I’ve Been Caught.

by Freedom Fight | March 9, 2023

A porn user’s guide to freedom and growth when you’re caught using porn – and your wife finds out.

caught with porn

There is a hope that you are not your worst mistake.

At Freedom Fight, we often encounter those whose secret porn use is a secret no more. When the secret-finder is the wife of a porn user, the pain of finding out can be all the more acute for both sides. It is inevitable for this sequence of events to produce shame for the porn user. Unfortunately, shame can often trigger the learned behavior whereby the brain seeks the comfort found in dopamine provided by even more porn use. 

Being caught using porn is an opportunity to move toward healing, but

merely being caught using porn almost certainly will not be enough to stop porn use

Being caught using porn by your wife can kickstart you to a journey toward healing and wholeness, but there are things to know and things to do.

7 Truths TO KNOW About Porn:

Hard truths of porn use that must be faced on the road to healing and wholeness. 

Why do married men watch porn?

Men typically start watching porn as boys. At a younger age they are full of curiosity and want sexual stimulation. Over time, they learn to use the dopamine high as a way to dull the discomforts of life. The brain learns to treat negative emotions as a trigger. If a man has learned to use porn to medicate his stress then stress will cause him to start craving porn.

Once men become addicted, they’ve taken the drug for emotional relief to the point where it feels like they can’t live without it. Your brain learns that the drug is critical to your emotional stability. At this point, porn is about much more than just sex, it becomes about meeting the “needs” of the addicted brain. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much porn use to get to this level of dependence.

Porn is False Intimacy

God designed the Christian marriage so that “the two shall become one”. Not just sexually, but through emotional intimacy. Pornography rails against that design. Porn is false intimacy, and it’s isolating. The impact of pornography use on marriages is devastating. Porn undermines marriages and fills them with lies and deceit. But there is hope for your marriage to survive and thrive. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be quick, but couples can build a life free from porn.

Porn Harms Marriages

Research has shown that pornography use is associated with the following trends:

  • Increased marital distress
  • Increased risk of separation and divorce
  • Decreased marital intimacy and sexual satisfaction
  • Infidelity
  • Increased appetite for more graphic pornography
  • Increased sexual activity associated with abusive, illegal or unsafe practices
  • Devaluation of monogamy, marriage and raising children.

Numerous studies show that people who do not consume porn are significantly happier in relationships than those who do. This is particularly true for Christian marriages, because for Christians, porn use often causes even greater shame. People who feel this way often isolate themselves from their spouse. Their spouse feels the isolation and accompanying loneliness, but does not know why.

Replacing Love with Porn

Porn is easy. Marriage can be hard. Over time, people turn to porn instead of doing the work of loving, serving, and romancing their spouse. Instead of putting in the time to resolve a conflict, it becomes easier to ignore tension and turn to porn. Porn becomes a cheap substitute for real, healthy, marital sex. This strikes at the heart of a healthy marriage.

Dr. John Gottman founded the world-renowned Gottman Institute, a research center devoted to the study of relationships. Gottmann wrote in an open letter:

Use of pornography by one partner leads the couple to have far less sex and ultimately reduces relationship satisfaction. We are led to unconditionally conclude that for many reasons, pornography poses a serious threat to couple intimacy and relationship harmony.

Watching Porn is Cheating

It is easy for a person to convince themselves that cheating on a spouse virtually isn’t really cheating. Christians know that rationalization won’t work. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28). Lusting after someone in our hearts is adultery. It crosses a clear line that Jesus established. Don’t believe the lie that it isn’t cheating.

Porn Brings Trust Issues

Most Christian wives who find out about her husband’s porn use will feel betrayed. The husband will need to rebuild trust with his wife. In our program we help husbands understand their wife’s need for boundaries in order to establish trust. It is about what makes her feel safe.

Watching Together Doesn’t Work

Even if both husband and wife are involved in porn use, it doesn’t diminish the issues around fake intimacy and false expectations. Whatever sizzle and spice are gained initially are completely erased by the negative impact watching porn has on married couples. It causes a lust for others to be a part of a couple’s sex life. The reality is this: 100% of all the peer-reviewed research done on the impact of pornography on marriages agree that porn use is never linked to positive marital outcomes.

One wife actually wrote her ex-husband to explain how porn impacted their sex lives:

There were words for what we did but it was never making love. And without the extreme visuals, the videos playing in the background – you looking at them rather than me – you could never find satisfaction. So there could never be compromise. It made me feel that I was less than. There was never intimacy in what we did and in the end I stopped wanting sex. Not that you wanted it with me anyway.

3 Things TO DO on a Journey of Healing from Porn Use:

Beginning points for a long journey toward healing and wholeness. 

Remember, the outing of your secret- though painful and shame-filled- can be a catalyst to your healing. But this healing requires action.

Inspect Your Tech.

There is no silver bullet on this journey and no shortcuts. You can always maneuver around the barriers you create to avoid porn. With that said, anyone beginning the journey away from porn use should begin at the source- which is far and away our phones and computers. 

Check out our guide to whitelisting your phone and various filtering software that can be employed for web use.

Find Trusted Community.

The Journey to healing is not one to take alone. Porn isolates and feeds on isolation. The road to healing is a pathway out of isolation and into relationships where you can be honest and accountable. 

Maybe you already have a few trusted friends or can easily think of one or two people whom you trust to accompany you. If not, consider signing up to be a part of our Freedom Fight Community with others seeking a way out of porn use. 

Do not believe nor accept the lie that you are alone in this struggle.

Engage the Freedom Fight Journey.

At Freedom Fight, we exist to come alongside you and provide various tools and content to help you fight for and find freedom. Be sure to check out our website for a more robust offering, but here are just a few ways to engage with us.

 

Published: March 9, 2023  |   Community Quitting
Learn more about the Freedom Fight

Why Our Program Works