. This was one
of the best decisions I ever made for our marriage. He has stepped back up to
the plate as the spiritual leader of our family and teaching me the Word has
spurred on the habit of reading his Bible even more every day. He has been
teaching me so many things lately and I am so blessed by the wisdom he has been
imparting.
God is so faithful to be with us through the storms of life.
He truly does work all things out for the good of those who love Him and have
been called according to His purpose. My husband told me the other day that he
looks forward to the day when his sin is far behind him and God uses his
testimony to reach other men who desire to be delivered from their bondage as
well. In the mean time, he has given me permission to stand in the gap and to
minister to wives who are experiencing the same devastation that I went
through. Although no two stories are identical, I hope that my story will bring
hope to hurting hearts in desperate need of healing.
Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word by the conversation of the wives.
I Peter 3:1
