Question:
My husband and I haven’t had sex in eight months. He knows that I desire a sexual relationship, but he doesn’t seem interested. Meanwhile, he recently had an online affair and he’s recovering from an addiction to porn. I feel so hurt and rejected. Can you offer me any wisdom or advice?
Answer:
Take heart – your situation is not unusual, and there is still hope that your marriage can be healed and restored to wholeness. There is nothing exceptional about your husband’s behavior. As a matter of fact, many porn addicts are sexually anorexic when it comes to marital relations with their spouse. That’s because, through habit and practice, their normal sexual impulses have been alienated from their natural context – i.e., a healthy, committed personal relationship – and re-oriented around impersonal objects or illicit lusts or fetishes. The good news is that, with time, patience, and appropriate treatment, these pathological patterns can be reversed and rehabilitated.
You say that your husband is in the process of recovering from an addiction to porn. If he’s serious about this, he should be willing to do whatever it takes to make his recovery complete. Unfortunately, his behavior at the moment indicates that his resolve is weak and that full recovery is still a long way off. There’s only one word for the pain and strain he’s introduced into your marriage, and it’s “sin.” Bottom line: your current marital status quo is unacceptable. To save your relationship you’re going to have to change your circumstances, and it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to do it alone. If your husband really wants to leave the past behind, he’s going to have to join forces with you in an effort to secure some outside help.
If the two of you are Christians, you need to sit down with your priest or pastor and discuss the spiritual aspects of the marital troubles you’re experiencing. The Bible has some very definite things to say about marriage as the one and only appropriate context for sexual activity. Even more to the point in this particular case, it states clearly that husbands and wives are not to “deprive one another” sexually, “except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (I Corinthians 7:5). There is a very simple and very important principle underlying this specific instruction; namely, “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does” (I Corinthians 7:4).
In addition to spiritual counseling, it is crucial that you seek out the help of a licensed marriage therapist, a trained psychologist who can hold you and your husband accountable and guide you through the difficult process of breaking old patterns and healing past addictions.
Copyright © 2010, Focus on the Family. Used by permission.
