By now, many of our readers have had the chance to read the latest blog post regarding a husband’s full disclosure. This may leave many questions from the wife’s standpoint such as “What happens to me?”, “How do I get through this” or “Is my marriage over?” Others may be reading the blog, and they may be objecting to the idea of their husband waiting six months before he discloses his secret struggle.
Having walked through the blazing inferno that is caused by a husband’s pornography addiction, I would like to share some of our story and offer hope and encouragement that this is not where your story has to end.
To many, I would be considered a victim of scattered disclosure. I would have considered myself more as a victim of scattered discoveries and naivete.
I met my husband in 2002, and we began dating in 2003. While he worked in construction, he also worked in a recycling plant, and he would often talk about the pornographic magazines that would be brought in. I knew he looked at those magazines, and because I was still reeling from the effects of my broken engagement with another man, we quickly entered a sexual relationship.
Many of my friends talked about porn videos and how watching them with their significant other really enhanced their sex life. Soon after moving in with my future husband, I welcomed pornography videos into our home. I told myself it was just to improve our relationship, and I believed that it would not hurt anything.
We were married in 2005, and within the first month of our marriage, we found out we were going to become parents. One night after coming home from work, I realized my husband was now watching internet pornography. I was crushed! What I had invited into my home was now growing in size, and it was replacing the intimacy I was supposed to experience with my husband. I convinced myself that he was looking at it because of some complications with my pregnancy, and though I was secretly hurting, I trusted it would discontinue as soon as the baby was born.
It didn’t.
Eventually, I would discover that my husband was in chat rooms, sharing emails and talking or texting while I worked in the evenings. I didn’t understand this at all, as I was not neglecting my husband’s needs. I would confront him with my findings, only to be told he would stop because he really loved me. The only excuse I would hear would be the one that would remind me that I was not at home in the evenings, that I was putting all of my focus into my job.
A few years after our second child was born, we started to attend church. My heart became heavily convicted about watching pornography with my husband, so we made the choice to rid our home of all pornographic materials. I believed we had put that old life behind us and was looking forward to the new life ahead.
My life came crashing down quickly when I came home from work late one night to a message from another woman. She told me that over the past several months, she had been having regular conversations with my husband and had planned to meet him at a hotel. He had told her he was never married and had no kids, so she thought it was acceptable to have this kind of relationship with him. Shortly before flying out, she came to the discovery that he did, in fact, have a family, and she felt I should be made aware.
How could my husband not only deny me as his wife, but the existence of his children as well, all for the sake of his sexual addiction?
The pain and pressure instantly became too much to handle, so I had to make the decision to separate from my husband. He tried telling me he was sorry, but in my immediate reaction, I just could not deal with the hurt anymore. In anger, he punched the wall with our daughter standing beside him and ran out the door, leaving our kids screaming and crying.
It was a difficult week. My kids made it clear that they hated me for sending their daddy away. I hated myself for the person I had become, and I allowed myself to believe I had let my husband down, which is why he was searching elsewhere. I hated him for hurting me so badly when I loved him so much.
I walked through my home, picking up all the photos I could find of us as a happy family, and I cried. I looked at our wedding picture, and I sobbed. I loved this man with everything I had, but the wounds were so deep I didn’t know how to process them. In the end, my deep love for him caused me to invite him to come home.
Shortly after he moved back home, I became pregnant with our youngest. He got stuck in the middle of it all when family members questioned his paternity since my husband and I had separated for a time. Thankfully he was so young that he will have no recollection of those moments and remarks.
Unfortunately, though my husband never went down the road of planning another affair, he still struggled with pornography. His behavior, his anger, his reactions became warning signs to me, and I would start digging until I found something. This continued for years, until I hit another breaking point.
I found myself crying out to God, pleading for Him to take my pain away. God asked me to pray for my husband, and I argued that I had been for many years. I was gently but sternly reminded that I had been praying for my husband to be fixed because of my pain and not because I felt my husband deserved it. Though I did not have the words to say, I knelt by my bed and began to cry for my husband—crying with a level of heaviness in my heart that I couldn’t understand.
Within hours, I found myself sitting on the opposite side of a pure confession. My six-foot-two husband, who is always strong, crumbled in front of me. With tears streaming down his face, he spoke for hours of all the secret things he had been through in his life: witnessing his father’s affair, keeping the secret and feeling full of shame because he never told, wondering why those who knew what was happening never stepped in to protect him, and carrying the residual anger in his heart since his parents divorced. He shared how financially difficult times in his life made him believe he wasn’t enough, that he could never provide for us. When I worked late, all he heard in his head was that no one cared to spend time with him. All of these were limbic lies, a direct spin-off of the trauma he endured early in life.
All of these years, I had been so focused on my wounds that I could not see he was broken more deeply than one could imagine. That night, my husband came to the end of himself, and that is where he found the true beginning of God’s grace, mercy and love. We have not looked back, and my husband now walks in full knowledge of who he is because of who Christ is. He no longer harbors guilt, shame and blame in his heart. It took time, but eventually, the walls of trust started to build back up. I no longer view myself as a victim of my husband’s struggle but instead see myself as an overcomer of a battle straight from the pits of hell. We are not only restored, but more in love with each other than I ever thought could be humanly possible.
Ladies, you’re going to find yourselves on the opposite end of those confessions and trust me, they are going to completely break you. Nothing will be able to numb the pain you’re going to feel, and I have no doubt that you’re going to react out of the immediate pain, but I encourage you to prayerfully consider how you’ll respond.
Some of you may have known about your husband’s struggle for quite some time, while others will be completely blindsided by the disclosure.
The lie is that your husband cannot change, but the truth is through Christ, he most certainly can. If your husband has been on his six-month journey, walking through the Conquer Series with a group of men, he is completing the necessary steps to stand up and say he is willing to fight the tough fight for you, your children, your grandchildren and all the generations to come.
Allow yourself time for the revelation of everything to sink in before making any decisions that would affect your family for the rest of your life. Once you’ve had time to process everything you’ve heard, I would encourage you to engage in a conversation with your husband. Through this journey, he will have had study guides and would have been encouraged to keep a journal. When you can tangibly see the dedication he put forth on this journey, I believe many of you will be able to join hand in hand with your husband to walk out this journey.
It’s OK for you to find a support system of like-minded women who are going through or have already gone through a similar situation. Look to them for prayer and encouragement. Do not allow yourself to participate in a man-bashing group but instead, immerse yourself in a group of women who are on the journey to find themselves again while seeking complete healing for their husband and their marriage. {eoa}
KingdomWorks Studios is currently producing a powerful series that will help you through this journey. Be sure to sign up to receive updates about this latest project.
This article originally appeared at conquerseries.com.
Janet Perez Eckles 
Shawn Akers 
Abby Trivett 
