My Life On Display #4-- The Blindside, The Separation

When it came to pornography, I remained ignorant. I thought it was simply looking at pictures you shouldn't look at and struggling with masturbation.

As I look at the previous two sentences I just wrote, I just shake my head. Even those things are terrible... but I didn't realize WHAT pornography truly was until I had to live through the darkness. The lying, manipulation, sensing darkness, the random fighting. Sexual addiction didn't just effect my husband, it effected our entire life.

I feel I need to say I love and respect my husband very much! Before I was married, I think I used to view men as monsters if they struggled with this. My husband is a very good man, a hard worker, and one of the most patient and positive people I have ever met. I have great admiration for him, and being with him has made me a better person.

However, it is unfortunate that we live in a world full of sin. Even good people sin.

I knew there had been random times where the struggle reared its ugly head, but I didn't know to what extent.

When we had been married two years, the sexual addiction was the worst I had seen it. The amount of hopelessness and pain I felt was deep. We got a lot of help from out pastors and others in our church. It was around this time that I journaled a simple prayer to God. It was "God, please don't give us a child until this is dealt with." It was no surprise that I couldn't get pregnant. No matter how much we cried, desired or prayed.

I read a really good book by Clay and Renee Crosse during this time called "I Surrender All." They openly talk about Clay's struggle with pornography and how it effected his career, their marriage and how they dealt with it. I am very thankful they are so willing to share their story with the world because I took great comfort and encouragement in it.

During this time, men surround my husband, and women surrounded me. They focused on kicking this addiction in the butt, and healing for me. We did really well for a while. And I honestly thought we were free from this addiction for good. Before we married, our pastor told us this would forever be a "thorn in his side." I had the mindset that it might be a thorn in other people's sides, but not my husband.

Fast forward a couple more years, we celebrated our 4 year anniversary. That whole summer I started sensing something was wrong. We would fight more, and I felt walls go up and distance between us. We had just moved into a new place so with the busyness of getting it set up and all that entails, I didn't think too much of it. Into the fall and winter, I had become very complacent. I was struggling in my job, I had been hurt by many Christians and was starting to turn my back on my faith and I was sensing my husband was struggling. Instead of fighting back, I cowered. On the first day of spring, I was completely blind sided. The addiction had been back, and he had hid it from me for 8 months.

We separated.

I was heart broken...