God Wanted Me To Tell My Wife About My Porn Habit

God said that to me. Loud and clear. That was the last thing I wanted to hear.

This is the story of what happened next, my fight for freedom, and why defining your why is critical.

If pornography addiction is rearing its ugly head in your life, if it feels out of control and unconquerable, hope is not lost. There is life on the other side—a place where you get the arrows of porn out of your back; where the wounds heal; and where you live in a freedom you never thought possible.

Thank God, I’ve been clean from porn for years now. But just like my brothers and sisters in active recovery programs, I understand that my addiction never completely goes away. I am still learning, still healing, and still moving into greater degrees of freedom, even years away from that blast zone.

I want the same for you.

This is my story.

Shot Through With Holes

Like many of my peers, I was exposed to pornography in my early teens. It felt exciting, even a little bit dangerous, to consume something I knew I wasn’t supposed to be seeing. I thought I had control over it, but that was only an illusion. I never had control, and before long, even that illusion was shattered. The thrill of keeping a grown-up secret became a vice with a death grip around my life.

I tried so many times, and so many different ways, of scratching my way back to freedom again. I would bring my secret out into the light, sharing my struggles with friends, family, and trusted spiritual leaders. Coming out of those emotionally charged moments, we would create safety nets and accountability to fix the problem. It would work for a while… until it didn’t anymore. I would inevitably fall into my bad habit again, and back into the shadows of hiding, shame, and destruction.

The thing is, I knew all the right answers. I knew that pornography was bad for my brain. I knew it was a poison that would destroy any future chances I had of having my own family with a woman I loved. I knew that the porn industry was behind some of the worst evils in the world, including the trafficking of children. Worst of all, I knew God hated it, for all the reasons mentioned above. And yet I couldn’t stop.

To temper my guilt, I became an acrobat at justifying my actions:

 “Since everyone’s already doing it, what difference does it make if I watch?”

“This is the best way to satisfy my natural sexual urges, and God gave me those, right?”

“This is just who I am. It’s my thorn in the flesh, just like Paul.”

That last one was especially dangerous, twisting the word of God to justify a habit that was destroying people made in His own image—myself included.

When the justification stopped working, emotional numbness took over. It enabled me to have no second thought about what I was watching. To be brutally honest, there was no excitement left in pornography—and there was no feeling left in me either.

My addiction was turning me into a shell. I had to hide it from those closest to me. It built a barrier between me and God. And it was robbing me of joy. When I wasn’t watching porn, I was thinking about it, and when I was watching it, I felt even emptier.

I had spent nearly half my life addicted to porn. I hated it… and didn’t think I could live without it. I’d decided to give up, to stop fighting, when I heard the last thing I ever wanted to hear.

Tell Your Wife

Drowning in despair, one morning, I heard something I never wanted to hear. I heard God speaking to me. Wasn’t he disgusted with my sin? Didn’t he hate me because of what I was doing to those I claimed to love? Hadn’t he given up on me a long time ago?

And yet, there it was, impossible to ignore. I’m not sure if it was an audible voice or not, but it was clear as a bell: I had to tell my wife about my addiction.

I’d actually considered this multiple times before but always found a way to chicken out. This time was different. It was as if the words were seared into my brain. I couldn’t shake the feeling. This was the absolute very last thing I wanted to do. My wife was aware that pornography was a problem in the past, but to her knowledge, I’d kicked the habit years ago.

After a full day fighting with God about it, I found myself sitting on the edge of our bed having a hard, honest conversation. My wife was understandably upset. I had lied to her and broken her trust. Things would never be the same.

We talked as long as she wanted, and I answered every question she asked honestly, making sure to never blame her. Every single card was on the table. My secret was out.

I’m gonna be honest, I did not feel better. In many ways, I felt worse. The charade of the man I was pretending to be had been obliterated. But God can still build with broken pieces.

After a long discussion, we moved into what to do next. My phone went into lockdown mode. Settings were hidden behind passwords I didn’t know; problematic apps were wiped clean; we installed internet filtering software that blocked all pornographic websites. My wife had full permission to see my phone and look through it whenever she wanted.

Then we made a list of people for me to talk to. Some were to confess and seek forgiveness for what I had done. Others were to see if they would check in on me and hold me to the plan we’d set in place, asking the hard questions and getting in the muck and mud with me.

We had the physical limits in place to help heal my mind and marriage—the internet blockers, phone passwords, and app deletions. But that was only step one. I knew I had to wade out into deeper water if this shot at sobriety was going to be more than just a flash in the pan.

In order to find full and lasting freedom, I had to put on my big boy pants and confront the spiritual side of porn addiction.

Porn Is Spiritual

In the Bible, when God’s people faced dire circumstances, they’d fast. It’s an ancient practice of giving up (or limiting) food and water in order to seek God’s guidance and breakthrough. It’s a physical way to say to God, “I need you to come through.” And when the hunger pangs hit, it’s a reminder to press into prayer.

With the first hard conversation with my wife behind me (there were many more to come), and the physical limiters put in place, I knew I needed a hard reset—like holding down the power button on a laptop. I needed to clear the cache, and get my mind, body, and soul back to some kind of equilibrium. I decided I’d do that by fasting for three whole days.

These were the worst three days of my life. I was, of course, hungry, but that wasn’t what made it bad. I had what felt like the closest thing to depression I’ve ever experienced. It was as if there was a thousand-pound cloud on my shoulders that just kept me physically and emotionally down. It was impossible to think beyond how I was going to survive the next five minutes, let alone an entire day, week, or year.

On the afternoon of the third day, I was on the floor playing with one of our kids, trying my best to be a present father despite the mental and physical anguish, when my wife walked in the room.

“You look awful,” she said.

The only way I can describe what happened next is to say I had a vision. It’s one way that God speaks to me. I understand that might not be the case for you, and that’s cool. Even so, what I “saw” next was the most vivid thing I’ve ever experienced.

God took my vision out-of-body, and I felt like I was looking at myself. Out of nowhere, three arrows shot right at me, piercing me in the back. I couldn’t reach them or do anything about them.

As quickly as I saw it, the vision was gone. I was back in my living room, on the floor with my toddler. Whatever small amount of energy I was still living on completely left my body.

“I feel awful,” I said, finally responding to my wife. “I need to lay down.”

I crashed out like never before. I went straight to bed, and slept for over 12 hours.

When I finally woke up the next morning, I dragged myself out of bed and went straight into prayer time. I was blunt with God. I told him with tears in my eyes, “I know watching porn is bad, I’ve never felt this bad before. At this point, I would rather watch porn if it meant feeling like this went away. But God, I trust you, so anything that is not of you, take it away from me.”

Just like the day before, God pulled me into another vision. I saw myself again, the three arrows sticking out of my back. Except this time, Jesus walked up behind me. He pulled the three arrows from my body, and broke them against his knee. “It is finished,” he said.

I could see, for the first time, that each arrow had a name written on it. One was labeled “guilt.” Another said “shame.” The last one had “death” written on it.

Guilt. Shame. Death.

That was the path, and the destination, my addiction was leading me to. Out of his goodness, his compassion, his love for me, Jesus broke all three arrows.

I’m writing this at my desk, literally about to cry on my keyboard. This is one of the most impactful, and important, moments of my entire life. Watching Jesus pull those arrows out of my back, and break them on his knee, changed something inside me. The pain, the depression, the weight of my mistakes—it vanished, in an instant.

That doesn’t mean everything in my life suddenly turned technicolor. There was a long road of healing ahead. Rebuilding trust with my wife took time. Retraining my brain, my eyes, and fingers was a fight. There are changes I made to my life back then that I still maintain today.

The fight isn’t over, but the war is.

He’s Coming For You Too

I know what cynicism is saying to you right now, because it said the same things to me.

I’d read articles about getting over porn. I’d heard people give compelling talks about how to quit. I had conversations with friends who’d gone on the same journey.

“That’s great for you,” I’d think, “But what about me?”

I understand if that’s your response to all this. I’ll be the first to admit, having a vision is kind of weird. Trusting someone you’ve never met about a deeply personal topic can be hard. Porn has a way of sinking its claws into people so deeply that it feels impossible to break free.

God gave me a vision, because that’s what I needed, but the outcome isn’t specific to me. The freedom that Jesus handed me, after breaking those cursed arrows, is the same freedom he offers you.

Nobody likes living with guilt, so we hide from it. We build walls of emotional separation, ignoring the fact that porn is built on greed, objectification and trafficking. We compartmentalize that part of our life, keeping it tucked away so we can survive until our next hit. But you weren’t meant to live that way. Guilt distorts our internal sense of truth, and with it, it’s easy to lose our bearings on everything else around us.

Shame pushes us into isolation. For years, I lived in constant fear of my secret coming to light. It stopped me from seeking the help I truly needed, and cut me off from the people I claimed to love the most. Shame screamed that, as soon as anyone knew about my addiction, they’d cut me out of their lives.

Guilt and shame took me by the hand, and were leading me to death. Despite following Jesus for years, I had come to believe that my addiction had pushed me outside the bounds of his love and grace. At my worst, I even stopped asking him for forgiveness, because I knew I was going to watch porn again anyway—and why would he answer a hypocrite like me? If I died, I believed Jesus would let me into heaven… but only barely, and with a disappointed look on his face.

Guilt, shame, and death were lying to me—and I believe they are lying to you.

Jesus came to bring freedom. That freedom tastes the best when you know—and admit—that you’re shackled.

We don’t earn freedom. We don’t work our way up to it. We don’t make ourselves good enough, and then Jesus decides we are worthy of his love, attention, or help. Scripture is quite clear on that point:

“While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly… God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us… while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His son.” - Romans 5:6-9

Nothing—not your addiction, or the guilt, shame and death that comes with it—can keep you from the freedom that Jesus won for you. Your worst mistakes and habits don’t get the final say. That belongs to the one who breaks arrows, chains, and dividing walls.

As I began dealing with the spiritual components of my addiction, learning to overcome guilt, shame, and death, something unexpected came into clarity. Namely, that all my other attempts to leave porn behind had failed because I had the wrong why.

The Right Why

Over the years, I had so many different “whys” behind my need to stop watching porn.

• It’s bad for my marriage
• It’s not good for my brain
• It’s a bad example for my kids

They meant well, but they never got as deep as they needed to be. At the end of the day, my habits and desires would overpower them.

The vision God gave me of Jesus breaking the arrows finally solidified my why. Porn is destructive for all the reasons listed above, and many more, but the “why” behind my sobriety came into focus when I understood the simple fact that porn causes me to move farther away from Jesus.

It’s not that he walks away from me, but that it pushes me farther away from him. Realizing the great lengths he went to shorten the distance between us, I don’t want to put anything in between us.

My marriage, my sexual urges, my need to be holy all failed as my “why” because they focused on me. On my own, I am too weak to win the battle that still rages around me. But with God, all things are possible. I need his power. His intervention. His freedom. I needed it then, and I still need it now.

More For You

What you read in a few minutes represents years of my life. It wasn’t an easy journey, or even a linear one for that matter. What you won’t find here are the hours of prayer, the days crying out to Jesus for help, the mountain of podcasts, the hard conversations with friends, and the tough love from mentors.

The journey has been hard, and it has absolutely been worth it. If you’re on the path, hear me clearly: freedom is possible. Keep fighting. Keep asking Jesus for it. Keep looking for his breakthrough. Define your “why.” Put up physical barriers to porn. Deal with the spiritual realities driving you to it. And most of all, don’t give up hope.

Even though I’ve been clean for a while, I still don’t have full access to my phone. There are certain guardrails still in place to protect me and remind me of the battle I’m still in. I’m in recovery for the long haul. And those arrows I talked about earlier—God has shown me there are more that still need to come out.

But now I trust that he’s willing to pull them out for me.

If you are someone who is dealing with a pornography addiction. I would love to pray over you.

Jesus,

Thank you for the freedom you provide and the truth you bring to our lives. I ask for anyone who is reading this article and is struggling with pornography that you would free them from guilt, shame, and death. Remove any arrows still stuck in them, and help them to walk into your freedom. Help us all to put you first every day in all things. We love you, Father.

Amen.

I got this tattoo a few years ago. It is a daily reminder of the freedom Jesus won for me, a freedom I know he’s ready to share with you too. You can do this.