Pretend your best friend has a drug habit/drinking problem and they have been lying to you and hiding it. Maybe you saw things that gave you the idea but for whatever reason you chose not to see it for what it was.
As a result of their problem, they begin lying to you, maybe stealing from you, or they stop being dependable, blow you off, etc etc. You have several arguments about the lies, the stealing, the irresponsibility. But none of those make a difference because they are only consequences of the main problem.
Dan and I have been going back and forth for years over the results/repercussions of his actions. But never, ever have we truly discussed the root of the problem. But it has been there all along. So for me to walk away from him without addressing it to me, would be like realizing that your friend had a drug problem but you walk away without addressing it because it is "too much water under the bridge".
Now I do not think I am all-powerful. I cannot fix his problem. It may well blow up in my face. He may deny, deny, blame, blame. But I will never know until I say something. And I couldn't live with myself if I didn't say something. This man will always be the father of my children and he is supposed to be the model of a man for my son. If i reach out and he rejects my effort, then so be it. But I will know I tried.
Hey BBJ, I am always asking the questions nobody wants to.....
I read your post twice and a couple of things jumped at me. By the way i agree that you are a great person....
I find it difficult to consider my XW as my best friend. You are much more forgiving than I am. I figured she lost that privilege when she acted the way she did. Maybe I should reconsider but I am simply not able to. Also, I think you are stretching it a little when you compare a drug addiction to a porn addiction.
Having said this, you do what you feel you need to do. I am just trying to understand, but at the end of the day, it does not really matter.
Is it possible that you need to get this off your chest....that it will do you some good.....
Here is what I wrote down to share. If it is 'shaming', then it is. I think holding a mirror in front of someone is sometimes necessary...If he is ashamed of what he sees then that is on him,not on me. This is not my attempt to win him back this is my attempt to show him that I know how lost he is even if he thinks I don't, and to offer up a helping hand before I walk away.
I will forewarn you I mention something in this letter that I let him do to/with me in college. It is personal and actually something I am ashamed of, but at the time I loved/trusted him so I allowed it. We weren't yet having sex at the time (I made him wait 2 1/2 yrs and we were both each other's 'first'), just making out/touching, so this was a strange kind of thing for me...anyway I included it b/c it is one of the things that I had honestly forgotten about but it came to mind when talking to the pastor yesterday. And I realized it is part of his issues...
Dan I want to address something here that I have only minimally talked about with you before. But I honestly believe it is the noose around your neck that is choking the life out of you. And I love you so much I cannot walk away from you without trying to show you what I see and trying to help you. Dan I feel strongly that you have a problem with porn. I acknowledge that I have been to the strip clubs with you early in our marriage, I have looked at the magazines, etc etc. But then I realized how damaging that stuff can be. And for me it was a rare occasion, just-for-fun thing. I don’t think it is for you.
You have told me you hate women, you don’t trust them, they manipulate, etc etc. Well when you are looking at them in strip clubs, in movies, in magazines, they ARE manipulating you. They have been dressed/undressed deliberately to pull you in. The hair, the makeup, the poses, the things they say and do, are all manipulative. You were looking at magazines and calling phone lines and all of that long before we got married. You say you have been unhappy since you were a teen ager. Does that not coincide with the time you starting getting involved in porn?
And looking at magazines stops being enough, so you have to watch the movies. Then that is not enough, so you have to call the phone lines. Then that is not enough, so you have to go to the strip clubs. Then that is not enough, so you have to have a real woman in your bed to do those things with you. And then you hate yourself because you know that you don’t like yourself when you do those things. And then you hate the women for luring you in. And then you are angry at all of us women and especially at me because I am the woman standing before you when you are angry and shamed and miserable.
You have said you cannot try again with me and just wind up back in the same place. You have said that you have given up hope of ever being happy. I believe in my heart that the reason you say you cannot promise that things will not happen again is because you feel trapped. You do not know how to give up porn. And as long as porn is in your life, you cannot have a real life, a happy life, a fulfilling life. I do believe that you have tried over the years to give up porn but then you get sucked back in again, and then you are mad at yourself for giving in, mad at the women for drawing you in, mad at me too because something I said or did ‘pushed’ you…I realize now that this pattern goes back a long, long ways. In college I remember you tying me up in your closet at your apartment and shaving me while I was blindfolded. I was kind of scared at the time but I trusted you and I knew you wanted to do it, so I did it. I realize now you had to have gotten that idea somewhere…
Is that why you think God is punishing you for your sins? Because you continue to be involved with porn? And I know that you are--when you came over to do laundry last month I was folding shirts for you and I saw in your suitcase the magazines and DVDs. Do you think that your calves die, your job sucks, and everything else awful is your punishment for sinning? Is it possible that you don’t have a hold on porn but that in fact porn has a hold on you that you have tried to break but cannot do on your own?
You know that all have sinned and all have fallen short but God forgave us through the sacrifice Jesus made. God loves you and He can and does forgive you. I love you and I can and have forgiven you. I just want you to know that I see how terribly miserable you are and I am sure what I see only scratches the surface. As your wife and the woman who loves you most, I could not just walk away without telling you, leaving you when you are clearly in the deepest pit of hopelessness. If you decide that you want help to get your life back, I will be there to support you in any way I can. However, you would have to decide that living like you are is no longer an option and you have to reach for something better for yourself.
Yep John maybe it is just as much for me as it is for him, for me to get it off my chest.
And maybe in Canada is has not reached the epic proportions it has here in the states, but more marriages are trashed over porn addictions than over drug or alcohol addictions. Oprah, Dr. Phil, Dateline, all the 'shows' have run stories on it. And some people say it is no big deal. And you know what, I suppose it is like drinking in that regard. I can go out and have 1 margarita at dinner and be happy. No big deal. But tell that to the woman whose husband is a raging alcoholic.
Maybe there are men who can go one a year to the gentleman's club with his clients and it is no big deal. But there are men who have lost their jobs, lost their homes even b/c of the time/money they spent on porn.
We can agree to disagree on that, it's okay. Not everyone sees it the same. But as a follower of Jesus I know that for me, it was wrong when I went with him back in college and it is wrong for him to give other women the time/attention/desire he should be giving to his wife.
And I am okay with knowing that I have considered my husband my best friend. I made a lifelong commitment to love him unconditionally. It does not mean I have to stay married to him, b/c of the adultery I am free to divorce. But I will still care about him as the man I thought he was and as the father of my children.
Ok, fire away. And I would imagine one is what he hell I am doing for so long standing by such a messed up guy? And is the other one who made me God the judge? Okay I hope those aren't the questions!
John that is embarrassing for me. It is a bondage thing he liked to tie my hands sometimes, or have me do it to him. I was a 19 yr old who had never been with a guy so there are certain parts of my body I did not shave at the time... Please dont ask anymore...
And John I didn't realize it even though I did. Kind of like an iceberg, you never see the whole thing all at once but when you put it all together it is amazing.....and humiliating.
I was a very naive girl the only thing my mom ever said about sex was that it was shameful and awful and you should never ever do it until you got married or you were a whore and a slut and a terrible person. The first time I ever saw a naked man was my husband. I wanted to make him happy, so I did things with him that I knew made him happy, even if some of them seemed weird to me. He appeared happy and he seemed so thrilled to have me as his that I thought I was doing something right. Only after things progressed more and more and he wanted to try more and different things did I start to get so uncomfortable.
And maybe that is why he strayed, because I wouldn't do some of the things he wanted me to do. There was some dominance/fetish-y stuff I didn't like and I told him I didn't want to do it anymore. A lot of it had to do with being tied up in various ways and he wanted me to do it to him too. It just got to the point where there were things I wouldn't do. I really didn't know what other people did or did not do with one another because I had never been exposed to anything. And the only things I ever did see/hear/read were from movies or magazines that he had.
When I figured out that it was wrong and did not line up with my beliefs as a Christian, I stopped doing a lot of it. I am still a fun, outgoing creative person and we could still make love in a lot of interesting ways, just not so rough or (to me) demeaning ways. And we didn't, for the past almost 10 years. It stopped when I found out he had the one night stand with a stripper in Feb. 2000. It was then that I realized that all of this role-play fantasy stuff was putting him in dangerous territory.....to me I had thought since it was just the two of us within our marriage it was okay but then he took it outside the marriage. Back in 2000 I threw out every single magazine and video I could find in our apartment (and there were a lot of them I found out). I told him no more, never again, but every six months or so I would find one in a drawer or see an atm bill from a strip club...we would argue, he would say he would stop, etc etc etc
John, that is what made me the saddest yesterday. When the pastor said to me, "All these years to you it has been intimacy but to him it has most likely been sex". I can hardly bear to think that maybe I was being used the whole time as his cover to the world that he was an upstanding guy, that he had a smart, funny, sweet,loving wife and kids so he must be okay too. That I was an inexperienced 16 yr old when we first dated, someone who could be molded however he wanted...
That is depressing. He wrote me so many romantic cards over the years telling me how much he loved me and was glad to have me in his life but now I wonder how much was ever real
Sorry John I didn't mean it like that. I guess I am just very ashamed of my role in this. I guess I feel like I helped pour the foundations of the problem so whatever he built from them is my fault, too.....
Not everyone sees it the same. But as a follower of Jesus I know that for me, it was wrong when I went with him back in college and it is wrong for him to give other women the time/attention/desire he should be giving to his wife.