Rescuing Your Marriage from Pornography (Part 2 of 2)

Focus on the Family helped me by giving me hope when my marriage was falling apart and gave me a reason to push forward. Jennifer almost gave up after her husband's affair, but today they're still married.

There's always more to learn and I'm always, I know that's a safe place to go. I'm Jim Daly. This season, help us give families hope. And when you give today, your donation will be doubled.

Donate at focusonthefamily.com slash joy. On this episode of Focus on the Family, we're returning to a very serious heartbreaking issue that puts many marriages at risk. And this topic is not suitable for younger listeners. You're not fighting for the marriage that you had minus the pornography. You're fighting for something new, something beyond your greatest expectations, because pornography is not the problem. Pornography is the solution to an intimacy disorder. So that's what you're fighting for. You're not fighting to just get rid of this pornography. You're fighting for this new level of vulnerability, honesty, authenticity that you've never had before.

And that's exciting. That's Rosie McKinney describing the devastating impact of pornography and why husbands and wives who are addicted to it need to get help right away. We're going to offer some of that help today with Rosie.

Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. John, we had an amazing conversation last time with Rosie and we talked about this issue of pornography. She lived through this crisis in her own marriage and her testimony was very helpful at the end of the program last time. Her husband Mark was trapped in a porn addiction and on day eight of their honeymoon, it exposed itself and Rosie gave him an ultimatum. You can have porn or you can have me, but you can't have both.

And that was something she learned through experience that she needed to take a stand for both of them, for his sake and for her sake. As we learned last time, pornography can hijack, boy, the brain chemistry. We covered that in detail.

And if you missed it, get the smartphone app or call us and we'll get it to you through a download or go to the website, however you can get it. But we talked about the powerful effect pornography has on brain chemistry and the way that it grabs you and holds you for that dopamine hit, the feeling of happiness that you get from it. But it's empty, it's an illusion and she really covered that yesterday. I'm looking forward to furthering this discussion and let me tell you, I get it. We're talking about, yeah, intimacy in marriage. But remember, this is God's gift to us, certainly as Christian couples.

He gave us physical intimacy as his wedding present and we want to make sure that you're not messing that up. Let's have healthy marriages so that we can reach the lost to help them in their journey toward Christ. And if this is a struggle in your relationship, we would direct you to our counseling team. We have caring Christian counselors.

They field a lot of calls about this very topic and their phone call away. We'll schedule a consultation when you call 800-800-232-6459 and we do have copies of Rosie's book Fight for Love. It is an excellent resource capturing her story, a lot of the details that she shared about the brain science in the previous program and it's available to you.

We also have other resources as well. It's all at our website and you'll find the link in the show notes. Rosie, welcome back to Focus on the Family. Thank you.

It's great to be back. We said this throughout the program last time. It's just such a difficult topic. We hit the number of Christian men that are affected. It's kind of stunning to think about it. Something like 78% of men and 55% of married men particularly.

So these are high numbers within the church and the world's about the same number. So, you know, obviously this is an area of our hearts that we're not letting the Lord reign over and we're covering it up. You know, I was thinking last time, Rosie, certainly on parenting programs, little boys, we have an issue with shame. We don't like being caught. We are, you know, we respond very hard to shame to the point where you can't even look at your mom's eyes when you're caught, right? And I know that particularly women psychologists, Christians, have talked about that. You don't force your boy to look you in the eye.

Let them mull that over. And I think in this topic it's that same little boy that is so ashamed of what they're doing and it's hard for them to admit it. It's hard for them to ask for help. They're lost in essence. And it gives me tears even thinking about it. They're just still that little boy that doesn't know what to do.

Doesn't even know how to ask for help. And you really covered that yesterday with how addiction works and what these men are facing. And here's the thing. That shame is driving the pornography. It's a coping mechanism. It's managing what's happening on the outside in order to manage what's happening on the inside.

And so you're absolutely right. And it's a vicious cycle because the more they do it, the more ashamed they are, the more ashamed they are, the more they have to do it. And it just goes round and round and round, which is why we women have to be really brave and stand up and throw them a lifeline. Because quite often we're the only ones who knows it's happening because you can't see it.

Can I go back? I mean, we touched on this last time, but I want to go a little deeper to that response we talked about. When all of those instincts a woman has about her husband come to reality, boom. Now I know.

Either through his confession or what have you. You found it. Whatever. That emotion that's in you. For some women, this is the dagger. This is the one thing that is betrayal to me. It's putting a knife right through my heart emotionally.

And I'm not enough. It's all those things that a woman is going to think. Let's revisit that initial response and the good things that you can do in that moment and perhaps the harmful things you can do.

Hit it. I'm really glad that you've gone there. You're absolutely right. 75% of wives of porn addicts think at some point it's their fault.

We really do. And the reason that it's that dagger that it really just guts us is because it's a rupture in an attachment with your primary attachment figure. So it doesn't matter that they might not be physically acting out with somebody to our brain. We still register it as a primal survival threat. My primary source of attachment, there's now a massive rupture because I have now discovered that our entire life together has been based on a lie. It's not just the behavior.

That's bad enough. The thought of it is just horrific, but it's the deception. It's like you suddenly your entire history has just been up ended. Dr. Jake Porter uses this fantastic analogy of a filing cabinet, which is where you make sense of things. And it's how you're able to predict the future and feel safe because by looking at the past, you're able to predict the future.

But what happens when your past has just been ripped up and thrown all over the floor? You feel absolutely unsafe. It really does register as a primal threat to your survival, which is why women of porn addicts report the same symptoms as veterans, the same PTSD symptoms, which is astonishing. And so for all those people who go, what a wife doesn't know doesn't hurt her. It's like, no, you cannot build intimacy on deception because the wife, even before she knows what's going on, she knows on a bodily level that something is wrong. And that betrayal trauma is real. Her brain is as addled by the trauma of this deception as his brain is addled by the addiction.

And this is the way he has rerouted his brain now to cope with anything by using pornography. They are both in crisis. Right. They're both dysfunctional.

They're both. And so often in the past, historically, we have labeled the wife as codependent because she's angry, she's snooping, she's doing all these things. But now, fortunately, we look at everything through a trauma lens. There is a reason why you are constantly asking questions. So if your husband's just disclosed that actually, yeah, I have got a problem with pornography or whatever it is, his disclosing, normally when you experience something traumatic, your brain goes, I don't want to think about that anymore. But when it's betrayal, your brain goes, well, hang on a minute. I now need to establish safety.

I need to work out all the details. And they ask questions again and again and again and again. And that gets labeled as dysfunction and you need to stop doing that. And it's like she needs to do that. So this is why she needs help. He needs help. He's not willing to get help, but she can. Right. Well, of course, you know, just that gut wrenching reality.

And now what do I do? You describe the vital role Christian wives can play in helping their husbands recover from this porn addiction. And you point to 1 Peter 3, which instructs wives how to be a witness to their husbands. How does that apply? Great question. Why don't I read that?

That would be great. OK, so this is 1 Peter 3. In the same way, wives submit yourselves to your own husbands so that even if some disobey the word, they may be won over without a word. By the way, their wives live when they observe your pure, reverent lives. OK, so it's definitely acknowledging that you need to submit to your husband. However, your primary submission is to God and that it's pointing to the fact that repentance can be brought through him observing your pure, reverent behavior. And I just think women need to hear that God hasn't abandoned them. He hasn't forgotten them.

He sees their tears and he's already provided a solution. He said, just follow me. Do what I say and I will do the rest. You don't have to persuade him. You don't have to convince him. You know, cease your striving, your nagging.

Just focus on what the Lord is telling you to do, which is keep yourself and your family and your household pure and he will do the rest. Right. I mean, the summary of that is you, through your own godly behavior, put the fear of God into your husband. Bingo.

Yeah. And I mean, some women will say, yeah, but I've been at that for years and he doesn't seem to fear God. Well, that's why I say you reach out to our community and you get surrounded by other women who can help you keep going, help you keep going and also educate you because you need resolve.

It's really hard because unfortunately, the reality is you're probably going to get pushback, not because he's a bad husband, not because he's mean and he wants to hurt you, but because he is enslaved to this demonic bondage. Let's call it what it is. And everything in him is fighting tooth and nail to preserve his supply because it's the only thing that helps him cope with his internal feelings. You have an example of Gideon.

Yeah. Explain that, how this circumstance applies to Gideon's experience. I love the story of Gideon, especially because he was actually visited by an angel. He knew he was working for the Lord when he told him to pull down the Asherah pole and where they were worshiping Baal. He was instructed. He saw an angel. He knew what he got to do. So what did he do?

He went at night because he didn't want anybody to know that he'd done it. Isn't that just us? You know, God doesn't need us to be perfect. He knows that we're going to be shaky and weak-kneed, but that's okay. It's through our weakness that he displays his strength and his glory.

So it's okay to be wobbly. It's okay. And then he took, so he went and did it at night, and then he took it down. He chopped down this Asherah pole that they were all worshiping at, and he used it to create a fire that he then used as a sacrificial offering. So he took down what was being used to glorify Satan, to actually glorify God. And that's what we're doing here.

That's why I'm here publicly sharing what was one of the most potentially shameful things about me or my family and my husband. But I'm here to say this is such a Christian witness and why I believe that the greatest threat to the cause of Christ, which is pornography, could be our greatest tool of evangelism. We don't have an incredible Christian witness because we don't have a pornography problem.

We have a great Christian witness because we acknowledge that we do, but we have a powerful Savior who can turn it all around. And that's going to draw people. People want the help. They want this out in their marriage. Women are desperate.

Men are desperate. Yeah. And, I mean, your experience is right there in front of everyone, and your book explains that, what you and Mark went through. Let me address the secrets. You alluded to that, this idea that secrets are unhealthy in marriage. You maybe not have to go into all your details of being a teenager or 20-something, but the idea that, you know, when you're withholding things because of shame or because of consequences that you might face.

Describe that and why you need to keep secrets out of the marriage. Well, this is the whole hub, the whole nub, should I say, of addiction. It's the secrets. And why guys who want to, who try desperately to defeat this on their own, they say, well, I confess. I confess in my prayer closet. It's like, uh-uh.

You know, it's still a secret. You need to, you know, go vertically, you know, horizontal as well as vertically because that's scriptural too. 1 John 1.7. Walk in the light as he is in the light. And then Jesus Christ, his son, will cleanse you from all sin. That is the whole foundation of recovery.

Walk in the light. You have to, in order to kick this addiction, you have to fully share who you are with other people. And if you take it from a completely different perspective and they look at why people get addicted in the first place, and it's all to do with a trauma, attachment trauma that they've experienced. Because when they were hurting, there was no one there to soothe them. This is how we build attachment and build security. What happens in a group is they become that attachment figure.

So you share who you really are, what you really think, what you've really done, what you're probably going to do on the way home. And they still know you and they still love you. And then you put that together with the wife who now knows everything about you. And you know everything about her because she's now sharing her heart that she's hidden for so long because she's so frightened.

And you are both walking in the light. And it's enticing. It smells irresistible. I really do think recovery is irresistible. It's freedom. Yeah. And other people go, we have a community.

My husband's a CSAT, a certified sexual addiction therapist. And so we have now created a community of recovering couples. The freedom at those barbecues is incredible. And the fellowship because you can go, you know, people you've just met, you can go deep so quickly because no one is hiding. Right. It's beautiful.

It's what church should be. Yeah. Rosie, let me turn the corner on this. Again, your emphasis has been husbands who are addicted to porn. We do want to take the last quarter here, which actually fits the statistics ironically, you know, about 75% of men are addicted to porn. And it's the men about 75% of the time, but one in four women are now in that category as well.

So roughly 25%. In that context, it's just it's not just women, but women and girls. Describe what is why are they being lured into that with their brain chemistry and what's happening for women and girls when it comes to pornography? Great question. So often people struggle to accept that women and girls are looking at pornography. They're like, why?

Why would they want to do that? That's horrific. Look what's happening to the women not appreciating that our brains work in exactly the same way. And we are just as susceptible to becoming addicted because of the hijacking of the reward center that we covered in the last episode. So it's the same mechanism. It's exactly the same. And what they did, they actually put men and women in functional MRI machines and expose them to arousing material. And their brains lighted up in exactly the same way. It's exactly the same. And so there's a lot of misconceptions that women, you know, they're not stimulated visually.

It doesn't work. And it's just not true. The science is there now. There seems to be a little greater barrier, though. And it would show in the data if only 25 percent of women use porn where 75 percent of men do. Well, I think, you know, I dread to think what's going to happen in 20 years time because the younger you go, so the younger demographics, that number is much higher. We're in 30 percent.

I don't know what it is at the moment. 33 percent or 35 percent, depending which country you're in, actually. That is growing. So I do feel that we have a diminishing window of opportunity to actually reach people because, you know, majority of guys are doing it. Our young women are doing it. Our children are just drowning in this stuff. There's like a group of women who didn't grow up with this, that haven't had their brains addicted to this, who are able to stand up and fight. And that's who I'm speaking to.

Yeah. So the caution you're giving there is that in a couple of decades, we could see the number being at parity with men. Why not? For women. You have a story about bringing a former porn addict to your church to speak and something happened that was very dramatic there.

What happened? This is Lily, who is in the book. And she, how old was she? I think she was like 20 at the time when she gave her testimony. So she stood up and shared how, although she was an A student, came from a, you know, a good, loving family.

She was on the ballet team, the swim team, you know, perfect little girl. She got hopelessly addicted age 10 to pornography. So she shared this and shared how it made her feel and how she was so scared to come forward and no one would understand. And I also have her mother's testimony in the book about how they knew something was wrong, but had no comprehension that this could be the issue. So they never asked the question. No, you know, my 10 year old little girl's watching pornography.

You wouldn't think of it, would you? And she was sitting in the audience listening to this. She was at the church. Well, so this is, um, so Lily stood up and gave her testimony, but we had, uh, in the audience, there was a 10 year old girl sitting there and her mum rang me up the day afterwards and said, as we were driving home, my daughter burst into tears and confessed that this was her struggle. Wow. She was an honest little girl. Yeah.

And such freedom. And we've had, you know, kids who've given, who stood up, you know, age 14 and given their testimonies who got hooked at age six. Um, and I think we underestimate the, the potential and the power of empowering our young people by giving them the truth because those who have been through this have, have seen the damage that it's caused them and are now on the other side. They want to go and test, you know, give their testimonies to other kids and rescue them. You know, let's empower the people that we have. Yeah.

And that's where I want to go toward the end here is what are those next steps? Um, I'm sure this broadcast is going to stir the pot. You know, some couples are going to hear this. I can imagine a wife is going to listen to this and she's going to be at home tonight.

The couple's getting ready for bed. Guess what? I heard I'm focused today.

Do you struggle with that? And now he's got to answer one way or the other. He may cover up or he may say, I do. And when we look at the data, it's likely he is. And that's what's startling. The question is, what are those next steps? Let's assume that conversation is going to happen today because they heard this program. Yeah. Well, I would say a good way to start that conversation is to throw us under the bus and say, Oh, I was listening to this podcast and it mentioned that guys who do this are in bondage and they're really fearful of coming forward.

When was the last time you looked at it? Not do you because in their heads they can go, Oh, I don't really struggle. No, I don't really. And you don't know when and how often. But come at it from a position of I want to see whether we have this problem. There's something wrong with the intimacy in our relationship. You don't seem happy.

I want to I want to investigate whether this is a problem in our marriage. So the next steps are you need to find help. You need to find the right help. Your job is not to fix him. Remember, you didn't cause this. You can't control this and you certainly can't cure it.

Your job is not to fix him, but to get him to somebody who can get yourself to somebody who can as well. So there are tools. There's a pathway is a really narrow pathway.

I always think of it like Lord of the Rings film. They're going up the mountain and this fiery pit and it's really narrow. But you just have to stick on that pathway and follow the guide.

You have to follow the guide up the mountain and it is scary. However, many, many people have done it before. And there are tools in the book like it's really important that you do a full disclosure. Really important for both of them. There's things like celibacy and safety plans and partners of it.

There's all these things. But do them under the supervision of someone qualified, someone who has worked in this. Don't just go to someone familiar. Although you're going to get grace, you might not get truth. You need both.

You need someone who's experienced in this. And part of my whole ministry is to do that legwork for you because it's really hard. And there is an amazing Christian recovery community out there that most people have no idea exists. Once you stick your head sort of under the water and see this recovery community and all these really amazing, cool people who are on the other side of recovery, it's life changing. It's liberating. So we've done all the legwork for you and we can point you in all the right direction. Yeah, and that's really good. And you hit a couple of things at the end there about when you're rebooting celibacy at that moment, a safety plan.

Those are all things that are in the book. We can't cover it all. But Rosie, this has been extensive and I think a very informative two days of discussing this topic of pornography. You know, the goal again at Focus on the Family is to provide you with all the tools you need to have the healthiest marriage you can have.

And with the data that Rosie has shared and that many people are aware of now, husbands and some wives that are addicted to pornography, this is a core problem in our Christian community, let alone the world. And I'm so grateful to you for being vulnerable and talking about it. This isn't something I'm sure you thought of on day one of your marriage, but on day eight it happened. And, you know, you confronted it and you have learned a lot, both you and Mark, about how to deal with it. And I'm grateful for digging in rather than giving up. It says a lot about who you are.

It is. I was thinking about this this morning and I was saying to myself, don't cry when you get there because I can remember where I was. You know, after the honeymoon, I can remember where I was and how alone and hopeless. And if I had someone to hold my hand and say, what has happened to you is not right. And you don't have to put up with this. And he needs help and you need help. And there is hope. And you can have the marriage that you dreamed. He is your knight in shining armour.

He's just buried under this addiction. If I could tell myself that, then, you know, it would have made all the difference. So I hope that's what I've managed to do today, to just tell people that you're not alone. And there is hope. There is such tremendous hope. What allows you to have breath?

It probably feels like the breath is squeezed out of you in that moment. And if you're where Rosie was, call us today. Get in touch with us. We have Caring Christian Counsellors. We have lots of resources, including Rosie's great book, Fight for Love. That's what we're here to do for you.

Fight for your marriage and for the intimacy that God intended for you to have as a couple. Completely transparent, open and honest. So contact us right away. And if you can send a gift of any amount to focus on the family, we'll put a copy of Rosie's book into your hands as our way of saying thank you for caring enough about your marriage or the marriage of someone you know. And our number is 800, the letter A and the word family, 800-232-6459.

Or donate online, get the book and connect with the many resources we have for you at FocusOnTheFamily.com slash broadcast. Rosie, again, thank you for being with us. And please be sure to thank Mark, your husband, when you get home. Thank him for us as well. You have encouraged so many and we really appreciate it. It's been my pleasure.

Thank you. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team here, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. They encouraged me and my wife to attend one of their marriage intensives for couples in crisis and they prayed with us. They helped me believe that my marriage could be saved. I agreed to go but was very skeptical that anything could help us.

But the whole environment was so safe and non-judgmental. I felt my heart start to open up as we worked with the counselors. Both of us still have work to do in our marriage, but for the first time in a long time, we have hope again. Focus on the Family's Hope Restored Marriage Intensive Program has helped thousands of couples who thought that their marriage was over. Find out which program is right for you at HopeRestored.com