I called in sick to work. My marriage was falling apart and I was just beginning to understand my husband’s addiction to porn.
At 24, I didn’t even know such a thing existed.
A spouse who would binge-watch naked women for hours and a sexless marriage were some of the few things my brain was trying to figure out.
If you look at what’s fake for too long, you’ll begin to find fault in what’s real.
Desperate to find answers, I contacted one of the senior pastors at our church who specialized in marital counseling. She was a kind soul, beautiful, and in her fifties, who came home just to make sure I was okay.
“ All men watch porn, right? So why did only he get addicted?”
I sobbed as she tried to comfort me. I took her advice and fixed an appointment with a psychologist she recommended.
Apparently, he was a porn addiction specialist with a Ph.D. and the best in Canada.
At 200$ an hour, I believed if anyone had a solution to my problem, it was going to be him.
The first round of therapy.
This is my only hope- I remember thinking as I nervously walked into the doctor’s office.
He was a short man with a pleasant demeanor which helped make my husband feel a bit more comfortable with the whole thing. My husband didn’t think he had a problem with porn and so he wasn’t exactly on board with the whole counseling process.
After an exchange of pleasantries, the doctor asked us each to explain what we needed to work on.
I brought up my husband’s excessive usage of porn and how it was destroying our marriage.
My husband, on the other hand, casually dismissed everything I said as part of my weird imagination! He claimed that he used to watch porn ages ago and that the real issue was that I was having trouble conceiving.
“Well, how am I supposed to conceive if we never have sex” — I argued in my mind as I rolled my eyes in frustration.
The session progressed with the doctor explaining about porn addiction and why it can be detrimental to a relationship. He also elaborated on how it affected the brain and why it was important to stop consuming so much pornographic content.
He ended it with some techniques to improve our communication skills so that we could better understand each other.
And, before we knew it, it was 5 pm and our time was up.
As we were leaving, the doctor handed a few books to my husband so that he could be more informed about porn addiction. Guess who read the books?
The days after the session were hard — painful. My husband gave me the silent treatment and became even more cold than usual.
Our apartment was as quiet as a library. Nobody spoke to anybody.
It was super uncomfortable for me as I felt so lonely and unsafe at home. He was silently punishing me for taking him in for therapy.
Next level — Accountability software
Over the next few weeks, he reluctantly followed me to the doctor’s office and I reluctantly kept paying for it.
So far, there had been no progress.
“You have to install an accountability software on your phone and laptop”, the doctor told him. “Every time you visit a website that features adult content, it will trigger an email to your wife. She will also have access to your browsing history. This will help you limit your screen time with porn.”
Obviously, my husband wasn’t too happy with this new software that was going to interfere with his life.
After some initial resistance, he agreed to install it on his laptop as a means to prove his innocence. He didn’t let us touch his phone though!
Now would be a good time to mention that we were both working in the IT industry.
A few days went by and there weren’t any alarms going off from the recovery software. A week later, I was checking his browsing history that I received in my email and it just looked a tad bit – odd.
I sneaked around his laptop and it didn’t take me long to figure out that he was using a VPN to navigate to porn sites. This way, the accountability software wouldn’t pick up his trails and he could continue watching whatever he pleased.
He was deceiving me and I was aware of it.
Angry, betrayed, and hopeless — that’s what I felt.
At this point, to my surprise, the doctor didn’t seem to know what to do or have any strategy left to try.
We tried consulting some other experts too but our relationship lasted less than three years and I walked out after a hundred failed attempts at reconciliation.
Why I didn’t get the results I had hoped for.
Looking back, I can see a few reasons why this therapy didn’t work.
1. He didn’t acknowledge that he had a problem with porn.
The person suffering from the addiction must first, accept that there is a problem and then be willing to do the work. You can’t change anyone.
If your spouse isn’t willing to get a grip on himself, the chances of recovery are less.
2. Treating the symptom and not the cause for addiction.
Drugs, alcohol, or any other addiction is usually a form of escape, a way to numb unpleasant feelings.
Dig deeper and underneath you will find a wound that’s screaming for attention.
Some of the core wounds:
- I am not good enough.
- I will be abandoned.
- Something is wrong with me.
- People are unsafe and I cannot rely on anyone to meet my needs.
- I am disliked.
- I am a failure.
In a lot of cases, this stems from childhood. Parental neglect, abuse, narcissistic parents, emotionally unavailable parents, parents with addiction — the list is endless.
Why he got addicted to porn in the first place.
My husband wasn’t great at academics and he even failed once in high school. The low grades caused a lot of friction between him and his dad which ended up in him getting beaten or punished severely.
He struggled to complete college, much to the displeasure of his dad, which panned out that they didn’t speak to each other for years.
He longed for the approval of his father, but he never received it.
Do you know one of the most alluring things about porn?
There’s no rejection. Instead, there is unconditional acceptance.
All the rejection from the hard-to-please father that was tucked away in his subconscious mind, needed a release — an escape!
He chose to do it through porn and later sought escort services.
The women in this fantasy land would accept him with arms wide open. They didn’t care if he lacked confidence or that he had a struggling career or that he felt like a failure.
He could just be himself and they approved of him.
While accountability software can help limit the usage of porn, I have now come to learn that true recovery would encompass a deeper look at the childhood trauma and addressing the wounds that need healing. Otherwise, it may just be a short-term recovery only to feel the sting of the wound again and – relapse.
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Previously published on medium
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Photo credit: on iStock
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