Lying....or Not?

I was being a good little Baptist girl and reading my Sunday School lesson for last week and came across a statement that fueled a long, heated discussion with my husband.


The lesson was on forgiveness, but the statement concerned lying. We've had really good lessons this month, all about relationships and how to be trustworthy, forgiving, etc. Of course, everything (and I mean everything) gets filtered through my ever-present "SA filter." So maybe you wives will understand where I'm going with this and maybe you will agree with me since not too many people have.

Here's the statement. (I don't have the book beside me, so I'm paraphrasing).


.....telling the truth does not mean we have to disclose everything we know......


Okay, that may seem straightforward at first glance. And I suppose it is. I do agree with the statement, and I can think of many situations where disclosing everything I knew could have made a situation worse. I'm sure you can think of situations as well. In context of the paragraph, the author clearly meant it to promote honesty within the church, but to deter blabbermouths. I completely agree with this statement.


Except with my husband and his addiction. When I hold this statement up to our relationship and his honesty about his porn use, I come to a very different conclusion. If he does not tell me when he has looked at porn, and then I find out about it, that is just like lying to me. If he looks at porn today and doesn't tell me about it until June 29th, that is a full month of lies. Right?

Hubby does not think so. Get this, hubby believes it all depends on the question he is asked. If I do not specifically ask him if he has looked at porn today, then he is not lying. If I only ask how his day was, he can say "fine" and that to him is not a lie. If this logic is true, then it could be said that over the 10 years or so that hubby was binging on porn, wrecking our marriage, and keeping the whole crazy mess hidden from me, he never lied to me. Because I never asked him the specific question, "Are you looking at pornography?" I just knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what. So my question was usually, "What is wrong with you?"

Is this crazy to anybody else but me? Hubby knows I want to know within 24 hours of him looking at porn. So if he waits more than 24 hours, the result is LYING. His silence is a lie.

Now, I do understand that for you whose hubby's has actually had an affair with a living, breathing person, the word "disclosure" brings up a whole other issue. When? Where? How many times? What song was playing? And the list of questions could go on.....

Although I understand how you would want to know this, I also know that full disclosure is sometimes not the best way to go. Some things we are better off not knowing.

But I am just talking about honesty and trust between my hubby and me and him 'fessing up to looking at porn. I am not taking it upon myself to ask him every single day if he looked at porn...that is not my responsibility. I want him to have the courage to step up and take responsibility for it, no matter what question I might have asked.

I'm Feeling

For some reason, the only thing I want to do is lie in bed and cry today. I'm not feeling victorious, hopeful, or optimistic right now.

Hubby is angry with me. I don't want to give out too many details, but I bet you can figure it out. It goes back to that old saying, "money and sex, never enough of either one." He would definitely agree with the latter.

I've just not been in "the mood" lately. Okay, I haven't been in "the mood" for a long time. And he's angry. Says he will just stop even bringing it up anymore.

I know this is dangerous territory to put a porn addict in. Rejection from wife, feelings of inadequacy, feelings that something is inately wrong with him. I know all of that in my mind, but I just can't convince my body it's worth the time and effort right now.

Maybe subconsciously I'm testing him. Maybe subconsciously something is deeply rooted in me that I can't identify or eradicate. Or maybe I'm just tired.

Tired of thinking, planning, analyzing, praying, hoping, wanting, waiting. Tired.

I'm going to lie down.

You Won't Believe Where I've Been

This blog will be somewhat vague in order to protect any one person's identity. Please understand this as I try to tell this story with little to no details.

I've been wanting to blog about this for a long time, but I felt that out of respect and privacy for the couple, I could not. However, after yesterday, I feel it necessary to tell their story in order to deter others from going down the same path. At the same time, it is a wonderful story of God's grace and answered prayers.

I know a couple. They live in another state. Dear, dear friends of both my husband and me. Several months ago, we received devastating news that the male (I will just refer to him as "the male") had been arrested. I will not tell you the exact charge, but it was a crime of sexual nature involving the internet.

Shock. More shock. We were in shock. We could not believe it. This guy was a Christian man with more morals in his pinky than in my whole body. How could this have happened? Well, I think we know how. Internet porn. That's where it all started.

An interesting side note to this story: The day before we received the phone call about his arrest, I wrote in my journal the following words: "Today I pray for the Lord to send someone my way for me to help. A wife who needs ministering to." The very next morning the phone rang with the news of "the male's" arrest. I knew who I had to talk to. I had to talk to his wife.

Six days later, I called his wife and from that point on, we have been talking weekly. Her life has been changed forever. And I mean changed down to the smallest detail. She quickly filed for divorce as I think we all would, but after much prompting from the Holy Spirit, felt the Lord calling her to stay with her husband. Her church family and her family have pretty much shunned her for this decision.

So back to yesterday. Yesterday was his sentencing. My hubby and I went. None of his wife's family came. How sad. I sat next to her while the sentence was handed down to her husband.

Although he will spend years in prison, the sentence was lighter than we all expected, so we are praising God for that. I am also praising God because when we exited the courtroom, the few family that was there, along with the lawyer, all joined hands in a circle and "the male" led us in prayer! He had just been sentenced and he was leading us in prayer. Amazing.

They are hoping to write a book about their experience which is definitely not over yet. His wife will have alot of hard days ahead of her, but she is a strong Christian woman determined to make their marriage work.

My hubby has been strongly affected by this whole matter as you can imagine. And sitting in a courtroom listening to a lawyer explain how this slippery slope was all started in motion by internet pornography was a sobering experience.

Husbands, this is a serious addiction. Don't think the above story could not be about you and your wife. It could be. It could easily be.

Wives, do not for a moment think you are "overreacting" to his pornography use. This is a serious addiction with serious consequences.

Mother's Day

Hubby was on the clock 19 hours Saturday. Granted, that will be the longest day of his summer work, but his weekend work is definitely not over.

He handled it pretty well, better than I expected. He was soooo tired, but he actually made it to church Sunday morning. He missed Sunday School (I'll let him slide), but he came to the service. I think he did it because his parents were here. So we were all in church together. It was very nice given the fact that his parents have all but stopped going to church. We're not sure why, but they just won't go. It's hard to do much about it when they live in another state, but we do pray for them.

It was also nice for the whole family to be together at church Sunday because it was Mother's Day. I wonder if all the sermons across this country were the same. The one I heard was about three upstanding women of the Bible. Moses' mother, John Mark's mother, and Timothy's mother/grandmother. We were told how mothers can impact generations and are the very best caretakers for their children. This is true.

So why do these holidays always make me sad? Because I start looking around our small congregation thinking about people's situations. I can't go into them all, but just in the immediate group around me, there was one lady who had not spoken to her mother in over a year, and there was a teenager whose mother had walked out when she was a baby and left her to be raised by grandma. That is just two cases that I knew about, I'm sure there were more that I didn't know about. And there's never any mention in the sermon about what these people are supposed to do with these "I Despise My Mother" feelings.

I feel the same way on Father's Day. I don't know about your church, but even though mine is very small, there are only a couple of families who are not blended; over half the kids at our church miss every other Sunday because they are at Daddy's. No matter, on Father's Day, the sermon will be on how dads are great and wonderful and the anchor in the home.

I would like to hear a sermon about how the family really is. Screwed. Preach to us about how to stop the cycles of abuse/addiction/poverty. Preach to us about how to accept God's grace and how to love each other no matter how our earthly parents treated us. Preach to us about how our church is only as strong as the weakest family in it.

I love my church and I love and respect my pastor, but sometimes these holiday sermons are just too sugarcoated. What about your Mother's day sermon?

God's Not the One Who Moved

Hubby is working late, kids are watching a movie, so I thought I would take this chance to write a few things down.

Not long after discovering my hubby's addiction, (and it was a "discovery," I'm not sure he would have ever told me,) I went through sort of a spiritual awakening myself. I realized I was far, far away from God and that He was not the one who had moved. I was "playing church," and knew how to do it very, very well. One night, about 9 months into this recovery, we were lying in bed and I ended up spilling my guts to hubby about how I felt so disconnected from God and how nothing seemed real to me in church anymore. I wish I could blame that all on the addiction and how my hubby had completely shook my foundation, but I couldn't. It was coming clear that the problem was that I had made hubby/family my foundation instead of God. I was/am very involved in church, but there's a difference in going to church and having a relationship with Jesus Christ. I know that now. Anyway, that night, I ended up praying to God to renew the joy of my salvation, to bring me back into his fold, and to put a hunger inside my soul to know Him. Guess what? He did!

I have never read scripture like I did after that. The words seemed to be in there just for me. I was reading Scripture I swore I had never read before! Hubby was excited for me, but a little uncomfortable I think. Remember, this was early recovery so we were dealing with alot, and he was still fighting against the "God is your only help" answer to fighting his addiction to porn, so he really did not know what to do with me. Reading my Bible was not the only thing changing. I was praying, I mean really praying, down-on-my-knees praying.....I could feel God in the room with me, and I will never forget it. I saw God answering prayers over the next few weeks and it was absolutely amazing.

It was during this time that I started to feel the Holy Spirit really speaking to me about helping other women who are dealing with these sorts of issues. I felt that very strongly. I did not have any idea what to do, still don't, but I know that "call" was not a fake. And God was working in hubby too....because he feels the call and is ready to do something about it.

Which brings us to next Tuesday. Next Tuesday he goes to tour a theological seminary close to our home. He wants to be admitted to the marriage and family counseling program.

So I'm scared. Is that wrong? How will we eat? Will he still work full-time; part-time, or no-time? Will we have to move? What if he hates this like he has hated every other job? What if he cannot even get a job around here?

Not long after my "spiritual renewal," I went to the Christian bookstore and found a devotional book by Charles Spurgeon. This book is anointed, I am telling you! I was reading through some of the dog-eared pages this evening and found something I'd like to share with you all. I hope you find comfort in it as you search for a thread of hope in this ugly addiction.

"It is very wonderful, but it is certainly true, that there are many
persons in heaven in whom sin once abounded. In the judgment of their
fellowmen, some of them were worst sinners than others. Among the best
servants of God are many of those who were once the best servants of the
devil......They were long led captive by the devil at his will, but they were
never such servants to Satan as they afterward became to the living and true
God." Charles Spurgeon

Just Some Thoughts

I'm tired so this might be short. I took on an extra doctor to transcribe today so I'm just finishing up. Hubby is already in bed. He's tired too. This week and weekend is the hardest of the year for him. They have a festival/fair/arts and crafts event at the park and he will be working late every day this week plus all weekend (except Sunday I hope, being its Mother's Day and his mother will be in town).

Daughter is getting sick and son is on punishment for blatantly disobeying me twice Monday afternoon. This is his first real grounding...no friends over, no TV, no PlayStation, and no computer for three days. I think it's been quite pleasant, he thinks he is going to die.

I hope everything is going well for you. I want you to know that God loves you and He is the only one who will never leave you nor forsake you. I also want you to know that even though my hubby and I are not in the "muck" of his addiction at present, I can so remember what it's like. In fact, it's scary how certain things can trigger my emotions and send me in a tailspin right back to the bottom of the pit. Thankfully, those triggers are coming alot less often. Hubby thanked me the other night for supporting him through all of this. I thanked him for being committed to his recovery. Even though he has had his slip-ups, I know that he wants this recovery more than anything in the world. And that is what keeps me here. I remember in one of our very first counseling sessions, the counselor asked me if there was one thing I needed to know from hubby. I said, "I need to know he is in this. I need to know he is fighting for us." For some reason, that has really stuck with hubby. He doesn't refer back to the specific counseling session, but every now and then, he will tell me that he is still fighting and he is not giving up. That is so reassuring to me, and it makes me feel a calm inside. It's when he stops fighting that we have serious problems.

If your hubby is seriously committed to his recovery, then you have great things to look forward to. It does get better, trust me. It does not happen overnight and it does not come easily. But it does get better. We started on this journey in November of 2006 and I dare say we are near the end. In fact, I think this battle is only over when we hear, "Well done, my good and faithful servant."

Okay, so much for being short. Thanks for reading. Feel free to e-mail me at any time! I'd love to hear your story.