7 Lies about Pornography & Sex Addiction that Hurt Wives...


1.  Lie: "It's normal for men to view pornography, masturbate, or participate in other forms of infidelity.  It's just the way men are wired." 

TRUTH:  Although it is by design that we have an innate curiosity about and a natural draw towards sexuality, in God's terms, it doesn't open the door for a free-for-all!  He has given us commandments designed to keep us safe and provide for the most happiness possible as individuals and in our relationships with others.  Although the draw to sexuality may be normal, we are not justified in sexual behaviors or relationships outside of the bounds of marriage (or inappropriate ones even within marriage). The innate desire for sexuality does not warrant such a blanket statement. It dismisses a wife's pain by speaking this lie to her. You just completely shut her down because the message you are sending is that there is no problem in the first place!

2.  Lie: "Pornography, online relationships, or just 'looking casually' at women do not count as infidelity."
   
TRUTH: Listen to what our Savior said,"whosoever looketh on a woman, to lust after her, hath committed adultery already in his heart" (3 Nephi 12:28, see also Matt 5:28, emphasis added).  Even if the woman has clothes on and a man is lusting then it is still infidelity. I am amazed how many Christians or even members of the LDS faith somehow don't connect these other forms of infidelity to adultery. It can cut deep as wives if the truth is side-stepped. Call it as it is!

3.  Lie: "If you were more ____, wife, then your husband wouldn't have this problem."

TRUTH:  Sex addiction doesn't actually have to do with sex.  It is simply a symptom that there is more going on at a deeper level. Some of the most physically attractive women I know have had/have husbands who struggle with some form of sex addiction.  Buying an entire new wardrobe, getting a new haircut, losing 15 lbs, or even plastic surgery won't fix his addiction!  Being more promiscuous in physical intimacy won't change it either. If you say something like this to her, she is probably 10 steps ahead of you.  She already most likely feels that his choices are somehow caused by a lack in her physical appearance, her body, her abilities as a wife, or herself as a person in general. When you say this to her, you are just perpetuating the lies.  This lie casts a smoke-screen---the attention is drawn to something else rather than where the real solution lies.  Changing her appearance, her personality, anything about her, or even tucking away her own needs for the sake of "peace" won't change his addiction.  Sometimes the ways we respond as wives contributes to the mess, but wives never cause their husbands' addiction! Husbands need to take responsibility for their choices. Working her own recovery; however, can have a backdoor influence on his choices.  As she is/becomes healthy, learns how to avoid enabling the addiction, and turns to the Savior for her own sins, weakness, short-comings, and for the ability to forgive and heal, it can be a call to higher ground to her husband.  Even then, it is ultimately his choice whether or not he will join her in healthy.  She is not responsible for the ways he responds, what he does, whether or not he expresses his own feelings or needs, or what he says.  My actions are mine.  My husbands actions are his. We cannot control another person or what they say or do.  They exercise their own agency and choose for themselves.  In saying this to a wife, what you are in essence telling her is that she is responsible for her husband's use of his own agency.

4.  Lie:  "You should just divorce him."

TRUTH:  Maybe.  Each situation is unique and God alone knows whether a marriage is beyond repair.  He knows the willingness of both parties.  He knows whether going separate ways will be best in order to stop the cycles of hurt and hurting.  Marriage can be tricky in situations like this because it requires two willing partners to both choose God, marriage, and recovery in order for it to work.  Again, see above.  Both parties have their own agency and one party cannot force the other to choose.  But you know what?  I am so thankful for one voice that spoke hope for my marriage.  My bishop had the Spirit with him as he counseled me.  He had the foresight to see that my marriage was still salvageable.  Now here we are coming up on 6 years out since Mark's last relapse and still going strong.  We are happy and have a depth to our relationship that was previously lacking.  Having shouldered this burden together, hand-in-hand, we have been completely changed as individuals. We have welcomed one more child together into our home and are willing to welcome more.  We have used the ways our lives have been burned to the ground to help, lift, and encourage others around us.  If somebody had told me all of this the day I made the appointment with the divorce attorney, I would have laughed in their face!  There was no way!  No way!  It wasn't possible.  There was no bright future for my marriage. My husband was too far gone.  My marriage was in tatters.  But here we are today!  As we are privileged to the difficult situations and details of those battling sex addiction and those who love them, may we choose to be sensitive and recognize that we just.don't.know.  The call for divorce or not is between the husband, wife, and God.

5.  Lie: "You just need to forgive him."

TRUTH:  There is a difference between forgiveness and healing.  I didn't know that in the past.  Forgiveness opens up the way for healing to take place, but healing usually takes time. Sometimes forgiveness does too.  Just because a wife is still healing doesn't mean she hasn't forgiven yet.  She can forgive even if she still doesn't trust him. Trust takes time to rebuild, but forgiveness can be granted when we are ready--at times that means instantly.  She can forgive him even if he isn't sorry or understands what his choices have done to her.  She can forgive him but still need to hold firm with boundaries to protect herself from being hurt again.  Forgiveness doesn't = doormat! Forgiveness brings us peace, but as the wife of a sex addict, it will take more than just forgiveness to be able to fully move on. She is the one who gets to decide where she is at in this process, not you.

6.  Lie: "You are controlling."

TRUTH:  Boundaries can be perceived by the addict or others close to him as an attempt to control.  Since I am a visual person, I picture a boundary as a fence with a gate.  Boundaries are there to keep me safe, to have what I need to stay in a good place, or so I can get what I need for myself.  If I hop the fence and I'm out trying to tell other people what they will or won't do, it isn't a boundary.  I can't choose what others will do or say, remember, they have their own agency. That WOULD be controlling! But I can decide what I will be doing or saying and that includes putting limits on what I will or won't do.  I just realized that I have never written a post on boundaries!  I will need to do that soon and then come back and link it in here when I do. Often addicts don't like boundaries because they shift the entire dynamic.  A wife that was once making it very easy for him to turn to addiction through enabling now actually has a spine!  Why would he like that?  Why wouldn't he use every form of manipulation or do everything he can to get it back to how it was before?  He may even feel the need to recruit others to be "on his side" to "gang up" on the wife in explaining how "irrational" she is being.  And you know what?  Sometimes the wife really may be controlling.  But do you understand why?  Maybe she knows in her gut that something is just off. Maybe, even if she cannot articulate it, she has been warned by the Spirit and feels urgently that he shouldn't go certain places, participate in certain actives, or she is just unsettled in general. Even in moments when the husband is sober or making good choices, there have been times when he wasn't been.  She may have hit a trigger that has lead to her controlling actions/behaviors.  Just like the addiction is only a symptom, so are the crazy or controlling things she does or says.  They are indicative that there is something going on at a deeper level and are reflective of her attempt to protect herself because of what she has been through in the past.  (If you need more details about what I mean, read about betrayal trauma HERE). If you hear such things from him and feel yourself ready to take "his side" that his wife really must be controlling, maybe you should find out her side of the story too (or just point him back to his wife and tell him to go home and work it out with her instead of you!). In his perception, his wife absolutely is controlling!...but that may not be the actual Truth. It's how he feels, yes, but not necessarily the Truth.

7.  Lie:  "Sex addicts can never really get over it. It's impossible for them to change once they have gone down this road."

TRUTH:  Because of Jesus Christ, sex addicts, wives of sex addicts, anyone who makes mistakes, those whose hearts are full of hurt or pain, or anybody who feels weak can overcome.  The Atonement not only covers our mistakes, but it also gives us the strength to change and to be changed.  We can be changed.  For Mark and I, that hasn't meant that we can go back to old ways, places, people, or habits.  It hasn't meant that either of us has been completely perfect all of the time either.  But what it has meant is that it isn't as intense as it once was.  It isn't as raw.  It isn't something we are having to be on constant alert to anymore. Alert, yes, but not constant alert.  We have settled into the healthy changes and the new hearts.  It means that when we do make mistakes, we quickly make it right.  We exercise the pattern of repentance. And that is that.  Do I believe men can be healed from this?  I do.  I have watched it before my very eyes.  It just looks different than I expected it would.  Our recoveries are something we will need to maintain for the rest of our lives.  We can't go back or pretend it never happened and expect to be able to hold firm.  There are still up's and down's.  Not as many intense roll-coaster up's and down's as there were a few years ago, but still up's and down's.  The biggest difference of it all is that we know what to do about it now.  We also have taken the time to put our lives in order and we put forth the effort to maintain the changes. As Brad Wilcox points out, perfection is our long-term goal.  For most of us, it isn't one that will be completed in mortality. In the meantime, we can be happy with and recognize that any steps in that direction is progress!

Listen to these words of hope from President Packer: "The Atonement, which can reclaim each one of us, bears no scars. That means that no matter what we have done or where we have been or how something happened, if we truly repent, He has promised that He would atone. And when He atoned, that settled that. There are so many of us who are thrashing around, as it were, with feelings of guilt, not knowing quite how to escape. You escape by accepting the Atonement of Christ, and all that was heartache can turn to beauty and love and eternity...

"I bear witness that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, that the Atonement is not a general thing that is for the whole Church. The Atonement is individual, and if you have something that is bothering you—sometimes so long ago you can hardly remember it—put the Atonement to work. It will clean it up, and you, as does He, will remember your sins no more" (talk HERE).

One last parting thought.  We need to be not only tender with the wives we are aware of, but also the husbands as well.  The husbands need to understand how their choices hurt their wives, but in ways that are productive to forward movement. I recently read an article that troubled me.  Often wives of sex addicts can be overlooked, misunderstood, or invisible.  We need to be careful, however, that we don't swing the other way.  We can slam the husbands in our gusto. In our attempts to validate the burdens of the wives we can heap on shame for the husbands.  Shame doesn't bring change, recovery, or healing.  Shame only makes us want to bury deeper and get better at hiding our problems. Concealing isn't our goal. He needs to know, but a wives full fury or reaction (or her family's or friend's) usually isn't helpful.

I know there is a lot to digest all in one post. It's taken me years almost 6 years to uncover these lies!  Initially I heard the lies more than the Truths, so it took multiple exposures to the Truths before they could stick. I am here as a fellow-traveler to support you in any way I can.

P.S. my primary editor AKA Mark recommends THIS BYU devotional talk to be an extension of this post.  It invites individuals to take responsibility for 100% of their actions.

Comments

  1. This is beautiful, tender, and truthful. I appreciate your connections to the Atonement as an individual healing tool provided by our Savior who knows our pain and succor. Also that we might easily forgive, but trust takes time. It really is so individual, and we have to get past Satan's lies and our own erroneous judgements to support those who are suffering in silence.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment