MY HUSBAND’S PORN STASH

“I’M NOT GOOD ENOUGH!?”

THE TEARS

My cell phone rang.  “Derek, my name is Kelly; I need to meet with you.”

“Well, uh…”

“You don’t know me. Well, I think I met you once, but I’d like to get an appointment with you.”

“Sure! Just come over this afternoon, and we’ll talk.”

“Sounds good.”

Later that afternoon Kelly sat down across from me. “I don’t know where to start, really.  It’s just that my husband and I don’t communicate well anymore, I guess.”

“So you are concerned about communicating with your husband?”

Kelly started to cry.  Obviously, there was more going on in her head.  But I didn’t know her very well.  And more importantly, Kelly didn’t know me.  It takes a lot of trust for someone to be comfortable opening up, especially one Christian to another.  I wondered whether she was ready. 

“It sounds like there’s more to the story.”

“Yes, there is.” She reached across the table for a Kleenex. “It was a while back actually.  A number of years ago, maybe three or four years when it happened. I guess I still haven’t gotten over it yet… and then last month…but I thought it was in our past.” Her voice trailed off.

Of course, at this point I was totally lost.  I had no idea what Kelly was talking about.  And replying with, “Just spit it out, girl!” probably would NOT have been helpful.  So I sat there quietly until she began again.

“Mike and I have been married for about ten years, and  we have two incredible sons…and a few years back, I found his porn stash.  I was devastated.  I thought he was over this.”

“What do you mean over this?”

“You know, after I found it he got involved with an accountability group.  A men’s group at church that was supposed to hold him accountable so he wouldn’t look at that stuff anymore.  The group he was with read a book called, ‘Every Man’s Battle,’ or something like that.”

“So are you saying it didn’t work?”

“Obviously not. Last month I found more.” Kelly grabbed another Kleenex.

CATCH ME UP

“Ok, I understand.  But catch me up.  How did you guys work through it a few years ago?”

“Once I caught him I kind of freaked out.  But we knew some people from church and that’s when he agreed to get help.  So he had to confess everything to this group of guys and they met every week.”

“I’m sorry, Kelly, I meant, how did you and Mike handle it?”

“Oh! Well, I guess we really didn’t handle it.  I thought it was over.”

“So, you don’t talk about it much?”

“Oh, no.”

“Has it affected your sex life?”

“Yes.  That’s been very difficult.  Sometimes after we have been intimate, I just burst out in tears.”

“How does Mike respond when he sees you crying?”

“I don’t think he understands.”

“So this is why you are concerned about communication with your husband.”

“Yes.  I feel like we aren’t communicating, and then I thought he was cured. Tears filled Kelly’s eyes,  “I just don’t know what to do!”

A STUPID QUESTION

“Kelly, I’m going to ask you what will seem like a stupid question, but it’s a very important one, so I’d like you to give it some thought.”

“Ok.”

“Why does it bother you when Mike looks at porn?”

“That IS a stupid question,” Kelly chided.

“I agree.  Most of the time we don’t ask this question because we think we already know the answer.  You see, I’m not saying that it shouldn’t bother you.  But the reason that it bothers you may be very different than why it bothers someone else, and that’s why it’s so important.  I do not want to assume that I know why it bothers you (because I’ve found that most of the time I’m wrong when I assume I know!).”

“Ok, I understand.  But when he looks at porn it makes me feel like I’m not good enough!  You know, I feel dirty or something.”

“So you feel less good when he looks at porn?”

“Yeah, it’s demeaning.”

“Kelly, hold on a second.  So when Mike looks at porn you feel like you are not good.”

“Yes. That’s what I said!  Why do you keep asking me that?”

“Because I’m confused.”

“That’s great,” Kelly laughed sarcastically, “now we both are a mess!”

“Can you help me understand how Mike looking at porn makes you the one that is not good?  How does his decision to look at porn make you a worse person?”

“Now I’m confused…”

“Yeah!  We’re all in this together!” I smiled.

“It doesn’t!”  (God creates my goodness NOT my husband’s actions!  Romans 3:22, 4:5, 8:1, 8:16).

“It doesn’t what?” I asked.

“It doesn’t make me a worse person.  I guess I was just was thinking it did.  That doesn’t make any sense does it?”

“Well, imagine that my wife (in secret) stole money from a bank. Would that make me a husband that was not ‘good enough’?”

“No, it wouldn’t.  Wow, I’ve never looked at it like that before.”

“How would your life change if you didn’t believe that Mike looking at a picture of a naked lady meant that you were a worse person?”

“It wouldn’t freak me out.”

“In fact, your tears are gone.”

“Yes, they are. But…”

“But what?”

“I am feeling better…it’s kind of amazing.  But, are you saying that I’m supposed to just let Mike look at porn and be ok with it?”

“I’m not asking you to be ok with porn.  I’m asking you to be ok with you.”

“But what about Mike?  He’s not ok!”

WHAT ABOUT MIKE?

“I still don’t know what to do about Mike.  He went to that accountability group.  Maybe he should go back to those guys.  But it didn’t work before!”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“What do you mean?  Why doesn’t it surprise you?”

“Kelly, it’s very difficult for a men’s group to hold another man accountable.  In fact, I don’t even know if it’s a biblical concept!”

“What do you mean?”

“I just don’t see in scripture where we are answerable to each other.  When we answer to each other, things can get really messy?”

“Where is THAT in the Bible?”

“This verse comes to mind…”

It’s God we are answerable to – all the way from life to death and everything in between – not each other.  That’s why Jesus lived and died and then lived again: so that he could be our Master across the entire range of life and death, and free us from the petty tyrannies of each other.”

The Message - Romans 14:8-9

“Oh my gosh!  I guess I don’t understand.”

“Think about it this way…if the guys in Mike’s accountability group try and get Mike to stop looking at porn, how are they going to do it?”

“I guess the same way I did.  Tell him to stop.  Try and get him to confess when he’s done something wrong.  Pray more.  Read his bible more.  Study a book…I don’t know.”

“I agree.  But then what happens when Mike slips up?  What happens when he looks at porn again?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you might.”

“He’ll treat them like he’s treating me.”

“Exactly.”

“Which means he won’t talk about it,” Kelly realized.

“See, it gets messy.”

“So now what?  I feel totally stuck!”

NOW WHAT?

“Kelly, do you think it would be better for your relationship with Mike if he lied to you, or told you the truth?”

“This must be another one of your stupid questions.” 

“Probably ranks up there pretty close to top as ‘stupid questions’ go,” I laughed.

“Obviously, I want him to tell me the truth.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think so!”

“Ok, so if Mike looking at porn was no reflection on how good you are, do you have to feel bad about yourself?”

“No.”

“Do you have to feel dirty?”

“No.”

“Do you have to withhold sex?”

“No.”

“And if you don’t feel bad about yourself, can you talk with him about it?”

“It would be a whole lot easier.”

“What if you let Mike know you’d like to know more about his porn?”

“Well…I’m not sure where you are going with this.”

“Obviously, Mike knows that you don’t approve of porn. Now that you know it’s his issue (not your issue and no reflection of you) you let him know that now you want to know more about it.  Do you think he’d be more honest?”

“Probably.  Wow, I never thought of it like that.”

Think about how it feels when you risk keeping a secret.  Once the secret is out, there is no more risk—no more excitement.  It kind of loses its power.

“Yeah. Wow, maybe Mike won’t have to keep hiding.”

“And if he doesn’t have to hide, what happens to your communication?”

“It opens up.”

“And as your communication increases, does that increase or decrease the chance that your relationship will be enhanced?”

“Increases my chance of knowing my husband again.  The real him.  The good, bad and ugly.”

“That’s true, you’ll KNOW him, the real him.  The honest him, not the lie.”

“I suppose this stuff is somewhere in the Bible, too?” Kelly smiled.

“The concept of living openly is all over scripture! I’ll give you a few verses…”

“Keep open house; be generous with your lives.  By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”

The Message - Matthew 5:14     

“We keep everything we do and say out in the open, the whole truth on display.”

The Message - 2 Corinthians 4:1

                                               

Open up your lives.  Live openly and expansively!”
 

The Message - 2 Corinthians 6:11

“You groped your way through the murk once, but no longer.  You’re out in the open now.”

The Message - Ephesians 5:8

Thinking about it,

Derek

P.S.  As always I want to thank all the people involved in the Lives Transforming newsletters and message.  For those of you that don’t know, the stories that are told are ALL based on real life, true stories of Lives Transforming!