Is Pornography Adultery?

This is an excellent article on the differences between men and women when it comes to defining intimacy. This explains why men generally don't understand how most women feel that their husband's pornography use is absolutely an adulterous act. It's a must read for every couple effected by pornography.

(Click the image or text to be directed over to the full article. )

""You cried with her?"  My wife appeared wounded, even a little threatened, when I described my conversation with a female employee...The simple question, “How are you?” opened a floodgate of tears as she described feelings of betrayal and despair because of her husband’s behavior. As she wept, I empathized with her pain and shed a few tears of my own. While I maintained strict physical boundaries with my coworker—I didn’t so much as pat her hand—my emotional response to another woman’s anguish triggered a protective instinct within my mate. 

Charissa is neither insecure nor suspicious by nature. In fact, she quickly caught herself and recognized that I had simply empathized with the suffering of another person. Nevertheless, her visceral reaction gave me a fleeting glimpse into the mystery of womanhood. And the resulting conversation with my wife became the first step on a journey of discovery in which I learned just how differently men and women experience marital intimacy. Along the way, I also discovered a profound truth that explains why wives consider a man’s viewing pornography nothing short of adultery . . . and why men think they’re overreacting."

Read the Full Article Here ...

Pornography: the Intimacy Killer

The look of shock on my friend's face when I told her that my husband and I would go months without sex was sobering. As I continued to think back through our marriage, I realized there were so many clues that pornography had invaded our lives and one of them was lack of intimacy. Now to muddy the water, we were intimate. And when we were, it was quite good. But there was always a reason why he would turn me down most of the time. There was something I wasn't doing right, it takes too long, he just doesn't need sex as much as I do, he's tired, or he didn't know I was trying to instigate. . . etc. 

There was also always a sense of being undesired. I could feel the void. I could see that it was missing in his eyes. It was something I could never have verbalized to anyone except by saying that there was "something missing." I never tried, though, because without any concrete examples, I would look a little paranoid or overly sensitive. And don't forget that other than the sadness I felt, I didn't know any better. So I lived on in this marriage feeling oddly undesired most of the time. 

So as I read more and talked to more counselors after finding out about my husband's pornography use, I slowly realized that I honestly didn't know what a normal sex life looks like. Pornography surprisingly decreases the natural desire a husband has toward his wife. It's just not there like it is for other men. 

Here is a link to a short video on the Covenant Eyes website along with an article. (You can also click the image below.) This couple shares what pornography did to the intimacy of their marriage. I am right there with them. Wives, your'e not alone.

Yes Pornography destroys, but God restores. 

The brain can be rewired by the One who created it. The heart can be made right by the One who created it. And God can redirect our desires. This video doesn't end on a great note, so I wanted to point out the good news that can be experienced when God does a work in people's lives. 

The Day Cinderella's Castle Crumbled

I can’t say exactly where it started, or exactly when I was aware of it, but I do remember the date that my world was jolted severely by it.

On Tuesday August 23, 2011, I woke up from a short night’s sleep and saw that my husband, Jack, was in bed next to me. Normally he would have been getting ready for work by now, but here he was. I figured last night had been a rough night since he didn’t come home before I decided to go to bed. A phone call in the evening had caused him to head to church because of an “issue with a teen”. My husband was a youth pastor and phone calls like this late at night, I'm ashamed to say, annoyed me as much as they concerned me.

Jack left and I waited. The hours rolled on. Sometime close to midnight, I decided to go to bed. Nausea rolled around in my stomach as I tried to push the what-if’s out of my mind. Little did I know that nausea would be my continual friend for an undetermined amount of time.

Jack sat up. I was dying to know yet simultaneously dreading the news. I asked him what had happened and he told me to get up and go to the bathroom and be sure I was awake to hear what he had to say.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” 

“Yes.”

My hands trembled and butterflies roared inside me.  I felt sick. This was going to be unusually bad. Either one of our teens had gotten in serious trouble or someone had died. I came back and sat on the bed trying, in futility, to brace my heart for what was going to happen in the next few minutes.

From that moment on, my life was forever changed.

To preface the worst of the blow, my husband first quietly revealed his struggle with gay pornography. It had started when he was 13 and continued on until that day. Twenty years of gay pornography.

Twenty years.

He continued to explain, to my horror, a situation that resulted in a report made to the police office and subsequently to our church. He had inappropriately touched one of the teen boys in our youth group and if the parents chose, he could be jailed and forever be labeled a sex offender.

He cried and my first natural response was one of pity and compassion. His ministry was over. I was in shock. I didn’t really know much about pornography, I didn’t understand the details of what he did with the teenager. I just knew that he looked broken and he was scared to death that he would end up in jail. I was numb and I didn’t know what to do with myself. He said that in a few minutes his parents would be over to the house and he was going to be telling his mother for the first time and that maybe I’d like to be out of the house for that.

So thankfully I had an objective task ahead of me. I became robotic. It was the only way to survive my following seconds of life.

Pull myself together. Get some clothes on. Get our 23-month-old son together. Mix a bottle. Get the stroller. Head outside before I see his parents.

Already a thick dark covering of shame had started to roll over me. Don’t look anyone in the eye. Escape. Hide. Don’t let anyone see you because you are shameful.

I wasn’t fast enough and before I knew it, his parents were walking into the house. Dad knew what had happened already, but I pitied Mom. She had gotten ready, and waited the 10-minute drive knowing that she was about to hear something that would shatter her life.

I was so mechanical that I walked right past her on my way of escape before I thought to say hello and give her a hug. Turning back around, I leaned over and hugged her as she sat on the couch waiting for the bomb to hit. I could only say “hi, Mom.” 

Jack started talking as I slipped out the door. 

I had walked our neighborhood before. Many times. This time I was a zombie. My muscles were moving, but I didn’t know where I was going. Muddled and unable to process, my brain was not registering what I had just been told. I was so jolted I couldn’t take it in. Our lives were going to be spent in ministry and in a matter of three minutes that had all changed. Like a record that kept skipping, my brain could not move on and accept the new life that I was staring at. Like losing a loved one and not knowing how to function or even imagine life without them, I kept thinking, “this can’t be happening”. . .“this can’t be true.”

My husband. This is the man that would deliberately look the other way when we walked by a Victoria Secret store just so that I would be assured that he wasn’t going to enjoy anything but me. This is the man who other women would refer to as a wonderful man. He was a man of high integrity. “You can just tell that he really really loves you. I wish I had that in my marriage,” I heard numerous times.

I texted a close friend: “Please pray for us.”

I remember the realization hitting me so hard I couldn’t believe it was really me, here, now, dealing with this.  “I can’t believe this is my life.”  “We are one of those people . . . the couples that other people talk about in hushed voices in conversations that end with, “so sad” or “I can’t believe it.”  I am one of those wives. We are the people who shame the Lord’s name publicly. We are a news broadcaster’s poster child for the sham of Christianity.”

My prayers were mostly short sentences. One I prayed on my walk still crosses my lips many nights, “Hold me together.”

I never doubted God’s care for us or His goodness. I may have asked Him “why?” but as soon as it left my lips, I knew it was an emotional and fruitless question. I knew the answer to that one. Sin. Fallen world. It was not God’s doing but His allowing. I only desired His help and sustaining power. I needed Him to be close to just get me through this awful day.

I remember trying not to be too emotional thinking that my neighbors could be watching, so I walked on very slowly, in shock, staring at my son peacefully drinking his bottle. Then I got a text from Jack. “I’m done, you can come back.”

I turned the stroller around.

If I had known what lay ahead in the months to come, I might not have headed back home. But God was there with me. Holding me then, guiding me as I walked and lovingly writing His plans for the rest of my life.