Poem Written by a Wife Devastated by her Husband's Porn.

Bonhoeffer once said that there is no sin so secret that does not affect someone else.  I believe what he said.  I believe it is Biblical.  And I also believe that there are many wives who are being devastated by their husband's addiction to porn.  This poem was written in a comment to one of Tim Challies' posts on the subject.

Men, we have to read this.  We have to understand that what we do in secret affects those who love us very much.  I have to say that these words, coming from this perspective, are much needed in a world where women are constantly viewed and postured as condoning pornographic habits.

Here is the poem:

I Looked For Love in Your Eyes

I saved my best for you.
Other girls may have given themselves away,
But I believed in the dream.
A husband, a wife, united as one forever.

Nervous, first time, needing assurance of your love,
I looked for it in your eyes
Mere inches from mine.
But what I saw made my soul run and hide.

Gone was the tenderness I’d come to know
I saw a stranger, cold and hard
Distant, evil, revolting.
I looked for love in your eyes
And my soul wept.

Who am I that you cannot make love to me?
Why do I feel as if I’m not even here?
I don’t matter.
I’m a prop in a filthy play.
Not an object of tender devotion.

Where are you?

Years pass
But the hardness in your eyes does not.
You think I’m cold
But how can I warm to eyes that are making hate to someone else
Instead of making love to me?

I know where you are.
I’ve seen the pictures.
I know now what it takes to turn you on.
Women…people like me
Tortured, humiliated, hated, used
Discarded.
Images burned into your brain.
How could you think they would not show in your eyes?

Did you ever imagine,
The first time you picked up a dirty picture
That you were dooming all intimacy between us
Shipwrecking your marriage
Breaking the heart of a wife you wouldn’t meet for many years?

If it stopped here, I could bear it.
But you brought the evil into our home
And our little boys found it.
Six and eight years old.
I heard them laughing, I found them ogling.

Hands bound, mouth gagged.
Fisheye photo, contorting reality
Distorting the woman into exaggerated breasts.
The haunted eyes, windows of a tormented soul
Warped by the lens into the background,
Because souls don’t matter, only bodies do
To men who consume them.

Little boys
My little boys
Laughing and ogling the sexual torture
Of a woman, a woman like me.
Someone like me.

An image burned into their brains.

Will their wives’ souls have to run and hide like mine does?
When does it end?

I can tell you this. It has not ended in your soul.
It has eaten you up. It is cancer.
Do you think you can feed on a diet of hatred
And come out of your locked room to love?

You say the words, but love has no meaning in your mouth
When hatred rules in your heart.
Your cruelty has eaten up every vestige of the man
I thought I was marrying.
Did you ever dream it would so consume you
That your wife and children would live in fear of your rage?

That is what you have become
Feeding your soul on poison.

I’ve never used porn.
But it has devastated my marriage, my family, my world.

Was it worth it?

You can read the rest of the article here.

Saying More Than, "Stop That!"

Most of us have lived with addiction, either being an addict ourselves or having an addict relationally close to us.  We have experienced the roller coaster of "being clean", binging, lying, stealing, forgiving, rejoicing, and falling again.  How many times do we forgive is a significant question, along with how we forgive.  We want to see the person restored, but we do not want to enable either.  And when the tension becomes to much for us, we scream, "Stop doing that! Please!"

To our minds, the addict is afflicting so much pain so that they can experience whatever high they are living for.  Justice makes the verdict simple - they are selfish.  Mercy is almost impossible.  To introduce both (justice and mercy) is to introduce the Cross of Christ...sacrifice...selflessness...and even death.  So what are we to do?  The gospel is the only answer.  Death to addiction in another demands death in us.  We must loose our life.  

Our expectations must place in relation to Christ our Lord.  The gospel does not deliver according to our "fast-food" demands.  Patience is not a common strength in our day.  We cannot expect to share the gospel with someone enslaved to sin and see an immediate life change.  Sin lingers.  The gospel, remember, grows from the inside out; and it does so slowly.  If we would like to see a good example of this process, we need only look in the mirror.  And we must also remember that trees that grow quickly also break easily.

Understanding sin must be seen in the "gospel-light."  We plant seeds, trusting that God will bring His work about.  But the seed is sown deeper than the person's actions.  The gospel is deeper than, "Stop that."  It rather, goes into the heart, saying, "Why are you doing that?"  Sure, they may stop.  But as an old theologian once said, "Satan will gladly relieve a cold in order to give cancer."  The gospel doesn't replace idols, it slays them.

If sin is like a cold, bringing a remedy is more complex than saying to the person, "Stop sneezing!"  That would be ridiculous.  Rather, we find out what is going on inside.  There is an infection.  There is a distortion and deficiency in their immune system.  We dive deeper...to the root...and work to have it out. We don't like doing this.  Digging to the root demands getting dirty.  It demands strength, patience, and endurance.

And when the root is found, the gospel must be applied there.  It is at the root where the throat of sin must be cut.  But you cannot expect the tree to fall immediately.  It may continue to live for a while.  Other roots may need cutting.  The root may even regrow.  As Christians, we stay close, waiting, watching, relentlessly killing sin in ourselves and others.  We are a people with dirty hands, but with hearts cleansed by grace.  We are not afraid to get nasty.   We live to look like our Master, who first became gross before He was glorified; Who died in order that we may live.

Understanding why a person sins is costly.  We must get to know them more (not less).  We must understand their heart more (not less).  We must be in their life more (not less).  We must die to ourselves more (not less).  We have to understand that we, too, are just as sinful (not less).  We must understand that they need grace (like us).  We must feel the life-giving liberty of Christ (before we can give it).  The Gospel is for every person (not a few).  We are all in the same boat.  We are all addicts and are in need of more instruction than merely, "Stop that."