It feels like a huge betrayal for a wife when her husband confesses to looking at porn.
However, XXX Church—an online ministry dedicated to helping people with porn and sex addiction—believes that marriage can still be saved after this painful revelation.
“Good, Christ-filled men are trying to do what is right when it comes to lust,” Jeanette Gross writes in the group’s website, adding that there is a huge difference between men who confess about their porn addictions to those who simply get caught looking at porn.
“Please take heart that he actually came to you before getting caught — he is trying to honor you and make things right. Your job is NOT to withhold sex from him, to question his integrity in all areas of his life, to play detective or police his every move, to not forgive him and always punish him, to shut down and put up a wall, to think it’s your fault,” she tells women with husbands who have confessed their porn addiction. “Those things make a certain sense emotionally, but they won’t help you or him.”
Gross urges women to understand men’s visual nature and then extend some grace to their husbands. Wives must “realise that we all screw up and are selfish,” she adds, and support their husbands when they seek out counselling.
“If you can openly talk about how hurt you are that he looked at porn, about things in both of you that need work, about what triggers him to look at porn, about taking steps to improve the issues that come up, then you can push through the hard conversations and come out on the other side stronger,” she says.
Gross says this only proves that couples love each other enough for them to want to work through these kinds of things together. She also stresses that divorce is not an option, and the thought should never even cross one’s mind.
“Even if this time seems desperate and that it will never pass, divorce is much harder and more painful than this one experience in your relationship,” she continues.
“You and your husband can get through this and wind up even stronger than you were before. We’ve seen it over and over in the couples we’ve worked with through our ministry. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it,” Gross says.
