Moving Forward

My husband's sexual addiction has always been pornography. Just recently, I listened to him give his testimony for the first time, and although I've heard most of where his addiction stems from and what he did as he spiraled deeper and deeper into a hole, it still came as such a revelation to me. Here is a man, that ten years ago I had taken his hand in marriage and yet, we were such strangers in the beginning. When you marry young and aren't exposed to much addiction the way I was, then you have a hard time grasping what is going on in that person's mind. I'm glad I listened to his testimony. He took a large leap of faith by speaking before our Wed. young married group to people he barely knew (we are new to our church) and yet it felt like the most right thing in the world for him to do. He was scared of other church goers' judgement, but knew he had to take this step of faith and be obedient. We constantly say, "Don't be judgmental," but I have yet to meet someone who has never judged another in his/her life. We are human. It is what we do.

He walked away that night feeling he'd done what God had spoken to him to do, and I agreed. Two other women struggling with addiction spoke with him afterwards and he gave them some information on places they could go to in order to work on their addictions. What's interesting in this whole scenario is that not one man raised a hand, came forward, or spoke to my husband about struggling, and yet we know that many many men struggle with some form of sexual addiction. And there's a reason why this happened. Men most likely will not divulge this hidden secret unless finally caught. It's that simple. How heartbroken were you when you realized your spouse or significant other was hiding this ugly secret? And for so many years? Perhaps you were like me, living the Christian life and thinking everything was going along just fine, until BAM you look into his web browser history, notice an article of clothing that isn't yours, take a phone call on your husband's phone only to find it's a female voice you don't recognize, or happen to see emails from a questionable address.

The sickness in the pit of your stomach moves in and you know. You know things aren't right, nor will they ever be the same in your marriage or relationship again.

But you can move forward. You have to. Moving forward starts the healing process and that's what every unsuspecting victim needs. Healing.