If you are one of the spouses betrayed by secret porn usage in your marriage, my heart goes out to you deeply. We hope the information you find here is heartfelt, helpful, and healing as you brave the difficult journey ahead.
The Beginning of Healing for the Spouse of a Porn Addict
If you read my first article “Navigating Your Spouse’s Porn Addiction,” I hope you already know this is a safe place. As I picture you and I sitting together, I wish I could just gather your heartbreak in my hands and take it from you. But tattered trust and foggy feelings still leave you desperately reaching for help. Things in your marriage – and even your own identity – may feel different in an otherworldly, disorienting way. With all that’s in me, I want you to once again gaze upon those wedding photos hanging on your walls with an overflowing fondness. Yet, there is a looming chasm between the broken story you hold today and the beautiful love-filled story you want to hold tomorrow. The bridge you need to cross this great abyss is constructed of a lengthy, gruesome rebuilding process. Today, we hope to answer questions about this process that others may have shied away from. Your healing is WELL worth it.
Porn Addiction Recovery Tips From An Expert
Due to the immense care we desire to give this heavy topic, we had the great honor of inviting in an expert. This knowledgeable, empathetic professional has been in the trenches each day working with women and betrayed spouses just like you for half a decade. Not to mention, she is a wife who experienced the impacts of porn addiction problems in her own marriage when she discovered her husband’s secret early into their honeymoon nearly 15 years ago. {Listen to more of her story here.} Evelyn James, Betrayal + Recovery Coach, has a perspective of addiction recovery that we find to be a refreshing, realistic, and very health-filled approach compared to other online strategies for marriages struggling through this difficult, destructive porn issue. In addition, she was incredibly generous with her time answering countless questions we passed along from readers just like you that have landed in our D.M.s over the years. We can’t wait to share her insights with you!
How Their Porn Addiction Symptoms Affected You
There are countless reasons why The Dating Divas take a strong stance against porn use in marriage because of its many negative impacts. For example, did you know that porn use in marriage has been shown to reduce confidence in BOTH partners even if one spouse is completely unaware the other is consuming it? Porn addiction effects like this leave undeniably difficult consequences on marriages daily. Porn addiction symptoms are sneakily harmful to both the consumer and their affected spouse. What’s more, these negative symptoms impacting the brain, body, quality of life, and quality of relationships are often very long-term and long-lasting.
Battling Betrayal Trauma From Your Beloved
Unquestionably, deep painful wounds were formed when you first discovered your partner’s struggle with porn. This is called betrayal trauma. Evelyn defines this concept with her clients like this: The emotional distress of betrayal is overwhelming and at times, can even feel debilitating. Therefore, it’s important to recognize the signs in yourself to begin to overcome them during the healing process. Signs of betrayal trauma often vary but may include: If you relate to these common symptoms of Betrayal Trauma, please be encouraged that there truly is hope. You will not feel like this forever. While the steps in the rest of this article can help you begin to heal, here are a few specific bonus tips from Rachel Larson; LMHC, CAMS:
Practice mindfulness & grounding exercisesTake care of your body & healthBuild 5 healthy & close relationshipsTell your story {or journal it!}Find a passion {or rediscover an old one!}Commit to personal growth {keep reading!😉}
Navigating Porn Addiction Recovery Without Your Enablement
When hard things happen in life, our first tendency is often to immediately grasp for full and unwavering control. It makes sense that this may be your strategy because you’ve likely felt so OUT of control throughout this process. Wives and betrayed spouses often share that they’ve gone through seasons – often feeling responsible for preventing relapse. However, finding and adhering to sincere porn addiction help falls under the addict’s list of responsibilities. Your spouse may have kept you in the dark, lied to you, gaslit you, etc. Because of that common deceitful track record, your desire to regain control feels natural. However, managing an addict’s healing does not lead to true transformation in their life. While asking for updates can be a healthy behavior for disclosure and accountability in marriage, it is also essential that the addict becomes the captain of their own rehabilitation. Taking full, unabridged ownership of their wrong actions is crucial to their porn addiction recovery. Your spouse needs to find a deep reason for battling against this addiction and all the unhealthy coping patterns that led to it on their own. And for the addict to find true, lasting success, that reason needs to be about more than your marriage.
The Difference Between Guilt and Shame
In our last post, “Navigating Your Spouse’s Porn Addiction,” we chatted briefly about the connection between shame and addiction. The cycle of shame reaffirms addictive patterns. However, we mentioned that as a spouse {and when safe}, you do have the unique ability and position to encourage your spouse in their healing journey.However, in the context of THIS post, we want also to note the importance of keeping consequences intact and allowing your spouse to feel the total weight of their own guilt when unacceptable behavior occurs. Very Well Mind provides a few great examples for deciphering guilt vs. shame:
“Guilt is a feeling you get when you did something wrong or perceived you did something wrong.”“Shame is a feeling that your whole self is wrong, and it may not be related to a specific behavior or event.”
This article goes on to point out that guilt is productive while shame is the opposite: Watching your spouse sit in the discomfort of their wrongful actions is uncomfortable. However, be mindful that relieving this guilt prematurely would do them a great disservice.
Finding Your Role Without the Codependency
You may be thinking, “what in the world is codependency and what does it have to do with my healing?” In an article outlining 10 signs of codependency, Pure Desire Ministries’ Betrayal & Beyond study states that 85% of women married to addicts may deal with some level of codependency post-addiction discovery. We recommend beginning some work in this area if you feel you may identify. A few great places to start include finding a group for betrayed wives, scheduling a call with our expert Evelyn, or reading “Codependency No More” by Melody Beattie. The pain of porn discovery in your marriage and the lengthy recovery process often leads betrayed spouses into behaviors that leave no room for their own soul-care. Be sure to surround yourself with a community that can help build you up when you do not have the strength to do so on your own. Work on YOU, friend. You’re worth it.
How Rebuilding Your Confidence Impacts Porn Addiction Help
One of the most common struggles women bring Evelyn as she coaches them through betrayal recovery includes difficulty with anxiety and confidence. Porn addiction effects often include a massive hit to confidence; however, many of us {especially women}, do not always begin with healthy levels of confidence due to societal or religious influence. What would you say if someone asked you what you need to heal? Do you know? What do you need to feel safe in this relationship? What do you need to overcome living in fear of what your spouse may be doing, watching, or thinking about? Growing past codependency and into healthy confidence will allow you to better identify these needs and then enforce them productively. Evelyn asks her clients to ponder these four powerful questions internally: Finding your answers to these questions are huge steps towards your own healing, empowerment, and growth beyond this really difficult circumstance in your marriage. Feeling confident in these answers will also allow you to tackle the next segment of your healing journey with more trust in yourself to accept nothing less than full and forthcoming recovery behaviors from your spouse.
What True Addiction Recovery Should Look Like
Did you know that there is a 50% – 60% better success rate for addicts who read their Bible multiple times a week? This is because the ROOT issue of addiction must be addressed, and new habits must take the place of the addiction. This further impresses that proper porn addiction recovery involves more than simply stopping the bad behavior. The matter is not, “how to stop porn addiction” but rather, “how can the user truly heal from the inside out”. Cheap transformation is unfair to you, your spouse, and your marriage. Instead, both of you deserve to step into healing in your own timing and through your own choice. After all, just as porn usage impacts all areas of life, its healing also involves countless layers before the root cause is discovered. Porn addiction is a symptom of deeper issues. When your spouse begins to heal, they will also show deep transformation in their character and beyond. Many women and betrayed spouses often comment that they began to see drastic changes from their spouse during recovery in other unrelated areas. For example, more involvement around the house, more positive mood shifts, more fun connection with their kids, more initiative with chores, etc. This further impresses that porn addiction affects impact quality of life and relationships. And true recovery also involves beautiful healing in those areas.
What Trust Looks Like in Porn Addiction Recovery
We often wonder how to stop porn addiction, and then the help ends there. However, the journey to healing extends beyond the simple halt of bad behavior. As a betrayed spouse, I’m sure you feel the weight of what is needed to move forward. Much of your journey ahead for the next few years will likely involve a lot of communication, honesty, transparency, forgiveness, and the rebuilding of trust. It is our sincere desire that your journey also includes reconciliation, but it is essential that this be one of the later steps taken in a healthy recovery situation. Remember, Without trust, there is no intimacy. Trust is a prerequisite for intimacy, and intimacy is required to make sex more than simply a physical act. Each of these are building blocks that you can begin to work on one by one over the coming weeks, months, and years as your spouse is willing.
Relearning Healthy Intimacy After A Porn Addiction
Intimacy is a very misunderstood concept. The word “intimacy” is often used interchangeably with “sex,” which contributes to confusion surrounding the concept. We’ve also been guilty of this incorrect word exchange, so today, we’d like to take a moment to better define true, healthy intimacy in all its forms. The five forms of intimacy are: Not only is “sex” absent from this list, but you’ll also notice that it is considered just ONE part of the physical intimacy aspect. Relational intimacy is a much broader concept than it is given credit for. During the rebuilding process, a couple’s intimacy should primarily focus on emotional, intellectual, spiritual, experiential, and conflict resolution. When you and your spouse focus on building deeper foundations, meaningful connection, and are honoring each other’s feelings and safety, sex can come later as an overflow of love from each of these areas. Regardless of what your upbringing or worldview has taught you, Sex is not the golden insurance for a marriage void of problems or even porn use.
Tips For Finding The Best Fit in a Therapist
Beginning the search for professional help in any capacity can feel daunting. Evelyn was so kind to share a few tips for those seeking a counselor, therapist, or coach fully equipped to deal with addiction and betrayal trauma. Ultimately we will lead ourselves to feel more used, rejected and unloved by treating sexual/physical affection as an obligation and tool against relapse, and it won’t actually keep him from relapse in the end anyway… “ One of Evelyn’s first tips is to be honest during your introductory visit or call. Ask the hard questions and be open about your beliefs. You want to make sure you have the same goals and share the same foundational truths with the professionals you work with. After her many years of work alongside couples amid this addiction and betrayal, Evelyn also shared an important observation we found noteworthy: Your spouse’s addiction, wrong choices, and improper methods of dealing with their own difficult emotions are not your fault. However, in relationships, we do play a role in each situation. Understanding what your role is {or may have been} can be a great first step to healing and beginning the learning journey to healing. Healing requires learning because you will need the knowledge to maintain healthy boundaries, avoid enablement tendencies, deconstruct codependent habits, and work through personal traumas from childhood to the present.
Your Marriage After Porn Addiction
I’m not sure how long you’ve walked this journey. Perhaps it’s weeks or months, or maybe it’s been an ongoing battle for years. Depending on where you sit on this long path to recovery, it may be difficult to look ahead. You may even wonder if there’s anything good that lies ahead. Though the number of marriages devastated by porn use is shockingly high, you may be encouraged to know that the number of couples standing with you in recovery is also large. You are not alone.
How To Work With Evelyn
Resources for Porn Addiction Recovery Help
Though information is readily available online, a large amount can communicate damaging ideas about sex, intimacy, addiction, and porn. As someone who treasures my belief system, it is with sadness that I have to note:Unfortunately, it is especially critical to be mindful when reading through religiously affiliated information regarding this complex topic. With that said, there are many resources we trust below! There are both secular AND Christian-based—all endorsed by our expert, Evelyn. Free Instagram resources:
@fightthenewdrug@livefreewives@puredesirepdmi @x3church@restored_community@restored2more
Free podcast resources:
