: Forum Posts

Shame, blame and guilt!

After reading some of the other comments, I realized there is an important aspect of living with an addict that must be addressed. Shame, blame and guilt are like a bermuda triangle that leave women lost and adrift, feeling totally alone. I am amazed at how we as women are so willing to take on the shame of those around us.

One of the first places we go is, "It's my fault." and "If I had just . . .then we wouldn't be in this situation." This is one of the number one tactics of the enemy to keep women from getting help and in hiding. It is easy to say don't, but I know very well how deep the feelings go. It's hard to see the truth when the lie goes so deep.

I want to encourage those of you to talk about how you feel and then to let those further along the path show you the way home. You are safe here and there are many who have felt the same way you do. Other than the woman who held a gun to her husband's head and told him to look at porn or have an affair, you are not to blame! That may sound like a crazy example, but it is to make the point that every person is responsible for the choices they make. Blaming others becomes a coping mechanism. Some of you have been told it was your fault, but I want you to know it's just not true.

New Hat

The shame is not yours to bear. You didn't do the "looking" your husband did. God knows that, even if those around you do not. I am sorry if the believers in your church are not choosing to stand by your side and bring comfort and help. People can fall far short of being like Christ whose only desire is to interceed on our behalf and bring grace and mercy to our lives no matter what. I encourage you to seek the face of Christ as earnestly as you are able. He will make you able and he will meet your every need - even though you must still feel the pain. I am 3 months into finding out that my husband had a 5 year affair. Before that there were numerous small affairs with women who adored him as an educational consultant guru. What he gave to them he has never given to me in 16 years. Except for when he was trying to win my heart. Which he did!!! I am learning to see the truth in the scripture that says "when I am weak, He is strong," in ways I wished I never had to but, I know that God is faithful and will ALWAYS use painful times to purify our hearts and make us more like Christ. Being a victim of a husband who is supposed to love us is not something we would ever, ever ask for but, God will use it for our good if we let Him. I sincerely pray that you let Him have His way in your heart during this terrible time.

Grace

May I share a part of my story with you?

My Defender

Rise up O Lord, confront them, bring them down; rescue me from the wicked by your sword. O Lord, by your hand, save me from such men. Psalm 17:13 NIV

I clearly remember this morning the very moment my innocence of my childhood was stolen from me. The innocence of my physical being was, in one moment, in a public swimming pool, ripped away from me like the tearing of flesh from bone. But what happened after that stranger invaded my safety left a far more lasting impression upon me than the act that opened this door of dark and lonely searching. I went home and told my defender of my experience that very day. I relayed to him the story of the man, whose stature I would not know until years later, of what he did to my innocent eleven year old body. What happened next, or should I say, what did not happen next, set a tone in my life I would fight for years and years to come: he did nothing. My defender, the one strong, capable, intelligent, safe, father in my life, told me to hush about this moment. He told me this moment was too big, was too horrible, too costly to bring into the light. This man who did this thing to me was too powerful, too strong. Hush. My defender told me to hush.

I would, within four years of this experience, began to search for a defender. One who would take up my cause. One who, through his action towards me, would tell me I was worth fighting for. Not one would be able to live up to my expectations, not one.

I would find my self at sixteen, an unwed mother. Unwed, because the one who fathered this child of mine, was too young, too inexperienced, too poor, too unsure of his own footing, to be my defender.

I would at twenty nine, find myself standing next to a pile of dirt laying there waiting to cover the casket of the man I did marry. A man, I also desired to be my defender. His journey would take him through severe sickness and eventual death and it was only when he was on his bed, awaiting his freedom that he would be the most encouraging to me to follow a different path in my own life. Then he was gone.

Quickly, after I was again, in my own eyes, left defenseless, this time with children depending upon me, would I meet and marry “A Defender”. His aspiration was to become a defender of the helpless. A prover of the truth, one who would step into the reckless, horrid, plight of mankind, and yielding his power and his badge, right the wrongs of society, one arrest at a time. He would, through the course of ten years, defend me, but only when his own reputation was at stake. On the one hand, no one would come against me, none would be my enemy, except him. He would exploit my need for a defender, use my weakness against me, to serve his own insatiable appetites, all the while crushing whatever was left of my hopes. The he too, was gone.

I see women everyday in my life, I know the look in their eyes, the desire in their hearts, the wondering in their souls……is there not one defender among them? Is there not one who would, at all costs, cover them, protect them, care for them, love them? So they spend their lives moving on from one to the next to the next to the next……..searching for the one who would be willing.

“Whack”….the sound of the whip hitting the flesh echoed throughout the ages as Jesus, the Son of God felt the flesh rip away from his bone. “Thud”….as the fists into his face broke bones and severed tissue. “It is finished” was the cry of His voice as he hung on a cross, on top of a small hill, in a land far away from the one I live in today, yet so close, I can almost hear and see it.

My defender. The One who announced throughout the ages of humanity, “SHE IS WORTH IT!” “Touch not my child, for I am going to my death for her defense.” My defender; my big brother on the school yard, the one who dared everyone standing there, to cast the first stone at me. My warrior; He who would step into the darkness of my very soul and cast a light onto the pathway out of the pit. My friend who would cry with me when I was saddened, lonely and isolated. My provider who would shower me with surprises of colorful joys. My Father surrounding my teenaged heart, my husband and my God, my defender.

Keep me safe O God, for in you I take refuge.” Psalm 16:1 NIV

What a burden I have placed on every man who has ever come into my life. Big brothers, husbands, bosses, friends...asking them to do what has already been done. Relationally requiring them to act upon my behalf, in a way that the very frailty of their humanness prohibits them. They cannot be my knight in shinning armor! They cannot come to my rescue and know in an instant my needs and desires for shelter and refuge. They are mortal. They are weakened by sin. They are sullied by their own desires, they are human.

So then, this is what it took? A torture beyond all tortures, a death above all deaths, a battle so enormous that the human heart cannot contain the depths of it? YES! This is what it took, to defend me, to protect me, to find me, to rescue me, to hold me, to provide for me, to love me. Because to Him, in Him, because of Him, I am worth it.

Isn’t that what the search has been all about, all these years, through all this turmoil, through all these hopes, dashed dreams, bad choices and fleeting moments? Somebody, somewhere, somehow, to take me back to that very moment of lost innocence and tell me I am worth it? Before that moment even happened in my life, He was there. Before I even felt the pain of rejection when my first defender told to me to hush, He offered the healing balm. Before I began my long and weary search for one who could love me this much, He did. In the midst of it all He was there, and still is today; MY DEFENDER.

Yet, their Redeemer is strong; the Lord Almighty is His name. He will vigorously defend their cause so that he may bring rest to their land. Jeremiah 50:34 NIV

Grace

Thanks for you wonderful encouraging words of truth! You are using what the enemy intended for evil and making it good. You are also making this site better!

Thanks

I'm so glad you have a safe place to process the deep hurts. I'm also so sorry that those around you have not been able to support you. I wish you were the exception, but I have heard too many similar stories.

Can I just say it's not your fault! There is no justification for this kind of behavior. You need to grieve and if it makes your husband upset, well that's his choice. I pray you can find a Godly Christian counselor who understands this addiction.

In the meantime you are not alone and I am praying for God to meet you in this dark place!

New Hat

Oh my gosh! You have managed to describe how I feel in my own household right now. I have been married for 20 years and have a 17-year-old son. A week ago today I discovered the extent of my husband's pornography addiction (he had downloaded almost 100 videos and had visited numerous websites within the last month -those were the ones that were saved in the history folder). This has been going on for over 20 years, even before we got married, but I did not have a clue. He still has not come to grips with the reality of what he has done. He and my son are very close and since I am the only female in the house, I feel like I am being ganged up on. My son has no respect for me and treats me like dirt, like father like son. I have tried to talk to him about it and when I try to punish him for his behavior, my husband tells me that I have gone overboard and he is "just being a boy, just being a teenager." Now that the SA has come out, I worry about my son and how he treats women (namely me). Both of them are extremely different when around other people and I get comments all the time about what a wonderful husband and son that I have - if they only knew what goes on at home! For that reason, I think I am losing my mind and that it is all my fault. I am trul drowning right now in my emotions and my heart feels like it has been broken into a billion pieces. I feel ashamed to go out in public and especially to go back to church. We live in a small town where everyone knows everyone and I feel like the shame is on me like the scarlet letter.

my story

Well, where to begin? I have been married for 20 years, 4 months, and 2 days to a man that I have recently discovered is addicted to pornography. We have a 17-year-old son who is a senior in high school and will be 18 next month. We live in a small town where everyone knows everyone including my husband. We are active in our church having been on 5 family mission trips, the bus ministry, he teaches Sunday School to junior high boys, sings in the choir, my son and I do the Pastor's Choir, and I helped last year with Upward Basketball. People at our church tell me how lucky I am to have a man like him. I feel completely at a loss since I caught my husband looking at Internet porn about a month ago. He said it was just the "one time" and apologized and said that he would never do it again. I was very upset and told him we were over. Well that lasted about a week, I forgave him, and thought that things had gone back to "normal." I work from home using my computer and when I started having some problems with my computer being extremely slow, I decided I was going to look for viruses, etc. to solve the problem. To my horror, on my Internet history list for the last month had to be hundreds of porn sites ranging from teenage girls to grandmas to pregnant woman to hard core porn. I was sick!!!!! I confronted my husband who denied that it was him, but I knew the truth. I asked him to leave immediately. It lasted all of 2 hours when he came back to get some more things and ended up asking for a second chance because he had no where to go. There is a lot more to this story that I will share later but right now I am angry at God. How could He let this happen? I am ashamed and embarrassed to go out and have stopped going to church because I cannot face anyone. I had just started the Beth Moore study on the Ascents of the Psalm and last Wednesday the second day of the study which was the day that it all hit the fan. I managed to make it through the class but there is no way that I can ever go back. I have no close friends and no one to talk to. I told my mom what is going on on Thursday and she came by my house, she has called me one time since then and that has been it. My sister also knows, again one phone call and that has been it. I feel like someone has ripped out my heart and destroyed me as a woman. I feel violated and raped. I can go to no one in my church because about a year and a half ago the same thing happened with another family. The man was the director of missions in our association and after church one Sunday morning, he stood up and confessed what he had done in front of the church. It was not handled very well and people treated them so badly that they finally left our church and went to another one. Like I said before, I work from home and it was my computer that I use for work that he sat and watched this trash on. Now I am forced to look at this computer screen every day and to either sit in the office chair where he used to sit and masterbate while he looked at this porn or either I am forced to sit in the floor and type. He has said that it is my fault, that I used to be fun, but that I had changed. I am sorry that I am rattling on but I really am struggling with the whole situation. He kept saying that he did not want to hurt our son and that if I made him leave it would ruin his senior year. We have not talked about it because he still does not see that it is a big thing. If he reads his Bible enough and prays enough, it will go away. He even asked me to find him a therapist or counselor, but I refused because I believe this is just another cop out on his part. He is not willing to take responsibility for his sin. I would appreciate any feedback as I sure could use the support.

my story

All I can say to you is that I am very sorry for what your husband has put you through I know somewhat of what you are going through. This is my story one month after I was married I discovered that my husband was calling telephone sex lines he told me he just wanted to see what they were about he said he thought is was a funny joke. So being 18 and dumb I believed him next it was pornography that I caught him looking at on the tav I was so hurt coming from a christian home where my father was a godly man who loved me very much and respected my mother more than any other man I knew I just couldn't understand why so he told me that he was just curious again it didn't mean anything it was just pictures and made me feel like I was just being stupid so he apologized and said he would never do it again if it bothered me so much and I fell for it again because I wanted so badly to believe him I was journey humiliated ashamed I did not ever talk to any one about this I just buried it and refused to see the truth long story short on my 18th anniversary I was looking at the cookies on my computer and discovered yes you guessed it more porn the most disgusting things I have ever seen I just wanted to kill myself if it had not been for my two sons I would leave behind I would have done it some times I still think about it allot I may do it after my youngest son graduates we will see I hope God can do something with my life and bring my joy back that I once had any way back to my story my husband never confessed anything without being caught first so I find it very hard to believe him he lies to me about this kind of stuff even when I have the proof right in front of my duh so any way I told him that I was going to take the kids and go and that scarred him enough to go speak to our pastor about what was going on I told him if he tells all so to say and continues to get help for his sexual addiction now I can say it it is still very hard to admit but that is what it is he finally told all I wont go in to all the details but let me assure you they are not pretty so I will pray for you that God will help you through your journey that some of us unlucky women have to endure I'm not sure why? So I am in my 18th year of marriage to this man one day at a time right I just pray to God that my two sons are not affected by his sin!!! thank you for your story some how it does help

my story

Dear M,

Thank you for sharing a bit of your journey here. I, too find strength in other's stories and it never ceases to amaze me how very similar the stories are. Sometimes it feel as if we are all married to brothers they feel so familiar!

Please let me encourage you to know that our minds certainly are battlefields! Memory can be a very powerful tool of the enemy. I try everyday to put some of God's word in my mind. I spend time choosing to start everyday reading something of His word as it is indeed a lamp unto this dark path I have walked. I know if I continue to "plant" his word into my heart it will bear good fruit eventually. But it wasn't always so easy! I have had to detemine that if I truly, truly want to heal and walk a right walk, I have to go after it! I have to choose (sometimes it is daily, other times it is by the minute) where I want my spiritual feet to go on my journey! The word is there, I have to read it. Prayer is there, but I have to pray it. Grace is a gift, but I have to open it and peace is there but I have to apply it. Some days I nail it, other days I totally blow it. I am human.

So, I have created a response for my own benefit, on those days which are sometimes, not so great; "My feelings just have not caught up to my faith yet!". Pretty much sums it up! LOL!

As for the memories part, there are plenty of things I have been forgiven for through my journey, so I have decided that everytime the enemy brings up what should be a painful, shameful memory, I stop right then and THANK GOD for His forgiving me of that specific sin! It has been AMAZING how well this has worked for me. So I decided to try it when I get a memory of what my husband caused me to experience and I began THANKING GOD for forgiving my husband for that very thing...and you know what? It works like dissolving sugar into hot liquid!

Did not mean to write a whole book here............sorry, had some coffee ...........but I just really really wanted to let you know YOU ARE NOT ALONE and there is truly brighter, stronger, and even happier days ahead of you, just stay on the right road and you will begin to really see that growth! Be blessed by His amazing grace! Thanks again for sharing! James 4:6

Amazed by Grace

my story

I am nearing the two year mark of the anniversary to which I found out about my husband's four year affair. 5 months later, I walked in on him looking at pornography on the computer. He then confessed to me that this has been a problem for him since he was a young boy. By the grace of God, we are still married and working things out day by day. However, I still struggle at times. I have flashbacks about the affair and pornography......and question if it has happened again. My husband has never given me any kind of reason to doubt or question him at all. I realize that this is satan trying to control my thoughts and make me doubt. I know he wants nothing more than to see my family fall apart. I pray for God to give me strength and a purpose to be able to make something good out of all of this.......like you have with this site and your book. I am thankful for your site that it now helps me to know I am not alone in this. Well, I know I am not......but being able to talk to other women who have had the same experience helps. Family and friends are well-meaning, but no one can quite understand a situation unless they have been there. So, I am thankful to be able to vent here......and look forward to being able to help each other. God bless....

New Hat

I was raised that there was no such things as boundaries for a woman inside the home. Outside, in the professional world there was, but with a husband and children... it was not recognized as a God given right. Here I am 45 and just learning to set Godly boundaries in my home! SAD. But, God in His infinite Wisdom is showing me that there are and have been things done to me and things I have allowed and even invited in my life that have caused serious detriment to me emotionally, physically, and most definitely spiritually.

I was taught that women were to be silent and were to be objects of a husbands sexual gratification... WHOA! So for 44 years, that's what I was, an object and it was all under the guise of godly submission. The longer I would try to be silent, the more the steam would build up and eventually I would blow in. I wasn't allowed to blow out as a child so I learned to blow in. Hiding me became the norm and over the years I have lost who I am. By the Grace of God, I am relearning who I am, and it's not easy. My familiar path is ungoldy submissiveness and now that I am being revealed to me, some of the people closest to me do not like the me that is emerging.

For instance... being used as a hole in the bed is a definite OUT! Answering to my teenaged son about my whereabouts, and answering to his demands for anything is OUT! I'm the mom here. Teaching my teenaged daughter that she is to be a concubine for her husband is OUT! Giving into the unrelenting torment of thinking that I will never be good enough, never enough of anything is OUT. Allowing my family to belittle me and control me through their shame (which I have had a part of) is OUT.

There is still so much that the Lord has to show me and learn me not to allow, and at times it is scary because it is all new teritory and a new way of thinking of myself. And I admit that I have gone overboard, and am waiting for the pendulum to reach balance in all this. I struggle with wondering if I'm being selfish by setting these new boundaries.

I got tired of being walked on, so I began to hide in my house and would just cow down and stay silent to keep the peace (or what I percieved as peace), or just be agreeable to whatever circumstance arose. Now that that has been changing for the past year, the ones who are bucking the changes are the men in the house... my husband and my son, and at times I feel like the bronco that is being riden. There is not much peace in my home. We are greatly divided. I look forward to the time when my family accepts these new changes and moves into their own boundaries.

Sorrow grips my heart when I think about the damage I have done to my daughter because of a lack of self respect on my part. The things I have taught her to be by my demon-strations is sad. She now has trouble with allowing her boyfriend to belittle her and he tries to control her. And she thinks she should accept his words because of submission. I pray that God fixes what I have so horribly negated. My son treats me like his father and step-father, and now that I am no longer answering to my sons demands he doesn't want to be around me. My husband says that 50% of the woman he married is gone and he wants her back and that he does not like the woman who has replaced her. One instance was, I had forgot to put my husbands sun block in his lunch box one morning. He called me at lunch and proceeded to tell me how disappointed he was that I had failed to tend to his need (he works out in the sun 8-10 hours a day.) When he got home that evening he kept on about it, and the next day at lunch I told him that I was sorry that I was such a disappointment to him and he blew up and told me that I had ruined his day and hung up on me. The more I thougt and prayed about it the more angry I became. That evening as we were having dinner I told him that he could be as disappointed as he liked but that I was not going to join him in it any longer and that I was not going to accept his nitpicking anylonger. I asked him if he thought his actions and words were Christlike and he said yes. So I told him that when I failed to do something I knew that my Christ would not berate me nor demean me, but that He would pick me up, brush me off, and tenderly correct me and tell me to try it again and He would tell me that He loved me. My husband just sat there with an open mouth and could not believe that I would talk to him in such a manner. I calmly got up from the table and left the room. He did not like it one bit and did not talk to me for two days. When he seen that I would not appoligize for my words, he went to his sponsor about it and his sponsor told him that I was right, that Christ did not belitte us nor demean us in any fashion, but that He loved us into change and submission. It was hard for me to not appologize to him, because I would rather the smooth road on the surface and just let the volcanic lava flow within me under that smooth road for noone but me to see. He has not brought it up again, but his tactics have changed. He's gone from mild orders to adding, "if you like," or, "if it suits you," to the end of nearly every statement. ie., "You could do such and such, if you like." With the new add-on, he took up blaming me for his mistakes. ie., He was giving what he termed a word of knowledge to a couple at church after the service, I was standing a few feet away and the Lord had been dealing with me concerning submission to Him, and I was wrestling with ungoldy submission to others. I had a look of pain, and anger, and heavy concern on my face. When my husband looked up and saw my face he stopped giving the word and walked away. I had no idea what he was doing, he had tole me to follow him without explination, so I did, and was just standing there waiting for further instruction. Later in the car, he told me that there was more to the word for that couple, but that I had stopped the flow of the word by my countenance and that it was my fault and that I had hindered the flow of the spirit. So I questioned the Lord and asked for an answer as to whether or not it was truth. I brought it up to my husbands sponser with my husband there, and his sponser told him that if it were a word of knowledge from the Holy Spirit that my countenance would not have stopped the flow, and given the fact that I had no idea what was taking place and that the Lord had continued dealing with me, why hadn't my husband shown concern with what was going on with me? My husband said that he thought that whatever the Lord was doing with me was a private matter and that I should have been discerning enough to see that his word of knowledge was a pressing matter and I shoud have tended to ministry to him while he ws trying to minister to the couple. His sponser told him that he should have ministerd to me first and then took care of the word for the couple. Then he asked him if he could write the word down and finish giving it to them that next day. He said that he could, but as far as I know he never did finish giving the word, and still blames me for it. I told him in front of his sponser that I would not be responsible for his lack of personal accountability to Christ. That the word was given to him to give and it was on his shoulders, not mine. Again, he would not talk to me for several days, and I just let him brood and kept praying for the Lord to complete the work He had started in the both of us.

It's not easy to stay in the boundaries when the people closest to me want me to tear down the fences, or to allow them to plow through them and be able to go where they please within my field. The thing that keeps me inside is Christ. He reminds me that, although it is painful, it is also healing to my children and to my husband to experience and see these changes in me take place and that they will benefit from them by applying them to their own lives in time. They have to see that the new boundaries work toward this captive being set free before they will self applicate. Through the pain of change, I am willing to be an example, if it promotes and enables their changing to a move toward Christ.

I welcome feedback, I am an old Christian with a new hat, and hopefully I will remain Faithful, Available, and Teachable (F.A.T.) in this life and the next to come.