To watch/listen to this article rather than reading it, click play on the video below. (It’s kina long, but it’s important information!)
The Story Of The Couple Haunted By Porn
I want to tell you a story about Michael and Jane.
Michael secretly watches porn.
He’s been doing it off-and-on for a while. Oftentimes it’s when he’s feeling lonely, stressed, overwhelmed, or depressed…
In every other aspect of his life, he sees himself as a great guy. He’s a hard worker. He tries to be an attentive husband and father.
But he has this secret…
And he hates himself for it, because it goes directly against his values of respecting women, being faithful to his wife in his thoughts and his heart, and so much more.
But the porn use feels out-of-control…
He’s promised himself countless times that he’ll stop… but he keeps finding himself turning back to it again and again.
And he’s terrified that if his wife finds out, she’ll think he’s some kind of monster and divorce him and he’ll lose everything.
His secret weighs on him almost as much as the consequence of disclosing the secret.
Eventually, Jane finds out.
Regardless of whether Michaels confessed to her, or she found out on her own, she feels deeply hurt, angry, confused... even betrayed.
She has tons of unanswered questions.
“Why did you keep it a secret?”
“What else are you hiding?”
“Do I even know you?”
“Am I not sexy enough for you?”
“Do you care more about porn than you care about our marriage?”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Is this going to escalate to the point where you’re a danger to me or the children? Are you going to turn into Ted Bundy?”
They’re both terrified, hurt, and confused.
They have to fix this problem, or it will lead to the inevitable end of their relationship.
So they start looking for a solution.
Does this story sound familiar yet?
Asking The Wrong Questions
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The immediate question most people ask in this situation is, “How can we make the porn use go away?”
They reach out to therapists, religious leaders, maybe even friends and family.
They start doing research online.
They want answers. Help. Support. Direction. ANYTHING…
Some people join Facebook groups.
Others go to a treatment program or therapy to be treated for a “porn addiction.”
And some people just try to figure it out on their own. They don’t want anyone finding out what is now their secret.
These are the only solutions most people are offered.
But too often, the solutions provide the opposite of the results that the couple wants which kills the intimacy in the relationship over the long term, and leave them feeling stressed, distant, and angry.
Here’s what that looks like in the case of Michael and Jane:
Jane becomes Michael’s porn parole officer.
She doesn’t want to get hurt again.
She doesn’t want to lose her marriage…
So, she makes it her responsibility to monitor her husband’s internet and phone use.
She asks for his passwords.
They have regular check-ins to see how he’s doing.
She takes him to therapy or a 12 step program.
She asks that he meet regularly with their religious leader.
And she joins Facebook groups where she starts connecting with other women who have felt betrayed by their husband’s porn use… even though the posts in these groups often left her feeling icky and sad.
She does all to help ensure that her husband won’t have another “slip-up”… while secretly hating the fact a “slip-up” will probably happen in the future… at which point she’ll have to deal with the feelings of betrayal and broken trust again, and confront the question of whether or not this is all worth it.
While all this is happening with Jane, Michael is going through his own miserable experiences.
As friends and family start to hear about his porn problem, people start talking behind his back. He gets labeled as a selfish, immature sexual deviant.
He’s treated as if he has no self-control or moral compass.
He is constantly fed the message that he is undeserving of trust, that he’s dirty, unworthy, a disappointment as a husband and father, and will always (eventually) end up hurting the people he loves.
He walks around in constant fear that one weak moment could result in him losing everything that is dear to him.
He’s lonely.
He feels misunderstood.
And he feels like nobody sees all the good in him anymore. All they see is a man with a porn problem.
Nobody hates himself more than he hates himself… and that’s saying something.
And this is the tension Jane and Michael live in… day-to-day for months, years, or even decades.
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The porn might be “gone,” but the tension and anxiety is always there in the background.
How can a husband and wife restore trust, intimacy, and safety to their relationship when they are constantly holding their breath, on high alert, hoping they are finally done with porn… but just waiting for the next relapse, wondering if it will mean the end of their relationship?
Nobody wants to spend the rest of their marriage in this state…
So, today I want to talk to you about a better way.
A way that will create space for intimacy and trust to be rebuilt, while still allowing for accountability and shared values to be explored.
Today, I’m going to share with you a new way of thinking about pornography, and 6 conversations you can have that will help you successfully move past your porn problem, and heal your marriage.
Questions That Lead To Health
I want to start by asking you a question.
If I were to ask you, “How do you cultivate physical health?”… what would your answer be?
Most people say things like:
Eat healthily
Exercise regularly
Get at least 8 hours of sleep
Drink lots of water
Your physical health is something you’ve grown up learning and talking about.
Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels
For example, your parents probably taught you that you couldn’t eat all your Halloween candy in one sitting, or you’d get sick.
They tried to make you eat your vegetables… even the lima beans.
They had a bedtime routine for you to help you get enough sleep.
From the time you were a kid, you learned the basics of what you needed to do to be physically healthy.
You talked about it often.
That’s why there are answers that come to mind when someone asks you how to become more physically healthy.
Now, let’s change the context a little bit.
If I were to ask you, “How do you cultivate sexual health?”… what would your answer be?
If you’re like most people, at first you draw a complete blank.
Then you think of a lot of painful and shameful things you don’t want to have as a part of your sexual life.
If you’re watching this presentation, you probably want to stop looking at porn and masturbating. Or you want your partner to stop looking at it.
Beyond that, most people draw a blank.
Here’s why this is a problem:
I’ve never asked someone how to become physically healthy and had them answer: “Just don’t get sick and don’t get hurt.”
Because health is so much more than avoiding sickness and injury.
Yet avoiding sickness and injury is typically all we know about sexual health… so it becomes our go-to strategy.
That means that when couples simply focus on ending the porn use in their marriage find that when the porn stops, they face the disappointing reality that their marriage issues and sex problems don’t magically disappear along with the porn.
They continue to struggle with trust…
They continue to feel misunderstood…
They continue to feel anxiety and betrayal…
That’s because moving away from sickness or injury is not the same as moving towards health.
Most of us have spent so much time thinking about all the things that can sexually hurt us, that we NEVER think about what positive habits and values we want to cultivate in our sexual lives.
We don’t talk about what the “eating healthy, 8 hours of sleep, and regular exercise” of our sexual selves looks like.
The conversations around sexual health in our homes are akin to someone telling us “don’t get diabetes and stay away from cancer, and you’ll live a long and healthy life.”
And until you can talk about sexual health with the same confidence and frequency that you talk about physical health or even mental, emotional, or spiritual health, you’ll never be able to take your relationship to a better place.
In an ideal world, we’d talk about sexual health in appropriate ways from the time we were children.
But here’s the sad truth…
“In order to gain access to a sexual health conversation, most of us have to be a sex addict, a sexual sex offender, or a victim of sexual abuse. That’s the price of entry.”
-Doug Braun-Harvey
Or, to put it differently, most people don’t really care about sexual health — especially men’s sexual health — until they’ve hurt someone, or been hurt themselves.
Isn’t that incredibly depressing?
No wonder we have so much anxiety and shame around talking about sex.
It’s my belief that when we start creating clarity around what sexual health looks like for us as individuals and couples that the sexual problems, injuries, and struggles we face will start to heal and we can move forward in our relationships.
So, today, I’m going to give you 6 conversations that you can have on an ongoing basis with yourself, and with your partner, to help you move towards trust, intimacy, mutual understanding, joy, peace, and wholeness again.
These 6 conversations are not meant to solve all your problems.
The goal of these conversations is to help you start clarifying your sexual values, and put together a vision, or a plan for what sexual health could look like for you.
These conversations will challenge you…
But they should help you develop more empathy and understanding for each other.
They will help you start to rebuild trust and intimacy.
And they can shine a light on the path you need to take to develop a thriving, sexually healthy relationship with each other that’s full of trust, joy, flirtation, connection, passion, and so much more.
Are you ready?
The 6 Principles of Sexual Health
The six conversations I’m about to share with you are based on the World Health Organization’s 6 Principles of Sexual Health. They are:
Consent
Non-exploitation
Protection from STIs and Unintended Pregnancy
Shared Values
Honesty
Mutual Pleasure
I was personally introduced to this concept by Doug Braun-Harvey who I quoted earlier.
He’s an incredible author and therapist with over 30 years of helping people go through this process. Much of what I share with you is informed by his observations and experiences.
Consent
Sexual health always consists of a balance of safety and pleasure.
Consent is the first principle to creating safety in a sexual relationship.
Consent essentially means “voluntary cooperation.” Each person in the relationship has the freedom to experience pleasure and intimacy as well as the freedom to say “no” to any sort of sexual contact or advances?
Some people think consent is like a permission slip. That your partner isn’t allowed to act on any sexual urges or thoughts without checking in with you first.
Not keeping an agreement in your relationship is NOT the same as violating your physical body.
Consent strictly deals with your freedom to say yes or no — at any time and for any reason — to someone else who wants to touch your body or be sexual with you.
Some questions you could ask each other to start having a conversation around consent could be:
Does either one of us have a history with non-consensual sex?
Have any of your friends or family members experienced non-consensual sex? And if so, how did that impact you?
Are we allowed to say “no” to any sexual activity without fear of punishment?
Have we been punished in the past for saying “no”?
Non-Exploitation
Exploitation is when you leverage your power or control over someone else to get sex.
In extreme forms, this looks like violence or threats of violence.
But violence doesn’t always have to be involved.
Here are a few other examples of exploitation:
A boss threatening someone’s job or offering them a promotion in exchange for sex.
Using the threat of divorce or the severing of a relationship to get sex, or manipulate your partner into behaving a certain way
Breaking relationship agreements or having sexual secrets and intentionally hiding that information from your partner.
Any time you resort to power, coercion, or fear to get what you want, that’s exploitation.
When we’re talking to kids, we often refer to this as bullying.
Exploitative sexual behavior can be consensual… but that doesn’t mean it’s virtuous. An example of this is Louis CK.
He got called out during the #MeToo movement for masturbating in front of female colleagues. He argued that since they had given consent that it was ok…
But what the women argued was that there was a power imbalance. At the time he was one of the top comedians in the world. There was a major power imbalance in the request.
And just because they gave consent didn’t make it healthy, or enjoyable… and it didn’t bring out the best in either party.
Some common ways couples use exploitation in the context of porn use are:
The person watching porn hides it from their partner
The person watching porn dismisses their partner’s negative feelings about the behavior, telling them things like “You’re overreacting.” Or, “It’s not that big of a deal.”
The partner of the person watching porn makes threats to intimidate or manipulate them into behaving a certain way
That doesn’t mean you don’t have conversations or set boundaries.
But there are better and healthier ways to get the outcomes you desire and talk about the issue than resorting to exploitation.
Some questions you can ask each other to start having a conversation about the principle of non-exploitation in your relationship are:
What’s been your experience with being exploited in your life?
In what ways have we exploited each other without realizing it?
How can we appropriately call each other out when we’re resorting to exploitation to get what we want in all areas of our lives, including sexually?
Protection from STIs and Unintended Pregnancy
This sexual health principle is typically what most of us are taught sexual health is.
When we’re young, we’re taught to practice abstinence or safe sex so we don’t get a sexual disease or an unintended pregnancy.
We don’t need to go too deep into this one. But here are some good questions to contemplate:
Have you had conversations about contraception?
Are you both on the same page with the methods of contraception you’re using?
Does your contraception plan work for both of you?
Shared Values
Shared Values is one of the most important and subjective sexual health principles.
It’s all about determining what sex means to you, and why.
The danger in talking about sexual values is that it’s tempting to become defensive when you don’t agree on a particular value.
Your way becomes the right way, the good way, the moral way.
And your partner’s way becomes the wrong way, the bad way, or the immoral way.
The goal in having a conversation about your sexual values — especially when they are in conflict with your partners — is to seek understanding.
Why is this value important to you, and how did it come to be so important to you?
What are the stories behind your values?
Where did you learn them?
Another great topic of conversation that could provide opportunities for you to explore each other's thoughts, feelings, and beliefs around sexual values is to have a conversation about what Doug Braun-Harvey calls your “Sexual Debut” (the moment you lost your virginity).
How was your sexual debut?
What did you worry about?
What was it like when you did it?
What has been the consequence of how you thought about yourself because of how that moment went?
You could talk about the sexual values of the family you were raised in:
What did your family teach you about sex?
Did you feel comfortable talking about it in your home, or was there shame around it?
Do you still have shame talking about sex?
Were you able to talk about pleasure or desire?
Were some things considered good or evil? What were they, and what do you think of those things now?
Do you want to teach our kids (if we have them) the same things you were taught about sex? If not, what would you change?
Oftentimes when you share the same religion you make the assumption that your sexual values are the same.
Rarely is this true!
The opportunities to talk about sexual values are endless. And the more you talk, the more you can process past pain, reach mutual understanding, and move more towards sexual health.
Honesty
It’s about creating an atmosphere where direct, open, and honest communication with your partner is possible.
Honesty entails both appropriately telling the truth, and not withholding important information from your partner.
Photo by Kat Smith from Pexels
Honesty does not mean you should provide 100% transparency into your thoughts, feelings, and desires, or candidly sharing without a filter.
In order for honesty to be present in the relationship, both partners need to be able to contribute to an environment where the practice of honesty is safe.
If honesty is met with emotional outbursts, outrage, name-calling, complete withdrawal from your partner, accusations, threats of severing the relationship, or any other emotionally charged behaviors, it makes it impossible for honesty to continue in the relationship.
Similarly, if honesty is delivered with contempt, vitriol, an absence of tact, spite, or arrogance, it won’t be received well and will harm the relationship.
Honesty is not about beating your partner over the head with the unfiltered truth.
A great barometer for honesty is to ask yourself this question:
Am I meeting my own expectations of honesty that I want my partner to have with me?
Perfect honesty in your relationship is unrealistic. Dishonesty is human nature.
But constantly striving towards honesty is the ideal.
Has your family ever had sexual secrets?
How were they handled?
Do I want to know my partner for who they are… including their secrets? Or are there things I don’t want to know because I don’t think I can handle them?
Is my partner allowed to have fantasies, sexual pleasure, or past sexual experiences that aren’t shared with me? Or do I need to know everything?
How much of my partner’s sexual past do I need to know about?
How have I responded to honesty in that past that might encourage or discourage my partner from sharing with me in the future?
Are there things I’ve shared with my partner in the past that I shouldn’t have… or maybe that I could have shared more effectively?
There’s SO much more to explore in this principle of Honesty than whether or not you’re telling the truth.
Mutual Pleasure
Remember at the beginning of this presentation how I mentioned that Sexual Health is a balance of safety and pleasure?
Well, the first 5 principles of sexual health focus largely on creating the scaffolding for safety.
But all too often — especially with couples dealing with a porn problem — the conversation around pleasure is completely absent.
Yet it’s VITAL to truly know your partner, and create a thriving sex life.
When we get curious about pleasure, amazing things happen.
What are some of your favorite sexual things to do that bring you so much pleasure you can hardly stand it?
What turns you on?
Have you ever been surprised by what brought you pleasure?
What is your relationship with pleasure? Do you embrace it or run from it?
What’s the first time you remember experiencing sexual pleasure?
One of the scary things about talking about pleasure is that it doesn’t necessarily follow the rules of what’s socially acceptable or politically correct.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
We don’t like to talk about it, but part of the reason people look at porn is that something about it is pleasurable.
If you can tolerate the discomfort of the conversation, you might be surprised by what about pornography is pleasurable to your partner.
In many cases, it may not even be looking at naked bodies that brings them pleasure.
It might be that they are attracted to things that feel forbidden.
Or they get excited by the sounds of hearing someone else making love.
Or they like to be told what to do in the bedroom.
Learning what brings them pleasure when they look at porn could change the reality for you.
Ultimately, you cannot create a healthy sexual relationship without pleasure.
Sexual health doesn’t exist without it.
It’s a necessary ingredient.
So it’s important to have conversations about it.
Otherwise, we can’t cultivate more of it!
The Result Of Sexual Health Conversations
Time and time again, I’ve seen that as couples start having sexual health conversations, and start developing a vision or even a plan for developing sexual health as individuals and a couple, their relationship improves.
Trust returns.
They start to have fun and flirt again.
They become less focused on relapse, slip-ups, and betrayal.
They become more focused on connection, honesty, living their values, not taking advantage of one another, and finding ways to explore pleasure together.
They often find that their relationships are more meaningful and connected than they were before the porn.
I hope you can use these conversations as a guide to start developing your own vision for sexual health.
And if you ever want to hear what a sexual health conversation sounds like in real-time, come join me, Doug, and a handful of other amazing people on our weekly show at RethinkingPornAddiction.com