I am here because I'm looking for hope. In the past, my hope has always come from an understanding of my agency and my Savior. I always knew that I could try to come closer to him and from the atonement everything would be okay.

I recently caught my husband in pornography (I had to download an aggressive software to recover the deleted files, so he was hiding it, not looking for a change). He informed me that this is a problem he has had on and off since high school. He overcame it, served a mission, but once we were married he had his first access to highspeed internet, and it got worse than ever.

A small part of me actually felt relieved when I find out - at least now I had an explanation for why him and I together did not have a spiritual relationship. We went through all the motions but still didn't have a spiritual home. And he was never the spiritual leader that I thought I had married. At first I felt like now I knew the source of so much of my continual pain, and it was a fixable source.

The reasons I am looking for hope are because the more that this has sank in (i just found out on 7/14/08). The more I have started to doubt that this problem is fixable. Yes, the atonement can heal us, but will we always be haunted by it. That is the feeling that I have received as I have desperately searched lds.org for helpful articles and hope.

To give you more of an understanding of why I lack hope, let me explain a little bit about my life history. From age 4 to 9 I was sexually abused by someone who got caught up in pornography. In High School a horrible guy harassed me for a few years, but it got worse and worse to the point that he was charged with sexual abuse too when I finally reported him. For college I went to BYU. I thought there would be some good guys to be around there, and there were ā€“ but they didnā€™t usually want to date me. I dated one guy who was using me horribly but I had a hard time seeing it until the night that I almost got date-raped. That was sickening. And right after that, I met my husband. Finally a decent guy who really had interest in me and would treat me well. We had some ups and downs (funny stories mostly) in our relationship, but after a while we got married (in 2002). Finally someone to not take advantage of me, and to treat me decently.

So, the one guy in my life that hasnā€™t let me down WAS letting me down ā€“ cheating on me with his computer for our entire marriage and I had no clue. I guess I did have a clue though ā€“ Iā€™ve wondered about it on multiple occasions over the last few years. BUT, instead of acting on my worry, I have criticized myself for being so suspicious and judgmental. It makes me so feel so sick and stupid and used.

Now you can probably see why even though logically I know I'm wrong, emotionally I am just hating men - and can't understand why every one that has ever played a significant part in my life has turned up yucky. I lack hope in men.

I lack hope because I caught him. He wasn't overwhelmed with the desire to change so that he came to me or the bishop about it. That didn't happen. I had to really get in there to even discover it.

I lack hope because he works from a company laptop that requires him to be on it all the time. He'll never be away from the temptation.

Other things that I know are heal-able through the atonement are still plaguing me right now with so much pain. One of these is that I feel horribly ugly and unattractive now (Iā€™m sure many of you know what 3 kids in 4 years can do to a body). And I have a general enough idea of what a 'p**n star' looks like to know that if that is what he feels the need for - I'll never be adequate. I even found that he searched for some by name, which just makes it worse.

Another challenge is that I had already been meeting with the bishop lately because I was struggling with depression and life has just been really hard. I felt like I could barely make it even BEFORE all this.

I had so many hopes of being like all these couples that I love that are older than us in every stage of life and just spiritual giants. Now I feel like those hopes are crushed and weā€™ll never end up like that.

He is saying that he wants to ā€˜clean upā€™ his life so that he can be more receptive to the spirit, but as we talk about what he can do he will agree with some things and then others heā€™ll say, ā€œwell I donā€™t know if Iā€™m ready to go there yetā€ (like the disgustingly nasty ultimate fighting shows with all their fowl language and pornographic number holding models).

I just question his commitment. Iā€™ve also asked him to do certain things to help me feel better about it all, and he certainly isnā€™t trying very hard.

Iā€™ve always wanted a big family, but now that I know these spiritual burdens are here to stay, I donā€™t know if I should bring more children here to experience this with us.

Thanks for letting me vent on here. The pain of not being able to reach out to people around me in person for help and support is so hard. And my husband just isnā€™t really the comforting type ā€“ especially right now.

I am sure there is hope out there, I just haven't been able to find it yet. Fortunately I do have a strong testimony - though right now it feels mostly in my head and it's hard to get past the pain in my heart. I know that I know.

If you are someone who is experiencing this - or especially someone who knows of ANYONE recovering completely from something like this, please share with me. I would be so uplifted.

Tags: Husband Pornography Hope Recovering Repentance

5 comments View Entry