How Can I Help My Porn-Addicted Husband?

This is what I'll be talking about today on KSL TV's Studio 5. Wish me luck!


What do you say to a woman who has just discovered her husband has a pornography habit and is trying to decide whether to leave or stay?

1. Relationships can heal. The title of our book and blog reflect what we hear from women: I hate porn enough that part of me wants to leave; I love him, we've built a life together. They want to know: Is there a way to work together to heal and conquer this? There is! Couples are stronger together than as individuals and they heal better with each other's help.

2. Work as a team. Women feel left out: "He deals with porn on his own. I'm an outsider and only occasionally get a window into how he's doing--and then by accident or because I do detective work." That's not a relationship. They're more willing to stay if it becomes us--husband and wife together--working against the problem of pornography. Men are surprised to hear, "Your dishonesty and secrecy hurts me more than the porn use," but it's typically true. 

What can a wife do to help her husband overcome his pornography habit?

1. Cut yourself slack. Women say, "I'm not myself. I feel insecure, even paranoid. What's happening to me?" You're not going crazy. You thought you could count on your husband to be mentally faithful as well as physically. That got turned upside-down. Panic and confusion are natural reactions. It's traumatic. It takes time to get your bearings again.


2. Check in to rebuild trust. One clients said, "Just his answering the phone at work is reassuring." For a while you may need concrete evidence you can trust his word. 


3. Talk out feelings. Don't bottle up pain, fear, anger, hurt. Tell him, "Talking it out is how I'll heal." When something reminds you of his porn problem in a movie or in the middle of the day, talk it out. If you want him to just listen and reassure instead of defending, explaining, or promising to do better, tell him that. You're not holding it over his head and it won't go on forever. Just as his recovery is a gradual process, you're healing will take time, too. 

4. Support him. Assure him you want to be a part of his healing. He may been trying to do it on his own because he's ashamed and frustrated with himself. You're the most important person in his life, he hates letting you down! He thought just needed to be a man and kick this habit on his own without bothering you about it. Obviously that hasn't worked. Over time men realize: we are stronger together and do heal better with each other's help. Many men say, "I can't tell her about a close call or lapse. She can't handle it." The truth is, she can't handle it without getting emotional, and he has a hard time dealing with her emotions. Learning to tolerate emotions--his own and hers--is an important part of his recovery. In recovery he will get to the point where he can handle you being upset. 

5. Ask about feelings. If he says, "I struggled today with urges," don't ask, "What turned you on?" It's not about sex. Ask, "What dampened your spirits or hurt your feelings?" Men aren't used to exploring emotions, but if they don't reach out when they feel bad and talk out what's going on inside, they're more likely to act out sexually.

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Instead of Porn, Try This

Hank had been tracking his close calls and lapses to porn for a couple of weeks. Now he looked like a cat who'd cornered a mouse. "I've seen a common denominator in eighty plus percent of instances."


I was very interested. Hank is good at gathering reconnaissance and combing through what he has recorded. He did it all day at work as a videographer.

"I tend to struggle when something earlier in the day hurt my feelings or dampened my spirits," Hank said.

Hank is like most of us. Our feelings get wounded or our spirits get trodden... and then the addicted brain tries to take over to help us feel better. 


We need to do more than just avoid acting out with porn. We need to reach out instead. Spill out. Moan out what's inside. Whine it out.

We can do it. Even we stoics are nothing more than reformed whiners. We may not remember that time in our lives, but it came so naturally when we were little that it just flowed. For most of us it wasn't all the time, just when it fit the situation.

Now we hold back, hold in... and store up. We find it hard to whine because we've been trained not to complain. "Come out of your room when you have a better attitude." "Cowboy up or go in the house with your mom and sister."

Despite our fears, whining won't turn us back into babies. There's not much risk of it taking over our entire personalities. We can do it part-time--we can moonlight--and only when we really need it.

Let's just make sure we do enough of it, when it's called for, or else we'll be in trouble. We'll be Jonesin' for some porn.

Hank is single, so he doesn't have a partner to complain to. 

Carol is married but she can't bear to whine to her husband. It feels to her like complaining aloud would wake up some remote gods and bring down their wrath. She's been keeping at bay most of her life by trying to be a good girl. Her father was an alcoholic. She had plenty to complain about. But her job was to be perfect, and part of that job was smiling and pretending everything was fine.

I wanted to give folks like Hank and Carol a forum here. If you're in their shoes, try out the "Crave Porn? Try Whining" tab at the top of this blog, far right side. Click there and complain away. It will be good for you. Tomorrow, you'll be glad you purged you feelings instead of escaping to porn. 

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She's Afraid He Now Finds Her Unattractive

LeAnn knew what Gary's impotence meant.

He'd watched so much porn, had masturbated to so many airbrushed goddesses, that he wasn't excited by her body and making love with her no longer appealed to him.

LeAnn thought she knew what Gary's impotence meant. She couldn't have been further from the truth.

The truth she discovered as they explored the issue together was this: Gary's conscience was so harrowed by his digital daliances that he felt guilt and anxiety when they were together. He was afraid that he didn't deserve her. He was afraid that he didn't measure up for her.

Gary had always wanted to measure up for LeAnn. He had always wanted to help her feel loved and cherished. He had a porn habit despite adoring his wife, not because he didn't love her, not because he wanted anyone else.

However, after discovering his struggle, LeAnn was afraid that it meant he could easily dump her and run off with someone else. She needed reassurance that he wanted to remain true to her. She sought that reassurance in the bedroom.

That was when a bad cycle got going between the two of them. She initiated lovemaking. Gary wanted intently to perform because he saw how much it meant to her. The more pressure a man feels to maintain an erection the worse it usually goes.

Losing an erection is a common occurance for men. When a couple is not in crisis, not overinterpreting the commonplace, they relax together and try again later. Or they go on with lovemaking. (After all, none of his other body parts have gone limp! His voicebox hasn't siezed up! He hasn't lost bloodflow to his imagination!)

After a while his erection may return again. It's amazing how exciting he can get watching her when she's lost in pre-orgasmic delight. Or they enjoy caressing or clinging to each other.

But a couple in crisis like Gary and LeAnn have a hard time relaxing and moving on. LeAnn thinks she knows what his limp penis means. Gary wants to badly to show her she's the only woman he loves. He doesn't find sex with her boring, he finds it too intense. He puts too much pressure on himself.

The good news is, Gary and LeAnn's situation is easier to resolve than chronic desensitization.

I could tell Gary's love for LeAnn was sincere, so I thought he'd be willing to take on a difficult assignment. They always spent time together in the evenings, so I told him to approach her every night between then and our session the following week.

"Your job is to spend a half hour or so making love with your wife. The catch is, you need to do it without an erection. You've been overly focused on that, on making sure that happens, that you've ignored LeAnn. So we need to remove that as an option for now."

I turned to LeAnn. "Before we go ahead with this, I need to check something out with you. There are two kinds of women. Some only feel loved if their man has a rock-hard erection as he's making love with her. To the other kind of woman, a hard penis is not her main way of feeling loved. She can feel attractive to him because of the way he gazes into her eyes and appreciates her body. She can feel cherished because of the words he whispers. She can feel adored because he doesn't want to stop touching and caressing her. LeAnn, before we go on with this assignment of Gary not having an erection this week, I need to make sure it won't devastate you. I need to make sure that your this second kind of woman."

LeAnn readily assured us that she would feel loved if Gary moved toward her rather than away from her, even if he didn't have an erection.

Now Gary had something he could do that he actually had control over. It would be a challenge to initiate being together when he had come to fear it. However, I also knew that he could respond well to this kind of pressure.

(He could handle intense pressure. He'd seen combat in Vietnam.)

Gary just needed to have a way of improving things that would go better under pressure instead of worse.

Porn Kills Real Sex with a Real Partner

Brandon was too young to be tired of real sex.

Nonetheless, at 22, he was a veteran. He'd been spending free time immersed in pornography for a decade.

He came in for help because of how it was going with his girlfriend, Mika. "I like her a lot. We're talking about being together long-term. That's why it bugs me that having sex with her is so bland."

"When I look at porn, it's toned bodies and smooth skin. The real thing is warm, and that's nice, but then it's like..." Brandon held his fist over his open mouth and sighed a fake yawn.

Later in the session, Brandon disclosed something he sometimes does to bring more spark and spice into their lovemaking: "I start to imagine that we're making a porno flick. The cameras are all around and capturing everything. I'll envision what it would look like to watch us onscreen. That sometimes helps me feel more turned on."

I have to admit, that session had me scratching my head for days.

It made me think back to my own first exposure to pornography. Evan Crandall flashing that picture of a nude woman all around Boulton Elementary School's East playground. I'm sure Evan's sharing planted some seeds of anticipation. But I'm confident none of us thought, "Maybe if I keep looking at stuff like that I'll prefer it to the real thing someday. Can't wait for that to happen."

Preferring the virtual to the real boggles the minds of most people my generation and older, but it's getting more commonplace all the time. I see it in my office. Others have noted the pattern and made interesting observations. Naomi Wolf's article in New York Magazine describes how porn crowds real women  out of men's sex lives--and how younger women are becoming pornified to try to compete. Marnia Robinson's new article on the Good Men Project describes the way porn interferes with our monogamy instinct and leads to marital dissatisfaction and disaffection.

The bottom line: If you love sex, you may find porn compelling. But if you love a real person, too--or want to in the future--then porn's not such a great idea.

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