Saturday, January 15, 2011

My Husband Gets Mad and Won't Talk When I Bring Up Porn

Hannah writes, “Whenever I try to talk to my husband about his ongoing pornography problem, he immediately gets very upset and defensive. He says this is HIS problem and HIS addiction and he will deal with it. He says that he is more upset and disappointed in himself than I could ever be. Then he stops talking to me. I am starting to realize that he has never been ready for me to be the supportive wife that I’d like to be, that I’m trying to be. I’m not sure what to do. I am not ready to give an ultimatum—but sometimes is that the only way?”

My heart aches for you Hannah… and for your husband.

The other night my three-year-old son, Sam, had a cough. When Jenny tucked him in bed she put a humidifier on his nightstand and explained that he needed to sleep by it to help his cough go away. He seemed to get it. At two-thirty a.m., coming toward us down the hall we hear this little “cough, cough; slosh, slosh; cough, cough; slosh, slosh.” He staggered into our room with his little arms wrapped around that appliance. Not even pausing at my side of the bed, he trudged all the way around—cough, cough; slosh, slosh—to see: his mom. He knew what he needed when he didn’t feel good, and it wasn’t just a humidifier!

The most natural thing to do when we’re in need as humans (or any other primate for that matter), is to reach out to those who love us. It’s instinct, automatic, and there is not an age at which we grow out of this response. My aunt Ida, who died at almost ninety, lived with my parent’s at the very end of her life. This strong woman who was someone I could run to as a child, in turn, called out for my mom and dad when she hurt or got scared in those last weeks on her deathbed.

Deep down, your dear husband shares with Sam and Ida the same instinct: to reach out when he’s in need. However, there are reflexes that we humans can develop that cover over that deepest emotional instinct.

For instance, when I was younger I may have expressed needs and then felt ignored—and logged that experience away in my psyche as an important lesson learned. I may have discovered that when I talked about a struggle, that material might later be used to belittle me. I may have learned that, in our home, we don’t talk about what we feel, we keep it to ourselves. I may have learned that girls talk and complain, but we guys need to suck it up and tough out problems on our own.

My client, Darin, remembers sitting at the kitchen table doing his homework as his brother ran into the room with a picture of a nude woman that he had discovered in Darin’s room. Darin’s mom (bless her heart) exploded. From then on it seemed to Darin that she was the puberty detective: always hounding him, prying, and reminding him about the evils of sex.

My client, Jake, remembers starting to view pornography during the summer before his last year of junior high. His parents worked all day, his older siblings now had jobs, and his younger sister was always over at her friend’s. It seemed like everyone else had important things to do and people to be with. He felt left out, lonely, and most of all: that he was on his own to try to navigate the pull of this exciting and forbidden new world.

He didn’t do very well. Porn was such a potent and easy fix during that otherwise empty summer. He felt so guilty and ashamed about it that he concluded he would have to conquer it on his own.

Here’s the good news: whatever Darin and Jake learned when they were younger about how ashamed they should be about porn use… however firmly they concluded that they need to struggle on their own to get over it… however long they’ve been approaching the problem from that lonely mindset… they have a deeper instinct and they’ve had it for even longer! And, just like my Aunt Ida, they’ll continue to have it until the day they die. It’s the natural and automatic response of reaching out when we’re in need.

It may take a while to unbury it, dust it off, and trust it enough to start honoring it. However, I have seen tons of men do it!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Porn Won't Heal Your Emotional Wounds

It would be a painful scene to watch in a movie:


Sometime during our knight's courageous daily battle, a poisoned dart finds its way between the gaps in his armor. The paralyzing serum gets into his bloodstream--but fortunately doesn't kill him. By the time he arrives back at the castle, he's a shell of his usual self.

Here's the bind about being a heroic warrior: He can't walk in and say, "Help! I'm wounded!" Instead, he stumbles around and does his best to get the horse settled in the stable and bathe the little prince and princess. He listens politely as the countess talks about her day. But he doesn't really hear her. He's squinting and clenching his teeth over his own wound. He doesn't show her his growing blister or tell her his left side has gone numb.

It's just as painful to witness the emotional equivalent of the above scene among men in the throes of addiction. And it's beautiful to watch them develop true, deep, relationship courage, the kind that allows them to come home at the end of a hard day and cry out, "Help! I'm wounded!"

As Lyle was trimming a huge oak tree, one of the falling branches tore down a rain gutter and damaged the eave of a nearby house. For the rest of the day, one of the more experienced guys on the crew teased him relentlessly about his mistake. Then when they got back to the office, he razzed Lyle in front of their boss and the biggest gossip in the city offices. Lyle felt humiliated and angry. 

Three months ago, he would have tried to just keep going as the poison serum coursed through his bloodstream. He wouldn't have talked to anyone about what he was feeling.

That night, he would have stayed up late listening to heavy metal music, eventually turned on the TV, and eventually found something salacious on cable to distract him from how crappy he felt inside. Then, the next day, he would have felt even worse about himself.

This time, instead, he took one of his more understanding coworkers aside later that afternoon. He mostly let out a string of profanities, but at least he was talking. "I haven't used that kind of language in years." Something about the whole #@!&$ department he works for. When he talked about the tree branch and the damage, his friend responded, "Everyone does that kind of stuff now and then."

When he got home, he didn't exactly cry out, "Help! I'm wounded!" He just let his wife, Katie, know it had been a hard day. He let all of his frustration and shame and feelings of inadequacy spill out. "...and then, to top it off, a woman in payroll got on my case about how I had reported my hours. She must have seen that I was totally shut down because she started backpedaling. She said, 'I'm not trying to be mean to you, I'm just telling you so that you avoid it in the future.' Inside it felt like, I have one more enemy I have to watch out for in this place..."

Talking with Katie didn't suddenly help Lyle feel all better. But these days he's staying sober despite the kind of emotional poisoned darts that used to send him back to his old ways. He's reaching out instead of acting out. He's dosing up on oxytocin instead of dopamine, and that's helping to clear the stress hormones out of his system. He's bonding with his wife instead of becoming more hooked on smut. It's a better life for our hero.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

She's Been Hurt by Your Porn Use? Three Ways to Help Her Heal

Vance wrote, “Two months my wife caught me looking at porn on my phone. For me it was a relief--I haven’t felt this free in years. Getting this out in the open was just what I needed to finally put it behind me. But it's torn into Rachel so deep, I don’t know if she'll recover. Or our marraige. In fact, it keeps getting worse, not better. Can we get back what we had before? I'm scared that it's ruined our relationship.”


Vance, it’s important for you to know why the news of your porn use hurt Rachel so deeply: precisely because you are so important to her. She relies on your relationship to give her a sense that everything is alright in the world, and so her universe has been turned upside-down. The fact that she cares so deeply is a promising sign that, with work, the two of you will be able to draw together and heal your marriage. Here are three ways you can work on it:


1. Take time to hear about her hurt. Your emotional reflexes tell you to pull back: “She’s hurting, give her space. She’s wounded, give her time to heal.” Don’t do it! She needs you close. You’re the source of her pain on the one hand, but mostly you’re “her primary attachment figure,” the one she instinctively reaches for when she’s struggling and in need. Follow your deeper protective instinct: Spend more time right there beside her. Keep asking her what was on her mind and in her heart at the end of each day, even though she might have a hard time opening up because it was fear and doubt and hurt again today. She’s not harboring that pain, she’s not relishing the victim role, it just takes a long, long, long, long, long (get the point?) time to get it all out. In order to move forward, she needs to be able to look you in the eye and see that you really get how deeply she’s been impacted by your virtual infidelity. And she needs to know that you’ll keep being there for her each time a new wave of hurt knocks her down.


2. Be patient with her regression. When we were toddlers, we had to check in with our primary attachment figure (for most of us it was our mother) every few minutes in order to recharge emotionally and feel secure. As we got older, we didn’t have to check in as often to know that we are just fine on our own for awhile and they would be there for us if we really needed them. By the time we reach adulthood and our spouse has become our primary attachment figure, we can still feel connected and secure even if, for example, one spouse is away on extended military deployment. However, when something like pornography seems to threaten our bond, a switch inside of us flips, turning us back into an emotional toddler. This process may make your wife preoccupied with the relationship during the day and unable to function at her usual tasks. She may cry, withdraw or lash out more readily than usual. If so, be patient and stay close (if that’s what she prefers) during her time of emotional turmoil. If she asks for time apart, see if she means different rooms for twenty minutes or so, rather than assuming that she wants you to move out.


3. Respect her need for physical proof. Temporarily, during her worst period of insecurity, she may need to hear more often than usual where you are and what you’re up to. And she may have a hard time believing you even when you’re telling the truth. She may want to keep checking your internet history and read all your emails from female coworkers. She may grill you about your past pornography use and want to know if it was going on during key events in your life together. She may ask you if you’re attracted to this neighbor and that actress and that new woman at church. She may doubt her own beauty and question whether she’s enough to keep you attentive and devoted in the future. This may start to feel like a no win situation, but each time she asks, she wants to see and hear you be attentive. When it starts to feel like you’re being interrogated and your patience wears thin, hear her emotional pleading behind each question: “You are so important to me. My world turns on how you feel about me. I don’t want anything to threaten what we share together. Tell me again that I come first in your life!” Logically she may know that porn is no match for what you share together, but she just had the emotional rug ripped out from under her and now she’s unsure of her footing. So tell her again (and again and again) that she comes first in your life. 


Remember: everything you’ve built together, everything you’ve shared together, everything you’ve felt together is still there! It hasn’t been obliterated by pornography, just buried. With your help, she can heal. And with her help, so can you. Working together, you can make your marriage stronger than it has ever has been before!


Stay in touch Vance! And the rest of you, too. Comment below to let us know how it's going on your journey to healing as a couple.