I am reposting this blog post that was written on 3/5/12 by Anonymous. This is the most popular blog post ever here at Ironstrikes.
As the wife of a confirmed porn addict, I can tell you that life is not easy. In my mind, I sometimes wish he was addicted to "real women"; I cannot compete with airbrushed fantasies. In the dark hours when I know what he is doing in the room down the hall, I think how I could verbally attack or expose a "real woman" for her part in my husband's infidelity, yet I have no recourse but to writhe in emotional pain as the man I love is pretending to have sex with someone he will never meet.
When he comes to my side and offers affection, I want to respond but am repulsed. My heart aches to know that I am the one he wants to hold, but knows all to well that he may not even see me for the images dancing in his mind. His arms may not even be around me, but around one of the many women he just spent the last hour with in the solitude of our marriage bed while I did dishes and helped kids with homework.
Many times I hear the promises that it is over; that he is mine alone. In graphic detail I am exposed to what his eyes have seen, the secret desires he had for those other women. He tells me about it as he promises he will get help. If only I could believe it this time.
A "real" affair would be easier for me to accept. Yet I walk each day with the feeling that I am never enough. As one woman, with one body, I can never be enough. With a heart full of shame that is not my own I beg God for His intervention. Plead that He help me keep this secret from children who love their father deeply. I ask that today is the day my husband finds freedom so that I can be free.
Even though I understand all the reasons it is not mine, as his wife this is my burden as well as his. He can claim that this is his secret hell that he cannot seem to escape, but as surely as I wear his ring on my finger and share his name, this hell is mine.
On 1/19/14, she wrote a follow-up:
Thank you all for your input. We are still married after a decade of going through this. There are good days and bad. We can go for months without a problem, and then the telltale signs come creeping back. We have had both individual and couple's therapy, but it seems like nothing helps completely. When he backslides now he will quote facts about how powerful a grip this type of addiction holds over people as a way to prove that the fault is not really his.
Somedays all I want to do is run away. He almost completely lost the ability to be intimate with me... And even though I know it's not because of me, I still struggle with feeling so inadequate. Yesterday he "came clean " again. Even though the signs were there, it still caused such pain to listen to him go from accusing to angry to self loathing. Do I believe that he is truly sorry? I want to, but it is too early this time to be past my own anger and hurt to look at his feelings.
I am just wondering if there is ever any hope? He claims Christianity. I know God is bigger than addictions, but I also know a person has to work on it as well. Right now I just want it to stop.
Please continue to pray for her. I haven't heard from her since her follow-up.
This original post has also generated more replies than any other post here at Ironstrikes. For the original post with replies, go to: www.ironstrikes.com/blog/a-wifes-response-to-her-husbands-porn-addiction
Tomorrow, we will look at another woman's response to her husband's sin of pornography.
As the wife of a confirmed porn addict, I can tell you that life is not easy. In my mind, I sometimes wish he was addicted to "real women"; I cannot compete with airbrushed fantasies. In the dark hours when I know what he is doing in the room down the hall, I think how I could verbally attack or expose a "real woman" for her part in my husband's infidelity, yet I have no recourse but to writhe in emotional pain as the man I love is pretending to have sex with someone he will never meet.
When he comes to my side and offers affection, I want to respond but am repulsed. My heart aches to know that I am the one he wants to hold, but knows all to well that he may not even see me for the images dancing in his mind. His arms may not even be around me, but around one of the many women he just spent the last hour with in the solitude of our marriage bed while I did dishes and helped kids with homework.
Many times I hear the promises that it is over; that he is mine alone. In graphic detail I am exposed to what his eyes have seen, the secret desires he had for those other women. He tells me about it as he promises he will get help. If only I could believe it this time.
A "real" affair would be easier for me to accept. Yet I walk each day with the feeling that I am never enough. As one woman, with one body, I can never be enough. With a heart full of shame that is not my own I beg God for His intervention. Plead that He help me keep this secret from children who love their father deeply. I ask that today is the day my husband finds freedom so that I can be free.
Even though I understand all the reasons it is not mine, as his wife this is my burden as well as his. He can claim that this is his secret hell that he cannot seem to escape, but as surely as I wear his ring on my finger and share his name, this hell is mine.
On 1/19/14, she wrote a follow-up:
Thank you all for your input. We are still married after a decade of going through this. There are good days and bad. We can go for months without a problem, and then the telltale signs come creeping back. We have had both individual and couple's therapy, but it seems like nothing helps completely. When he backslides now he will quote facts about how powerful a grip this type of addiction holds over people as a way to prove that the fault is not really his.
Somedays all I want to do is run away. He almost completely lost the ability to be intimate with me... And even though I know it's not because of me, I still struggle with feeling so inadequate. Yesterday he "came clean " again. Even though the signs were there, it still caused such pain to listen to him go from accusing to angry to self loathing. Do I believe that he is truly sorry? I want to, but it is too early this time to be past my own anger and hurt to look at his feelings.
I am just wondering if there is ever any hope? He claims Christianity. I know God is bigger than addictions, but I also know a person has to work on it as well. Right now I just want it to stop.
Please continue to pray for her. I haven't heard from her since her follow-up.
This original post has also generated more replies than any other post here at Ironstrikes. For the original post with replies, go to: www.ironstrikes.com/blog/a-wifes-response-to-her-husbands-porn-addiction
Tomorrow, we will look at another woman's response to her husband's sin of pornography.
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