A Story of Hope and Restoration

by Lisa J.

I felt a bit apprehensive as I walked into the room. My heart was brimming with pain, and I felt like my eyes would soon be brimming with tears. It’s not that I was unwilling to cry in front of others. It’s that I did not usually do it in front of strangers.

It was my first night in a L.I.F.E. Group, and I was experiencing a whole myriad of emotions. Pain from my husband’s sexual addiction, confusion about what to do, uncertainty of where this would lead, and yet great relief at finding other spouses who could relate to what I was going through. I just wanted to cry and spill my guts, but I did not know if I could trust these people. Who were they? And what were they about?

I had found them through a series of connections. I had met none of them, and though I did not realize it then, I needed all of them.

You see, I had married my best friend. I loved him dearly, and he loved me. But we were caught in the downward spiral of sexual addiction and co-dependency, and we did not know how to get out. Our marriage was falling apart, and our hearts were breaking.

When we got married, I told myself, “Things will be different, this time.” Michael was a Christian, and he spoke to me kindly and treated me with respect. He was thoughtful and affectionate. I was not used to that. In my previous marriage, of over 20 years, I was used to being insulted, belittled, and occasionally hurt by physical force; there was no physical intimacy between us for 17 years, and not much prior to that. I had prayed intently, and was sure God would fix that marriage. Then, when things got worse and I became desperate to survive, I ended the marriage.

Bound and determined I would not get into that situation again, I married Michael because he was different. I adored him. And I hoped he adored me.

I hoped he did, but I was not confident of it. You see, Mike had wavered about committing to me in our dating months, and he often made comments about other girls’ figures. They were too fat, too thin, just right. And if they were particularly good-looking, he felt he was doing them a favor by telling them so, right in front of me. Knowing how kind Mike is, I justified that he was just boosting their self-esteem. What was wrong with that? Never mind that it hurt me intensely. I thought I was just insecure and needed to get over it.

Mike admitted that he struggled with keeping his mind pure when he saw girls in bikinis, so when we would go to water parks, the beach, or pools, I would suppress my apprehension about what he was thinking about them, and what he was thinking about my less-than-perfect figure. It was painful. But it was my problem, right?

At one point in our courtship Mike said he wanted to date other women. I was crushed, but agreed, and stipulated I did not want to see him anymore if he needed to date other women. We agreed to stop seeing each other. But we never actually did stop, and Mike did not really date anyone else. He did, however, keep asking for time alone.

I, on the other hand, wanted to spend all of my time with him. I was new to the area after living all of my life previously (40 some years) in another state. I desperately missed my friends and coworkers back home. I missed my dogs that I could not bring with me. I longed for the security of knowing how to get around the city, knowing where things were in the grocery store, and going to a familiar church with a familiar pastor and familiar people. Now I felt swallowed up and disconnected in the large church I attended. So I joined the singles’ group. That’s where I met Mike.

He, too, was relatively new to the area. He had few friends, but no close friends. We bonded instantly when we met. Our first date lasted for 11 hours. We had only planned to have lunch together. But we enjoyed each other’s company so much, that we spent the entire afternoon and evening together.

By our second date we became physically involved. Something about which we both felt guilty, because of our desire to do things God’s way, but neither of us seemed to have the strength to abstain. We were enjoying one another and having fun. Then we began to struggle with conflict.

Mike was an admitted workaholic, and he began staying late at the office. I, feeling fearful and lonely in my unfamiliar surroundings, wanted to cook dinner for Mike and hang out together in the evening to create a sense of family and minimize my feelings of loneliness. When he stopped feeling like I was his number one priority, I began to struggle with fears of abandonment, developed during issues from my childhood and previous marriage. So I clung to Mike. That’s when Mike began to say he wanted to see other people. I was relieved when he did not, but there was still the matter of him wanting to have time alone. It’s not that I did not want him to have time alone, I was just confused. He seemed so passionate about me when he was with me. And I felt passionate about him and wanted to be with him. It just did not seem to make sense that he would want to stay at home alone so frequently. I tried my best to let him have his space. “After all,” others would tell me, “men just need to be alone, sometimes.”

But despite our best efforts to give Mike “enough” alone time, somewhere during our dating period - which had been so intense in the beginning - Mike grew detached. He would not look me in the eye for any length of time, he stopped bringing me coffee in the morning when I stayed at his house, he did not seem to really “be there” when I talked to him. He was nice enough. He just wasn’t “there”.

One afternoon I was using Mike’s computer, and I was looking for my file when I discovered some disturbing contents on his computer. There were multitudes of files with pornographic titles. My heart felt like someone had hit a baseball into my chest. I was stunned, and I was scared. “Not Mike”, I thought, the perfect man whom I adored. He’s a Christian. I know he is. He goes to church. He reads the Bible. He prays. He tithes. He knows all the Christian songs on the radio. Could he really be looking at this stuff? Part of me was bewildered and stunned, but part of me seemed a bit relieved as if I had stumbled upon an explanation of why Mike was detaching himself from me.

I walked into Mike’s dining-room where he sat at the table and I sat down and looked him in the eye. I bluntly asked him, “Have you been looking at pornography?” He looked surprised and guilty as he confessed he had. Then he said something that struck me as odd. He said, “I’m so glad I’ve told you. Hiding it is the worst part. I’m so relieved.” And he looked it.

Well, he might have been relieved, but I was devastated. As the discovery slowly began to sink in of what we were dealing with, I began to feel betrayed and uncertain and scared. I felt betrayed because he was not only looking at women with much better figures than I, he was studying them, fantasizing about them. I felt uncertain because I did not know how bad this habit was, if he would give it up, or if we could continue the relationship. I was scared because I did not want to go back to being alone.

I went about the day somewhat numb and confused about what I’d learned. Mike was compassionate and remorseful. That helped, but I could not seem to shake the feeling of desperation growing in me. I was desperate to hang on to my dreams of a happy relationship with a wonderful man. But it was evidently not under my control.

After consoling me for most of the day, Mike suddenly turned angry. He began to withdraw and be cynical, treating me and himself with contempt. His tormented face exposed his inner feelings. This was a side of him I had never seen. I instantly began to feel compassion for him, and so I consoled him and told him he wasn’t a bad person and that I still loved him. I put my feelings aside and comforted him.

The next day, after I’d thought things over and realized I did not react any differently than I had in my first marriage when I was hurt, I decided to set a boundary (something I’d learned just before divorcing my first husband), and to encourage Mike to overcome this. I told him I had done him a disservice the day before, and I needed to correct that. I looked him squarely in the eye and firmly said, “You are better than this! This cannot be a part of our relationship! I won’t participate in it!” He replied adamantly that he knew he was “better than this”, and he wholeheartedly agreed that he did not want it as part of our relationship. So we felt connected again and in complete agreement. But would it really be that easy?

Mike explained this was the reason he had wanted so much alone time, so he could spend hours and hours looking at pornography and engaging in self-gratification. He said he had tried to quit in the past, even joined “sexual purity” groups. But he could never get anyone to follow through on their commitment to be an accountability partner. So I agreed to be his accountability partner. After all, who had a more vested interest than me? Mike was very cooperative. He even put a suggestion in at our new, smaller church which we loved, that he would like to see a “sexual purity” men’s group started. No one ever responded to his plea, although he submitted it more than once.

So the plan was for me to ask Mike how he was doing if he did not say anything about it for a week or two. At first, he’d admit to some struggles, particularly with TV or when going to places where there were girls in bikinis. Then, as he saw how painful it was for me and how angry it made me, he began to hide the truth from me, not answering honestly. The man whom I loved, who loved me, and prided himself on telling the truth, suddenly began lying to me. But I did not know it, yet. During this time, we got married. We were happy in many ways, but when I discovered he was still looking at pornography, even taking advantage of opportunities when I was away, and lying to me about it, I began to stop trusting him. When I was with him in bed, I wondered if he was really “with” me, or was he with the girl he had fantasized about that day. Was he building a relationship with me, or was he actually just acting out what he had seen in a video portrayal of sexual perversion. I felt sick to my stomach. I was caught somewhere between loving my husband and respecting him, and feeling betrayed by and unsafe with him.

We tried to study self-help books. I hoped things were getting better. But finally, during a particularly difficult time in my life - I had been at the hospital with my mom who was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness - I discovered that Mike was again looking at pornography while I was away. Just when I needed his support and commitment to me, I had been betrayed again. I could not continue any longer without help.

I called my pastor and his wife and consulted them about our situation. They gave me the name of a sexual addiction counselor and prayed with me. I felt comforted and finally supported by a network of people who cared and could help. Thankfully my husband was perfectly willing to speak with our pastor and go to counseling, too.

The counselor explained that sexual addiction actually stems from a fear of intimacy. He gave us sad statistics of its prevalence – even in the church. He told me that a counselor not trained in sexual addiction can actually do more harm to the addict and their spouse than good. He told me it was not just “Mike’s problem”, I had issues, too, that I needed to address. “Not just Mike’s problem,” I thought. I knew he was right.

During this time of counseling, we began to learn what each of us would need to do to recover from sexual addiction and co-dependency. It seemed overwhelming, but we were hopeful, yet uncertain of what would happen to our marriage. Mike joined the counselor’s group for sexual addicts, but that disbanded after 8 weeks. I knew of no group for spouses. It was a painful, difficult time for both of us. Often Mike and I would argue, not understanding one another. And, still, painfully to me, Mike struggled with looking at pornography and lying to me. We were often unable to resolve conflict, and our arguments escalated to cutting words and wounded hearts. We were becoming desperate again. We sought more counseling.

That’s when I discovered the L.I.F.E Groups. A second sexual addiction counselor gave me the name of someone in the sexual addicts’ group. That led to someone in the spouses’ group. Finally, I had found a source of comradeship and support. My husband eagerly attended his group, and, thankfully, I now had a group of my own to go to. I was so relieved, so thankful, so hopeful.

So, I walked into the room for the very first time. And I indeed cried in front of others that day. But they were not strangers. They were understanding, they were compassionate, they were safe, they were like family, they were friends, at last.

Since then I have learned and changed and matured with these women who support me. They have become my dearest friends. I trust them. I lean on them. I even help them from time-to-time.

And my husband and I? Well, I slowly began to eliminate my co-dependent ways. And Mike has become “sober”, free from looking at any form of pornography for over a year now. Did we stop going to “Group” then? Not on your life!! Our groups provide some of the things that were missing in our lives: Companionship with others who are open and honest. People who do not try to “fix” us. People who listen and provide feedback. People who are on a journey, just like us.

Posted: 2009-11-25

Sharing your story (available anonymously) is a great way to express your feelings and possibly relieve tension knowing that someone will read it and know.

Stories about addiction, recovery, and continued relationship with God help others know that they are not alone in their addiction, encourages many, and shares ideas.

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