Monitoring and Praying
I am the wife of a former pornography addict. I am 22 and we have been married for 2 years and we’ve been together for 4 years. When we first got together we used to look at some pornographic movies out of curiosity. A year later we hooked up to the Internet and immediately started to look at pornographic sites together. We would download movies and watch them out of curiosity. I then quit looking at these because my curiosity had been satisfied. I no longer desired to look at this stuff. A little while later I was saved and I saw it for what it was: disgusting and offensive.
However, my husband didn’t have such an easy time of letting go. When I became pregnant with our 2 year old, I lost a lot of sexual desire. I was depriving him somewhat. We lived with a roommate who had Playboy pictures up on his wall and magazines at hand. At this point I wasn’t saved and I didn’t mind that my husband started to look at these magazines. After all, I didn’t want to have sex anyway. He would gratify himself with these magazines. I accidentally caught him once and he told me he was embarrassed. My reply to him was that he shouldn’t be embarrassed because it was “normal” by the world’s standards for men to like this. At this point I didn’t see any harm in it, and I didn’t know it could cause any harm at all.
After we had the baby we moved and he took a couple of magazines with him. He would use these in the shower and gratify himself when we couldn’t have sex. When our daughter was a year old I became pregnant again with our son. I really lost all sexual desire. I would lay in bed at night and I could hear him doing his deed at the computer. I didn’t like that he had to do that for his sexual release. I just really didn’t want to have sex. I sometimes felt a little hurt.
A couple of weeks before I had the baby. I started to have sex with him more and I couldn’t understand why he was still looking at these sites. I had the baby and we resumed our sexual life after 6 weeks. He would still go to these sites and I was starting to really get upset about this. I told him so and he told me that he would quit. Well I started to monitor the computer and I found that he had been visiting sites once again. I was hurt because I felt lied to. I told him I found out and we had a heart to heart. I felt cheated on. Since then we have had several heart to hearts about this topic.
Once he told me that he had imagined himself having sex with these ladies a few times. I was really hurt and felt cheated on. He felt very guilty about that and told me he would stop and so I made him keep his word to stop looking at it.
I monitored the computer every day.
I would check the temporary Internet files
the history folde,
our media players (Windows Media Player QuickTime, and Real Media Player)
I also downloaded a free program called Keylogger which logs all keystrokes made and also tells you what windows are open
I checked our web history in Norton Internet Security
I went to find files under Windows Explorer and searched for all “jpg” or “jpeg” picture files to see if he had saved pictures
I also searched for “mpeg” and “Avi” files that he saved (movie files).
Each time I caught him I let him know how hurt I was. He’s been doing good about not visiting them, though he occasionally slips up… I continue to monitor the computer and let him know when I know.
This might not work for some men, but if your husband is the kind of guy who wants to change and loves you and tries, this is a good approach. Let him know that you know and don’t approve and let him know how much it hurts you. Remember that slip ups may occur and that this is terribly addicting for men and hard to overcome, give him your support and prayers.
My husband means well but he will slip up from time to time, he will go many, many months without looking at porno. He feels massive guilt after he does.
A book I would recommend is titled The Power of A Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian. It is excellent and teaches you how to effectively pray for many aspects of your husband’s life, including his sexuality.
I hope that this letter will let you know how to make sure your man isn’t viewing it, and if he tries to hide it you can let him know that you know. Oh yeah and don’t deprive your husband of sex, which is one of his strongest needs, I had to learn the hard way!
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