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"I will tell of all Your wonders, |
"So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him." |
I want you to know that I've read all of your emails with the greatest interest and concern for your welfare. Know that my thoughts and prayers are with you. I've longed to reply to every single email, but my heart is so heavy with my wife on the cusp of leaving me that the responses I've started suddenly seemed trite half-hearted, so I have not sent them.
My wife filing for a divorce is the consequence of my addiction to pornography and masturbation. The wages of sin is death, in this case the death of my marriage. There is hope for me and our marriage in Jesus, the living Son of God, however. I am so grateful that Jesus paid the price for sin. He will not always, however, take away the direct consequences of our sins. The drunk driver may be forgiven, but the pain and damage of the crash he or she causes is simply unavoidable. For many years, I have been on a pendulum, swinging between sobriety and pornographic hedonism. Each time I've gone away from God and into depravity, I have hurt the spouse that I love so much. Though each time she "got over it", the wedge between us deepened.
Understand that until a couple weeks ago, everything seemed just fine between us from my perspective. We were friendly towards one another and even loving. Then, she found that I was downloading a video entitled "Drunk Sex Orgy". If you are even the least bit titillated by this title, think about how my wife felt as she was reading it. It must have been the most horrific punch in the gut, especially since, as she explained later, that she comes from a family of alcoholics. Then understand that she was sexually abused as a child. Lastly, the word orgy indicated to her that I had not just fallen off the bandwagon; I'd blown the damn thing up.
Even with this horrible blow, she put on a brave face. It was only with great coaxing that two days later I was even able to get her to admit that what I had done had hurt her. That she was troubled was obvious. Getting her to talk about being upset has always been a huge obstacle. She just hates to do it. Some spouses of addicts yell and scream. Some seethe until something in them just dies. Mine is the latter.
A week after the "incident", even though almost all of her words and actions indicated things were fine, she timidly told me that she wanted things to be over between us. I've told you some about that conversation. I told her that I did NOT want a divorce, and that I was willing to do whatever was necessary to preserve it. Her response was that while she had kept telling herself that she would once again get over it, she no longer wanted to.
At one point, I made an action plan and commited to following it. It includes:
Right now, I'm following the action plan to the letter, and our relationship is friendly but certainly not intimate. It was after our first marriage counseling session that I learned she had filed for divorce. Dating-wise, we're basically starting over, and we're not even to the holding hands stage yet. We may never get there again. God willing, though, we will get past this and be closer than ever before in our marriage.
Bretheren, I was not an abusive spouse verbally or physically. I was not neglectful. I believe I have been kind and patient, even through her bouts with depression. In the end, though it may have kept us together these nine years, it has not been, nor do I believe it can be, enough to overcome the consequences of using pornography.
I know that this email has gotten lengthy, but I want to end it by testifying that I still have hope for my marriage, because I know that God can soften any heart. I testify that there is freedom in Jesus Christ. He lives. He loves us. My debt to Him is beyond my imagination I'm sure. Every day I pray that I may love Him more and more. I ask God to mold me into a Christian in the truest sense. I believe that God has inspired the creation of Free In Christ, and I'm grateful to each of you who have had the courage and desire to post on this forum. My Lord and Savior is freeing me from my compulsion to sin. How prideful I have been that it should take an imminent divorce to get me to sever the internet when it has been the very gateway to my addiction! (filters = less effective) But God can remove any obstacle, can't he? I actually WANT the computer to be disconnected! If that isn't a miracle, I don't know what is. I beg and plead to my Heavenly Father that my heart may be completely turned over to Him, with no nook or cranny held in reserve.
My dear brothers, please continue to pray for my family and myself. There is power in prayer. I really believe it. I'll check in occasionally. In the meantime, please use my sad story as a testament to the results of living for selfish pleasure. Shun pornography. Get it out of your houses. Please, oh please, eradicate it from your lives. Fill your lives with service, the scriptures, and wholesome activities. You'll never be sorry and God will bless you forever for it. I testify it in the sacred name of Jesus Christ.
Take care, and may God's will be done in all things.
With love for each of you,
Chris H.