WoPA Letter 13 - My Story

My husband has been addicted to porn for over 25 years. Before we got married, he told me that he had issues as a teenager, but we both agreed that it was over. He served an honorable mission without any issues, and we were convinced that getting married would alleviate any need for porn/masturbation.

As I look back, I can clearly see that even on our honeymoon, my Spirit KNEW there was something wrong. I remember sobbing and sobbing on our honeymoon, feeling an overwhelming oppression, not recognizing what I was feeling, trying to name it, never being able to. Now I recognize that our marital intimacy was tainted right from the beginning. I was expected to be a porn star. It would be my lot in life to measure up to what my husband had seen on-screen and in-person at the neighborhood strip joint.

After visiting a therapist early on in our marriage (probably around year 5), and being told that the things my husband wanted from me were things that rapists did to their victims, I felt empowered. However, upon telling my husband, he furiously told me that the therapist was ridiculous and he would never go to another therapist again. I quickly became the submissive little Mormon wife that I thought I was supposed to be. After all, my husband held callings and a temple recommend. He was the priesthood holder in our home, right?

Years and years of sexual abuse followed . . . there were times when I was told that if we didn't have sex often enough, he would get "blue-balls" (what the heck is that!?). Or he would be tempted to masturbate. Or he would be tempted to look at porn. Or he would be so grumpy and take it out on the kids if he didn't get his way in the bedroom. Throughout my marriage, I have been compelled to act out script after script from one of my husband's porn videos.

Once we had been married about 13 years, he came clean... told me he had been viewing porn and all the yucky stuff that goes with it. I got a book about dealing with your husband's pornography habit, devoured it, felt so empowered knowing that THIS is why our intimate moments felt so wrong! All along I was right . . . I shouldn't have been made to feel like a prostitute all of those years. And I certainly didn't have to continue being that porn star for him. I was DONE!!

But . . . he wasn't done manipulating me. His tricks got more clever. He would tell me little truths every once in a while, tell me that he was changing and he just needed to be "close" to his wife. It turned from asking for "kinky" things to just asking for LOTS of sex, or even just telling me how sad it made him feel when I turned him down. Sometime during our 15th or 16th year of marriage, he was severely depressed to the point of threatening suicide. This threat often came after he told me how depressing it was to him that I was no longer agreeing to a specific sexual act. He was still insisting that the porn and masturbation habit was a thing of the past, that he was a new man, and he just wanted to be able to express his love to his wife.

We continued on this way until year 17 when I became so depressed that I knew something had to change. I had gone to a wedding reception for one of my Laurels and while standing in the reception line, I felt overwhelmingly sad for her, wondering if she had any idea that she had just sold herself into sexual slavery. Realizing that I needed to get things figured out before my own daughters got married, I opened up to a friend who suggested a therapist in the LifeStar group. He changed my life. He told me that any husband who is truly in recovery from addiction would be understanding when his wife said she just needs time to heal. That a man in recovery learns that sex is optional.... he realizes that he won't die without sex... and even if his wife needs a year (or more) without sex to recover from the trauma of sexual abuse, he will give her the space she needs. He said that if my husband says, "I am so sorry for the pain I've caused you. I will wait as long as you need", then he is in recovery. But if he is angry, threatens divorce, becomes grumpy and gives the silent treatment, then he is in his addiction.

The advice that I got from my therapist was life-changing. I went home that day, and with knots in my stomach, I told my husband that I felt traumatized, that I believed our marital intimacy had been at the very least unhealthy, and at the worst, abusive. I said I needed some time to figure things out and heal, that I didn't want to be sexually intimate for a while... I didn't know how long. He said all the horrible things that my therapist said that an addicted man would say. He was going to divorce me because he is just so tired of the constant battle. Maybe somebody else could REALLY LOVE him. He knew I shouldn't have gone to a therapist . . . they're all a bunch of quacks! It was strange to realize that my husband was an addict, strange to see him doing and saying things that the therapist said were addictive, abusive, manipulative. It was empowering to put a name to these hurtful behaviors. Empowering and validating. My husband disagreed . . . he was not an addict . . . he was just a man who REALLY loves his wife!

That was at year 17. In that time, my husband and I have gone to therapy at LifeStar off and on for almost 2 years now. For those nearly 2 years, my husband continued to insist that he wasn't an addict. He told me that he hadn't been looking at porn. He told me that he hadn't been masturbating. He told me that he only wanted to have sex because he loved me SO much, that it was this ultimate way of connecting with his wife that he loved SO much. So, I constantly prayed for my heart to be softened. I didn't want to be the kind of person that "held it over his head" (this is a phrase my husband often used when trying to convince me to have sex). I prayed for a softened heart, I prayed for the ability to forgive. Throughout those nearly two years, we were sexually active... nothing like we were before, but still several times a week. I felt like such a forgiving wife, like I was so noble for getting over his betrayals, the abuse.

But . . . nearly 2 years later, I learned that he had been lying to me the whole time. I would start to feel safe, loved, cherished, we would become close, intimate, loving. It would be wonderful. I would tell him how great I felt, how close I felt to him. And somehow it always brought this revelation from him that he wasn't really happy in our sex life. He really wanted more. No, not more kinky stuff (he was a new man, after all...), just more FULFILLING sex. He wanted to be able to know that if he asked for it, he wasn't going to get "shut down". It would turn me into a downward spiral, feeling like I was being manipulated, but being told that everything was ok... I just needed to "get over it", and as soon as I could "get over it", we could really have a great marriage. I had no idea what was really going on. After all, he kept telling me he was a new man.. but I kept feeling manipulated. He would say things like, "if you're never going to get over this, maybe it's time we both move on".


Then on New Year's Day 2014, in our 19th year of marriage, he admitted to having masturbated a month prior. Way back when we began our LifeStar therapy 2 years ago, we had agreed on a 24 hour rule. He was supposed to tell me within 24 hours of a "slip". That night, I looked him in the eye, asked him if there was anything else . . . he had already hurt me, I was already going to have to recover from the hurt . . . he might as well get it all out. He looked me right in the eye and told me that was all. Then, the next day, he told me that he had also looked at soft porn (women in bikinis) about 3 months prior to New Year's Day. What!?! How could he have looked me in the eye the night before and told me that was all!?! He lied right to my face! Then again, how could I be surprised? Many times during those 2 years of therapy, I had asked him, looked into his eyes, and asked him if there were any struggles and every time he said it was hard, but he was doing ok, no porn, no masturbation.

Oh, the devastation, the humiliation of being lied to by the person who is supposed to love you the most in the entire world! Again, I looked him in the eye and begged him to tell me if there was anything else. He said there wasn't. That was everything. He put on his humble face and was SO determined that there would NEVER be another time! He went to the Bishop, we actually went together, he told the Bishop that was all he needed to confess. And then... on a night in the middle of January 2014, (nearly 3 weeks after he had looked me in the eye not once, but twice, telling me that was all, and not only me, but he looked the Bishop in the eye and told him that it was just those 2 incidents), I mentioned to him something that somebody had said at my 12-step meeting about how the addict rarely tells the whole story... they usually just tell the tip of the iceberg. I decided to ask him again if that was true... was there really more? And sure enough, he admitted that it was more than girls in bikinis... it was the hard-core video type of porn. And it wasn't just one month ago and 3 months ago.... it was nearly weekly during those 2 years of therapy! Even in his humble, submissive, I'm going to change and never do this again state, he went for nearly 3 weeks of lying to me!

Right now, he is sleeping in the downstairs spare bedroom, the kids are aware that things are rocky (10, 12, 14, 16 y.o) But I have finally decided to give it to The Lord. I have finally decided that my old way of trying to solve this (giving in to his sexual demands, believing him when he said he was repentant, allowing him to manipulate me into feeling bad for him... bad enough to welcome him into my bed) my old way isn't going to work. Now, I am ready to do my own healing. Forget worrying about my husband, just focus on my relationship with The Lord, and somehow finding a way out of this mess of betrayal. The lies are what hurts the most... realizing that even when he was supposedly in recovery, going to a therapist, he was lying to me and the therapist both, trying to make me believe that he wasn't actually an addict, trying to make me believe that he was really done with the addiction, and that I was actually the one who wasn't being loving enough. He would buy these books about intimacy... how to really connect with your spouse, how to learn your spouse's love language, etc. All these books that were talking to "regular" couples, healthy couples, and making me feel as if I was this mean-spirited prideful wife who wasn't willing to try and change to make our marriage better. And all along, he was lying and manipulating me.

This is still so fresh for me. It has been only weeks since I learned that he was never really in recovery, (actually, never even admitting that he had a sex addiction), but he was still in his addiction (the addiction that he never admitted to) and he was viewing porn and masturbating on a weekly basis. I vacillate between feeling angry, bitter, repulsed, unforgiving; and feeling soft-hearted, compassionate, and forgiving. Sometimes I can barely stand to look at him, much less touch him. Other times I wonder if I should "get over it", "quit being a drama queen", and "move on". But . . . I am "working" the Healing Through Christ manual, finding great insights already, really enjoying the journaling. I am reaching out to women all over the place... I can see the pain in their eyes, they can see it in mine... we find each other and begin talking about our journey, finding ways to help each other heal. I am currently doing a month-long "useless-media" fast . . . not wasting time on Facebook, not watching shows unless they are Christian and faith-filled. Going to the Temple once a week, fasting each Sunday, praying many times daily. I am seeing miracles happen. For the first time EVER, just a few weeks ago, my husband actually said the words out loud, "I am a sex and porn addict". He admitted to a mutual friend that he has abused me all of our marriage. I asked him about it and he admitted it to me. He is now aware that his behaviors were abusive. While feeling empowered by that admission, I am also so very saddened by it. There was a tiny part of me that kind of wished that I was wrong... that I wasn't really the kind of person who would allow herself to be sexually/emotionally abused by her husband for 19 years. So pitiful . . .

But, all I can do from here on out is heal, become stronger, become educated, become healthy. Currently my plan is to continue going to LifeStar therapy. Also, I have found 2 groups for wives of porn/sex addicts that I really like. One is a PASG group through the Church, at the Church. Another is a Togetherness Project Community Group in my area in which we meet at one of the ladies' home. The PASG group uses portions of the Healing Through Christ manual (not the full manual, since there are copyright issues). The Togetherness Project group is focusing on healing from Betrayal Trauma. I plan to continue reaching out to my "sisters" in this heart-wrenching journey.

I am currently struggling with the question of how will I know when to invite my husband back to my bedroom, what to tell my kids, how to help them heal from the weirdness that's been going on this last month and which is likely to continue.

My husband has finally (just a few days ago) decided that we should do Phase I of the Lifestar couples therapy. This is progress. I am hopeful. He is not angry and controlling about my need to reach out . . . well, that's not entirely true. He has been supportive of me going to the 12-step group and the Togetherness Project Group, but he doesn't want me to open up to random people in the ward or our extended family.

He opened up to me about a realization that he had a few nights ago about the fact that he has an "intimacy disorder". He read about it in one of the books he purchased. In the 31 days since he admitted that he has a porn/sex addiction, he has spent over $100 on sex addiction recovery books. He hasn't actually finished reading a single one yet, but when I called him on it, he became frustrated that I can't just be happy for the progress he's making. He later admitted that my unsupportive attitude caused him to have thoughts of being tempted towards porn/masturbation. I am learning that this is another manipulation. His addiction monster wanted to be fed, so he became grumpy, with the hope that I would say something that would justify his acting out.

I am learning. Education is empowering me. I am gaining support from my new WoPa friends. And most importantly I am learning to rely on my Savior, remembering that this trial has the power to either hurt my relationship with God or strengthen it... depending on who I turn to, depending on whether or not I look to the Savior for healing. He IS healing me through my personal relationship with Him that I am discovering through prayer, journaling, and doing the Healing Through Christ manual, and He is healing me through the people I am meeting, the people whose stories are strengthening me, and the resources He is sending to me.

If any of this sounds familiar and you need someone to reach out to, I would love to hear from you. You can email me at oneofmanytenderwives@gmail.com