By: Shane James O’Neill
4 min read
“Can we Heal from This??”
Recently, I was at a family’s home with several friends for lunch. People were eating all over the house, so I went to the living room, finding myself seated beside the mother of that family. She asked about my work, so I told her I work for a sexual integrity ministry that partners with churches to see their people trained and equipped with resources in order to rebuild families and individuals through sexual dignity. (Of course, I told her that using more than one sentence…)
I got through my descriptive spiel only to realize she was crying. Though this couple has been married for over a decade, the hard sorrow in her eyes was enough to tell me that she and her husband are going through the very thing Proven Ministries exits for. The shame and hurt were apparent in her tears.
She dropped her head and moved in, afraid to ask but needing to know, “Can we heal from this? Can he really get free?”
I hated that moment, the brokenness someone has to be in to ask such a question, and yet I felt only honor to be brought into it.
Many single men believe their porn problem will go away once they get married. Which just isn’t the case. Lust is tethered to more than simply hormones. And when our sexual appetites lead us into other beds (even digital ones), it has dire effects upon a marriage. Many studies show that 70 percent of women impacted by sexual betrayal fit the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder. Which shows itself in some rough symptoms like depression, anxiety, fear, insomnia, hyper vigilance, over thinking, and nightmares.
Related: Sex in Marriage Won’t Fix You
Recovering from a pornography addiction is no easy thing, nor is healing from sexual betrayal. It’s a long road, but a road worth taking. So here are three significant steps that help to rebuilding trust:
Take Ownership
Don’t just confess to your spouse that you watch porn. Admit that you’ve hurt them, and admit that you’ve betrayed their trust. It likely took you quite some time before you could admit your addiction to her or anyone else, so give her time to work through the hard pain of it all. Don’t tell them you understand. Rather, in real humility admit that you don’t understand but that you’ll do whatever it takes to understand what she’s going through.
When they communicate with you, just listen. Don’t interrupt. Just be present and feel with them.
Encourage Her to Have Outside Support
Our sins shame us, so we often do everything we can to keep them a secret. But what happens when our sins spill into the lives of others? That’s the case here, our sin has wounded someone we care for. Don’t try and have her hide your sin for you.
Many spouses will agree to conceal this issue because they feel shame about it as well. Consequently, couples will deceive themselves into thinking that the issue is going away now that you’ve both talked about it and decided to work at it. If only it were that simple.
Encourage her to speak with trusted mentors and safe peers. Set up the possibility for counseling. Don’t compel her to keep her pain to herself merely for the sake of your reputation. She’s hurt, so let her heal.
Cut Away Porn from Your Marriage
Whether you’re single or married, just get rid of the stuff. Porn and lust teach us to view people as less than human, and it teaches us to view people as a means of self-pleasure. It’s truly awful. But you don’t need to stay there.
Proven’s founder, Joel, practiced lust for years and years, even into marriage. Once he came clean, he and his wife partnered together to get this cancer out of their home. They unsubscribed to magazines, from Victoria’s Secret to Kohl’s, they got Covenant Eyes on their computers, and they even got rid of their TV for a year.
They fought this together and their marriage has been different for 20 years now, with no possibility of porn being in their home.
But Can Marriage Heal?
Yeah, a marriage can heal, as can the people within it. Lust is an ugly road, one not worth walking upon at all. The sooner you get off, the sooner you can find other roads with beautiful landscapes—scenes that reveal the inherent beautify of life, instead of the exploited beauty of it.
At the end of the day, you can’t control other people, you can’t fix them; you can’t make them better. While a marriage can heal, all you can control is whether you heal. That is to say, you can’t personally control your horizontal relationships, but you can fix your vertical relationship.
If we don’t know the faithfulness of Jesus then we won’t know how to be faithful; if we don’t know His affection, then we’ll need it from others; and if we don’t know His forgiveness when we wrong Him, then we won’t have any idea how to give it when we’re wronged by others. At the end of the day, He is married to us all and He pursues us by continuing to make days for us and by being faithful to us. His example as a spouse is worth spending a lifetime learning to reflect to our earthly spouse.
So, yeah, a marriage can heal, but more than that, it can become stronger than before. Draw close to Jesus, the One who loves you and continues to give Himself for you, and trust Him with the relationships around you. He’s worth trusting.
The Proven Path and Proven Workbook exist to walk you through this journey. Reach out to us and let us walk with you!
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Shane James O’Neill is the Editorial Director for Proven Men Ministries. He is currently working on a graduate degree in apologetics at Liberty University’s Rawling School of Divinity.