Battling Porn Together

This episode contains portions from the following programs:

"Battle with 'Me'—How to Help a Husband Addicted to Pornography"

"When Your Spouse Is Addicted to Pornography"

"Need Help Loving That Man"

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Dannah Gresh: Hey there! Did you know about 70 percent of men and 30 percent of women in the church fight a fierce battle with pornography? My husband, Bob Gresh, has been among them. Today, he understands how difficult that was for me. 

Bob Gresh: My struggles with lust, pornography, depression, anxiety—and all the relational disasters produced by it—have brought her to places where she had no good choices. And it is the great sadness  in my life.

Dannah: That’s what repentance sounds like, my friend. How do you get to the place where your husband not only hates his sin, but also sees how it’s hurt you? Today, I want to give you some hope. 

This is Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m your host, Dannah Gresh. 

There’s a really interesting analogy that the late Dr. Judith Reisman developed to help us understand the impact of porn on marriages. It has to do with gypsy moths.

Back in the seventies and eighties you’d drive past trees in the Northeast, and they would be just full of these web-looking tents. They were full of gypsy moth caterpillars.

Gypsy moths were from another country, so they didn’t have any predators, and they were destroying our forests. Rangers were trying to use pesticides to kill them; that wasn’t working. Stronger pesticides were killing the trees. That was counterproductive. And so somebody said, “Let’s disrupt the reproductive cycle of the gypsy moth.”

They created gypsy moth super-pheromones, and dropped those pellets into the trees. It was so powerful that the male gypsy moth went flitting about: “Where is that wonderful scent? ” They would fly right past real gypsy moths because they didn’t smell powerful enough. And that’s how we got the gypsy moths in our country under control. We lured them away from their God-designed attraction to one another.

That’s what porn is doing to marriages!

This past week on our daily program and podcast, Revive Our Hearts, we’ve gotten some excellent help from author, speaker, and counselor Dr. Juli Slattery. She wrote a book called Rethinking Sexuality (I’ll tell you how you can get a copy in a few minutes). She joined Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and me in the studio. 

I mentioned the gypsy moths to them, and that led Nancy to ask Juli this:

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: So, for the wife whose husband is addicted to pornography, using pornography, and she’s feeling like that’s stealing intimacy in their marriage . . . how are you going to encourage that woman?

Dr. Juli Slattery: here’s what I would tell that wife: “You have to hold together two things that seem to be contradictory: empathy (which is really rooted in humility), not shaming your husband.”

Most men who struggle with pornography were introduced to it when they were very young—nine, ten, eleven years old. They didn’t even know what it was, and they didn’t know how to respond to it. There are a lot of godly men who hate the fact that they struggle with porn. They’d do anything to get rid of that struggle!

So when a wife addresses it like, “How could you do this!?” She adds shame on without the understanding that there are godly men who are in a battle for their Christian lives (for their souls, it feels like!). They can’t be an adequate helper to that man that’s struggling. They can’t share the journey with him. So that first thing is just empathy, that humility, that grace.

But the second thing is accountability. In any Christian relationship, we do not engage so much in compassion and empathy that we write off sin or we write off brokenness and pretend it’s normal. I think some wives are in the situation of being so empathic for their husband, or saying, “It’s every man’s battle, so I guess we just give up fighting it,” that they don’t say, “This is not acceptable. We have to get help. If you won’t get help, then I will. We are going to address this. We can’t pretend it doesn’t exist.”

I think all that comes directly out of Scripture and how we address sin with one another, with the humility, with compassion, but also calling each other towards purity and righteousness.

Nancy: Because you’re not only husband and wife, you’re also a brother and sister in Christ. You have responsibility to each other for each other’s sanctification.

Juli: Yes, and the last thing we want to do in marriage is enable each other to sin and call it “love.” That’s not love.

Nancy: So you’re encouraging the woman to say to her husband, “We have to get help!” What might that look like?

Juli: The first thing I’m encouraging a wife in that situation to do is to get on her knees and ask God for His wisdom.

Nancy: Which He promises to give!

Juli: Yes, and for His timing and for His words in confronting this. Because so often we confront these things out of our own anger, out of our own hurt, and we end up doing more harm than addressing the problem.

And then, when God shows you it’s the right time, gives you the words, you express out of love—out of love for God, out of love for you and our marriage—this is not okay, and we have to get help. What is that going to look like?” And tangibly work out what it looks like: Do we go see a counselor, do we tell our pastor? Are you joining a men’s group that’s addressing this? Am I getting involved with a wives’ care group that can help me walk through it?

You’ve got to define tangible steps and not just say, “Oh, someday we’ll get help for it,” because it won’t change then.

Dannah: Helpful perspective from my friend Dr. Juli Slattery. I want to say this: if that rings true in your heart—you’re saying “Oh, someday we’ll get help”—that’s the enemy whispering complacency into your heart. Do not comply!

Now, I cannot tell you exactly what kind of help you need. Each marriage is unique and needs unique help, but if your husband is battling lust and pornography, you need help! You cannot do it alone. Why not text someone right now and tell them what you’re experiencing!

My dear friend Dr. Juli Slattery has been our guest all week long on Revive Our Hearts. If you’d like to listen to those programs—and you do!—you’ll find them on the Revive Our Hearts app, or when you go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click on today’s program. It’s called “Battling Porn Together.” 

And Juli’s book Rethinking Sexuality is one I can’t recommend enough. We’d like to make it available to you as a thank you for your gift of any amount to help support Revive Our Hearts. You can make a donation and request your copy of Rethinking Sexuality at that same web address: ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend. Or if you’d like to call, our number is 1-800-569-5959, and ask about Juli Slattery’s book Rethinking Sexuality.

Let’s hear from a couple who applied the two things Juli recommended— empathy and accountability— to their marriage. Jimmy and Kelly Needham had talked with Nancy about it. Pornography had been a part of Jimmy’s life from age nine. When he came to know Christ at age fifteen, he began to be convicted of his sin.

Jimmy Needham: God rescued me and changed my appetite. Now the struggle's there, but now it is this "I don't want this any more." I feel for the first time a war within me—"the flesh and the Spirit war with each other. You don’t do what you want,” like Paul says.

Dannah: It took another four years for Jimmy to break from that addiction to pornography. He told Nancy it was ultimately a matter of perspective.

Jimmy: When I began to realize that Christianity wasn’t just about not going to hell and going to heaven, but it was about getting access to the only One my heart was designed to enjoy fully and be satisfied in, everything changed!

Dannah: Here’s Jimmy’s wife, Kelly.

Kelly Needham: That journey of seeing Christ as satisfier has been something important in my own life. Though pornography has not been a struggle for me personally (I know it has been for many women.) But even in my own wrestle, that’s the antidote often: “Is Jesus my all-in-all? Is He my satisfier?” When He is, “the things of the world grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”

Nancy: So this relates to a lot of issues that we face in our struggle with sin, in being tempted. It’s not just in sexual matters, though certainly there. Food can be what we look to for satisfaction or friendships or relationships or marriage or children or whatever . . . job.

Kelly: Yes. I think the struggle, though, with sexual sin struggles and part of what makes them so hard to get rid of is the shame element for them—which in some elements, it is an appropriate shame, right? We should feel shame for sin, but when it keeps it hidden and in the dark we find no freedom.

Christ is our satisfier, but we can’t walk that journey alone. There’s a confession element. There’s confessing to a person that is liberating.

Pornography is often seen as a man’s struggle. And because of that, when women struggle with that, they face an additional sense of shame because don’t have just normal sin struggles. They have “the sin struggles of a man”—that’s often how they feel.

A lot of times I’m encouraging women in my life, “You need to find safe places to talk about these things. You need safe women in your church to whom you can confess that and ask for prayer, because that will give you people to fight alongside you to help you fight for Christ to be your satisfier, to help you chase Him. You can’t do that in the dark by yourself.” That, I think, is one of the biggest struggles for women dealing with pornography.

Nancy: There’s a lot of power about coming into the light with any hidden area. So as you were walking through this, Jimmy, and you’d come to know Jesus and you’re finding Him to be your satisfaction, was there anybody walking this path with you?

Jimmy: Oh, yes. I was blessed with just a really great group of guys—roommates in college. We were all believers, and we all were fighting for the same thing. One-hundred-percent of us were struggling with it.

In fact, we lead a college ministry at our church, and I would say, at least when it comes to the guys I interact with, it’s almost a hundred percent situation there, too. That is the wrestle, that’s the temptation. The access is there.

Having guys to fight alongside me who could pray for me, and I them, was a massive thing. It was a massive thing! I don’t think it was possible for me to find lasting freedom without doing that in the context of community.

Nancy: What else was a part of that journey for you?

Jimmy: I think it’s important to say this, because I’ve seen it a lot in the guys that I’ve fought alongside for freedom from pornography, and also in my college context, I see this a lot. There is a way to fight against sexual sin—and sin in general—that can actually be misguided and even sinful in itself.

That is, when we make the goal only about getting free from this particular hang-up. The verbiage in my context when I’m ministering to these college guys is, “Hey, man, it’s been three weeks since I’ve gone on the Internet,” or “It’s been five weeks.” That’s the celebration; that’s the end-goal for them.

Nancy: The behavior.

Jimmy: The behavior, yes. As if getting that under control is somehow pleasing to God. You can become pornography-free and now be really boastful and prideful that you were able to white-knuckle your way through it.

Nancy: Self-righteous. It kind of reminds me of the Pharisees.

Jimmy: Yes, no doubt. Clean on the outside, but inside, full of dead men’s bones.

Kelly: I think that is really tapping into, “What is the goal of repentance?” What is repentance? Repentance isn’t primarily a turning away from something; it’s what you’re turning to. It’s a returning to Someone.

To just flee the sin without fleeing to Christ is not actually repentance. It’s just behavior modification. But it’s in running to Jesus that is the primary goal, coming to Him. That will sort out the sin issues. But without running to Christ, we’ve missed the point.

Kelly: I think that speaks, too, to the role of maybe a spouse who is living with somebody struggling with those lust-of-the-flesh things. Especially with pornography, I know it can feel really hurtful as a wife to hear your husband struggling with that.

Nancy: You’ve had women talk to you about this.

Kelly: I do. I think because Jimmy’s so public about that struggle—and hoping to see both men and women be free—I get a lot of those side emails that go, “Oh, so you probably understand this.” Though that hasn’t been something that’s been current in our marriage, I know that they at least have a context of, “You understand the insecurity that comes with that or the fears that come with that,” or all these other things.

A lot of times, what’s really difficult is, these women will put themselves in a position as an enemy of their spouse. In being hurt, they lash back in response. I think there is an appropriate feeling of hurt and grief. Women need to grieve that. It is hard when your spouse is stuck in a sin-struggle that does affect your marriage. Grief is healthy and normal.

But the thing that will change that sin-struggle is Christ—like Jimmy’s saying—is heart-transformation, is repentance. None of those are things that, as wives, we can do for our husband. In some ways they need to deal with the Lord, and we need to partner with them to help them deal with the Lord.

To get in the process and become an enemy to your spouse in that . . .

Nancy: . . . is counterproductive.

Kelly: Very counterproductive!

Nancy: But to come alongside and to say, “I’m getting under this burden, I’m getting under this load with you. Let’s together get to Christ.”

Kelly: Totally! I don’t want anybody to hear me say that that means if your husband comes and confesses this to you that you need to put on a happy face and say [in a light manner], “It’s okay, I forgive you” when really, what’s happening in your heart is grief.

I think it’s helpful for them to hear, “This is grieving me! This hurts me! This causes things in me that weren’t there before. I feel insecure now. I feel like you’ve been lying to me.” There is a place for that honest sharing.

And even a place to say, “Can we talk about this tomorrow? I just need a day to just process right now, because I’ll probably say things I don’t mean.” There may be a place for that. But at the end of the day, you get other women next to you to support you, saying, “You need to work toward forgiveness. That’s your role as a Christian—forgiveness—and also partnership along with your spouse.”

It is recognizing that their sin is primarily against God more than it is against you. And so, the need for repentance is primarily toward God and then secondarily there’s a place for apologies and repentance toward you as a spouse.

They won’t be able to fight that battle without you! And so, if you really want them to be free, you have to be able to come alongside as a partner in that. That’s a hard thing! I just know that there are probably women hearing that, thinking, There’s no way I can do that! And the truth is, you can’t . . . apart from the strength God provides.

If it forces you onto your knees to say, “God, I cannot come alongside my husband in this. I have no strength to do that. Please help me!” That’s a great place to begin, that you would begin sharing with other women honestly and asking them to help you come alongside and help your husband, because that’s what they need. They need a wife who’s going to fight that battle alongside them.

Nancy: If that continues to be a battle, as it is for many women where their husband is not even moving toward freedom, not moving toward Christ, what is the hope for that wife?

Kelly: We talked about this earlier, but in some of the hardest and most despairing seasons of our lives it has forced us to answer the question: “Is Christ enough?” A lot of times, my answer in those really hard seasons has been, “No. I don’t believe that. I believe I need Christ plus my marriage to look this way. I need Christ plus children or plus all these other things to be okay.”

It really forces us with that decision when we don’t see change happening. And in marriages, too, when we feel like there’s no end in sight, there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, the question arises in the heart, “Is Christ enough?”

He said He is. I think that is a great place to begin, talking to God about those things. I mean, even confessing, “I don’t feel like You’re enough, God. I don’t understand why You’re doing this . . .” Drawing near to Him with questions, and wrestling through that.

As Jimmy said earlier, when we have Christ and nothing else, we have everything. And so, I think there is a real hope for joy in the presence of God. That’s where the fullness of joy is. It’s not in a healthy marriage, even.

The fullness of joy is in the presence of God; peace is in the presence of God. We have covenant faithfulness, that when it’s missing on earth, it is accessible to us through Christ and through our marriage with Him as the Bride of Christ.

And so, there are so many things to hope in and to look to, but that’s a battle to fight, to put your hope there. It is not an easy one. In my personal experience, it requires hours of wrestling with God and in prayer and in the Word and with other people—not doing that alone. But there’s a lot of hope! And God says He’s able to change the heart.

He’s able to humble those who walk in pride. His arm is not so short that it cannot save. And so in the earthly circumstances, there is always hope for change, but it rests in God and we have to wait on Him for that.

Dannah: Such a helpful and wise perspective from Kelly Needham and her husband, Jimmy, in conversation with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. 

I want to be clear about something, “getting under” the burden of a man’s battle with lust and pornography is not a passive undertaking. It requires incredible strength, patience, and, as Dr. Juli Slattery mentioned earlier, accountability. It also requires faith.

I know how hard that can be since this battle against lust and pornography has been a part of my marriage story. A few years ago, Bob and I talked about it for the first time together at a Revive Our Hearts event.

Bob: Dannah loves me well when she does whatever it takes to push me towards the often-lonely frontier of God’s plan for my life. Dannah loves me well when she does whatever it takes to point out my sin, and let me take ownership of it.

In our marriage, loving well means being willing to take the scalpel and open a wound when the disease of sin and selfishness and pride lurk beneath. And loving well also means waiting patiently for the right time to start that cut.

My struggles with lust, pornography, depression, anxiety—and all the relational disasters produced by it—have brought her to places where she had no good choices. And it is the great sadness in my life. 

Dannah stood by and endured the pain; she embraced the pain—and she loved well. Working through all that together, God has brought a peace to our marriage, through a lot of hard work on both our parts. Our marriage has peace now that passes all understanding. But that requires constant reminders to love each other well, to be one. Dannah loves me well by bringing me closer to holy.

And all of that, again, to say this: If Dannah can love well with such a flawed husband—you can, too—and I’ll let her tell you how. (applause)

Dannah: I love that man! I don’t just agape love that man—I love that man! 

Ladies, I don’t know what you’re walking through with your husbands. I don’t know if he’s sick and unwell. I don’t know if he’s driven you into financial debt. I don’t know if he once knew the Lord and loved Him—and now is far from Him. I don’t know if you’ve come to know the Lord since you were married, and you feel so desperately spiritually single. I just know this. When you hit the hard time, that is no time for a woman of faith to back off!That is when a woman of faith finds herself in a place of standing in faith—because faith is believing what we can’t see! (applause)

I want to talk to you about friendship love and what we do when we hit the hard times. Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” 

Now, some wounds aren’t the faithful kind, but the kind that can be found faithful are the kinds that are fueled by truth. But this I know: Friends do wound and sometimes kisses do lie.

Here’s what I’ve learned to be true: Godly men are anxious to have their faults pointed out. Oh, they like it in real time as much as you and I do. But godly men are anxious to have their faults pointed out. They need a wife of character who is willing to say the hard things. When we’re sinful, we need a real friend to watch our soul and correct us when necessary.

So, sisters, which are you? Are you a friend who brings faithful wounds, or will you be a friend who offers kisses of untruth?

And I want to give you this treasure. Ephesians 5:31–32: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two become one flesh. This [is a profound] mystery . . . and I am saying . . . it refers to Christ and the church.”

it’s so important to look at the words “hold fast” here. There are times in your marriage where you just have to hold fast, sisters! You just have to remember the big picture, that marriage is a picture of the gospel! It is a picture of Christ’s love for the Church.

There is a devil, a roaring lion, walking about seeking whom he may devour.

Satan is going to do two things. He’s going to tell your heart that there’s nothing you can do in this hard place, and you should just settle for this as the way it is. Settle for your marriage. Don’t get divorced, but just be roommates; just live together. This is how it’s going to be; there’s nothing left.

Let me tell you what, without faith it is impossible to please God. And giving up is a faithless act. Don’t give up on your marriage! This is a prayer you can pray and know that He is in agreement with you!

He’s also going to use the world to tell you something. The world is going to tell you that you are a fool to stay with your husband when he’s wounded you in the way that he has. But, sisters, I say you are never a fool to stay and be a part of the redemption story that God is writing in a man’s life. Hold fast, hold fast, hold fast!

Dannah: If you’re growing weary of holding fast, I’d like to walk with you in a more personal way. I wrote a book titled Happily Even After which explores seven biblical truths every marriage needs to experience God’s redemption. And Bob and I created a limited-series podcast for you and your husband to listen to together. It’s also called Happily Even After. Look for it anywhere podcasts are available.

You’ll also find a link to the complete message Bob and I shared the first time we told our story publicly at ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend. You can order Happily Even After there or make a donation to get a copy of Dr. Juli Slattery’s book there, too! Just click on today’s program “Battling Porn Together,” and you’ll find the links you need.

Next weekend is Father’s Day. We’ll talk about adoption and how it’s a picture of our relationship with our heavenly Father. I hope you’ll join us for that.

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time, for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

Revive Our Hearts Weekend is calling you to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

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